1961 Valiant Wagon

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After some point... The wagon was ready to go to the paint shop. It helped to have a friend keep at me and say "when are you going to paint your wagon", "when are you going to paint your wagon", "when are you going to paint your wagon"....So I found a guy who know a guy recommended by another guy... Who did painting at his home. And painted stuff after hours....It sounded dodgy enough... I mean what could go wrong..... So I checked his place out. He painted nothing that was built past 1980. He mostly painted Rolls Royces and vintage Chryslers with the odd GM and Ford muscle car. He only did one car at a time. He had a waiting list that was over a year long...And his home set up was more professional than any shop that I had seen. The Guy came and looked at my wagon.. He said he could paint it in the second half of 2020 if I could wait that long....I said ok.. I will do some other work on the car in the meantime.
A few days later he rang and said the next job which was a 1930's Roll's wasnt ready yet and if I wanted I could lock mine in for painting right now... So I did.
It took him 5 weeks all up start to finish. He did it part time after his "day" job. I wanted it Black as black. But so it looked wet all the time.

Oh Boy..... I couldnt have been happier with the out come. Here is a few just before and in the shop pictures.

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Once the wagon was painted and moved back to the warehouse, I slowly started putting a couple of things together on it. I want to drop it off the rotisserie so I have started on the front suspension. Keeping in mind I want to option out the wagon as much as possible... And keep that daytona valiant feel about it... I have put the following on. Firstly the Load levelers shockies. I have a set for the front and rear. Then the sway bar as used by the daytona Valiants. More times than I remember people told me they the sway bar won't fit on a 60/61 Valiant with the 60/61 lower control arms.. So I put them on. They seem to fit pretty nicely if you ask me.

Where I can I have been putting factory stamping and marks back on the parts. While their is a fair bit of information for mid 60s - mid 70s cars... On factory markings... Their is pretty much nothing for early valiants and lancers. So crawling around in wrecking yards and U-pull-it's in the 90s helped a lot find those markings. I have tried to match the font where possible as well.

The red brake pedal is a nice touch. Years ago when I found one and did the research behind it, I found out it was a dealer display item only. To show a potential new car buyers that a car had power brakes. They had red brake pedals. Once the car was sold, the dealer removed the red power brake pedal and replaced it with a common black rubber pedal. But in some cases the new car buyer still had the red pedal in their car cause the dealer didn't remove it.

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I thought I would drop in after a period of being away. I have started back to work on the wagon a little. I took it off the rotisserie it was on and put it on some stands. I have been trial fitting a few pieces to make sure they go on ok. Hopefully some new pictures will be posted up to show some progress. I did in the meantime purchase a very well kept 1962 Green Lancer that was in Michigan. It took a while to get here due to snow storms, packing it up for the long journey to Australia and a few other issues... but its a great car. And will get a fair bit of use out in the Australian sunshine.

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Gonna have a pretty nice collection. Couple of my favorite styles.
 
I can't help it, I love them!! Wife does too!

Sure looks good in black.
I painted our 62 Lancer 5-6 yrs ago back to its original color, white. Wife loves blue, I will repaint it before long and I am thinking B3 as that silvery blue will look ok.
 
It took a while to find but persistence pays off. This is the Alternator guard that was used on the early wide finned alternators so you didnt loose a finger if you were poking around there.

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Thanks for sharing all this hyper-pak related info and photos.

I'm also doing a similar build except mine is a 63. Although 1963 is after the hyper-pak era, I'm trying to build a car "as if" they offered a hyper-pak in the then new body style of 63.

I have a hyper-pak and Clifford reproduction hyper-pak manifold. I'm going to use the Clifford since it's never been on a car before. I really like the OE look and I like the alternator on the driver side of the engine.

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shimos, do you have all the HP stuff, spacers for the exhaust manifolds, linkage (I see the front bracket), correct carb, etc? Just wondering. I never found any of those parts after years of looking. I have a set of correct HP valve springs and a carb return spring. Your stuff really looks great. And a 61, that is an accomplishment! Here is my 61 that I sold to Mopar Frank 10 years ago.
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I love about all old Mopars, wife love the 62 Lancer! Go figure!! I have only found 1 early Lancer/Valiant wagon and it was rusty enough I just did not try to get it bought, might should have. 62 A and B bodies are just so cool!
They did not sell many 62 cars back when new, so any now almost non existant!
 
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Rainy Day Auto said:
Thanks for sharing all this hyper-pak related info and photos.

I'm also doing a similar build except mine is a 63. Although 1963 is after the hyper-pak era, I'm trying to build a car "as if" they offered a hyper-pak in the then new body style of 63.

I have a hyper-pak and Clifford reproduction hyper-pak manifold. I'm going to use the Clifford since it's never been on a car before. I really like the OE look and I like the alternator on the driver side of the engine.

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That 63 is awesome. And really when you think about it...as the Hyper pack is a dealer offered item there could have been a few hyper pack set ups still in dealerships for a few years before they cleared them out. It looks like I have the same roof rack as your wagon. I was surprised that there was alot of work gone into installing my roofrack at the time. But I am happy I put it on. Keep up with the wagon. They look so cool on the road and you always get the thumbs up when driving around in it.
 
Hyper_pak said:
shimos, do you have all the HP stuff, spacers for the exhaust manifolds, linkage (I see the front bracket), correct carb, etc? Just wondering. I never found any of those parts after years of looking. I have a set of correct HP valve springs and a carb return spring. Your stuff really looks great. And a 61, that is an accomplishment! Here is my 61 that I sold to Mopar Frank 10 years ago.
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Hello,
I reckon alot of it was luck in finding the right parts. Right place at the right time.
But then again sometimes you make your own luck. The number of times people have said... Oh you will never find that stuff... But I figure if its out there somewhere I just have to keep looking. The Manifolds came from a hardcore Chevy guy in Florida who had them hanging on his wall for 40 plus years. The carby came off Ebay in around 2005-ish. The linkages and brackets are all made from looking at as many old pictures as possible from collecting magazines that had hyper pack articles in them. Trial and error here and there. I found all the needed DPCD bolts looking at engines of the same time period. In 2003 I met a guy called Gary in New York state that built a 61 Valiant hardtop with a Hyper pack in it. Man that car could boogie.. He let me drive it a couple of times and from then on I was convinced that having a Hyper Pack was the way to go. Check out:


In Australia the 1961 Valiants are pretty prized so I really wanted a 61 Hardtop and Wagon. I got both but am working on the wagon for now. When I am next at the warehouse I will try and get some close up pictures of the nuts and bolts and brackets.
 
A couple of days ago I got to trial fit the dash in the wagon. I put the dash together in 2007. At the time I didnt think it would take 13 years to put it into the wagon. but sometimes thats how it goes. Anyways it fitted in nice. I am sure it will come out a few times before it finally gets to stay in. I am using 1960 gauges. This wagon was built on the 1st of November 1960 for the 1961 model year and over the years I have seen the odd 61 Valiant with 60 Valiant items. Whether that just used up the last of 1960 items on the production line I dont know.. but I liked the look and thought it fits right into the timeline of what could have happened. Over the years I found a few niffy items. Like the 180 Kilometre speedo. Which I got from a follow Valiant enthusiast from Sweden. This wagon has a electric tailgate to be installed. So there is a hole for the "R" knob that goes on the dash. It goes to the right of the steering column in line with the "L" (Lights) and "W" (wiper) knobs.
 
You are certainly dedicated, back in about 1990 a friend of mine here in Aus imported a Q series wagon (1960) in the same red and burgandy as your sisters and a white Lancer 2 door, after selling his award winning S series, he decided to on sell the wagon about 12 months later and kept the 2 door, another car club friend built an S series in late 70's early 80's and fitted a 340 with 4 speed and a six pac set up that won second place in Street Machine back then which was a big deal as mopars were looked upon as most car people here as being rubbish even though factory standard they could beat all the local built cars that had been mildly modified
 
peedee said:
You are certainly dedicated, back in about 1990 a friend of mine here in Aus imported a Q series wagon (1960) in the same red and burgandy as your sisters and a white Lancer 2 door, after selling his award winning S series, he decided to on sell the wagon about 12 months later and kept the 2 door, another car club friend built an S series in late 70's early 80's and fitted a 340 with 4 speed and a six pac set up that won second place in Street Machine back then which was a big deal as mopars were looked upon as most car people here as being rubbish even though factory standard they could beat all the local built cars that had been mildly modified
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I am trying to drop a360 into my 62 lancer wagon, would like to pick the brain of your friend that put the 340 in his lancer.
 
Morepower said:
I am trying to drop a360 into my 62 lancer wagon, would like to pick the brain of your friend that put the 340 in his lancer.
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You might also goon Facebook and look for a couple for sites that cater to the Toads. Some are also out of Australia and those guys have quite a few, and are great hot rodders.
The exhaust will be an issue and the closeness of fan to rad. Will require some fab work.
 
Don't forget to leave room for the Choke pull with all your knobs! I used an extra Vent bracket on mine next to the Park Lever on my Lancer. Everything else looks GREAT!
 
Martythetrimmer said:
good to see you have a build page here Mike...how you been since the Nationals in Adelaide? I’ve given up on my S series, once my VC Dodge is done, I’ll never get back to it!! Here’s a link to what took me away from my S…. Aussie VC 67 Dodge ute
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Oh Noes Marty !! Just put the S towards the back of the shed and come back to it at a later date. I have a 69 firebird convertible (Yikes dont throw rocks at me for saying that !!) at the back behind everything that I will go off from time to time... then like it again...
 
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