'67 Vauxhall victor FC 101- mounts + more bling.

indeed. by the time youve done a rear axle, 3/4/5 link, brakes, uprated suspension to take the weight and power, its essentially a different car.

the other factor to take into consideration is when this thing was made, monocoque car construction was still in its infancy, and the designers were still on a learning curve. this thing has so little inbuilt strength its scary, id expect to flexes all over the place when just driven down the road as a stocker, you just don't notice it cos of the '50s suspension. all the floors are flat, more or less unribbed and unbraced, and they seem to rely on the sills for the majority of the strength of the car. if I SBCed it, id need to build a full chassis for it as well!!

i managed to get my jobs finished a little early again yesterday, and wanted to progress with this but as i didnt have the engine yet (collecting today!), i didnt have loads i could do. so got in an hour figuring out how to drop the back of it. as previously mentioned, it doesnt use u-bolts on the back, but its not quite as straightforward as some blocks and longer bolts, because of the strange way the axle is located.

heres a 'before' pic. it wasnt settled here as it had been jacked up and dropped down again to get the prop off, so its a fraction higher than it would normally sit.


first job, remove these godawful things. they're those bolt-on 'universal' extra bumpstops. i don't know if they're standard/optional extra/dealer fit, as there is (the remains of) a pad for them to hit welded to the chassis, or if theyve been put on for towing or to overcome the knackered shocks, as it already has another bumpstop on there in front of the axle, but they're knackered and are going in the bin. plus i didnt like the way the brake pipes were stretched around them.


then i removed the shocks. they're the originals datestamped 1967, so i think they're long overdue replacement!! i want to get something a bit stiffer on there, but they appear to be same fitment as VW beelte so it shouldnt be too hard to source something uprated in that fitment
next i took out the 4 big bolts holding the axle on, levered it up so there was a gap, and checked the size of the centre pin on the springpack. it was 5/8", but the leftover 3" lowering blocks i had only had a 1/2" pin, although were the perfect width. its crucial that the block is a tight fit over the peg on the springs and into the hole on the axle mount, otherwise the axle can wander, but luckily i found i had a length of tubing that was a tight knock-on fit onto the 1/2" diameter allen key bolt head, but had a OD of 5/8"- perfect!
like so-


then i just drilled the hole on the bottom side out from 1/2" to 5/8" and the block could go straight in, it was a nice tight fit and couldnt move at all. the blocks themselves are a set of 3" ones i made for something else but ended up not being needed, so i just had them lying round.

the next issue, was that if you look at the pic of the suspension before it was disassembled up above, the axle mounting flanges are designed to bolt up tight onto the bottom saddle plate, to bottom out of you will, and the spring them passes through the 'box' formed by this, but is rubber mounted. ive never seen a setup like this before, and tbh it seems fairly pointless to isolate the axle from the spring as well as the spring from the car, but to keep the original design integrity and keep it safe, i needed to make up a set of spacers the same height as the lowering block so it still performed in the same way- without them, the axle would never truly be mounted solidly.

so, out with the grinder and cut a set of these for each side-


which are made from the extremely thick wall CDS tube i use for making up new trackrods, as it just allows a M10 bolt to slip inside, as you can see-


heres the job they do-


i want to add a plate between the two tubes on each side, even though they cant twist or move at all, i just looks weird with them like that!!
thats as much as it can be lowered on blocks and keep the scrubline ok.

and here it is straight off the jack, unsettled. by the time its settled i think the rim will meet the arch to make it look nice and low


i still need to finish off the other side as i ran out of light, plus I'm gunna cut off the old tatty bumpstop plates on the chassis rails as they're a dirt trap. then once its got some new shocks on thats the back about dropped!!

I believe it was running a Rover mill...

Not a great deal of inof on it Dez, only these two links i've found tbh


www.ukdrn.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=242&p=5744&hilit=screaming+alley+raceway#p5744

www.rodsnsods.co.uk/forum/history-archive/unknown-victor-101-a-10211

Progress, progress. Looks good and low there Dez

the Borg Warner was the factory fit box for the early Victor 2000 (1968-1970). I think they used the model 35. They moved to the GM180 in late 1970. That was also used with the 3.3 straight 6. The GM180 was also also used in the Rover SD1 and 3500 V8 applications.

None of the bellhousings are the same of course. That would be far too convenient.

another thing with short rover engines, if you go for the later 4.0-4.6 serpentine engines are about 30mm shorter than the P5/6, the downsides are the engine is fitted with lots of ancillaries that will probably not wanted, bit of a pain as the water pump runs counter clockwise so an idler system is required, but it can me done, I have a way to do this, so its doable, the other thing is the oil pump, it runs off the crank, and the oil pickup pipe hangs quite low, and sort of prevents the sump being run close to the block,

intresting reading, it would be interesting to see how they did it, but i guess its been dead for many years now.



they're still there mate- the originals are in a funny place, mounted in front of the axle, just out of view in the pics. theres been a few developments since then though, and i think I'm going to have to rethink the rear axle mounting

well, i suppose its time for an actual proper update!
whilst i was waitng to sort out sourcing and collecting the engine setup, as well as lowering the back i also set my mind to sorting the wheels it would be rolling.

now, if youre aiming to build a good '60s style custom, you really need to nail the wheel and tyre combo.

tbh there isnt many choices, to be period correct its more or less down to painted details steel wheels, or 'mags'- typically a chromed steel 5 spoke like a astro supreme or a cragar SS. maybe tourque thrusts if youre flush.
as i was running a bolt pattern its pretty hard to puck up anything interesting in, i opted for the first option.
my issue with this the wheels on the victor are ridiculously skinny- a whole 4x13!!
this mean the centres were very 'bulgy'. the centre stuck out more than the rims, which isnt a look I'm into.

so it was time for a bit of banding action! i measured up once the rear was dropped, and figured out the absolute max width i could go to was 6.5", so a 2.5" band in them.
heres how i did it-

take the stock spare wheel, fit it up in the lathe, and part it off-


then, knock up a band 2.5" wide in 2mm steel, tack it on, check its true in the lathe, tack the outer on, check thats true too, then weld it all up.

it then looks like this-




cleaned up-


and then painted. after much deliberation between red and dark blue for the colour, i went with my original instincts and opted for dark metallic blue. i just picked a vauxhall colour from the range at the local motor factors. ive sealed then up here too.



then, tyre choice. i agonised over the size and profile for a while, as it was a close call between what would fit under the arch, the amount of stretch being right, and the profile looking 'right'. basically, low profiles are a definate no, as they didnt exist back then so would ruin the look. it was full profiles, or maybe as low as a 70 or 65 if the width was high enough. but, i was very tight on arch space on the back especially with the width of the rim which cleared the arch lip by only a couple of mil, so i needed to run mild stretch (as was done back in the day) for clearance. so in the end, i opted for 155/80R13.

and here they are fitted up-






at the minute it still looks more nascar stocak car than 60s custom, but that will soon be sorted with a set of bullet wheel bolts and bullet caps to emulate the ubiquitous 'spider cap' look that was so popular in the 60s. they will also be shod with narrow whiteband tyres to further accentuate the look. plus another little twist or two ile show you all soon enough

the only other thing ive done is fit the lowering bits to the other side rear. this has thrown up a few problems though. the axle isolating rubbers are knackered, and are made of unobtainum. on top of that, this side axle mounts are rotted out, and need repairing. not too much of a problem, but I'm going to have to do away with the strange axle mounting setup, and revert to a more conventinal solid axle-to-spring mount, and fabricating new axle mounts.

That sits absolutely perfectly! The tyre arch lowering combo is just perfect!