I’ve owned this car for 22 years. I bought it less than a week after I turned 17. It was totally stock standard, completely rust free and straight, but the original leather interior and mechanicals were pretty well shot.

I patched it up time after time, sewing up the leather, installing bushes and oil seals here and there. Eventually the old grey motor, slushy hydromatic transmission and king pins got beyond patching so I scouted around and found a rusty old HR panel van that had a ball joint and disc brake front end and half decent red motor; I bought it for a song.

The ball joint and disc front end was the important part;  I also found a lot of the accessories to be very handy as a guide and base for building and modifying all the little bits and pieces and problems that you run into when doing a major coversion like this.  For example, I had to fabricate my own transmission cross member (the grey and hydro combo didn’t sport a x-member – it all hung off 3 engine mounts), cut and replace the outrigger, cut and reweld the engine mounts as everything now sits in a new position. This required assembling it all in position, measuring and tacking it in place… remove it all, weld and rivet, and reassembling again. Once I got to this stage, I discovered that modifications like this now require an engineer’s report, including x-rays of all major welds, to get approval from QLD Transport (in those days known as “Main Roads”). Luckily, I did a good job – everything passed – so far.

I still couldn’t drive it on the road – lots more had to be done… The diff.  ratio had to be changed; a speedo cable had to be custom spliced; custom tail shaft – shortened by 2 inches, different yokes and rebalanced; all these had to match the wheel and tire sizes I was to use to make the speedo accurate and get a good balance of acceleration v’s top speed.  I had to fabricate custom rear brake shoes to suit then oversize wheel cylinders required to keep the braking proportioning correct with the new power assisted front disc brakes. All the brake hydraulics and booster needed overhauling, callipers too. The front wheel alignment is custom set… no book settings for this type of mod. Heavy duty sway bars front and rear and Koni shocks.

Actually, there wasn’t very much that had to be fabricated as Holden used many standards over many years. I used a 3.08 ratio Torana diff.; a HG auto speedo cable was a perfect match; HQ Trimatic tranny, Torana XU1 202 red motor with 30/70 camshaft, ported head and L34 (V8) valves; a XF Falcon Webber carbie with oversize jets and an electric fuel pump. I’m sure there is more that I’ve forgotten right now, but I’ll continue to add things as I think of them. Hopefully this will provide some useful information to those willing and capable of doing similar projects and ward off those incapable! lol.

I’m still happy overall with the modifications I’d made, but there are a few things I’d now like to change… I had the rear leaf springs stiffened with an extra leaf (2 and a half inches lower than standard to match the front end lowered 3 and a half inches from standard! Note: It doesn’t actually look lowered that much because I run standard height wheels with low profile Bridgestone Eager tyres (on 7 inch alloy, 5 slot mags).  I’d now like to remove that extra leaf spring and install a load only carrying spring, to gain a bit more comfort but still support a full load. The Konis also need to be re-valved for comfort.    I’ll get to that one of these years.    >

Ten years later, and having never touched a computer since (had my head well and truely under car bonnets and girlfriend’s skirts), a mate introduced me to Microsft Windows 95 and the Internet; Wow! It was life changing.

Now, another 15 years gone by,  I have a x64, i7, 6GB of tripple channel RAM, running Windows 7 with several TB of hard drive space (still ain’t enough – thanks PirateBay), tripple HD PCI-E video cards supporting 3 large LCD monitors. My how times have changed. That’s 25 years since I saw that Apple IIe.

I only recently got myself an iPhone 3Gs and now I’m playing cool games like Lode Runner and Hyper Olympics… well, it was a good price and I must say I’m pretty stoked at it’s user friendliness. I now understand why they’re so popular with geeks,  tech-heads and everyone. I’m certainly glad I waited until the 3rd generation to buy one… I’ve had a play with a friend’s iPhone 3G and it certainly isn’t as responsive as my 3Gs. I think now is a good time to buy the 3Gs, since the iPhone 4 has been launched, the 3Gs’ must be going cheap(er)… Still, I can’t let go of my trusty old Windows Mobile phone… It has served me well and can run any app. that I want it to;,,  I don’t need to have it approved by Steve Jobs’ Apple Inc. first. Take Doo Phone for example, creating an app. like that just isn’t possible under Apple’s iPhone developer regulations.

I guess there’s a niche for every type of phone; choice makes life interesting. Given the opprtunity, I’d like to try out other type smart phones too, such as Symbian, Andriod, BlackBerry, etc. One day.

Piratebay.org iPhone 3Gs