1970 Holden Torana LC S from Australia and New Zealand - Comments

I bought this car as a 2 owner car and after myself driving it with the 3 speed column shift manual, I threw in a M20 (4 speed floor shift) gearbox, this resulted in me driving the car with a lot more inspiration which eventuated in the 138 motor blowing a ring in one of the cylinders.

This motor was replaced by a 202 (3.3 litre) from the wreckers for $220 Australian and installed by myself in 3 days.

The rubbers in the front end were original and need replacing, this has given the car poor handling and a lot of slack in the steering.

Due to the rubbers I have also gone through 2 tyres on the passenger front because of bad alignment.

Drivers seat broke a spring which resulted in me tearing every pair of pants I ever sat in the car with, this was solved by me buying a rusted out LJ wreck for $50 with better seats.

The drum brakes were not pulling up straight or true so I had disk brakes put onto the front (also from the rusted out LJ)

The drivers side sill was badly rusted and I found news paper in there, I bought a new sill for $50 and had it welded in, but unfortunately the rust had spread to the floorpan which was needed to be rewelded, this cost me $1000, although it was a very good job.

There is some common rust places in these cars such as around the windscreen, in the boot, the lower guard bottoms, sills and in the bottom of the doors if they do not have the drain holes cleared regularly.

I had to replace engine mounts because of their age.

The speedo stopped working after it started to make a loud clicking noise and eventually stopped altogether.

Windows have fallen out of their runners, but this is fixed by taking off the doortrims and siliconing the window back into place.

Starter motor failed, got one from a mate for a slab of beer.

Flywheel ring gear was chewed out, got another flywheel put on.

Fuel tank sender had a blockage, this would make the car starve for fuel at wide open throttle and made driving the car fast a real pain. Replaced 2 fuel pumps and stuffed around for a long time before discovering this was the problem. Make SURE you check the sender if the car is running badly.

This is a car that can be made to go very very well without spending much money and can embarass many people with their so called "sporty cars"

Although they can be made to go fast do not expect very good fuel economy.

They have a small tank for the motor that is in the car and a modified motor will require more than 2 full tanks a week (about $40 to fill up) at the least if you use the car a lot.

My car has no fan or heater and as a result is incredibly hard to drive in cold weather when it is raining hard as the car fogs up badly and will make driving very dangerous.

The car does not leak in typical places, but in very heavy rain overnight even with the vent closed you will find water will still come in and soak into your carpet behind the front seats if you have mats you will not notice this, and will result in mould growing which will make your car smell.

The fuel filler is in the middle of the car which is great for when the petrol station is busy.

The steering wheel is strangely set off center towards the left of the car, but you get used to it.

Gauges are hard to read and are not bright at night.

There is no provision for a radio and there is only holes for 1 speaker at the back. There is also no room for speaker boxes due to the slanted nature of the windscreen the solution seems to be cutting the metal parcel tray, but this is not recommended.

Sometimes the window winders become stiff this is fixed by taking the door trim off and spraying some WD40 on the teeth and the metal "snail" looking spring on the winder.

The car is pleasant to drive and can be quite fun.

The suspension skips and comes out at the back when turning and accelerating over corragated roads.

It is very easy to spin this car out and because it is so narrow care must be taken in the wet.

With such a good power to weight ratio I can go around round-a-bouts in 3rd gear easily and in the wet it effortlessly spins the wheels in 3rd gear, although this can be scary at times. Once I was stuck on a hill and almost slid over the edge because I was on wet grass and could not drive out needed to be pushed out. The wheels kept spinning and the car moved towards the edge.

The drum brakes would use to lock up very easily if the car sat for more than a day.

The gearbox I bought for $50 is hard to put into 2nd gear when cold, but improves somewhat when warm.

This is a car that needs to be warmed up for at least 5 minutes before going anywhere if not it will cough and splutter. Because you can take the keys out of the ignition when the car is running I usually start the car and lock it and then go have my breakfast or whatever.

Parts are not very hard to get, but getting them for cheap is usually the hardest part, as they aren't common cars nowadays, and people know what they're worth.

HI it sounds like your car goes fairly well. I want to buy a LC Torana body and put a fairly new 308 holden into it. What other differences and what would be some of the obstacle's I would face by putting this in. Email simonallen223@hotmail.com Thanks.

Thank you for the advice, the reveiw is excelent, and I got a few laughs in there as well.

Okay... I have a 1970 LC S Coupe...It's a 4cyl, but I've been told that its not possible to fit a 6 cylinder engine in there. And even looking at it I'm not sure how it would fit. How did you achieve this? Id love to do it to mine.

Darren

eightballvillan@hotmail.com.

I see you replaced the 3 sp with a 4 sp floor box.

Can you tell me the method you used to put motor and gearbox in, as you need to engage the shift through a hole in floor, and to engage the spline.

Did you assemble the gbox onto motor before fitting, or assemble under car, or put motor in first???

Noel.