by Graham » Thu Jul 07, 2011 1:51 am
I am the current owner Of the great N.Z. built Jim Richards Big M Falcon sports sedan. I bought it minus mechanicals in 1993. When I got it home and unpacked everything I had a good look at it all [in pieces] and thought what have I got myself into. At the time I was racing a full bodied Falcon XC coupe sports sedan which was simple, so when I looked at this space frame chassis with holes and mounts and brackets where an engine and transaxles had to somehow mount, I was lost. So I started reading how to build racecar books, how to make youre car handle books, looking at pictures, looking at other cars and taking photos, and fortunately being a metal fabricator it began to not look so hard.
So to cut a long story short, it ended up with the 351 Cleveland and Top Loader gearbox that was out of the old car, a CAE quick change independent diff with Lola rear uprights and I was racing with pretty good success [ at club level] on a low budget.
I eventually updated to a Nascar style Jerico transmission and later an SVO Nascar style engine.
In around 1995 I had an engine failure, and so decided it was time to start restoring it back to JRs 1980 days, as by then I was able to get hold of a lot of the important original bits of the car from the Brian Walden ex Robin Doherty VP Commodore to which they had all gone. So since then its been a long hard road but it is all coming together including the Gurney Eagle headed Cleveland with Lucas mechanical fuel injection.
I am the current owner Of the great N.Z. built Jim Richards Big M Falcon sports sedan. I bought it minus mechanicals in 1993. When I got it home and unpacked everything I had a good look at it all [in pieces] and thought what have I got myself into. At the time I was racing a full bodied Falcon XC coupe sports sedan which was simple, so when I looked at this space frame chassis with holes and mounts and brackets where an engine and transaxles had to somehow mount, I was lost. So I started reading how to build racecar books, how to make youre car handle books, looking at pictures, looking at other cars and taking photos, and fortunately being a metal fabricator it began to not look so hard.
So to cut a long story short, it ended up with the 351 Cleveland and Top Loader gearbox that was out of the old car, a CAE quick change independent diff with Lola rear uprights and I was racing with pretty good success [ at club level] on a low budget.
I eventually updated to a Nascar style Jerico transmission and later an SVO Nascar style engine.
In around 1995 I had an engine failure, and so decided it was time to start restoring it back to JRs 1980 days, as by then I was able to get hold of a lot of the important original bits of the car from the Brian Walden ex Robin Doherty VP Commodore to which they had all gone. So since then its been a long hard road but it is all coming together including the Gurney Eagle headed Cleveland with Lucas mechanical fuel injection.