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Hi best side of Brisbane friend. Pretty sure there is another AI goon who used to leave in Aspley - Im next door in the Zillmere ghetto
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Mar 7, 2014 03:38
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| # ? Apr 26, 2024 06:55 |
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Hello Zillmere ghetto buddy! It makes me feel a bit better knowing that I'm not the only one stuck in this lovely suburb.
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Mar 7, 2014 11:57
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Not the shittest suburb, ghetto pride etc. etc. XC story - growing up my neighbour had a black XC and a Ford Galaxie, i always thought the galaxie was cooler so he offered to let me drive it with him following in the XC. I ended up dropping him home in the galaxie - some smartass in a econobox told him to "do a burnout" which resulted in Anzac ave eating a set of tires and said smartass eating his words and a bucketload of smoke. I wasn't allowed to get in their cars after that.
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Mar 10, 2014 01:49
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You'd end up with a crushed car pretty quickly doing something like that these days. I've only had a few guys tell me to do a burnout (all in Zillmere surprise surprise), I doubt I'd ever try but even if I wanted to on a dry road I can't even get the wheels to chirp as I take off. Just a quick update as well, more troubles. It's been running rough for a few weeks now, it wasn't too obvious at first just on occasion when idling it it shake around a bit like it was about to stall and then go back to idling. That lasted about 2 weeks, then it kept getting harder and harder to start cold and would take 10 minutes for me to be able to put it into gear without stalling. On Wednesday last week it suddenly got much worse, in gear it would idle for about 10 seconds before stalling and it sounded like a tractor when running off the jets (once the power valve opened up it was fine). I figured the carby was back to it's old tricks, but no adjustments helped. For once I actually found the problem myself, I was just staring at the engine and noticed this:   I left it until Saturday to sort it out, that included finding the gasket which was a pain in the rear end to find a store that had one. I stopped in at 3 stores on my way home from work (got some sweet overtime for the first time ever) and then had to call up another few after that, the only trouble with most of the stores is that they're franchises so they can't check stock at other stores. The Autobarn at Lawnton seems to be the place for classic car parts. The problem was pretty obvious once I had the manifold off,   The paint acted like glue, the gasket was stuck on there really well (so how you see the gasket there is how it looked while the manifold was on). Took me an hour and a half to scrape all the poo poo off. I sealed it up with some permatex but thinking about it now I would have been better off with the hylomar spray, painting on permatex is the worst. I really hope it doesn't happen again. No idea why this would have happened, if anything wouldn't it have been pulled inwards?
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Mar 11, 2014 12:08
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IT looks like the gasket was smeared during installation and just barely kind of kept some sort of seal for a while. Your carburettor is going to need readjustment after that. You may also find that the power valve will behave a bit better too.
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Mar 12, 2014 22:43
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You're probably right, I remember putting the manifold on in the dark because I wanted to get the engine together the next day. It's been running decently since I fixed it, apart from an idling issue which I'm thinking is probably an ignition issue, if it isn't raining on Saturday I'll be investigating. I've been working through a few smaller jobs over the past couple of weeks. Fixed a vacuum leak at the base of the carby, attempted to stop the sump from leaking, and got new rear shocks in. The easiest was the carby, I doubled up on gaskets and used some sealer. Probably not the best way to do it but it worked. The sump was leaking in a fair few spots, I gave the bolts a tighten and put a new washer onto the sump plug. Sump plug doesn't leak any more but the sump bolts definitely are, I might just ignore the problem for a while. The rear shocks were a pain in the rear end to do. I had a friend come around who needed a few second hand parts I had laying around and he offered to give me a hand with it. Took us 30 minutes to get the top nuts off (the solution was one holding onto the shock from below to stop it from spinning while the other attacked it from inside the boot). The bottom nuts we couldn't remove, we spent about an hour under the car trying but in the end we gave up. I went around to hit place a few days later and a rattle gun was the solution, took us maybe 30 seconds for both. Picked up this last weekend too, for the very low price of $150. I've seen much worse go for a lot more.  It's perfectly straight with no dents that I can see, the only rust spot I have to fix up is in the front right corner. It's an XC Fairmont GXL bonnet too so it has the clips for the front chrome trim that an XB or XC GS bonnet wouldn't have.
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Mar 27, 2014 13:55
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I'm having a poo poo time with this car as usual, as you know I put in a V8 radiator with the new engine, it had a small leak and I figured it was a little bit blocked too. A few people recommended that I get myself a 7 blade engine fan which would really make a difference over the 4 blade. I ended up getting a 5 blade from a Cleveland, which is still a lot better than the 4 blade.  On Monday I had the radiator cleaned out and leaks patched at a local radiator shop. They did a really good job, sand blasted and painted too. I lost the top row of the cores due to the position of the leaks but not a huge deal because the radiator should be more than enough for a crossflow. It was only 10% blocked which was the first sign that my cooling problems aren't over. It sits cooler while I'm moving (at around 76 degrees down from 80) but if I start idling the temperature gradually rises. I had it idling for 15 minutes today, it got up to 97 degrees before I shut it off. It's doing the same thing that it was doing before but just a little bit slower. I'm honestly not sure what to blame this on, the radiator is far more than the engine needs, same with the fan. New water pump, new thermostat, new hoses, I flushed the system a couple of weeks before I got the radiator fixed, and the engine has taken a chemical bath. It's definitely pressurised now too. Why the hell would it be doing this?
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Apr 9, 2014 13:48
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Did you test the thermostat before you installed it by putting it in a pot of water and seeing if/when it opens?
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Apr 9, 2014 14:32
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Also, do you have a fan shroud on the radiator? If not, that could definitely contribute to running warm at idle.
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Apr 9, 2014 21:47
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Just chuck an electric fan on it, those pulley fans were inefficient as gently caress, especially at idle
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Apr 10, 2014 00:16
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some texas redneck posted:Also, do you have a fan shroud on the radiator? If not, that could definitely contribute to running warm at idle. This - an unshrouded (or improperly shrouded) mechanical fan is not going to do a good job.
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Apr 10, 2014 00:27
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AU [?] Falcon or Craig Davies twin thermos would be a good choice. Just measure the rad width and then drop into Repco / SCA etc and you should be able to buy the double fan kit or 1+0.5 size kit off the shelf. The Val was doing the same thing, which was eventually pinned to a slow leak in the head gasket just before I sold it, but after talking to some Mopar people about it, everyone asked if there was a shroud or not, which there wasn't. The recommendation was to take the clutch fan off, bolt thermos on, set to always on, or to come on around 65-85C, enjoy overheat free motoring. 
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Apr 10, 2014 02:58
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I didn't check if the thermostat was opening at the right temperature, and thinking about it today I may have bought the wrong one. I stopped into Autobarn to check what they'd give you if you asked for a standard thermostat, one that opens fully at 95 degrees. I bought an 85, I'm not sure if that's the problem but 95 degrees seems a bit high. No shroud, with a six and a V8 radiator there isn't very much room to fit one without running into the belts, which will be even worse when I get the power steering pulley on (I'll need a longer spacer for this fan too). Thermos are looking pretty good, I think the most common one people fit is EL ones. I'll see if I could go with AU ones. I would have to get a new alternator before I do this though. It's a bit annoying that I'll have to do this after spending $65 on that 5 blade fan.
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Apr 10, 2014 12:29
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Crank up your idle speed temporarily (to something like 2300 or so) and let it sit like that, stopped, and see if the temperature creeps up. There could be an issue with the water pump, making the flow poor at idle. Are the pulley sizes completely stock? With the engine cold, remove the radiator cap and leave it off. Start, let it idle until it warms up. When the thermostat opens, you should be able to observe agitation/flow in the radiator through the cap opening. If you're unsure about the thermostat, and want to check everything else, simply remove it (the thermostat) temporarily, and fire it up again, and let it idle. It should sit very cool (too cool for regular operation) at idle pretty much forever, if everything else is equal. Now put the correct thermostat back!
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Apr 10, 2014 12:51
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Was 100% the thermostat. Threw in an 87 degrees one and now it's fine. 68-70 degrees moving and it stops at 83-85 idling. As soon as I fixed that another problem popped up, grinding from the steering column. I haven't had time to check it yet but I'll take a wild guess and say it's the lovely steering box. So now I'll be throwing power steering in as soon as I can. Getting the box I got for free reco'd next week and then all I need to get is the 3rd pulley and some high pressure lines. I do have one problem with it, the 5 blade fan has much longer blades than the 4 blade and 7 blade. It's right in the way of where the p/steer belt would sit. So I'll just have to take it out and put the 4 blade back in, money well spent for sure. How much room I have to work with:  
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May 7, 2014 09:57
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So now I'm aware of how fast a bad wheel alignment can kill a tyre. I decided not to get an alignment after doing the castor rod bushes and it left the front left tyre completely bald, and the right one bald on the outer side. It's possibly the best thing that could have happened. After I noticed I booked it in for some new tyres for the EF wheels, even though I had planned to get something different. Paid extra for something decent, got some Yokohama C.drives, 215/60R15 same size as before. Picked it up today and holy gently caress it's like a whole different car. The steering is so much lighter now, compared to how it felt before it was like power steering even at a crawl. Steering doesn't jump to the side whenever I hit a bump and it doesn't seem to wander any more. It was raining tonight too so I got to see how it went - I couldn't be happier. It doesn't feel like I'm risking my life taking a slow turn any more, even the brakes were fantastic. The tyre place did tell me that the previous tyres were a budget tyre and I had no idea how old they were so leaving them on wasn't the smartest thing I've ever done. I wish I had done this sooner.
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May 16, 2014 11:05
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I was going to let this thread die but something came up recently that is forcing me to make a few big changes. A few weeks ago it was starting to look like I was in the clear with this car. I'd fixed the cooling system completely, modified the bracket for the kickdown to get it to shift properly, got the electronic ignition back on, and was making good progress on the large number of oil leaks. Economy still wasn't great but I'd accepted that was just the way it was. The only thing was the Borg Warner 35 still being a piece of poo poo, no surprises there. While checking out a friend's recently rebuilt XB GT he asks me if I've been burning a lot of oil. I was thinking all this oil was disappearing because of all the leaks, but burning oil makes sense. While he was following me down a few streets he could see smoke whenever I was accelerating. I'm not sure why but I wasn't even too annoyed about it at the time, even though I'd spent several thousand on it 13,000km ago. Luckily for me the week before I'd started talking to a friend about getting a C4 auto built, he wasn't asking much considering he was supplying the box but he gave me another option. His daily driver is an XE wagon but he has been looking at wrecking it because of some rust issues, I wasn't really convinced that it would be worth it at first but as soon as he said $700 I was interested. 250 Alloy head II, C4, power steer - and pretty much everything else there. Before I was told about the oil burning I was just going to swap the transmission into the XC, take any other bits, and store the engine somewhere. It gets better though, the 250 in it was a GEM engines rebuild from 8 years ago, the transmission was rebuilt around the same time (by the owner, so same deal as I would have gotten built for me). I took it for a test drive today, I was thinking it wouldn't be perfect since the rebuild was 8 years ago but this thing was fantastic. Started in the cold no trouble at all, doesn't make any strange noises, uses no oil (no burning or leaks), transmission is flawless, and runs great on the highway (might be due to the 2.72 diff though). The only downside is that it does feel a lot slower as expected. I think it'll be a great daily driver engine, I was told it gets about 13L/100km city driving which is decent for one of these.  I'll be able to pull plenty of bits off it for the XC. Has a near new 65 amp alternator (has to be better than the 35 which shouldn't even be working right now), alloy brake calipers (same master cylinder, so it's a straight swap), thicker sway bar, full power steering which solves my previous issue with it, and I'll even be using the seats out of it while I get mine retrimmed. I think I'm getting a bargain for $700 considering it has plenty of XE bits that I'll be able to sell. I'm not very happy about the money I threw into the rebuild to have it burn more oil than the old one. I did a wet and dry compression test on it and it's definitely the rings. I suspect it was fuel washing down the cylinder walls, the boosters were loose on the Holley originally and then having to give it too much throttle to shift probably did it for me. Only have myself to blame for that one. I'm not sure what I'll do with it yet, I might get honed and put new rings in then sell it. I doubt I'll use it again, I've made my mind up - it's either this alloy head if I'm going to drive it regularly or I'll throw a V8 in if I want it to go fast, trying to get a 250 to go quick in a falcon is a bit pointless (took me a while to get that stuck in my head didn't it?).
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Jul 12, 2014 15:48
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Another lovely update for this horrible car. Picked up my XE wagon for $700 however many weeks ago now, I forget. My initial thought was why am I pulling apart a car the works perfectly to transfer crap over to a horrible pos. I got to drive it to it's final resting place, probably one of the most fun I've had driving in a while. The thing had light truck tyres on the back so I had no problem doing some fully sick burnouts*. Felt a bit slow with the 2.72 diff in the back. (*spinning the wheels a little bit) Plan was to pick it up and leave it until a later date when I could be hosed doing some work. An hour after arriving reinforcements had been called and 4 of us were stripping down the engine bay of the XE.   I haven't looked all this poo poo up because it doesn't really matter but it was just standard falcon wagon with an optioned full instrument dash cluster. No power steer from factory either, the guy I bought it off did that.   The weber requires a gently caress load of vacuum lines apparently  First off was the bonnet and front seats, before I even noticed it someone had the tailshaft out. "gently caress it, we might as well pull the engine out" I was told.  First problem was what to do with the fan, it's a clutch fan (I think that's what it's called, idk) so you need something special to pull it out which we didn't have.  rip, sorry car, it's official you're being sold as scrap metal, made pulling it out simple  Had to pull the chain from my friend's boat anchor to use with the engine crane. He bought a levelling kit for the crane but as you'd expect the chains it came with don't work with it. Thanks Repco!  Pretty good effort for an unplanned engine removal I thought. Tired as poo poo afterwards though and then of loving course someone goes and says "I bet we could have that in your car and running tomorrow arvo". Noooooooooooo! rip my sanity, it was confirmed. We planned to meet back at 8am. 15,000km. $3000+. Under a year old. Getting removed from my car. I'm bad at cars   First time having the transmission out, the borg warner was a real pos  One big change with the C4, I couldn't find the linkage for a column shift so t-bar auto it had to be! My friend who owns the garage we were working in is a panel beater so I left this to him. All done by hand because the factory never even did a good job of it (I'm sure anyone that has pulled one of these floor shift humps off will agree).  Found a bunch of poo poo under the seats that wasn't mine too. The best thing being a rusty 2c piece. I assume it's the source of all my bad luck. It has since been removed. Getting the trans and engine in was the easy part. This was the last picture I took of us working on it because it got a bit painful after that.  Idiot (me) forgot that he needed to put in the power steering box before the engine went in. Made the job infinitely harder and forced us to pull the whole steering column so we could collapse the thing down with a metre long sledge hammer (I'm guessing that's a common panel beating tool?). Putting the column back in was great because while I was doing it I hear "Hey I found a bunch of exposed wires spliced into your ignition, I removed them, fix that maybe". The previous owner strikes back, why can't old people just go to a decent auto electrician? I did get around to soldering the poo poo out of them later on. While we were doing the power steering I found that the inside of my front tyres were close to bald. Alignment had gone out on me again, I really hate that poo poo. One thing I was worried about was the fuel return from the pump. The XC doesn't have a return but the XE does. Just a hard line back to the tank. gently caress doing that. So we got a T-piece and turned it back around right before the fuel filter. This ended up causing the fuel hose to kink and cut off fuel on my 3rd time driving it, lots of fun! The wiring became a problem once everything else was put together. There was a bunch of extra wires for poo poo that wasn't on the XC (mostly relating to the auto choke and a couple of extras from the alternator). We took a bit of a guess in the end because it was 8pm and we wanted to get it started. We guessed right! It was pretty much "Turn on the ignition and if you see smoke turn it off while I poke wires with this multimeter". I think there were a couple of other lovely things going on but I can't even really remember them. I was too tired. I remember breaking the handbrake cable somewhere along the line too, still need to replace that. Got it started just after 8pm and took it for a drive. Took these a few days after.    10/10 factory t-bar auto install. I still haven't been able to get a console for this.  It ran like poo poo for a couple of weeks but after an air filter change, a couple of ignition system replacements, and blocking off the EGR pipe (headers don't get drilled for the pipe, so it was sucking air) it runs pretty great. The only real problems right now are an oil leak from in between the block and transmission bellhousing, and it's starving for fuel at higher revs. I have no idea what to do with it. I don't really know if the return line is essential, if it isn't I'd buy an early XE pump. (From what I've read, early XE has fuel return off the carby, late had fuel return off the pump).
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Sep 19, 2014 14:39
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Hey, it runs again! I'm glad to see this car on the road. Why is your "scrap car" so not rusty aaaaaaaigh
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Sep 19, 2014 14:57
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You can't just tee the return line back into the feed line, otherwise the pressure regulation or overflow management doesn't work at all.
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Sep 19, 2014 16:06
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Seat Safety Switch posted:Hey, it runs again! I'm glad to see this car on the road. It doesn't look like it but there's rust in all of the pillars and under every bit of rubber on the car. It lived outside its whole life. I will admit that what is considered rusty over here is gently caress all rust anywhere else in the world. DJ Commie posted:You can't just tee the return line back into the feed line, otherwise the pressure regulation or overflow management doesn't work at all. That's becoming increasingly obvious every time I drive the car. Going to try the fuel pump without a return off the old engine, and if that's no good I'll be putting in a return line back to the tank. Speaking of running out of fuel, I went to the drags last night. On the first run it went like a rocket... ...for a few of seconds before the fuel bowl was empty. Coasted for 4 seconds or so and then the fuel started getting pumped back in. Got a high 22 from that one! Second run I learnt from my mistake and just before I was about to line it up over the water I kept the revs up. Decided I might as well spin the tyres a bit too, nothing special but apparently I got a bit of smoke, I was surprised it managed it honestly. Ran 17.9, didn't completely run out of fuel the second time but it was surging in 3rd and it was having trouble getting above 120. Here's the action shot 
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Sep 21, 2014 06:28
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The alloy head motor will take a bit of weight out of the front end. Do you notice anything with the steering?
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Sep 21, 2014 09:38
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I love seeing a 250 in action, makes me nostalgic for my Corty ....
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Sep 21, 2014 11:18
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Holy poo poo, it still lives!
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Sep 21, 2014 11:20
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XtaC posted:I love seeing a 250 in action, makes me nostalgic for my Corty ....
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Sep 22, 2014 09:52
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Can't really comment on how light the front end of the car feels now vs the cast iron head. Power steering went in with the new engine. I think I might have missed mentioning that. The alloy head and weber are great, once I sort the fuel lines out I'll throw in a bit more timing into the mix. It's sitting at factory setting at the moment which is I think is 6 degrees BTDC (that might not be factory for an XE, it was for an XC though).
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Sep 22, 2014 12:18
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Steering and front end feel are only peripherally related if you're driving fast enough.
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Sep 22, 2014 14:31
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It's funny how the old AU Fords look *a lot* like similar age EU Fords, only fatter.
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Sep 22, 2014 15:32
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There aint no understeer with 290cui and a heavy right foot .....You Am I posted:Mmm, pig understeer country
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Sep 23, 2014 07:14
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XtaC posted:There aint no understeer with 290cui and a heavy right foot ..... 250ci you mean
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Sep 23, 2014 13:23
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| # ? Apr 26, 2024 06:55 |
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Nidhg00670000 posted:It's funny how the old AU Fords look *a lot* like similar age EU Fords, only fatter. The older bigger (fatter) Au fords were based on American fords until they went totally their own way with more recent falcons. We certainly did have the EU fords down here (like capri, cortina and escort), but that ended in about 1980 when Au ford went with mazda after ford buying into them. So we didn't get any 1980s euro fords down here after that. Missing out on things like the more modern escort or sierra. Everything became mazda 323 or 626 based (laser, telstar, the new capri that is infamous), also small trucks and vans bravo/b2600 based so we had the 'mazda version' ranger, not the us ford ranger. They even had a go with the ford probe, a mazda mx6 chassis based coupe. Kind of still happening now, but to a lesser degree, (not just badge engineering), even though ford sold off most of their stake in mazda. e: Also forgot the fiesta. We didn't get that until about 2004, before that we had the "festiva" instead. In the 80s and 90s the first version mazda 121 based, second version AU ford marketed a kia. They also tried to sell the ford USA taurus here once, didn't go to well and they kept threatening us with it as a falcon replacement
Fo3 fucked around with this message at 15:01 on Sep 23, 2014 |
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Sep 23, 2014 14:38
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