1974 (GM) HQ Holden Belmont V8

hq308

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The 'CLASSIC CARS & HOTRODS' section looks a little bare so I thought I'd add some pics of my current project and a couple of the things I've machined for it.

It's a 1974 HQ Holden Belmont which is the Aussie interpretation of the US GM 'A' body cars (Chevy Nova is one example). It was bought new by my grandfather, passed down to my dad and then finally to me. By the time I got it, it needed to be restored and I spent the best part of ten years part time restoring it.

hq_bel1.jpg

If you look carefully in this engine bay photo you might notice some of the things I've machined for it, I'll put some more detailed pics in following posts.

enginebay1.jpg
 
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One of the first things I turned for it when I got my lathe are these billet accelerator rods with spherical rod ends on them. The rod ends are left and right hand threaded (left at one end, right at the other) so they can be adjusted without removing them. Now that I have a mill I plan to make some new bellcranks (the thing the 2 rods connect to) to replace the factory one.

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Needed a nut to hold my air cleaner down so I turned this up, knurled it and polished it.

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This next photo shows a couple of things, firstly the cover I turned up to cover the one way valve on the brake booster and one of the covers I made for the bolts that hold the master cylinder onto the booster.

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The radiator (core) support had a couple of unused holes so I turned up these plugs to fill them.

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Thanks Ed

Here's some more.

Here's my battery retaining bracket I made. Started off with some 20mm round that I trued up in the lathe and added the decorative grooves, I then milled the bottom flat in the lathe with a cheap end-mill and a vertical slide and finally I milled a couple of flats on the top for the retaining nuts. The retaining nuts were turned up from the 20mm round and knurled. To finish it off I polished it.

batterybracket1.jpg

I turned up these rings to go around the door lock snibs. One day I'll turn up some new snibs.

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I trimmed the boot (trunk for the Americans) to match the interior and turned up the rings to finish off the holes in the removable panels.

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Thanks Dave, you might recognise it as a Chevy in SA, I think they were called a Kommando? or something like that.
 
Yep it's a right hand drive :)

The engine is an Australian designed and built Holden 308 cubic inch V8. Holden is the Australian subsidiary of GM. It has some similarities to a small block Chevy but none of the major parts interchange.

It has a column shifted TH400 trans. The trans bolt pattern on my engine is the same as a Chevy.
 
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Yep, Holden still produce cars in Australia. They currently build the Commodore which you might recognise as a Pontiac G8 (Holden built the G8 and exported it to the US) and they recently started building the

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Holden also built the so-called new generation GTO's you've got there.

Monaro (What the GTO was based off)

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Something that's been bugging me for a while is the bellcranks on the accelerator linkage, being almost 40 years old they're fairly worn. I thought about pulling them apart and making some bushes but they'd still be 40 year old parts. I decided a while ago I was going to have a go at making some new ones from scratch. I got to work on my lathe and mill and set about making some parts for one of the bellcranks.

This is what I've made so far pictured next to an original one.
bellcrank_1.jpg

bellcrank_2.jpg

bellcrank_3.jpg

Still need to make the arm for the other side of it and tidy up a couple of bits.
 
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Finished the first bellcrank today. Just need to get some capscrews so I can put it on the car.

Looks pretty good with a bit of a polish.
bellcrank_4.jpg

And here's the start of the other bellcrank I'm going to make. I'll probably make a start on this one in a couple of weeks when I get a chance to get out and get myself a bandsaw to cut it to size.
bellcrank_billet.jpg
 
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I have an original set of wheels and hubcaps for it but not the actual ones that were on it new.
 
Here's a couple of pictures of the bellcrank fitted to the car.

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