Hi people

I've been meaning to put some pics up of my love/hate Bellett GT!

Currently it's in the bad books as I've dropped a thrust bearing and the thing now doesn't work, however we have had some happy times together!

I can trace the history of this car back to the early 1980s when Glenn Percy bought the car. Apparently it had been written off and was then wrecked out for parts. Glenn had to replace the front, using a sedan front bar and front panels, grille and lights. This is why mine has the low bumpers like a sedan, rather than the high bumpers from the regular GTs.

He also fitted a new motor as the 1600cc motor had been pilfered. He mated up an Isuzu 117 DOHC EFI G200 motor with a Rodeo Diesel 5-speed gearbox and that got the car going again pretty nicely!

Glenn apparently owned it for about 13 years, after which he sold it to Dean Beasley who took it to Queensland. He drove it a bit then his wife drove it daily for a while. At some stage, it just got retired to the shed and not looked at, until he dragged it out and stuck in on eBay!

I didn't have any competition on the bidding and grabbed it for $5k, which in hindsight is looking pretty good, given that it's a going and relatively rust-free machine!

At some stage the rear guards have been radiused, which breaks my heart... but here's why! At some stage it had a set of Hurricane alloy wheels with some mega-offset!



Later it was fitted with hotwires, but they lacked dish.... and therefore they lacked awesomeness.



Intiailly I cruised it around on a permit when I was able to. I took it to a couple of Gemini cruises and also did the Bay to Birdwood in it. The Prince Skyline hubcaps don't look too bad, yeah?



To get it through the rego department here, I put my regular Bellett steelies that I use on my white sedan on there. They looked pretty good too.



Also, while we were organising rego on it, we took it to Mallala for some club sprinting. We only took it twice, as the rear end is as spooky as they come on these Belletts (my ratter handles so well just from having an extra leaf...) and the damned thing tried to kill me... twice! No wonder Bill Tuckey hates them.



The astute will notice in this action shot that the left rear wheel is different. This is because I did this:



Although my wife did this:



It's got a few blemishes, radiused guards, handles poorly, complains farts and stutters when idling with crook sensors and makes old ladies shake their fists when I go past their houses at full revs in second gear.

But it does scrub up ok when you need it to!




It will need a birthday soon... I've got some plans for it. I don't pretend that they will come together as fast as Alistair's little project though!!!!

Cheers,


Dave

Hi Dave, Most enjoyed your love/ hate ! It puts things in a different context since parked next to it at All Jap. We forget how much individual history is behind these little buggers. I wonder where those deep dishes went when Glen owned it? They're ultra Phatt !! You really have a hardcore "stockie" when you've got the stealies on. The shot of her in full flight at Mallala (don't mean your wife) really shows some attitude. Yet what SHE did has even more attitude. By the looks of things you might have limped home with a few flat spots. Better than flipp'n it though. You should tell me (over an ale) how you managed to bend that "wirey".
Interestingly enough my GT rear end has no issues like that. In fact it's the front end needs some care and attention. But ,hey, even a tame G161 SOHV jobby like mine needs a liitle respect or she'll Bite you in the ASS The special functions shot got me thinking. We could do goup tours then split the doe. Get 2ldohc into it as well ) I can see them all ribboned up Likewise, the olds in the street always stop and stare when I chow down on the accelarator. But you can't denie someone the pleasure of low flying a biplane like that. Oh, and maybe they were never meant to idol

B.

You'll love the story about how it went through rego....

What a beast.

Now i cant have a white bellett.. too many of them :@

Hopefully I'll hear about that at the cornish festival. Might not get the bluie there though. Pulled the front sway bar off last week, many souls fell out of those perished rubbers. Autopro onto it, but Nolothane company hasn't got back to them yet about a match. If they come before sunday, I'll try my damndest !! I 've come up with a solution, If it's totally ok with you, could I book a ride for the day ? maybe contribute something for the fee, may be petrol, OMG ! It would be a pleasure to (as long as we're not doing 5000 rpm clutchless gearchanges in the ratter )

B.

What, two GT's down.....??arrrrgh !!! Dessspicable !

WATANABES!

Ebay purchase from Japan.

My mate got 'em sandblasted for me, polished the outer rim and painted the centre dark grey (almost black).

Now they look so horn, woman risk falling pregnant just by standing near them!


<edited the post so the pics were reasonable size!>




Cheers,


Dave

Hmm, guess I could have resized them.

Serious horn, mate!!
Thanks for preview,
Matt.

Crazy dude, tempted to paint the inners of my spoked mags, maybe high gloss black, as Ross suggested......

Totally max horn.

B.

I like these Belletts they look wicked, they would look good with a pair of bigger wheels.
great looking car.

Rick.

Well, this car is now well and truly the ex-Glenn Percy, ex-Dean Beazley, ex-Dave Carey car and is now in the hands of Gav 65Bellett who has lusted after it since he was a wee one, having seen it at BCCV meets he attended with his Dad.

Aside from the odd photo he sends me, I thought our time could not be revisited....

But someone at work emailed me to check out the Adelaide Shannons office on Google Streetview...

And lo and behold, what did I find?

Also for those interested... the EB Fairmont was a strange unit... the owner did the head, so he decided to replace it... then decided to upgrade it to EL XR6-specs (and then some...), then converted it to manual, then put an EL Fairmont Ghia dashboard in it.

It took him bloody about 8 months, but he got it done. Then he gave it to his brother who sold all the parts off!

It was a good job and was a real sleeper with that tatty bonnet paint.... but he found it was almost too highly strung to drive sedately.

The only real problem was the central locking switch. He wasn't happy when I pointed out that he'd installed it upside down (it was a symbol of a door with a key...) and he would have to remove the whole dash to turn it back around.....

All that work and he still had a Falcon!!
I notice it started with "The owner did the head......", yep, just like every other EA/B/D owner.
I only ever drove one once, an EA wagon. DIABOLICAL on corrugated corners! (But it got us out of a spot, so I was very grateful for the loan.)

To each his own I suppose, sorry Falcon likers.........

I bet he wasn't happy with the Brother!!

Good google-earth-scanning mate, not something I've tried. opposite!

Cheers, Matt.