98: THREE TIMES A CHARM — BIG BLOCK VALIANT
WHEN YOU’RE ASKED, “WHAT CAR DO YOU HAVE?” ON A DAILY BASIS AND THE ANSWER IS “I’D LOVE A VALIANT”, YOU’LL INEVITABLY END UP BUYING MORE THAN ONE
Shane Terrey owns and runs Motor Radiator Repairs Ltd in Whanganui. Being that Whanganui is a hotspot for stupidly overpowered street cars, more than a few monsters end up passing through his doors, because, as we know, big engines need big cooling. Invariably, the subject of car ownership would come up with Shane’s customers, and he eventually got sick of saying, “I don’t have a car but I’d love a Valiant”, so thought he’d better fix that and go find one. After building a large double garage for the family home, Shane finally had the room to get himself a project that he could store and work on at his leisure. With no excuses left as to why he didn’t already have one, the hunt was therefore on for a ’70 Valiant coupe. With the paint barely dry on the inside of the new shed, Shane started asking around and picking the brains of his customers for something suitable to fill the void. After what seemed like endless ‘sorry, no’ responses, one of his customers said that he knew of a car parked up out the back of a farm way out in the sticks. Shane was straight on the phone and arranged a viewing — being parked outside in a paddock for god knows how many years, he wasn’t expecting much. Shane wasn’t disappointed, though, when he first laid eyes on the square Aussie coupe. Sure, it needed a hell of a lot of work, but, as these cars are pretty thin on the ground, he bought it anyway and dragged it back to the family home.
Once unloaded, Shane set about water blasting away the rot and decay that the harsh outdoor climate had applied to the exterior over the years. Once it was clean, he began tearing the car apart. The further in he got, the worse things became, and it wasn’t long before he realized that it was too far gone to be saved. There was rust everywhere he looked, and, at some point in its life, the left-hand side had been torn out of it and a rather substandard repair performed. Shane decided to pull the pin, keeping some bits he thought would be useful one day, and sold what was left to a local who wanted a paddock racer. The episode didn’t deter Shane from looking for a replacement though, so the hunt was on for Valiant number two.
Around 12 months later, Shane spied something that looked like it might be a suitable project for him. It was a VF that had a VE front grafted onto it, and, again, it was in need of a lot of work. He saw the potential, so into the shed the dragfocused Valiant went. Shane was in no hurry and gave himself plenty of time to work out how deep he wanted to make his pockets and what motor and running gear he wanted to cram inside the rolling shell. The plan was to build a tough street car that would also see some action on the strip, and Shane figured 360ci of Chrysler would do the trick. That was until he spoke to Dave Tunnell of TPE Racing, who just happened to have rebuilt a 440 for another local, Bill Armstrong, that was now surplus to his requirements.
The 440 had been stretched to 465 cubes and stuffed full of go-fast bits with names like Edelbrock, ARP, Keith Black, and Comp Cams. Shane thought it would be fun to jam it all into the front of a street car and go have some fun ... because that’s just what you do in Whanganui. Money was exchanged for the freshly rebuilt Chrysler, and, while he was at it, Shane also purchased the 727 trans and 2800rpm converter that had been matched to the engine but never used in Bill’s build.
Shane says that this was when things started to get a bit out of control (we’ve never heard that before). In a relatively short time, boxes from the States started arriving — Wilwood brakes, a mandatory Hurst Pistol Grip shifter, and a set of beautiful
Autometer Mopar gauges that made a perfect mantelpiece display for months prior to going into the car, much to his wife’s dismay!
During the accumulation process, Shane and his wife found out they were expecting their first child — fantastic news for the family but not so good for the Valiant. The build was put on the back burner, and the house was renovated for the impending arrival. Try as he might though, Shane couldn’t shake the urge to get the car done and on the road. He’d waited long enough and was itching to get stuck in properly.
When he’d bought the car, he’d been told that the registration was on hold, so, a few months later, he chased up the previous owner for the ownership papers. It was only then that he found out the registration had in fact lapsed, and he didn’t know where the plates or tags were. Quickly he realized that it wouldn’t be an easy job getting the coupe back on the road without wading through lots of red tape and bureaucracy. So, a month before their son was born, Valiant number two left the building, and number three, a running car from New Plymouth, was purchased off Trade Me and driven into the shed. Shane hoped like hell that it would be a case of ‘third time’s a charm’.
Car number three is, thankfully, the one you see on these pages. The 1970 VF came with a 225 cube ‘leaning tower of power’ backed up by a three-speed manual. The car was driven around for a couple of weeks before Shane got fed up with the lack of performance and decided the time was finally right to rip out the six and shoehorn in the big block. The car went off to good friend Mike Frew, and the attempt to cram the 465 under the bonnet began. The K-frame was modified to help line up the engine, along with a large chunk of trans-tunnel removal to make part A fit inside part B.
Once Shane and Mike knew the engine and box would actually fit, they then began stripping the rest of the Valiant in preparation for blasting, which was when the car revealed a few hidden surprises. You could forgive Shane for wanting to scream “oh please, not again!” when he discovered the floor on the passenger side was badly rotten and the boot floor was a jigsaw of steel patches joined together by pop rivets. The latter wasn’t a major drama though, as the rear tubs and drop tank Shane had planned would have necessitated the removal of steel anyway. He had no regrets ripping out the botched repair — if anything, it saved him a whole heap of drama. You’ve got to grab your wins wherever you can find them sometimes! Spectrum Coating handled the blasting of the shell, and, once Shane got it back, he got in touch with Terry Price from Restorations Unlimited. A pair of rear quarters had already been purchased for one of the other two Valiants, so Shane thought he had better use them. He explained exactly what he wanted, and Terry handed the job over to his right hand man, Blaine. Within a fortnight, the Valiant was back at Shane’s place ready for the next phase of the build.
To help save a bit of coin, Shane roped his fatherin-law into picking up a grinder, and together they began tidying a few things up. At this point, with a little one crawling around, Shane wanted to spend as much time with his new family as he could, so the build on the Valiant slowed again. It was starting to feel like this car would never get finished. That said, Shane knew full well that if he didn’t push on as much as he could, then it too would end up back on Trade Me as an unfinished project. With what he’d been through up to this point, Shane was going to make sure that never happened, and so all his limited free time was spent in the shed doing as much as he could to keep the project moving.
With the body well under control, attention was turned to all things underbody. The nine-inch diff was given to Dave Tunnell, who swapped in a 3.25:1 diff head to replace the too-low 4:1 that was in it. He also shortened the axles, fitted the Wilwoods on all four corners, and chucked in the mono-leaf springs to finish things off. To account for the extra torque that the big block would provide, Dave also boxed the chassis and welded in some rails to stiffen things up.
IF HE DIDN’T PUSH ON AS MUCH AS HE COULD, THEN IT TOO WOULD END UP BACK ON TRADE ME
When the car was at Dave’s and the light at the end of the tunnel began to glow a little brighter, Shane began thinking about paint. He briefly toyed with candy red, which was quickly discarded. Dark grey was then considered, but the colour Shane kept going back to was bright orange — there were too many grey cars on the road, and Shane wanted to “stand out, not blend in”. Gavin Oxtoby was handed the task of smoothing out what was left of the blemishes. By this time Shane and his wife were expecting child number two and he really wanted this thing finished before the arrival, so every morning he leant a hand, effectively becoming Gav’s apprentice. In no time, the bright orange Valiant was ready for final assembly and the end was finally in sight. Mike was again called to help chuck the motor and driveline in over the course of a few weekends. Craig Sweeney handled everything electric in the car — the battery was relocated to the boot, LED lighting was hidden throughout the car, and all wiring was also hidden for a nice clean look. The 770 front buckets, rear bench, and brand-new carpets that Shane had acquired through his cousin Shaun Terrey, of Shaun Terrey Motor Trimmers & Upholstery, were slid in place, along with an aftermarket wheel, the obligatory Pistol Grip shifter, and the ‘mantelpiece gauges’. Shane’s two-year-old was even helping with the reassembly by dropping nuts and bolts down the insides of the door panels — Shane is pretty sure that he learned a few new words while helping Dad in the shed!
The last job was handed over to father-in-law Wayne, who glued up the custom 100-litre drop tank and mandrel bent some three-inch bits of pipe for the exhaust. Finally, the key was ready to be slid into the ignition and turned. The big block fired right up and sounded awesome — it isn’t a quiet car and Shane was certain that everyone in the neighbourhood heard it!
Finally, after two failed attempts and plenty of blood, sweat, and tears, Shane can finally answer the question he is asked on a weekly basis. “Yes, I have a car of my own. It’s a bright orange 1970 Valiant VF Coupe, and I love it!”