VB's had red colour motors.
VC was the first blue, XT5.

Yes and all but the fact is that anyone could buy a A9X without question and it was a full car. not a hack without a centre console, like who wants to drive a car like that without a centre console and at that price.

It would be like pulling teeth for Joe Blow to get one and you would get no discount.
One would be better off just getting a SL/R 5000 and doing the engine up yourself as many did, when I got mine it had extractors and a 650 Holley and a 3.08 LSD.

If you did get a L34 and raced it you would have to pull the engine down anyway toss in the cam and get the engine balanced at least. with a go for it SL/R 5000 you could do the same and order L34 pistons and rods valves and rockers etc etc. the biggest problem was the stupid little crappy banjo diff, I know of people who always carried a spare banjo around and could tell you just how fast they could change one on the side of the road.

An A9X wasn't a factory race car, no different to buying an SLR5000 or SS with 5.0L, it was simply the final evolution of the LSR5000 and SS with 5.0L, very much like the final 150 XU1's. L34 was extremely limited build which was why it was hard to buy. In the end there was around 1200 GTS327's, 700 odd HT GTS350, 450 HG GTS350, about 650 HQ GTS350, many thousand XU1's but only about 250 L34 available to the public. This was why it was hard to buy, and dealers were advised to sell to people with Cams licences as the intended use of the car was to race. If you had the $ and knew a dealer well enough you could buy one though. It wasn't aimed at comfort, it was built for racing and a console would be a waste of money for the buyer. GMH never intended for it to be an everyday driver, they wanted you to do what you say and buy a GTS or an SL/R. I actually owned a whole L34 upgrade kit for an SLR5000 (suspension and brakes, not the engine). It was every part needed to convert to L34 spec suspension and brakes, all new in boxes or with part number tags attached. I sold it many years ago to an avid L34 collector.

Yes the banjo was a weak point, but the L34 was one of GMH's most successful Series Production and Group C race cars. It won at Bathurst twice, came within a wrong Cams decision of winning a third time. Also won many other races. In that era no other GMH product did that using a road car. The later stuff that won multiple times were not road cars, they were factory prepped race shells like the LX's and VH's.

It may just have been the top part of the head pattern changing ready for blue. GMH did this a bit, they entered changes into production early that had no impact, like the XT5 V8 longer head bolt bosses introduced mid 1978. Also blue intake manifolds and HEI dizzys first introduced in Bedford. I'm sure there were bits on the red engines as well. They would have stopped red engine production at a certain date and then changed to blue engines after changing whatever had to be changed in the plant. Most likely once the schedule was finalised and they knew exactly how many were required. They'd probably build a stock of warranty engines in this timeframe too. The red engines would be stockpiled for the final HZ's assembled alongside WB and VC in 2/80 and 3/80.

Edited by user Tuesday, 1 August 2017 9:10:45 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

100%. I have been designing conveyor control systems upgrades for the last 10 years on and off. We try to design to minimise outage times wherever possible, try to install as much new infrastructure in parallel with existing equipment wherever it is sensible, possible and financially viable to do so. We normally take advantage of 1 day outage periods in months leading up to the main outage to install either equipment, make changes or install scaffolding, hoarding or whatever is needed to then continue to install safely with the plant running. GMH would be no different, if a running change could be made and just as importantly proven to work prior to a major change then it makes sense for them to have done that.

Engine and chassis numbers simply cannot align. It would be physically impossible. Every GMH engine got an engine number, even replacement engines after a certain date. ALL of those engines were produced in the one location, and they were given the numbers at that location. Then they were shipped off in crates of six or 4 or whatever other number they fitted into the transport crate. Some went into CKD packs (these had a body pack and a mechanical pack, and in that mechanical pack would be an engine). Those engines went to dozens of assembly locations at different times such as: Pagewood, Elizabeth, Acacia Ridge, Dandenong, Woodville, Mosman Park, Trentham, Brisbane Valley plant, South Africa, Phillipines, Trinidad & Tobago, Malaysia or wherever else they were assembled. Some of these locations never even had a chassis number, but most of the cars did but they used their own sequence numbers that meant something. The prefix letter gave the ADR revision, the second two have the series, the last letter gave the assembly location. Engine numbers have none of this info, and in many cases don't even give you the series. Some of the ADR revisions in the chassis numbers are not related to the engine. So to make the engine number align with the chassis number there would have to be dozens and dozens of different engine numbers and sequences, and those engines would then be very specific to a particular vehicle in many cases rather than be a generic engine that could be utilised as a stock item at the assembly plants and be used as required. To achieve this would cost money in terms of delays - damage an engine, have it blow up, have a car delayed on the line which means the engine has to be stored or any such circumstance. GMH were about shaving costs, having common items to reduce cost and reduce overall inventory especially at the time critical assembly plants. This will be the driver behind using QL, QD, ZL etc engines in auto LH and LX Torana as they were physically identical to Holden engines (manuals had a smaller clutch hence they had their own engines).

I believe some GMH plants ran 24hr. The one I think must have is the press plant at Woodville. Just think about every single pressing required for every GMH vehicle - this was the only press doing it. Think about the inner door frames, all the pressed small bits and pieces used to weld together to make a car. Add all the pressed heavier steel used for crossmembers, chassis rails on HQ-WB, door hinge pressings etc. Add also that GMH pressed panels for Nissan and probably others. I cannot see that press stopping. I imagine the casting foundries that did engine blocks, transmission housings, brake rotors etc probably ran 24hr too. There are others too that would have been making parts for all plants, like the Woodville transmission plant, the rear axle assembly plant and other like it. Also the external suppliers that made all the componentry for the cars, like whomever did all the aluminium castings, the wiring harnesses, the glass, the plastics, the nuts and bolts. All of this was effectively sole sourced. Whomever was doing logistics must have been a 24/7 operation too.

Edited by user Tuesday, 1 August 2017 11:11:59 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Ford did, but they only had one assembly plant IIRC.

I worked at the EMD plant in Newcastle that had a ball mill, it also had planned shuts up to a year out.

1940 is relatively modern. At Newcastle Steelworks we had stuff not only from 1915-16 but some of the buildings and cranes were old when BHP relocated them to the site. The "clockwork" thing will be probably just a set of resistance banks on a slip ring AC motor rotor circuit. These are still in use commonly today (different control though) but rarely installed new as AC VS drives are so cheap and slip ring motors need maintenance whereas squirrel cage hardly need any.

Haven't seen the red heads in question. Probably experiment as stated. Will probably have an X or other mark on them, like the X's on F5000 blocks and trial ADR27A V8 heads.

Definitely not HJ introduction, otherwise the torque specs for those inner head bolts would have changed and the parts catalogues would change to remove the shorter head bolts. I have the GMH service letter for it, dated mid 1978, that talks about only 2 x head bolt types now needed rather than 3, and torqued identically and even gives the breakpoint engine numbers. Breakpoint numbers are below and all are mid 1978. This is essentially the start of V8 VB engines and is probably the same breakpoint for the 308 changing from 9.7:1 to 9.4:1.

QT985300
VR1047
NT11795.

^^Conversely, the myth that an A9X ever won at Bathurst. A Torana did.

Terry, not coming from the BS Journalists that throw up from time to time when they name the LX A9X as the "#1 Aussie Muscle Car" or similar, with the reason being "it won Bathurst by 6 laps in 1979" or other such nonsense. The LX Torana onwards cars were very much race cars built by GMH and thus the road going cars really have no racing claims, although the componentry they homologated gives some links. Before that I'd hazard a guess most were "real" in terms of they were built as a road going car. Sure many were not what they seemed once Group C got into swing.

I'd hazard a guess that the following were real cars. I know for a fact some of them were:

Bruce McPhee's 1968 HK that got shown the flag, as was the car that crossed the line first (Des West). Plus all the other GTS327's.
Bruce's 1969 Falcon and a lot of the HT's. The HDT HT's were real cars but not with production engines, but were still GTS350's.
Don Holland's 1970 XU1.
Most of the 1971 XU1's and probably the Privateer XU1's in 1972. The 1972 HDT XU1's were like the LX race cars, they were factory prepped race shells, although supposedly one of them (Brock's) was crashed prior and they had to re-use an older car for Bathurst, although it as probably a proper XU1.

I never saw under the bonnet of Morris's car, it was on the hoist at the Bathurst Museum when I was there so didn't see under the bonnet.

Not sure what Ford were up to in those early days, but with Harry in charge you'd never be surprised.

The GMP&A LX's were almost all complete cars when they left the assembly plant, they just weren't complianced, although they did have a chassis number. Afaik they had no emissions equipment fitted. They had regular 308 and M21 in them. The HDT cars were a bit different where they supplied some bits themselves (driveline, seats and seatbelt plus more from memory). What they effectively were was an assembly plant built race car but without the race mechanicals, but not an A9X, just built to A9X specs as far as rear axle and crossmember at concerned, plus with A9X body kit.

Yes some privateers raced A9X road cars, but the bulk of the low budget privateer cars would have been L34's with A9X homologation updates. Some of them may have even been 6cyl or 4cyl bodies, like Garry Willmington's Group C XD.

Yes you can register any body with a GMH applied chassis number, don't need ID plates. You wouldn't want a race shell as a road car though as they weren't body deadened and weather sealed to save weight. They'd leak like a sieve in inclement weather.

Terry, I read that Moffat's 1977 car was an XB built from a body in white after his transporter and XA coupe burnt to the ground, but Bond's 1977 car was built from a an XC GS.

Edited by user Thursday, 3 August 2017 10:04:24 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified