Ab 110

Hi my name is clarky. I have been on this forum for a while but never posted any thing up.With all of the awesome restos and great storys i have been reading about i figured it was about time i added one of mine. It all started when i was about 4 my dear pop had an ab 110 inter and i used to love riding in it with him. He had always had inter trucks carting furniture for vaughns and petrol tankers and finally carting red tulip and cadbury chocolates from melbourne to perth for many years. Anyway the idea was planted in my head at a young age that i wanted an inter, just like pops. After my pop passed away it was a few years after that our family decided to sell the old ab to a friend that would use it to go out and cut wood. Many times we tried to buy it back but he loves it as much as we did so that was that. When i had finished building my 2 hk holdens i started getting itchy fingers. I went on the hunt for an old inter. i gave up when i came across a 48 f5 ford. I dragged it home put it in the corner of my yard and thought what have i done. This thing is bad but it didn't get scrapped. I started getting pieces for it and the idea of putting it on a holden chassis started sounding good. A year had passed and nothing had been done so i figured it should go to a new home, which it did. With all these old holden parts laying around i came across a windowless hj sandman panel van. It came home and off we went again although a few years later it could be started up and moved around the yard. But this was seven years later and in this time i had been lucky enough to get married and have 2 kids and 4 doesn,t fit into a panelvan. Just as i was about to sell the van a bloody ab 110 came back into the radar. As soon as i saw it it had to come home. I took my young son brock with me to have a look at it and he gave it the thumbs up, that was definatly it. but the van had to be gone. We struck a deal with the inter, the van was sold and as my sandman was driven onto the trailer my rusty krusty old inter sat out the front waiting for it's turn in the sun. All this mucking about had gone the full circle. It was a very tense time though in my household when the inter came home. It didn't help when one of my mates asked my wife if we were going to paint my house because it was the same colour as the inter and he wouldn't know if i would be home or not. Fun times NOT.
I will upload some photos soon. Cheers Clarky

Hi Clarky, yours is a nice looking ute from what I've seen so far, and thanks for the back ground. I think we all go through a few different vehicle's before we find something that "means" something to you.
There was a nice AB, a blue one, up here for a while, "Old AB" on the forum used to own it, mind he still has another one. I asked him why he sold it and he told me someone kept pestering him and he gave in. LOL.
I like the tacho on yours too.

Hi Clarky,

Great old ute and story along the way. Ive faced the same dilemma of a young and growing family that didn't quite match my wants. But then along comes the right vehicle...

Many thanks for your photos, they have been a great help. I like the tacho also, where do i get one!

Regards
Roger

Thanks for the kind words guys. I Have built a small collection of cars and i am very lucky that i have an understanding wife. I did think this would change when the inter came home but perseverance has paid off. It wasn't too pretty when it came home but it wasn't to bad either and it did look better than some of the shit heaps i had bought home. http://s1366.photobucket.com/user/clarkv83/media/DSCF1608_zps7dbf529c.jpg.html http://s1366.photobucket.com/user/clarkv83/media/DSCF1607_zps7a5bb536.jpg.html http://s1366.photobucket.com/user/clarkv83/media/DSCF1601_zps7a1b0584.jpg.html http://s1366.photobucket.com/user/clarkv83/media/DSCF1599_zps1a66eea2.jpg.html A pretty good starting base and it was mine and for the bit i couldn't believe it was only 8 blocks from my house!

It ran and i figured that if it ran it should drive the 8 blocks to my house. Even the brake pedal had some resistance and the hand brake worked. Whats a guy to do? I grabbed a trade plate and drove the sucker home. I live in a small country town in western victoria and traffic is not very busy in the back blocks. If i stuck to 25 mph we should be ok. And my wife was following me home with a spare battery and tow rope .No worries. The first corner i came to was a roundabout and i needed to turn left. In all of my excitement i jumped on the anchors and reality sunk in. This thing has not been on the road for a long time! where have all the brakes gone! I swung it around the corner using the wrong side of the road and the wrong part of my underpants i made it around the corner and then decided to sneak home CAREFULLY. Once home i put it around the back, cracked a cold one and had a look a good look at my new purchase. I could not of been happier. This one was not going anywhere. First stop brake master cylinder.

In all of my excitement i jumped on the anchors and reality sunk in. This thing has not been on the road for a long time! where have all the brakes gone! ... First stop brake master cylinder.

looks the part mate.
I got all the slave cylinders and the master cylinder re-sleeved on my AR 110 and new rubber hoses made.

I unscrewed the cap off the master cylinder and low and behold nobody home. The one thing i should of checked i didn't. Feeling like a prized fool i top it up with fresh brake fluid and see what happens. Crikey now the brake pedal feels like its connected to something but it will all get a complete overhaul in due time. One of my mates rang up and asked if i could take it to the wimmera machinery field days for the 50th anniversary on the vintage machinery display. This put the pressure on a bit because this was in two weeks. i repaired the front of the headlight panel and filled the cab corners up with body filler and splashed a bit of green and hit it all with the buff to make it not look as daggy. I pushed some grease into all the king pins and steering gear and uni joints and vic roads permit in hand i trundled out to see what they thought of it as part of their club. This voyage proved uneventfull and was actually very enjoyable. But the old dunlop trojans had to go. People seemed to like the old dear but i thought a more decent job was in order. It also ended up at the horsham car and bike show as something different instead of my poor old hk prem. There are some photos of my AB at the horsham car and bike show on google images but someone else took them and i am not sure if you can post someone elses photos

I kept looking at the old girl and i couldn't help myself. I gutted the interior and started cleaning it up a bit, i had wanted to tidy it up a bit but not loose the integrity or let it loose it's character. It is an old ute after all. Once i started digging i found some usual inter rust and usual so so repairs like the ones i had done not more than 6 weeks earlier. I had spent a bout 3 quarters of an hour undoing the seat frame to get that out and then when it was out sitting on the floor of my shed i had realised that the seat cushions unclip and the bolts would of just been there looking at me. There was about 7 kgs of dirt hidden throughout the cab which i guess should be normal with that great smell of old topsoil mixed with petrol that all old utes and trucks should be full of. When i checked the petrol tank out it was then that i discovered more rust from where the inner sills are. But not to bad.
http://i1366.photobucket.com/albums/r773/clarkv83/DSCF2189_zpscec07c95.jpg?t=1376707649http://i1366.photobucket.com/albums/r773/clarkv83/DSCF2188_zps231885e9.jpg?t=1376707387
chop chop chop chop chop weld weld weld grind grind grind burn burn weld weld some more.http://i1366.photobucket.com/albums/r773/clarkv83/DSCF2227_zps7ef8492d.jpg?t=1376707684http://i1366.photobucket.com/albums/r773/clarkv83/DSCF2226_zps0000a39d.jpg?t=1376707674
And seeing how i was covered in weld burns from using the rubbish gasless wire i thought i would have a crack ot the right hand cab corner.http://i1366.photobucket.com/albums/r773/clarkv83/DSCF2230_zpsd210975a.jpg?t=1376707715http://i1366.photobucket.com/albums/r773/clarkv83/DSCF2238_zps67b904c1.jpg?t=1376707791

While was at it i gave it all a quick sand blast and coated it in zinc rich primer and some good old black kill rust paint because that is what i had laying around. I also deleted at the panel at the bottom of the b pillar for all it does is catch all the dirt and mud and moisture and rust it all out. Now i can at least hose it all out but i will be keeping an eye on this area. This last pic was taken before i had finished the area it was still a bit daggy i had some pin holes and die grinding to clean up in the corner.

With this side done i decided to have a crack at the left hand side corner. I pulled my trusty 115mm grinde out with a polyfan and started to attack it. Somebody else had been here before a long long time before and had pop riveted a piece of copper and finished it off with copious amounts of body filler. It went up about about 8 inches up the side of the cab. I was determined to be able to repair it without taking the tub off for two reasons. 1 I have a habit of getting out of control and things taking far too long and 2 We had just found out baby no 3 was on the way and the inter would be a good way for me to spend time with my other 2 and give mother a bit of one on one time with bub. Cut cut cut grind grind weld etc etc.http://i1366.photobucket.com/albums/r773/clarkv83/DSCF2193_zpsb222fdeb.jpg?t=1376707835http://i1366.photobucket.com/albums/r773/clarkv83/DSCF2224_zpsbf23fcd4.jpg?t=1376707651
and so on and so on
http://i1366.photobucket.com/albums/r773/clarkv83/DSCF2191_zpsdd38eb70.jpg?t=1376707650http://i1366.photobucket.com/albums/r773/clarkv83/DSCF2190_zps1888e41d.jpg?t=1376707649http://i1366.photobucket.com/albums/r773/clarkv83/DSCF2192_zps8bef514d.jpg?t=1376707651http://i1366.photobucket.com/albums/r773/clarkv83/DSCF2228_zpsb9f7bfe6.jpg?t=1376707693http://i1366.photobucket.com/albums/r773/clarkv83/DSCF2223_zps566e1174.jpg?t=1376707651
while we are running hot better fix up near the accelerator pedalhttp://i1366.photobucket.com/albums/r773/clarkv83/DSCF2185_zpsfb687444.jpg[img]http://i1366.photobucket.com/albums/r773/clarkv83/DSCF2184_zps5798e674.jpg?t=1376707337
http://i1366.photobucket.com/albums/r773/clarkv83/DSCF2285_zpscbecf907.jpg?t=1376719316
That was about it underneath and i was happy i shouldn't be getting too many more weld burns from trying to weld upside down. I had bought 2 mint front guards from the ballarat swap meet and i was going to fit the left hand one as mine had suprise suprise rust in the bottom of it. But out came the grinder and more of the same went on and i repaired the one on it. The guy at the swap meet even gave me a spare Ab grill which i was thrilled about. But he had an original cable drive tacho there for an AB 184 which i should have grabbed but didn't due to having my arms full and beer calling. I will head back there early in the morning and grab that. Wrong he had left very early. What do they say about he who hesitates?