Southern Tablelands Heritage Automotive Restorers Club Inc.

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10^th Anniversary Dinner July 2011	Car of the Month

Paul Anderson’s 1971 Valiant Charger

Article and photos by Paul Anderson.

There have been two Chargers in my life. The first Charger I owned when I was 18 and the 2^nd the Charger I currently own, and have so since 1994. My affection for the Chrysler muscle car started when I was 15, when a mate and I raced a “bomber” at the Gold Coast raceway. The Charger was the ideal slider with its short wheel base and 3 speed box, it had enough torque to slide all day in 2^nd gear. Parts were cheap and easy to come by, and I shiver every time I think about how many Chargers we wrecked to keep that one on the track.

Fast forward four years and I acquired my drivers licence on my 17^th birthday. While my first car was an EK Holden, that I had a lot of fun in, I still wanted a road going Charger. Eventually one came up that I could afford. In 1985 I purchased my first Charger, a 1972, 245, 3 speed, vintage red Charger, for the princely sum of $800. I sold the EK for $300, and borrowed the rest from my parents.

Two photos of Paul’s first Charger

The paint was in poor condition, but the car was very straight and had no rust. With the assistance of a friend of the family we set about respraying the car. I thought at the time that it wouldn’t take long, and she’d be all shinny and new in no time. After six months of sanding, rubbing, panel work and more rubbing, we finally applied the paint. The family friend who helped out, was an old school panel beater, and didn’t believe in “bog”, so any minor dints were lead wiped. On top of this he didn’t believe in clear topcoat, and therefore wanted to apply multiple (12 I think) coasts of paint, he would make me wet sand back the car between every 2^nd coat. Another 3 months later, and the car was sprayed and back in one piece. The paint work was immaculate, but I’d run out of enthusiasm, and money, to complete the rest of the car, so it stayed in standard trim, until I eventually sold the car to buy an Nissan EXA turbo. (We all learn from our mistakes

I came in contact with a work colleague who drove a Charger in from Yass every day. His Charger was painted in the muscle car war paint, and had been mocked up to replicate the classic E49 Charger. We started chatting about the Charger and the history of the car. During our conversations he would often remark how expensive the Charger was to run as a daily driver. This opened the door for me to ask if he was interested in selling the car, so that he could buy a cheaper car to drive. He declined my offer, saying that he intended on “doing her up” one day. In the following two years I pestered him most days to sell me the car. One day he mentioned that the car was running out of rego, and he didn’t want to pay for the renewal. I made him and offer of $2000 for the car, but he was adamant that he wanted $3000. Our haggling went on for another two months, when he finally relented and said sold me the car for my offer. The car once had a set of original webers, but now ran at a 350 Holley. I drove the car as a daily driver for three years. With a light foot the Charger would get 20 mpg around town and 25mpg on the open road.

In 1997 I changed job position, and managed to get a company car with the deal. The Charger was then relegated to the garage, which gave me time to change carburettors, to see if I could squeeze out some of the HP I knew the engine was capable of delivering. I tried different combinations, starting with triple SU carburettors, then a short runner four barrel manifold, with a Carter 600, then I tried a Pacer 4 barrel longer runner manifold. All of which never really satisfied my hunger for more HP. Sure the car went well, but not enough for me to “Believe”.

During the late 90’s early 00’s I worked overseas and in Sydney. By 2003 my family had had enough of the travel, and so I started looking for work in Canberra. In 2004 I secured a job with defence, here in Canberra.

The Charger sat in the garage for another year, due to the fact that I had taken a large pay cut to join the public service.

With our finances looking healthier I looked in to possibility of installing Electronic Fuel Injection onto the Charger. It took me a year to research and build the EFI system to suit the 265 engine. The EFI system on my Charger is made up of a Kalmaker ECU, triple SU manifold which is modified to take triple VL throttle bodies. Fuel rail and linkages are custom made. A low pressure pump moves fuel from the main tank and into a surge tank. A VL Turbo Bosch pump is used for the high pressure system with a rising rate Malpassi regulator to set the fuel pressure. The wiring harness came from a Camira, and most of the sensors and ignition module are from Camira’s and VN Commodores. I needed to upgrade the charging system to support the high current used by the injectors. An 80 amp alternator from a series one EA falcon, bolted straight up to the 265. Triggering for the ignition module comes from the standard ELB Valiant distributor.

Just as the EFI was working well, and the car performing as I wanted, disaster struck, and the car stopped on me one day, luckily just meters from home. I pushed the car into the garage, and it hasn’t run since. After much frustration and time wasting, I finally worked out that the car had stopped because the harmonic balancer had stripped the keyway from the end of the crank shaft.

It was now 2007 and we decided to build a new house, so the Charger was put up on blocks, until we moved into the new house.

The next 18 months was spent building a house as an owner builder. We designed the house, so obviously the first thing I designed was a 6.5m x 6.5m workshop for the Charger, with the intention to do a full restoration of the Charger once the house was finished. The workshop design was based around the need to spin the Charger 360 degrees while still being able to have storage and bench space. I can report that this has been tested and the workshop is a great space for working on the Charger. In 2008 we moved into the house, and the Charger restoration started taking shape.

In 2009, with the assistance of some mates, we stripped the Charger to its bare shell. Just before Xmas 2009 the Charger shell was sandblasted and undercoated.

Myself and some other mates decided to do a TIG/MIG welding course at CIT. We recently completed the course, and all of us feel more confident to take on use of the MIG or TIG to repair our own vehicles. My reason for doing the course was due to the panel beaters I approached being hesitant to take on the job of removing the rust from the Charger. I did not want to let someone who didn’t have the same passion as me, do work on my car. Just as I did when building the house, I decided to do the work myself. Sure it’s going to be a slow process, but the satisfaction I’ll get from doing the work myself, will outweigh the time spent.

The VIN shows it as being the 10^th Charger ever made, and from those with the “lists”, I’ve found out that my Charger was delivered to a Townsville dealer as Mustard coloured 265 3 speed XL model, with tan trim. There are enough R/T parts on my car to indicate that it was used as a base for a wrecked R/T. The front end is all VJ V8, which I can tell from the larger torsion bars and sway bar mounting points that were on the car.

Once the paint is on, I’ll probably be calling on the assistance of the Mopar alliance, to help me put the car back together. In the mean time I’ll be busy trying to get all the rust cut out and the body prepared for painting. The car will be painted Vitamin C, with the custom stripes.

The engine has been rebuilt, and when running should develop about 350 HP (265kw) at the flywheel. To get the flow and compression required I decided to use the CHI alloy head. The alloy head runs 11:1 compression ratio, and was bench flowed at 362 HP with the manifold. Obviously I’ll reinstall the EFI, except this time with higher flowing injectors, to cope with the extra HP. The CAM is a custom ground Wade CAM, which will allow 0.60” of lift. The engine block has been cleaned, sonic tested and re-sleeved to take the 60” oversize pistons. The pistons are SPR forged pistons, designed to cope with the 11:1 compression ratio.

The crank has been balanced and the flywheel lightened. The clutch is a custom made 10” clutch with pressure plate. The harmonic balancer is a ROMAC balancer, with securing bolt to stop any keyway issues, and the timing chain is Roll Master double row unit.

All rods have been honed and balanced, with full floating pins. Solid lifters will have been used with adjustable yella terra roller rockers. I’ve also purchased a high energy sump with windage trays and crank scrapers, which holds 7 litres of oil. The oil pump has been rebuilt and pinned. The CAM float issue has been resolved by the use of an adjustment bolt which is located in the timing chain cover.

New water pump, thermostat and cover are also been installed.

I’ve taken what the Chrysler racing teams learnt about the 265 problems and hopefully improved on them.

I’ll retain the standard Borg Warner 4 speed, and the diff was rebuilt as a 3.5 sure grip LSD, not that long ago.

The rear brakes are 10” finned brakes from a CL valiant wagon, and the front disks will be slotted VJ disks.

The dash is to be customised, with period gauges, but the rest of the interior will be as per standard R/T Charger trim. (black).

The wheels will be standard W35’s, so from the outside the car will look as stock as possible.

From this point on the restoration should start taking shape. Stay tuned for part 2 of my Charger restoration.

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