Thought I might add some pictures and history of my old white GT with sedan front to this area.
Like most here, I always lusted after having a GT having only had sedans. GT's then were elusive to find at the time and even more now of course. I had a tip of there was a GT in a lady's backyard up near Ringwood (Melb) I arranged to see it and found the remains of a very damaged GT with no wheels and with dirt up to the body. When i say remains, i mean just that. It was a body shell with no front panels, no interior and no left door. The front had suffered a hard hit to the front left with the efect of shifting the whole of the front area to the right side about 4" and bending the cross member. My Dad, who has done a lot of car rebuilds, said i was mad to buy it but having little other choice (none) to get a GT in better shape, i plunged in and bought it. I had an old parts sedan as it happened so figured I could use that for panels etc.
I was going to TAFE college at the time (Hobby car resoration etc classes) and put the remains on their body Rack over three night clases. I had to trailer it there and bring it home each time so was not an easy task. Anyway, with the help of the hydraulic rams etc it was pulled back into shape. It was also found it had a slight twist in the body from the accident and that was also fixed. Many thanks to Bob Blackwell who donated a a door, some old GT seats and guages for the project.
Lot's more work and then paint etc followed and was done at home in acrylic. (the car now has new paint i believe) The sedan donated the front end, front panels and grille. At the rear, the boot was rusted out and the sedan also donated a whole rear panel section and boot floor.
There was no engine with it so a twin cam Toyota engine was installed much to members dislike ! But again, I couldn't get anybody to part with a GT engine for it but a little later I bought an Isuzu 2L DOHC with auto trans. In the deal I got a Rodeo 5 speed manual box which I adapted to it. Mainly clutch changes etc (hydraulic). The DOHC had efi on it which i wanted to retain but it was a 117 motor i think and it interfered with the inner guards. I then got a Gemini style "ECGI" manifold for it, which clears fine. Since i wanted to retain the efi and also had the original computer, the problem now was to wire it. All of the wires had been cut off the computer about 6' long and all were black ! Since i had a new manifold also, nothing looked the same there either. It took about a year of tracing wires and using my electronics knowledge, to 'figure' it all out. I had no wiring diagrams by the way for it. I hooked it all up with the motor sitting on the floor of the garage and with a radiator hooked up also. I turned the key (ie pressed 2 wires together) and after a few seconds turning over, it burst into life ! I was shocked and stoked at the same time !
The motor was trial fitted into an old front section from Peter Mckills yard and then fitted to the GT body.
Following are some pictures of the cars build. Not great quality as pictures of pictures from my album.
Glenn
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