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Low Aspirations


Calebyte
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Hello world!

Way back in 2019, I purchased a beaut little 1989 brumby as my first project car.

It has a 5-speed transmission, air-con (de-gassed), a new exhaust, an aluminium radiator, relatively fresh chunky tires, and barely any rust or under-body damage as far as I can see; so when I saw it on sale for $500, I knew had to snatch it up!

This isn’t to say the car doesn’t have problems, it’s currently unregistered, has no interior, blows smoke like a 2-stroke, sustained many dents in use as a bush-basher, and I don’t appear to be the first amateur to attempt to restore it.

I’ve documented the major problems below.

The car was all the way down in Batemans Bay when I bought it, so my Uncle had to pick it up for me. The plan was to go get it after a couple of months, but of course, rampant bush-fires and global pandemics conspired to keep me away from my newest pride and joy, to the point that the first time I saw it in person was in August.

As things worked out, I am now in Batemans Bay staying at my Uncle's, and I started on the bodywork in October.

Unfortunately, as much as I love this car, I have a long history of unfinished projects, so I’ve started this build thread in order to both give myself some accountability, and draw on the knowledge of more experienced enthusiasts to help me finish.

 

Here are some pictures of the project;
(I am terrible at documenting things, so I don't have any pictures of the exterior from before I started)

 

The car as it is now;

IMG_20201225_162741.jpg.3a68623e833a63e1282a39c39bb5e664.jpg

 

The worst of the rust;

IMG_20201104_151755.jpg.888e8e56157ac015c357c15f85405aac.jpgIMG_20201104_151857.jpg.613d725b25ba5e048538c4b7952b2d7e.jpg

IMG_20201104_151541.jpg.8134ae3ce83e8fa04bf36bbf99101db8.jpg

 

The tailgate before, during, and after paint stripping and panel beating;

IMG_1340.jpg.b026ac0f2a5c46d3d925a330957ee49d.jpg

IMG_20200910_173046.jpg.39caeac2c04d1689022df9fa963a4153.jpg

IMG_20200913_180351.jpg.0373e53d124931ae98c3e42821c95117.jpg

IMG_20201225_162938.jpg.930a2707c7ef3cffa1aacdc371241a73.jpg

 

A full centimeter of putty off the tailgate;

IMG_20201225_162101.jpg.a926cab66bff9c55c3f990234823ac64.jpg

 

A small sample of the wiring I will have to deal with;

IMG_20201019_135108.jpg.ae0a0781089061a643d50d1b67d5b353.jpg

IMG_2020-11-03-12-19-43-818.thumb.jpg.2dfa545b1beb1051202fbad6c2dcddfa.jpg

 

The Interior when I got the car;

IMG_20201019_102637.jpg.b7877f70a4eb659e255437b2313b718a.jpg

IMG_20201019_102708.jpg.9edba500a78c03831a662d82ebdf5053.jpg

 

What I found when I removed the floor vinyl;
(The newest newspaper was from Dec 2016)

IMG_20201020_114518.jpg.36c703ab86f1b2ab148c80be49f54a7d.jpgh

 

As you can see, my brumby is currently in that dangerous stage all project cars seem to go through, where they sit un-worked for an indefinite amount of time, while the risk they go unfinished grows as parts slowly disappear.

So hopefully this thread gives me that extra bit of motivation to keep going.

Thanks for listening!

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Awesome story and an interesting form of motivation. 

That rust under the windscreen is pretty normal unfortunately. The rust in the rear end looks like someone backed it into the ocean and didn’t wash it down after. 

Keep the build going, you’ll love it once it’s done - and if you do it right you won’t be doing this again anytime soon! 

What’s the plan other than restore it? Going to paint it beige again or something a bit of fun? EA81 or drop an EJ into it? 

That wiring, don’t stress over it. The good thing about Brumbys is that they’re quite basic wiring-wise ;) 

Cheers 

Bennie

PS: totally wrote the above a week ago, seems I never posted it. Thanks editor for saving it!

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm planning to do it in sunshine orange, here's my crude impression of what that should look like;

Brumby_Sunshine_Orange.png.7ef758c18d33fe7fedddc8e7aa4606bc.png

And I'm gonna drop in an ea81 that my Dad pulled from a Leone 20 years ago. the car it came from was completely rusted out from use on the beach, but the engine is in beautiful condition. We've pulled the heads off, and there was no ring ledge. I don't have any photos of it, but I've replaced the valve stem seals and cleaned off the carbon build-up.

IMG_20200326_183427.jpg.1c3c1b4b2e1fbc48186ea929f1e315c4.jpgIMG_20200326_183409.jpg.1d90abe40675e5996c34b654a6cbaed7.jpg

I think for the moment, I'm going to try to mostly finish up the exterior first, to stop the rust damage from getting worse, and then move on to the mechanics.

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3 hours ago, Calebyte said:

I think for the moment, I'm going to try to mostly finish up the exterior first, to stop the rust damage from getting worse, and then move on to the mechanics.

Good move mate! 

Move always wanted a car in a “burnt orange” colour. Originally it was my LC torana but that never eventuated. I’m wanting to keep my brumby relatively original enough, so it’ll stay red (I’m thinking the new XV red would look sweet!). 

Get into that rust and go from there! 

Cheers 

Bennie

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  • 2 months later...

Sorry I haven't updated in a while.

I've moved back home to the mountains, and taking the Brumby with me involved a very busy weekend, 10 hours of driving and a few cases of thank you beer.

I've also been busy finding a new job, but me and the car are finally in the same spot again!

So I finally had a chance to take a crack at the rust in the bumper. What I found was not good...

Looking at it initially I thought most of the rust was in the corner of the bumper; it would take a few weekends learning to weld and the result would be serviceable, but this car was never going to be perfect anyway. Actually ripping into it, alot of what I thought was metal I found to be expanding foam...

The amount of time, money and effort required for this project has now grown beyond "first project car" territory, however this sudden revelation of rust doesn't detract from the good parts of the car, what was once a good project car has turned into an excellent donor car, I just wish I found this out before I lugged the rest of it with me...

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Always the way mate. There’s a few brumby out there missing the drivetrain or interior and have a decent body. 

There’s a Targa shell up for grabs for cheap (gumtree), but there’s a pretty big catch! The front end was tweaked all wrong so they’ve cut it off from the strut towers forward and part of the firewall/trans tunnel. Would make for a good project in geometry along with spending loads of time carefully unpicking the spot welds from a donor to then fit to the project vehicle. The targa or “fun top” as it’s actually called by Subaru is the appealing bit of that body. It’s too far from me to grab, but if you’re game..! 

Chin up, rust is ALWAYS worse than you first thought. Expanding foam would probably add to its growth of more rust. 

Cheers 

Bennie

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