no spark We picked up a bmw roadster over the christmas break that ran over a full gerry can of fuel that had fallen from another car. It was around 3 in the morning and by the time ol mate seen something on the road it was too late to miss it so he lined it up at this stage he did not know what it was it went under the car as he pulled the car up it had puntured the gerry and the gravel rash sparks had set it alight the owner grabbed the bag from beside him and by the time he was out of the car it was too hot to go back for any more.

BM's are hot but thats not a nice day out

A summary of the '72 Sport:


There are some interesting variations to the Bellett sedans I have had in the past:-

1) 1800cc OHC engine, twin SU’s, 115hp and 155Nm torque
2) Same gearbox as a sedan?
3) GT disk brakes and rear finned drums
4) Dual master cylinder
5) No rear uni joint on prop shaft, a rubber donut is used
6) Different arrangement for the uni joints on the half shafts
7) Stage 3 optional suspension kit (rides VERY hard)
8) Fuel tank is 46litres, not 40litres
9) Short bonnet style with vents (like GT-R)
10) Wipers on RH side
11) Rear window demister
12) Small console under the centre of dash, housing heater controls, radio and clock
13) Steering wheel is plastic rim not wood GT style
14) Has full GT (late) style exhaust system with two mufflers and dual outlets
15) Engine has cast headers into a twin pipe system to a point at the gear box.
16) Has non original (of course), Japanese 14 x 5.5” Watanabe wheels (similar to Minilites)
17) Has the late big square tail lights and plastic grille (ugly!)
18) All gauges are metric, including kph speedo etc. Speedo graduations are in yellow over 100kph. Dash is gray colour not the wood grain style in a GT we are used to.
19) Speedo apparently has a warning buzzer that goes off over 100kph ! But appears not to work.
20) Bucket seats with headrests, with ‘Bellett’ written into the back of them
21) ‘1800 SPORT’ badges on each front mudguard and grille.
22) Rear flow through air vents on each rear quarter panel as per late models
23) Steering column lock/ignition key
24) 4 way hazard flashers
25) Parking lights can be set to all on, or only left or right side to save battery.
26) Reversing lights set into the tail lights.
27) Head light flash and hi-low beam, on stalk.
28) Indicators flash the rear (red) parking lights.
29) Only three screws in the metal strip over the top of the door trim <<< ADDED 020116

maybe other things not yet discovered !

Hey Glenn,

My 1973-build, PR91 has the buzzer; it comes on at 120km/h, so that's handy as you're hitting illegal speeds when it does come on. Once it's past 130 it's too loud to hear the buzzer anyway....

Cheers,

Dave

I'll check my brochures here Glenn, coz I'm sure they had GT gears inside a sedan housing... Could be wrong tho, but positive I've read it somewhere.
Does it have a collapsable steering column? Very late ones did, and i think it coinsided with the ignition being fitted to the column... again, I'll check my stuff here for u.
Oh, and Dave's GT-R has a wider rear track than earlier cars, and the trailing edge of the wheel openings is flared to suit. Seeing as yours has the late non uni stuff, does it have the flares too? i forgot to look at that when it was at my factory in Feb!

haven't been upto 120kph yet, so maybe it does work

Hi Brett

love to know if it does have the GT gears in it. Sort of stands to reason with all the other gt stuff it has.

Not sure on the column. It appears to me just like any early Bellett but with locking on it. The outer tube dioes not seem 'deformable'. Do the other owners of late GT's here know if there's ar collaipsle and how to tell if it is?

How much is the flaring ? Can't say that it appears anything other than what i have had before. But then i was not aware it might be different. I Take it you mean the crease line is further outwards over the tyre.

While working on the Sport today fixing a leak in the petrol tank drain, I found another little 'difference' today. The bonnet catches on the '72 Sport (and I assume most late models) have only two bolts. Maybe a worker suggested they save 2 bolts and got an award

Hey Glenn you will also find they saved two screws on the metal strips on top of the door trims, only have three screws not five.

cool, you got me now, have to check everything in the car !!!
Appears some progress and lots of little changes were made over the years.....

I fixed the front end today also.... will post more later.

Very productive Friday. As some of you may know, the Sport was not a good driver, 'crashing' over bumps in the road making driving it interesting. I had initially thought that the stage 3 suspension kit in it (4 leaf rear, big lowered coils all round) was the prime reason for it. But further investigation showed that the front end tended to bind sometimes when I tried bouncing either side of the front up and down by hand.

So, out came the shockers. Easily said but not easily done. Took over 4 hours to get them out as the nuts on one side just would not come off. As you know theres not much space in a Bellett to remove the nuts, it's a slow bit by bit process. A rattle gun helps a bit too until the rod starts rotating. In the end i figured the shocks were stuffed anyway and chiselled off the nuts on one side.

Looking around the topics on this group, Pedders shocks seemed like the way to go and a phone call to a local outlet found they had Pedders 8001 'comfort gas' in Stock for $186 pr. Hot footed it down there to be greeted by the very same guy who did exhaust work on my blue twin cam sedan many years ago ! And he remembered me too and asked if i still had that car........... This time his Son served me. My, how time flies. A little grinding inside the bottom arm and those shocks slid right in. They have a Nyloc nut on them and the shock shaft needs to be held, to screw on the nut.


Tomorrow will get the Sport out on the road and see how she fares now. The bounce test was good. I think it will be fixed now and make driving much more enjoyable.

ADDED later:- Bursons still have the 343011 at $180.00/pr.

glenn

success ! Rides real nice now on the new shockers.

glenn

Glenn.

Good to see that you have the suspension upgraded.

Just a note to anyone looking at changing the shocks front or rear.
A small set of vice grips on the shaft between the coils always does the trick.
For the front. Rotate the nut and shaft untill the grips are hard up and with a hand, not air, impact socket will release
the locknut. Same procedure for main nut and then ratchet it untill its off.
For the rear. Same procedure for grips but this time use a long ring spanner and give it a hit with a hammer.

Keep us posted. I'm enjoying it.

Dave.

I have done that in the past, Dave but on this one, there is not enough gap in the coils to do it.

Finally, I also now have the 2L DOHC and 5 speed. It missed the boat when the Sport came and arrived on a later shipment and has been sitting in a wharehouse here for a while.
Info I have when buying was they had ~83,000km on them. I have no idea if a 117 speedo (Odometer) has same number of digits as a Bellett? If it has 7 then it may be genuine. ie not 2nd time round.

I am unsure right now what I will do with them though ! Maybe sell. I was thinking to fit them to the spare car if i decided to restore it but that looks less than likely, time wise here now.

cmon glenn don't let us down you have done it before do it again you have a unique car make it something unbelievable you can do it ......cheers davo ..you have gone to all that stress getting the spare car and bits over here ..and you have the knowledge and ability ......go on glenn show us some more of your work cheers davo we have all watched your work just like we watch greg

I would love to, yes it's very tempting Dave but I am in the middle of downsizing here. ie smaller house and land which means my 5 car plus 2 car garage spaces will shrink to three in total if I am lucky. (my wife says 2 is enough!) Which probably also means my 'toolaholic' days are over also.

by the way, the engine and box were picked up with the Sport towing a trailer, with the "new" tow bar. (thanks Craig) My trailer is pretty heavy and i would guess it was pulling about 300kg all up. Seemed to pull it ok although you know its there !

and, while putting the engine into storage, a guy from a factory over the road came over with the usual, "a Bellett, i had one of those, this one looks different though"

Trying to tidy up the Sport a little for the upcoming Japan day, car show next month (unsure of the date) in Vic.

Decided to re-paint the Watanabe wheels. They are currently a bit ratty looking with original paint which is like a semi matt grey colour and badly chipped and spattered with cement for some reason. I was never that keen on the dark colour, preffering the more conventional Minilite silver but having done these, they don't look too bad now. Dark wheels are the current fad anyway!

KJB put me onto a spray can from the big 'B' hardware store. It's not the same colour but do add a little bling to the wheels, being a metallic black. A bit fiddly masking up but have done two now and they come up pretty well. Not as durable as a Pro paint job perhaps. The centre picture probably shows the colour best.

Now, where can I get some caps for them ?

Measure the the size you need and enter it into ebay search, I got mine from a guy on NSW noth coast. Then get onto early GT for a set decals to go in the centre
Geoff