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Big Daddy Keynes posted:(except perhaps the lightburn zeta) For any Yanks or Poms reading this that aren't aware of this automotive excretion, the Lightburn Zeta had a petrol tank directly in front of the dashboard, gravity-feeding the engine. The petrol gauge consisted of a glass (yes, glass) tube that was plumbed directly into the tank, with graduated marks on it that showed you directly how much fuel you had.
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Sep 15, 2016 10:14
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Memento posted:For any Yanks or Poms reading this that aren't aware of this automotive excretion, the Lightburn Zeta had a petrol tank directly in front of the dashboard, gravity-feeding the engine. The petrol gauge consisted of a glass (yes, glass) tube that was plumbed directly into the tank, with graduated marks on it that showed you directly how much fuel you had. Isn't that pretty much the Model A setup?
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Sep 15, 2016 10:34
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Raluek posted:Isn't that pretty much the Model A setup? It is. Almost positive several other cars of the same era used the same setup. But the Model A is 1920s tech. The google says the Zeta was 1960s.  Making it better, wikipedia claims the tubing running to the indicator was plastic. Doesn't plastic get super brittle when it gets old? 
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Sep 15, 2016 11:40
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Memento posted:For any Yanks or Poms reading this that aren't aware of this automotive excretion, the Lightburn Zeta had a petrol tank directly in front of the dashboard, gravity-feeding the engine. The petrol gauge consisted of a glass (yes, glass) tube that was plumbed directly into the tank, with graduated marks on it that showed you directly how much fuel you had. Ah yes, the Zeta - turn the key the other direction and the engine literally runs in reverse. A good candidate for the worst car evern made
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Sep 15, 2016 12:34
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Fastest stock 4 door of that era was the 280SL 6.3 Merc. Aunty had one, I had it up to 140mph. The HOEY was only marginally faster with the rev limiter disconnected though. Anyway I know which car I want to be in above 140... The XY's get a bit floaty above the ton unless prepped properly.
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Sep 15, 2016 13:35
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I just want to point out that A: this is awesome, keep posting and B: Aussies have VERY strange slang. Why do you shorten everything?
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Sep 15, 2016 16:54
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Everything I've read here makes me want a zeta. Someone post one to the uk please thanks.
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Sep 15, 2016 17:25
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Shampoo posted:I just want to point out that Cos we get to the point
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Sep 15, 2016 23:29
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wildemere posted:Fastest stock 4 door of that era was the 280SL 6.3 Merc. No it wasnt, The HO banged the limiter just above where the Merc gave up and it also got there faster. With the limiter on the HO gone, you were looking at a good extra 15-20kph. And of course, Wheels had proof of the limted top speed http://s171.photobucket.com/user/Hergest/media/gtho.jpg.html At Bathurst - and remember at the time these were all series production, they were all genuine road cars with ONLY factory options and many of them had number plates and legal road rego - The HO was likely closer to 260kph (160Moon units) at the bottom of Conrod. Sure, blueprinted but blueprinted only means built to best Factory spec. No four door could do that at the time. But true, handling and brakes were a slight issue for high speed. CAT INTERCEPTOR fucked around with this message at 00:44 on Sep 16, 2016 |
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Sep 16, 2016 00:28
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Unrelated falconchat is cool with me. I've been a bit stuck on progress, got a flat on the highway in my 944 and had to replace tyres when I was already broke, then my computer died on me so I had to replace a few parts. The XC decided it needed rego too. I need to get a booth to paint in which won't cost too much but I need to replace the tie rods, ball joints, and every other loving part on the 944. In no money required news, got the ecu flashed so it now has the security deactivated. One thing I asked them to set up was the speed sensor for the ecu to come off the transmission instead of the abs. I thought this would cause it not to change gearsbut it still does. I'm guessing it has some sort of backup without a signal. Measured up the BA diff to see how it copmares to the xc one, there's a 3cm difference, so 1.5cm each side which means that's a loving perfect fit. The wheels have the same stud pattern just different required offset. The important part was the location of the spring perches, they measured up to be the same. I'll just need to modify the tailshaft to fit, otherwise some wider tyres and it will be perfect. If I really want to I can go find an XR6 lsd diff but this one will do for now.
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Sep 16, 2016 02:04
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The HO Falcon was a homologation special, built to win on sunday sell on monday in a small market. the Merc was a hand built special made for the autobahn in Germany & rich fanatics. The GTHO Falcon was a 4 speed manual with 350+ hp, maybe 380hp. A brutal, made for the job machine not for the faint hearted driver. It got to 140mph only with the tallest diff ratio available. On shorter tracks with more normal gears it was only a 130mph car. The Merc did 137 stock. No other ratios were offered. The Merc was also a 4 speed Auto, would have been quicker manual. But they are different cars. The Merc had a real walnut dashboard & trim with leather seats. The Merc was a German exercise in a ridiculously overpowered luxury saloon. It had adjustable airbags, aircon, dry sump, overhead cams, alloy block & 50ci more displacement. It was probably half a ton heavier though. But It was a better drive on the road. But wouldn't win Bathurst. On the race track the Falcon gets it done, on an extended high speed run through some challenging terrain the Falcon would be left behind. Its horses for courses, the Merc was never a racer but fast. The GTHO Falcon was a weapon though. I've driven the Merc & passengered in a HO a few times. My dad took a new one for a test drive out of the Ford Dealer in Rockdale back in the day. The salesman poo poo his daks as old Dad did a 200+m burnout at 6000RPM next to the railway tracks behind the dealership there. A chick up the street had a boyfriend with the famous "HO" badge on the glove box, the only identifier of the model. I was in awe as a youngster. Of course a few laps of the suburb were done... They are both great cars though. Some people say that HO stood for High Output. Who knows. The Clevo's in them were certainly very special compared to the regular 351's. wildemere fucked around with this message at 04:00 on Sep 16, 2016 |
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Sep 16, 2016 03:53
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In Falcon news, the last one just rolled off the line at Broadmeadows. Looks like it was an XR8. Truly, the last of the V8 Interceptors 
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Oct 7, 2016 02:42
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I'm still not on to the good part of this build, sorry to disappoint. Decided to paint without a booth and felt like I should be on the gun rather than getting my mate to do it. Got both panels sanded back to get rid of the runs then got the top coat down. Looked great up until we tried to get the orange peel out of it and found that my mate used more thinner instead of the hardener when he mixed it for me. So it was all still wet. Thinners took care of that luckily and the past two weekends I got the top coat down again and sanded and buffed it.   Still need a bit more polishing but for a backyard job and one I did myself at that, I don't think it could be any better. It's like a green mirror, I'm amazed at how nice it came out. The bonnet is up next, I was a bit light with the coats of paint so there's a fair bit of orange peel in it but nothing a few hours of work can't fix. In barra swap news, after Christmas I'll be getting a loom put together for me. A few guys on facebook popped up recently doing looms for a very fair price in their spare time. Seems like a safer option than spending 10 years working out what each wire does myself.
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Nov 21, 2016 09:24
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Finished both panels off finally, did a 12 hour day working on them to get both on the car.  My arms are killing me but I can't complain about the results, I've seen worse professional paint jobs.
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Nov 28, 2016 10:42
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 That looks incredible. If I was still in brissy id ask to see it in person (and to discover your secrets). What's the plan for the rest of the body panels?
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Nov 28, 2016 13:47
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That does look tidy. Nice work with the paint, and keeping the old XC tidy
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Nov 28, 2016 22:23
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Daaang. That looks great! When you're done, come to America and paint my green sedan 
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Nov 29, 2016 02:23
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Whilst we are playing wave the phalis... The Head Vogon (the CI and KB male parental unit) worked on the Phase 4 GTHO that used to live at Ermington. Dan's stated he helped switch the gearbox between a phase 3 and the phase 4 (close ratio gearset in one, open set in the other) We of course thought this was a load of cods wallop till we read the Wheels article on the history of the 4 GTHO phase 4's.... It had a gearbox swap with a Phase 3 when being used for drag racing... When it lived at Ermington! I have never doubted the Vogon again....
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Nov 29, 2016 23:55
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Thanks guys, I'm still really shocked at how nice they came out, pretty good for a $20 spray gun in a filthy shed with a first time painter. Now I just have to get the same finish on the rest of the car! Starting on the front guards this weekend. My mate has an xc ute shell sitting around with guards on it so they'll get put on my car while we do them. Bright yellow so it'll look great. I think the hard part is over, unless there's surprises under bog in the body, the rest shouldn't need as much work. All things considered the car is pretty rust free. Boaz MacPhereson posted:When you're done, come to America and paint my green sedan Buy me a plane ticket and you've got yourself a painter
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Dec 1, 2016 23:04
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Finish looks awesome dude. Especially for a home job. Can't wait to see the rest of the car.
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Dec 2, 2016 11:55
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Plans changed a bit and my mates all agreed to spend a week on the rest of the bodywork with me while we're all on Christmas holidays. Boxing day (yesterday) we started by pulling a bunch of stuff off the car. The plan is to have all the panels and body prepared for paint by the end of the week. Here's the starting point, I've been driving around with the yellow guards on for a couple of weeks. People look at me funny.  One of my guards was actually cut at the front and had another front welded onto it, the work was fine but we decided because we're going to all this effort it's best to get another one and use that instead. Another mate of mine had one spare which he donated to me. The only poo poo part of it was the eyebrow chrome mould for that guard turned out to be some lovely stick on chrome so it's something I have to hunt down. The same guy is letting me borrow one for a while because they're impossible to get and his car is still a rusty shell. This one had a bit of rust in the bottom as most do, so we used part of the old one which was in good condition. It still needed a bit of work to get the metal straight, it had a bit of accident damage.  Removing bits and pieces off the car.    In the interest of doing things right this time around we pulled off part we he done some patch work to a couple of years ago. At first I was a bit worried about it but having seen other peoples cars and how bad theirs has been, mine is pretty loving good. It's probably why my feet get wet when it rains.  Apart from those holes there isn't any other rust there, we've since cut it back a bit further and it was all clean around the air vent. Part of fixing that section means taking out the windscreen, which I didn't really want to do. Better to sacrifice it to fix the rust problems though.  The guards are almost complete too   Just before finishing up today we stripped back some paint on the left rear 1/4 panel. Turns out it's had a new panel welded in - very likely in the 80s because it's only got one layer of paint on there so it was a new panel from Ford. It's most likely the reason the car was resprayed. Apart from the rear door on the left side that whole side was hosed. Replaced that guard, the front door is unusable, and now the rear 1/4. I'll grab a picture of that tomorrow once all the paint is off it. The repair work on the rear quarter looks okay but it's got some laziness to it, around the weld it shrunk a bit so they've just put on a thick layer of bog. It looks like we might be able to hammer it out a bit to get a nicer shape to it and use a bit less filler in the final product.
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Dec 27, 2016 09:28
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Getting a bit closer, there's a lot of sanding required with the 6 layers of paint and all, plus the 3mm of bog. This is the good side of the car, very minor dings with filler in them. Slowly going for the warboys interceptor look!  The other side of the car, as I mentioned before, is a different story. Here's the rear quarter weld. The metal is sunk right in, fixing that up with less filler is on the cards.  Here's the passengers side front door, the only one with rust in it. It's had a couple of repairs before and had a solid layer of bog in it, at least 3mm. The problem with that was the rear door had to match it, so the rear door ended up being fine under the 3mm of bog it had on it. We're going to use the skin from another door and keep the current door frame because it's still pretty solid. Random fact - XB doors are almost literally just two pieces of sheet metal in between you and whatever is crashing into you, the XC doors while they are the same door had intrusion bars added - still not really that safe but better than sheet metal.  No more rust up front. Still needs to be cleaned up but no more leaks!  I can't remove this tail light, the plastic housing cracks and the metal studs that are supposed to be stuck in there just spin with the nuts. Towbar removed for good too. 
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Dec 28, 2016 12:29
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wow great progress
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Dec 28, 2016 21:10
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Lookit those widdle tiny rear tires  I'm guessing that the tire in the trunk is the ghost of christmas future?
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Dec 28, 2016 21:34
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Wait? A Falcon without a tow bar? That's like a Commodore ute without a Southern Cross sticker on the back window. My Falcon ute doesn't have a tow bar either
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Dec 28, 2016 23:44
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Raluek posted:I'm guessing that the tire in the trunk is the ghost of christmas future? That's a spare off my 944 since the other side exploded on the highway but I'll be going for a similar size once the new rear end is in, I'll probably get some wide steelies. You Am I posted:Wait? A Falcon without a tow bar? That's like a Commodore ute without a Southern Cross sticker on the back window. It's almost unaustralian to remove it Couple of extra pictures, doesn't look like much progress has been made but there were a few problem areas that needed to be fixed up. Had to get a rust repair section for the bottom of the left rear quarter and got into it a bit with a hammer but it's looking pretty good now. The roof took me a days worth of sanding to get all the paint off, the acrylic would melt onto the sanding discs and the enamel under it was really dry and just took a long time to get off.   The deadline is now Friday to have paint on it. On schedule so far, still heaps to do and we're doing short days because it's 45 degrees in the shed.
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Dec 31, 2016 09:10
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The deadline is out the window, there ended up being a bit more rust to fix up and some of the filler needed to be redone. I got lazy with the pictures, working 10 days straight started to get to me pretty badly. Here's a few from a repair of the lower left rear quarter in random stages of progress, luckily for me my mate had a rare spares repair section sitting around from a couple of shells he bought.    We got the door jambs done, which is around the point I got lazy with the pictures. Our priorities were a bit off and we kept doing random repairs on the car which I think is what killed the deadline. We're sort of back on track now, the car is now in primer and ready for a bit of sanding.      It looks like there's a lot of filler in it but it's all pretty thin, much less than we took out of it. It should come out pretty nice in the end! No show car but definitely a solid backyard job.
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Jan 5, 2017 11:24
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Got the paint on early today as we figured it was better to leave it to harden up for a full week before touching it again. Came out pretty well.    My mate ended up spraying it, the gun kept loving up in my hands for some reason. That's what you get with sub $30 spray guns. Has a few runs but nothing too serious, it should all come out. I expect it'll look as good as the bonnet and boot lid once it's all sanded and buffed.
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Jan 7, 2017 16:26
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Looking good!
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Jan 7, 2017 17:50
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Lookin good and that's a wicked nice color.
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Jan 8, 2017 22:27
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Memento posted:For any Yanks or Poms reading this that aren't aware of this automotive excretion, the Lightburn Zeta had a petrol tank directly in front of the dashboard, gravity-feeding the engine. The petrol gauge consisted of a glass (yes, glass) tube that was plumbed directly into the tank, with graduated marks on it that showed you directly how much fuel you had. The car, if I'm remembering correctly, also had a wonderful Z shaped frame to save on manufacturing costs, and iirc the frame/chassis shape was the reason for calling it a Zeta.  I don't remember where I read it, but because of this weirdo frame setup the handling was absolute misery.
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Jan 9, 2017 00:37
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Been a bit busy with my Grandma dying and then I had to go in for a hospital visit but I'm back to my normal life again now. The car was stuck in my friends shed for a few extra weeks because of all of that which I felt pretty bad about but he was cool with it. Finally got it all buffed and reassembled. Still needs a bit of clean up plus I need to replace a bunch of poo poo the broke when I took it off the car. Anyway, I'm very loving happy to present pictures of a car that can be driven on the roads legally again, it also looks good while doing it:       
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Feb 5, 2017 09:49
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That XC looks great, good to see an old 1970s Falcon being saved. But for the love of Pete get rid of those ED Futura alloy wheels
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Feb 5, 2017 10:14
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Wow. Stunning job! Looks amazing. I hope you're proud 
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Feb 5, 2017 12:13
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Sorry to hear about your grandmother.  The car looks awesome.
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Feb 5, 2017 16:26
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Nearly looks showroom.
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Feb 5, 2017 21:23
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Thanks everyone! I've been a bit worried driving it everywhere but once I went over it pretty closely theres a few defects so if I get a chip from driving, it won't bother me as much. That stuff can always be fixed up, I don't really want to leave it in the garage all the time. I'm in the process of ridding myself of the 944, I had my fun with it and now I want something a bit more suited for taking to work. I'll probably grab a BA ute and use the change for the XC. You Am I posted:But for the love of Pete get rid of those ED Futura alloy wheels I'll have you know that they're optional EF Falcon wheels! They'll be gone in a few weeks, I'm just going to get some 15" steelies. Seat Safety Switch posted:Sorry to hear about your grandmother. Thanks, it was kind of sad finishing the car off a couple of weeks after it happened because she actually liked the car quite a bit. She had a couple of pictures of me with the car she took up on her wall and whenever she would talk to me she was always interested in hearing how far along it was.
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Feb 6, 2017 23:36
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That paint came out really nice.
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Feb 6, 2017 23:42
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Yeah that looks amazing, fantastic job.
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Feb 7, 2017 01:18
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Turned out great I would be proud of that
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Feb 7, 2017 01:58
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