1975 Hillman Avenger

My first project was a bit of an interior dress up. I am still not finished this as I have an Alpine dash to go in but that is on my to do list.

First thing I did was get rid of the steering wheel and gearknob.





After that I pulled up the ugly checkerboard they had on the floor. Once I pulled up the checkerboard I could see why they put it there in the first place. The carpets were completely rotted away. there was a few leaks which would have caused the carpets to get wet and rott. I guess the last owner just wanted to cover up the problem so I stripped out all the carpets and fixed all the leaks. I got a new set of carpets made for me by Autodec in Manakau and spent the weekend pulling out the old stuff and installing the new carpets.

When I first saw the state of the carpets I was really worried thinking I would have heaps of rust on the floor to deal with but as you can see it was sweet once I got the carpets out.

Drivers side front before



And after



Passengers side before



After



Passengers rear before



and after



Drivers rear before



After



Back section fully stripped



This is the only solid bit of carpet I got out of the whole car. anything touching the floor was just sludge.



Mostly clean, ready for the new carpets. I did some more scrubbing after these photos just to get it spotless before installing the carpets.





Installed some underlay to help with the road noise.





Then came the new carpets. I had to modify them a bit to fit but all the joins are hidden by the center consoles so it looks mint when everything else is in.

After sorting out the interior a bit I turned my focus to getting more power. I found the intake manifold new on Trademe for around $100 from aussie then the Dellorto DHLA40's were 2nd hand on Trademe for abour $500. also found a new fuel pump on Trademe.

Next thing was to search for a good block to built the engine on. I was looking for a 1600 Avenger Alpine engine because they have a dual timing chain, double vavle springs and a better head to start with.

I put a wanted ad in trademe looking for an Avenger engine. I got a few replies. the first was a standard 1600 from Hamilton for $200 which I passed on because the engine was pretty rough. Next offer was a pair of 1600 Alpine engines up north for $100 but they had been sitting outside for years so I passed on those.

Finally I got the offer I wanted. It turned out to be only a 1500 but I bored it out so it is the same bore as a 1600 but just a slightly shorter stroke which can be a good thing. The engine was out of a 1973 Avenger Alpine, the only year Alpines had a 1500. It was the guys fathers car and the engine had been rebuilt in 2000 then put in a garage in 2004. I got the engine for $100 for the block and head only.

I also brought some new headers and got them HPC coated. it was about $250 for the headers and about that again for the HPC coating but they look really great so they are worth it.

When I pulled the engine apart it was mint inside, you could still see the hone marks on the bore from the last rebuild and all the bearings were mint. Because I was building this as a performance engine I decided to replace all the internals even though they were pretty good already.



Carbs and intake manifold





New fuel pump. see it's demise in later posts



Shiney headers. they look soo cool. it is a real shame they are hidden by the carbs when they are in the car because they look awesome







The new 1500 Alpine in it's old home in Wellington before it was pulled out and sent up to Auckland





The new engine stripped and ready to start the rebuild

Avengers are known for breaking a few things after you increase the power of the engine. I learnt this on my race car but I thought I would be okay because I didn't think it was producing enough power to break stuff.

The funny thing is I was talking to one of my mates about how the standard fans flex and hit the radiator at high RPM and how we both had to switch to electric fans on our race cars, I told him I thought my road car would be fine without an electric fan then the next day on the way back from a mates place I heard this huge bang. Luckly I was literally at the corner of the road I live on so I coasted home and popped the bonnet water was curse word out of the radiator and I could see a missing blade. I walked back up the road and found the blade sitting in the middle of the road.

Also just before that happened I had the other weak link in the Avenger fail. The fuel pump. The shots below are it cracked after my 300KM running in. I replaced it with an electric fuel pump. I had the same thing happen on my race car but again I didn't think the little 1500 had enough power to do that to the fuel pump, it was brand new when I put it in, you can see pictures of it new further up the thread.

okay now for some pictures

Broken fuel pump





Damaged radiator



Broken fan







Spare radiator



Electric fan



Thermostat control box



Fan "on" light and manual override switch



My speedo has never been very acurite and with replacing the dashboard soon I didn't want to fix it so I decided to get a fancy GPS speedo. It is really acurite and it has a programmable overspeed warning which is cool.



Next I got the bonnet repainted, It got some paint stripper or brake fuild dropped on it by my mechanic which ate through some of the paint so he resprayed the whole bonnet for me for free!! it is sort of a satin black, not quite a matt black but not a gloss black.



After that I was taking it down to a car show so I thought I would give it a good clean, when I was finished it looked soo good I figured I should go take some nice pictures of it.















Here is a quick sneak peek at my next project, an Alpine dash and instrument cluster.











Next I went on to stage 2 of my audio upgrade. A kicker amp and sub with a new Pioneer head deck. I have also brought my rear speakers but they will go in over Xmas. I got really good deals all my audio gear from JB HiFi. for example I got the rear 6x9 Pioneer TSD-6902 speakers for $101.

5 Speed gearbox conversion all done.

Bygone Autos has done a really great job on the conversion, even finishing a day ahead of schedule.

Shifter fits perfectly and I kept the original 4 speed gearknob so it still looks stock. Reverse is in the same place as it was on the 4 speed so it is just an extra overdrive gear on the upper right. That is good so I don't get mixed up with the position of the gears, they all feel pretty much in the same location as the old 4 speed.

Ratios all feel good, 1st is lower but not stupidly low. There is a bit of a jump between 1st and 2nd then 2nd, 3rd and 4th are pretty much the same as the old 4 speed.

Here is some pictures of it all installed.

This is the start of my major restore. It has been down in the shop since October but it should be pretty awesome when it is done. Pretty much finished most the mechanical stuff and it is down at the panelbeaters now.

So here is some of the stuff I have been up to.

First up was the brake upgrade & suspension upgrade. These are Volvo 4 pot calipers and BMW E30 rotors. I also swapped my race car suspension over to this car so I have adjustable Koni's all round and adjustable ride height and camber plates at the front.

This is the caliper all rebuilt and restored. All new pistons and seals etc.





Here they are bolted up to the E30 rotors. You can see some of the plumbing is done and you can see my custom struts along with the camber plate in the background.

after that I did a little interior upgrade. Going from the old strip speedo to the round gauges of the Avenger Alpine. This cluster is actually out of an english Avenger GT so it uses Smiths gauges which are tons better than the NZ AC Delco ones.

I also swapped over to the Avenger Alpine dashboard and got it recovered.

Here are some photos of the new cluster. This was before I get it restored so now it looks like new. I replaced the glass on the temp gauge and repainted the damage to the rev counter







Here are some shots of my new dash.









And here are some shots of the difference between AC Delco and Smiths.

The cluster on top is the NZ one and the one on the bottom is the UK Smiths ones.

First round of photos of the panel work.

It is looking good, heaps less rust that I thought there would be, heaps of dodgey repairs by previous owners but the body is really good otherwise.

The back wheels look huge now they are fitted and they will fill up the flares nicely. The fronts are a different story, they don't stick out past the factory guards so I have some spacers which I will use to mock up the wheels then I will get the offset changed from a 4" backspace to a 3" back space.

This is the rear wheel how it sits at the moment, they need to cut a bit more out, probably up to the blue line. I also need some harder springs but the ride height is looking really good.

This is how the flares will sit in the end





This is how much they have cut so far, you can see the blue line which will be where the final cut will be.









Here are some little patches etc they have done

This one is by the back window



This one is on the other side of the back window



Top of the back window



Front guard



Around the front window







Engine bay all stripped and all the holes welded up.



Battery is moved to the boot



Bonnet latch is removed because I don't need it with the fibreglass bonnet



Fancy pants adjustible front suspension, Ex-my rally car



tail lights





rear quarter, you can see a few rust holes that will be patched



They also did patches on the other rear quarter plus most the doors and the front guard.

Much as i love the avenger, show us some more of that charger!


what sort of power does the 1600 produce on twin webbers, and does it like to drink?

Very nice - the blue/teal colour is exactly like how I wanted my old Avenger GT to be.

Are they common cars in NZ? I know they were built there. I will be moving there semi-permanently in April of next year, and it'd be nice to own one again. Very good handling and styling for a reasonably priced 70s saloon.