MightyJoe

another boring update sorry. i spent 6 hrs (yes really) dismantling, cleaning and reassembling a f**king heater box. i can't believe it took so long but hey. i took it apart to the last spring clip. i presswure tested the heater core and air con core. one of the heater cores was poked so im glad i did it. i cleaned and greased every solenoid and moving part and then tested the lot. i also took the fan motor apart, greased the shaft (easy) and cleaned the brushes. it comes in hard now. its literally the best heater fan i've ever heard.  its as good as new.  bit of a bogus and timewasting update granted but the workshop is still full with paid work so i cant get the falcon in again yet.im hoping to have tues to get the sills welded in. fingers crossed. 

Factory air con bitches! 

ok so the bottom hose has been hacked off but i can braze another union on. its not a priority now but man this is so cool for the future. it holds pressure too cos i tested it. score. man i cant wait to be cruising in an ice cold ute, ice cold. cos thats how i roll. lol. 

nah i'm into the 4.1 for real monies now dude so thats the donk i'm sticking with. cheers though, if i hear about anyone needing one i'll send em your way. 

If it's a 4 cylinder rwd originally ford zetec with a Sierra t5 behind it. Bike carbs and cams will see 160ish bhp . But your gonna have to spend cash some where. 

Triumph straight 6. Cheap as chips to buy and maintain. Not that there's anything to go wrong with them. Bit shit power side compared to the other options already stated but it's an easier conversion in my opinion. As there's zero electrics reauired to make them run. Just hard to justify the cert cost for a $300 motor and box. 

Thanks I'll look into that I'm keen on the tuning bit . Bronze I'll get some pictures but I just chuced mine together a bit of trial and error until it ran right. 

bit of a boring update, did the same as yesterday but in the fuel tank access panel..i took the tank out and was well chuffed to find it pretty good under there. few scabs but no holes. so, wire wheel, rust converter etc etc i'll chassis undercoat it in a few days once the rust converter has done its magic.  i need to get some sills asap, then the tank can go back in and it'll be running again cos its a heavy bitch to be pushing around. also a mate dropped off 2 more heater cores so i can hopefully plug and play with the dash now. we'll see but it looks heaps easier from what i can see. thats the plan this week to get that in and working. heres hoping. 

12 hours ago, The Bronze said:

that rust situation looks familiar. I should post some progress pics of mine. surprised you're swapping in an xe dash - the odometers fuck out routinely I've been through 3. 

yeah get some pictures up please! i need inspiration and tbh, i just like looking at falcons. lol 

I actually didn't realise they had weak clocks. Nah the xf dash is crap. It weight half what the xe does and the clocks are just nasty. Retro but not in The good way. I have some s pack clocks with volts and oil pressure in them so id rather get that working properly anyway tbh. Also if the Speedo drive is in the back of these (I haven't checked) I'll get it recalibrated to read correctly with my wheels. The rust thing I was expecting. Meh. Its an old Ford man I'm not that naive anymore lol I'm chuffed to have not found more. 

Today i got the dash out, the XE is well different to the XF which is understandable tbh, but still annoying lol. gonna take some thinking to get it all to work. plenty have done it but theres fuck all in the way of info with regards to wiring diagrams etc that i can find, but i'll make it work.

spent most of the day then removing trim and getting the soggy sound deadening out with a heat gun and scraper. left it with some rust converter doing the good stuff. 

rubber mat, yum! 

niiiiice! 

bit of a score this i reckon. early bench seat. the later ones had the headrests integrated so it could be an XA/B/C / Fuckknows. but yeah. its in good nick .

Been a while without an update on this. i've got into it over the easter wekend this far after collecting a few more parts. the head is still in the machine shop. spoke to a cam guy and once i pull my motor out i'm dropping that off to him and he'll regrind it and supply springs and lifters. 

yesterday i took off all the plastidip paint which wasn't quite as bad as i was expecting. it was tedious but if its a thick coat it pulls off like a balloon skin. 

i went in this morning to do the dash and start grinding back the trouble spots but stan turned up a day early so i ditched the dash job half way through and just got into that. 

Niiiice bit of bodgery there. masking tape under the bog. mmmmm. tasty. 

Lunch! 

so after patching the passenger sill which was way better than the drivers side i kept grinding and finding more and more holes. rather than have a patchwork stan and i decided that i'll buy a set of outer sills and replace the lot. that way it also takes the guesswork out of the inner sills which we're still not sure about. i blew them out with an airline, and put as much rust converter in as i could but its still an unknown. although it'll set me back another week i'm happier knowing that it'll be 100% under there. 

Heading towards that goal! 

thats decent money. there was one on the facebook buy sell last night too. complete minus dissy with c4 for 2500. i always manage to eat my words! .  

well i dropped the head off at the machine shop today. they dont do porting anymore cos it wasn't profitable for them so he tells me, a bit pants but meh. saved me some dollars anyway. he did tell me the fella they send everyone to but, bleugh. na mate. its a daily, i kind of took that as a sign to not go silly with this one. so hes gonna crack test it, pressure test it to see if the valves are sealing ( if not hes gonna re seat those) skim it, new stem seals. boom! well hopefully not boom but yeah. 

Tomorrow or fri i'm gonna chase down the cam regrind and see if i can get it all together ready for next weekend. 

ah ok. i get confused with the fairmont/ falcon differences. especially when theres the ltd thing thrown into the mix. i grew up with granadas and cortinas, the mk2 granada is quite like the xe in a few ways. 

Ah well mines nasty white plates cos its an XF. i did buy an XE fairmont with some bangin' black plates but apparently you cant transfer plates like a p plate which is a massive shame. and do you mean an ltd? not many of them about anymore

i got in trouble for falconing everywhere when i bought mine, i spose cos they're not considered properly old skool, but now old threads are being dredged up. i love it. got any pics of this one Bronze? 

for arguments sake, yeah. you know of one?  but, the parts you listed as absent come to 1500 ish bucks on the open market anyway. 

i know you have one in your shed and i've just committed to the old 250  lol. 

also took the head off that one in the pic today, its clean. took the cam out, and it was in 2 pieces lol. guess i know why the motor stopped! haha 

Na thanks for the offer but I got rid of the one that was on it. And shut if you can find a complete clevo for under 500 bucks ill take it! Everyone i asked over a 6 week period just shrugged and said they don't have much of that stuff anymore. 

still not much about, but tbh i htought the windsors were worth more coin, not really sure. i'm kinda comitted to the 4.1 idea now though. 

Tell me about it. Theyre crazy money for some reason .We'll I've not even been able to find 1 for sale through word of mouth. So I'm left with the trademe options.  There's the fella from southland that wants 980 bucks for 2 heads that literally look like they've been stored underwater or the block and heads up north that's had a complete blue repaint recently to hide whatever terminal problem popped up when he tried to rebuild it probably. That's 1700. I was chatting to an Aussie fella too on Facebook that bought a 2004 barra turbo car complete, 400 Aussie bucks. He's putting it in his xd saloon. im a bit jealous! 

Pistureless update! sorry fullas. 

plans for the engine have changed. i'm still paying out for my cortina parts and really cant justify a V8 in this one. clevos are going for strong money and i cant afford or justify that for a daily at the moment so i'm gonna tweak the 4.1. 

i've got a replacement flexi plate cos i've stripped a tooth off mine and its a pain in the arse to keep getting out and rotating the engine by hand when it hits that 'sweet spot' and makes that wheeeaaaaa  noise when you try and start it haha. 

i've got a replacement alloy head that i'm going to get polished and maybe worked a little bit, but mostly just checked over, maybe skimmed a bit and a port polish. 

i bought a set of headers today 3-2-1. with 2.5" outlet flange. 

got the 34 adm to go on. 

gonna rip off the viscous clutch and run a set of e30 twin electric fans a mate has

and a cam. i'm thinking stage 2 or 3. so a tow cam.  that should all happen in a month if everything goes nice. then its onto paint prep. 

should give me a nice powerful but still massively useable daily. 

i'm also on the look out for an XG rear axle for the lsd and rear disks to show off behind my riyums!

thoughts and comments?   

Joe.

small update... 

bolt on parts bolted on. 

theres 2 cert places in chch, i've been told avoid the riccarton one as hes a hard bastard. gets the hump if you drive the car in as it should be on a trailer. thats the kind of person i try and avoid come wof time let alone cert / revin.  i just dont need that kind of negativity in my life. we clearly wont see eye to eye lol. 

*edit*

sorry, sharn alert and all that.  has nothing to do with original post. just spam 

chur fulla!  lol 

mayte i'd be honored to have OS royalty have a beer on my tailgate, maybe i'll get you to sign it too eh haha. 

na mate, seriously i'm stoked shes through the wof and since you've said that about the carb (youre the second one) its now a no1 priority i reckon. 

Got a wof today, not so exciting but very nervous putting a relatively unknown 30 year old ford straight in for a wof. still. all good. Also, in day to day exciting things happening i won this for the starting bid of $50. (plus post, but we dont talk about that) i had to wait a week for it and was expecting some sharp shooting sniper to have a cheeky tinkle at the last second but nah. all good. she's mine. 

so this is the proper carb for the XF, a 34 ADM.  Mine has a stromberg on it at the moment, from an XD and earlier. its ok, but single barrel and a bit pants really. it also has a fuel weep underneath from (i think) the bottom of the pump jet. not enough to drip, but enough to be damp when you run your finger past it, so it has to go. once i've rebuilt the weber it should be a different car to drive again. she's gonna be mint mayte. so yeah, good times happening. now she's legal again for a while im ging to put the XE front on just after new years and then start prepping it for paint.