Hey Sapper,

the catcher alone will make it worthwhile, even if it's a long drive. Hopefully you can make the most of the trip.
There were no known teething troubles and the only significant change to the engine itself was when the casting of the engine block was outsourced to China sometime in the 1990s. You can tell the Australian block by having more cooling fins on the barrel as you will see with this one you have won on EBay.
Both main block castings are as good as each other from others observations I have read, despite misgivings by some of the lesser number of more widely spaced cooling fins as on your Tornado engine.
I would be very happy having a Chinese block as long as it's in sound condition.
Yes that is among the earliest Powertorque models, dating from 84 or 85 at the latest. It could have easily head an engine swap in it's life as you can chop and change a lot over the course of PT production.
The PTs had variations of starters over the years, permitting different dress cowl designs to be screwed on. Also two different inlet manifolds, the dog leg (majority) and the straight through like your Tornado likely has. Most parts, though, should be interchangeable between the earliest and the final PTs.

It's quite interesting to find this item in such close proximity to Sydney's CBD in this day and age as Sydney has lost a lot of its traditional Australian feel as it tries so hard to appear super cosmopolitan these days.


Ahh, if only victa had kept producing the thumblatch catcher series, they would be in better shape today!