petesmedia » Cars

In The Workshop – Touchup the Commodore

Peter — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 09:06:43 +0000

Just mucking around fixing up a few things on the car whilst I’ve got some time. I had 2 fairly serious rust spots on the boot and I’m trying to patch them without having to sand the entire boot. Hopefully during the polishing process I can achieve a reasonable blend.

The other thing I’m working on is fixing up the peeling paint on my door handles. It seems like Holden used crappy paint as I’ve noticed other VT Commodores have the same problem with the paint flaking off around the door handle. When I was sanding them, it didn’t look like there was a proper primer on there.

More Rattles – Changing Pulley Bearings

Peter — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 22:41:22 +0000

I’ve had a rattle coming from my engine bay, I’ve already changed on of the pulleys but it was still making noises so I thought I’d replace some other ones. Rather than change the entire pulley assembly which cost about $30 each, I picked up some new bearings for $10 each.

Mini Stunt Driving @ WSID

Peter — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 21:34:01 +0000

Stunt Driving @ WSID, originally uploaded by UltimaRB.

Newnes 4WD Trip

Peter — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:01:51 +0000

Download the Video – 57MB

Cleaning up more video that I had lying around, this is a 4WD trip video from our trip through Lithgow to Newnes.

Watagans 4wding FJ40

Peter — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 13:26:50 +0000

Here’s a video of our little adventure.

Nepean Lookout + Veteran & Vintage Chevrolet Association

Peter — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 08:22:23 +0000

After killing some time at Nepean Lookout we had a look at the Veteran & Vintage Chevrolet Association meet up at Mulgoa Park. It seemed like a picnic for the oldies, but it’s good to see them get out in the sun and show off their pride and joy. Some serious time & money would have gone into each of these cars and it would be a huge effort to keep them running and registered fighting the rust. Interesting things that we spotted we the lack of front brakes and no shock absorbers with wooden spoked wheels! Anyway, onto the pics.

More PHOTOS in the GALLERY –>

Playing around

Peter — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 09:12:25 +0000

I’ve got a fair chunk of spare time with uni holidays so I dug out some of my old toys to see if they still work. I searched for my radio control cars only to find that one has gone missing and I’d lost a controller. I used to have a Kyosho Ultima RB but could only find my Tamiya TGX. Anyway I hit up ebay and picked up another controller. It’s been about two years since I’ve played around with r/c cars so I gathered up my bits and was reminded that even though they’re nitro you still need 12xAA batteries for the radio equipment. My fuel was still old and everyone says that you shouldn’t use old fuel but eh, so long as it’s flammable and oily I couldn’t see it doing any damage. Surprisingly I was able to fire it up without too much trouble. It was way out of tune, needed to lean out the air/fuel mixture a fair bit but once it was tuned it was running sweet. I forgot how fast these little things are!

Whilst I was searching for my cars I found a big box of AFX slot car track. It didn’t take much contemplating to set it up and have a go. The track was pretty rusty so I had to run some sandpaper all over it to clean it for the car connections. I have a mix of about 8 cars but half of them are broken so I hacked them up a bit and swapped a few parts to get 3 working.

HSRCA – Oran Park

Peter — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 13:12:01 +0000

Went out to Oran Park today to watch some of the old cars go round. Turned out to be a good day with a good variety of cars ranging between 1930-1980. One car flipped onto its roof, the driver was fine and I captured a good pic of someone else sliding into the dirt.

More PHOTOS in the Gallery –>

Stockton Dunes 4WDing

Peter — Sun, 10 May 2009 14:11:01 +0000

I took the FJ40 for a spin on Stockton and came back with some pretty awesome photos.

VT Photo

Peter — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 02:50:33 +0000

I’ve been messing around with some HDR software not really knowing what I’m doing but this looks cool.

VT: Reset Service Reminder

Peter — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 10:06:03 +0000

Every 5000km’s this annoys me and I always forget how to reset the reminder from flashing up “140 000 service” so here it is for easy reference.

Re-setting Service Reminder Light VT and VX

Ignition switch OFF.
Hold down the trip computer “UP” and “DOWN”, arrow buttons that control the vehicle information screen.
Turn the ignition ON while holding the 2 switches down.
After about 3 seconds release both buttons.
Press and release the MODE switch, the “Service reminder” should appear on the instrument cluster.
Press and hold both the trip computer “UP” and “DOWN”, arrow buttons until a BEEP is heard (about 3 seconds)
Release both buttons and turn the ignition OFF.

FJ40 – Removed 2 leafs

Peter — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 07:41:15 +0000

Kurrajong 4WDing

Peter — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 08:02:24 +0000

Brendan and I headed out to Kurrajong after finding this website http://www.greaterbluemountainsdrive.com.au/kurrajong.php we had a look at the Burralow camping ground and found a geocache in the area. After that we followed the trail to Bilpin, we hit one awesome puddle and got water everywhere. After passing the apple farms we headed towards Mountain Lagoon in search for T3 lookout but after taking a wrong turn we ended up at Wheeny Creek.

Panel Beating the FJ40

Peter — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 12:55:28 +0000

Thought I’d add another animated gif since I found this cool site which makes them for you. I posted about this on the FJ40 website.

Lithgow 4WDing

Peter — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 13:39:50 +0000

Download the video here –> [512x288 MP4 15MB]

Brendan and I headed out in the rain in my FJ40 in search of some 4wd tracks. We aimed for Baal Bones Gap but couldn’t see Pantoneys Crown due to the fog. The track wasn’t too bad, a few hills and some great scenery. We ended up on Blackfellows Hand Trail and stopped for some lunch. Brendan spotted an arrow stuck in a tree, we managed to pull that out for a souvenir. After getting a little lost down a bunch of new power line tracks we ended up on a track that we’d been on before. This time however, there was a lot more mud and it was slippery.

The first difficult section was a right hand turn that dropped steeply into a ditch on one side. With the thoughts of tipping the FJ on it’s side, I used the shovel to create a slightly better drop into it. We chucked some branches in to give us some grip and ease the drop. My heart was pounding, all this lead up work to what seems easy in the video. The back end slid around as the front dropped into the ditch and we drove out fine.

The next section was on the uphill. 2nd gear low range was my choice, I got over the hump which lifted my front left wheel right into the air. Headed towards another ditch, it didn’t seem too bad when I first looked at it. Gave it some momentum but it wasn’t enough. The wheels started spinning and I slid backwards. A few attempts at reverse/forward until the FJ slid down and rested up against a tree. Bugger! A bit of faffing about with all sorts of thoughts going through my head as to how we were going to get out of this situation. Once I got out and had a look around it was pretty obvious that I had to try and reverse and turn the wheels to limit the front end rubbing against the tree. Luckily this worked and it didn’t cause major damage. The front left fender got a little bent. A bit of OMFG later and we headed home.

VT Towbar – $110

Peter — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 09:08:42 +0000

After exhausting all wreckers in Penrith I thought I’d ring a few in Newcastle. Picked this up for $110 which isn’t a bad price, everywhere else (ebay included) was asking $150 for a standard 1200kg weight towbar.

Holden Commodore VT-VX Trip Computer Hidden Modes

Peter — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 09:18:03 +0000

Came across an interesting tip regarding the onboard trip computer. Apparently there’s a bunch of hidden information that can be accessed. I’m yet to test it out but sounds interesting. The full article is here http://www.autospeed.com/cms/article.html?&A=1951

Turns out that it does work, the only useful information I found was the digital speedo. Still pretty cool though.

Crude Oil Prices

Peter — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 06:00:09 +0000

Well this is a pretty nifty graph. Explains why fuel prices dropped recently, however crude oil price dropped 50% but we only save 20c at the pump…

K&N Panel Filter + Fuel Economy

Peter — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 06:03:28 +0000

I picked up a K&N Panel filter from Autobahn for $80. Doing the weekly Newcastle run I’ve now got some more fuel economy results.

Running LPG I now get 11.97L/100km as opposed to the previous result of 12.18L/100km. Here’s a nice graph to show the progression of fuel savings.

Oran Park Drift Night

Peter — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 00:39:30 +0000

Brendan and I went and checked out the drifting at Oran Park. There wasn’t as many bogans as I’d expected. I guess drifting costs a bit more money and requires a bit of skill in comparison to full sick burnouts. Also got a bit of video of this BBM Drift Car.