PhilMeUp

I hate it when I try and read stuff without punctuation and forget to breathe at the same time.

I work nights/sleep days. Medical appointment this morning meant minimal sleep. I actually left on time for once, instead of cursing and leaving too late. A few hundred metres up the road, and the FPV Tornado ran out of petrol. Said it had 12km left. Lying bastard. Book taxi, go home, get jerry can. I used the last spare petrol in my pressure washer last night. Off to servo in taxi. Obsessively careful putting petrol in jerry can so that there's no petrol smell in taxi. Got ute running. 40 minutes late to medical appointment. Bugger.

Contact Ford with the VIN and find out. I thought it was illegal to downgrade brakes from what was fitted at the factory? You can upgrade, but not downgrade. Therefore, if a dealership has removed the Brembo stuff then they would be obliged to supply and fit it. Dealership will be far from happy. Tough luck.

If you're ever getting parts off a wreck then grab the fuses while you're at it as part of the deal. I haven't needed one of these yet, but I have plenty of them at home. $9 is still an insult for a cheap fuse... swing by a wrecking yard or private wreck and see if they'll give you one for a dollar or two. An auto electrician should also have them there. Or Repco.

Who's here? Call me... 0418 922 500 LOTS of cars here. Big turnout

Ah, so if I go... take the licenced one instead of the unlicenced one. Edit: FFS, someone in the Kensington area order a f**king taxi so that I can do one more job before I park the taxi for a few hours. 41 minutes vacant is getting a tad excessive....

Slightly tempted to park the taxi for a few hours and take one of the Tornadoes out for a drive. Can't afford the loss of income... but... What are the cons of going along tonight?

Nup, I haven't got one of them. sh*tloads of Falcon parts. No Range Rover stuff.

What part do you need?

Because he was recently spotted in a silver Mazda Tribute, blocking a left-turn lane.

I'll have another look at the turbo-to-manifold nuts next week, but we need another maintenance day where we can all watch (and learn) how Luke does this. Yep, I used to do that. Water gets past the front coil cover bolts, and then drops down into the spark plug holes. Been there, done that, many times. Hence removing the fibre washers and putting heat-proof o-rings on the bolts instead. The o-rings don't last forever, but they're cheap and easy to replace. One of these days I'll find some good, extra-thick fibre washers that will water-seal the holes permanently. When washing Falcon engine bays, I do a quick spray of water onto the coil cover, but then I aim the hose away, lean over and blow the water out of the coil cover bolt recesses in the coil cover. I like keeping my engine bays clean. I used to stuff up a lot and get water into the spark plug holes, but I've got that figured out these days. I use a garden hose (ie low pressure). The only time I've used high pressure is for specific gunk build-ups (eg near the engine mounts, behind the power steering pump). Apart from spark plugs, this is the first time that I've had water-related trouble. Now I know to check for that plastic cap on all Falcons. Even without washing the engine bay, if that cap is missing then dirt and grime will still get into the cog area. My taxi has done 532,000km. The engine bay looks almost new. Makes it much easier (and less frustrating) to work on, and if I need to do something out on the road then I don't get myself covered in mess. I need to get some current photos of the interior. Looking at the photos of this car now, and comparing them to the photos that I took when I originally bought the car, is rather interesting.

No matter what I did, I kept getting a P0121 code. Which means a throttle position sensor problem. P0221 also appeared a couple of times, which is also TPS related. I spent ages searching through forums. There was nothing on here about P0121. There were a few posts on AFF about it, but no actual solutions. I spent ages this week staring blankly at the engine bay, thinking there must be some wire that's not right, so some plug that's come loose. Looked everywhere. But, as we can all now see, the solution was actually quite simple. And, in my case, preventable (ie the missing plastic cap).

It took me a while, but I eventually managed to re-assemble the Egas throttle body. The plastic end clips into the hole in the sidecover. The sidecover and throttle body. At the bottom of the sidecover (ie black plastic) you can see the cog that rotates the bigger cog (which rotates the butterfly). That small cog is connected to an electric motor, which is out of sight. I removed the outer cover on the sidecover to reveal the electric motor that runs it all. I tried rotating the small cog on the Tornado throttle body. Almost jammed up solid. The matching cog on the Egas throttle body rotated easily. Problem solved. Almost weeks of frustration and anger, all because one little electric motor had died. On the right is the Tornado throttle body. Water has gotten past the sidecover and corroded the electric motor shaft, jamming it up. On the left is the Egas throttle body, which has been untouched by water. You can see the difference. I was starting to feel just a tad more optimistic about things by now. So, for anyone getting P0121 or P0221 diagnostic trouble codes, have a got at replacing either the entire throttle body or just the sidecover (and electric motor) part. I’m guessing that the car computer is putting things together and they’re not adding up. The accelerator pedal is pressed downward a certain amount, but there isn’t the corresponding amount of movement in the throttle body butterfly (as measured by the throttle position sensor). The car computer decides that something isn’t right and the ETC (electronic throttle control) light appears on the dashboard. As I’ve had the same P0121 and P0221 error codes on my other Tornado (ie the green one that will be replacing this one), I’ll be pulling that throttle body apart in the near future and having a look. At least now I know how it all works, and what to look for. You can see the signs of previous moisture in the Tornado throttle body. I cleaned out what I could, but made extra sure that the cog teeth were clean to prevent future friction. Thanks to my practice with the Egas throttle body, it didn’t take long to re-assemble the Tornado throttle body. A close-up showing how the tabs on the plastic end fit into the slots in the sidecover. I also grabbed the plastic cap from the Egas throttle body. In case you hadn’t figured it out by now, this is what caused the problem. That cap was missing on the Tornado throttle body, and I’ve washed the engine bay several times this year. Water has gotten past that plastic end and into the throttle body area. That water has then corroded the shaft on the electric motor, seizing it up. I now know to check on every Falcon that I ever touch to make sure that there is a plastic cap on the side of the throttle body. The butterfly then rotated when pushed with my fingers. It was locked up solid before. The intake manifold, before putting the throttle body back in place. The gasket was still good. Having gotten so close to possibly having my car fixed, I wasn’t going to stuff it all up by dropping one of the bolts at the last minute. I used some needle-nose pliers to insert the bottom two bolts for the throttle body. I tightened up the four bolts and attached the two cables - one for the TPS and one for the throttle body electric motor. The butterfly still rotated when pushed with my fingers. I started the car… and sure enough, it idled perfectly. Fixed! I was ecstatic. After almost two weeks of frustration, I had this thing running properly again. And the solution didn’t cost a cent. Even better. I celebrated by heading into the city, sitting down at a 24 hour restaurant and writing all this stuff.

Thursday, 15th October, 2015 It occurred to me this afternoon that despite the huge number of hours that I’ve put into this car so far, I hadn’t changed the spark plugs. Heck, I hadn’t even checked them. Until recently I had never even removed the crossover manifold. By now I was well practiced at it. With the crossover manifold removed, the coil cover came off. I removed the six coils and was surprised to see water on the rear one. Water had obviously gotten in there one time when I washed the engine bay, but not enough water to get down to the spark plug and short it out. The old spark plugs. General consensus everywhere is that the standard Ford spark plugs are the ones to use. I get this stuff wholesale, so that worked out cheaper for me as well. The part number for the Ford spark plugs is AGSP22YE09. There was the problem of how to dry out the moisture in the rear spark plug hole. I couldn’t get to it physically, so put my battery-powered Ryobi blower to use. This actually worked well, and the spark plug hole was dry in a couple of minutes. I took the coils inside and removed the rubbers. Using some CRC Electrical Contact Cleaner (expensive, but good) I cleaned the copper end on each coil. I wanted to ensure a good contact between coil and spark plug. Apart from spraying each coil end, I also used cotton sticks to clean inside the end of each coil rubber. I put the rubbers back on the coils, and put some dielectric grease in the end of each coil. Whilst ordering the spark plugs and various other parts for my taxis today, I figured that I’d better add a PCV to my collection of spares. Stuff the taxis, it can go on the Tornado. I was desperate to get this thing running properly, so was trying anything and everything that I could think of. The new PCV, plugged into the hose. Despite the amount of water on the rear coil and in the spark plug hole, there was no sign of moisture underneath the coil cover. I’ve never removed a throttle body from a car before, but I stared at it for a bit and concluded that it couldn’t be that difficult. I removed the rubber boot and loosened the top two bolts. Then I got really adventurous and removed the bottom two bolts. I was terrified of dropping a bolt down into the engine back so held a magnet next to the socket as I removed each bolt. It turned out that the magnet didn’t work on the bolts. However, it did catch the socket when it slid off the end of the extension bar, preventing the socket from dropping down, never to be seen again. At least I got something right this week. This was all new territory for me, so I got the Egas LPG throttle body and sat down with both of them. One thing that I had known all week was that the butterfly in the Tornado throttle body wouldn’t move. I figured that it probably should, but wasn’t sure because it’s run by an electric motor. That Egas throttle body suddenly came in very handy. I pushed the butterfly, and it moved quite easily. Thus, I concluded that the Tornado butterfly was also meant to move. Oh. Wow. After a week of ongoing frustration I was finally starting to realise why the engine wouldn’t run properly. I could see that there was an electric motor on the side of each throttle body. The next question was whether the Egas motor would fit on the Tornado throttle body. Yep, same part numbers on the plastic. VP3L3U-9N825-AF was on each one. Goody. Finally, starting to get somewhere. My next move was to remove the electric motor from the Egas throttle body. This is held on by five Torx T20 screws. The sidecover came off, but I wasn’t quick enough to watch how the spring attached to each side. Time to figure that out. I saw that there are tabs on the outside of plastic end bit. The end bit plugs into the sidecover, but is prevented from rotating by the plastic tabs. The spring had a small loop in one end, which plugs into the side of the cog. That cog is connected to the butterfly inside the throttle body. The spring is kept loaded to keep the butterfly shut, and the electric motor overcomes this to rotate the butterfly when the accelerator pedal in the car is pushed. Before doing anything with the Tornado throttle body (and messing things up), I had a go at re-assembling the Egas one. This was difficult - the cog end of the spring would slip out of place too easily. I ended up bending that loop over a bit more with some pliers to help prevent it from slipping out of the cog. I eventually figured out that the way to do it was to stretch the spring out, get it attached at each end (ie cog end and sidecover end) and then rotate the sidecover. This created the required tension on the spring, and the trick was to prevent the spring from springing loose before I got the sidecover bolt holes to line up with the holes in the throttle body.

Wednesday, 14th October, 2015 With the Tornado unable to go anywhere I figured I might as well wash it. That was about all I could do with it. After spending a few hours this week trying to figure out why the engine wouldn’t run properly, I needed something positive about this car. My focus on this car the whole time has been on mechanical issues and the interior (ie the driving experience). The exterior was always a low priority, but now that the paint chips had been sorted out the car did look a lot better. After washing it, I was way too lazy to go over it with a chamois. Stuff it, I got out my petrol-powered Stihl blower to blow-dry the car. That actually worked fairly well. The Tornado was starting to look good now. Damn shame that it doesn’t drive. Huge amounts of frustration. You’ll notice that there are currently six BF Falcons here. Yes, six. This place is a friggin’ car yard right now. - The two Tornados (the replacement green one is in the background). - The silver wagon on the lawn is my girlfriend’s ex-taxi. She spat it recently and bought a Camry. - That blue BF sedan’s owner drives one of my taxis for dayshift. That taxi is a BFII sedan. Actually, that means that if both day drivers were to be here at the same time then there would be seven BF Falcons here at once. - Across the road, the champaign-coloured wagon is an ex-taxi that belongs to the day driver for my taxi. - And finally, my taxi, a BFIII wagon. It’s like I’m running some sort of orphanage for BF Falcons here. Except for the Camry Hybrid that I bought this week (obscured by the tree). Quite likely the most boring and soul-less thing on wheels that the human race has ever created. The engine in my taxi died a while ago, just shy of 500,000km. It is extremely rare for a Barra motor to expire, so I’m curious to find out why that one suddenly started making very fatal bottom-end noises. I know the basics of an engine, but not enough to pull this one apart and diagnose exactly what went wrong with it. Sooner or later I’ll ask around and find someone who will stand behind me as I dismantle it, and we’ll figure out what the fault was. I’ll do this in the back of the ute, and then I can dump the engine off at a rubbish tip by pushing it out of the back of the ute. I’ll get the car polished in the near future. Once that’s done, I’ll put the replacement Tornado badges on the sideskirts.

Monday, 12th October, 2015 The Tornado has barely been running since I picked it up from the panel beater. It’s been stuck in limp-home mode and won’t rev. Using FORScan and my Apple MacBook Pro laptop, I was getting numerous diagnostic trouble codes. I kept resetting the codes, starting the engine and then checking for codes again. One code that kept on appearing was P0121, which has to do with the Throttle Position Sensor (ie TPS). Ok, time to replace the TPS. Time to start poking around in the engine bay. I removed the crossover manifold and airbox lid. There are two screws holding the the TPS on to the side of the throttle body. These have a Torx T20 head (ie star shaped). Both of these had been stripped, and I had considerable trouble removing the two screws. The bottom one came out by pushing the socket into the top of the screw with a lot of force. However, the top one wouldn’t rotate with the Torx socket. I ended up having to use a set of multi-grip pliers to rotate the screw bit by bit. This was extremely frustrating. I was pretty pissed off at the time, but I just wanted my damn car to run again. After lots of frustrating I got the top screw out and the TPS came away from the throttle body. This is the head of the top screw. Someone before me has managed to completely stuff that one up. I knew I had a spare TPS somewhere, so went looking through the various bunches of spare parts that I keep at home these days. Nup, not in either of those two plastic tubs. I finally managed to remove the TPS (sitting on top of the black plastic coil cover). There had been a lot of time and frustration by now. Then I remembered that I had a spare throttle body from an Egas LPG motor. There it is, on one of the bookcase shelves. I have parts all over the place here these days. I checked the numbers on the side of the Egas throttle body TPS and confirmed that it was the same as the Tornado TPS. Goody. Finally, something going remotely right. I also used the two screws from that throttle body, meaning that I could throw the ones with the stripped heads in the bin. I have no idea where I got that throttle body from, but it came in useful tonight. With much anticipation, I started the engine. But, the same problem was there. It would start, rev out for a couple of seconds and then drop back to a very, very rough idle. I was a tad miffed by now. Very, very, very upset. Lots of lovely language in the carport at 2:08am. I put the MacBook Pro back to work and sure enough, the same error codes appeared. I kept resetting and re-checking them. Lots of times. Repeatedly. Nup. Definitely not my best night. A photo showing the throttle body from an Egas LPG Falcon, compared to the petrol-powered Tornado throttle body. They look almost identical, except for where the intake pipe attaches. I recently re-torqued the exhaust manifold bolts, but the car is still making exhaust noise when it’s cold. I assumed that the manifold bolts had been loose for too long, and that the manifold gasket was stuffed. Trying to salvage something from the night, I removed the exhaust manifold gasket from an old taxi motor. I’ve been meaning to throw that motor out for the last couple of months, but procrastination was useful, for once. After removing the heat shields, I noticed that the four nuts that attach the turbo to the manifold were very loose. You can see the gap between the nut and manifold. I managed to get a ratchet spanner in to tighten the top two nuts. But I couldn’t get to the bottom two nuts. Continuing with my consistent defeat tonight, I gave up in disgust, cursed some more and knocked off for the night.

Wednesday, 9th September, 2015 Today I had to go see someone about some taxi stuff. When I got there, I realised that he’s got a hoist out the back. There was no hesitation. Forget the carpark out the front, the Tornado went straight into the workshop. I figured I’d have a look under the car. Then I remembered that the steering has been shuddering a bit. Time to loosen the steering rack bolts, put some grease on the studs and then tighten it up properly. Up it goes... I loosened off the two nuts that attach the steering rack to the k-frame crossmember. I pulled the steering rack forward a bit. I put a bunch of grease on the stud. And then did the same on the other side. To ensure that the nuts wouldn’t come loose in the future, I put some Loctite 222 on each stud. I used my Draper 19494 Extra Long 18mm Metric Ratcheting Combination Spanner to tighten the nut on the driver’s side. This thing gives a lot of leverage. The nut on the passenger side was also done up extra tight. Goody, no more steering shudder, hopefully.

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There are currently six BF Falcons parked here. - Two taxis - Two FPV Tornado utes - Two ex-taxis Plus a Camry Hybrid, which will be replacing one of the taxis. Friggin' car yard here. And I've got a house inspection this afternoon. There will be BF Falcons stashed around the neighbourhood.

Likewise for most jobs I do.

Gardening section is useful. Round-up for killing all the weeds around the place, because I can't be stuffed maintaining the garden properly. And long pot-plant hooks for hanging car parts off carport walls everywhere.

Sounds like me doing simple jobs on a car. I should get the Guinness Book or Records people over here one night. When I start dawdling I can turn a simple job into hours. Tonight's objective is to swap out a radiator on a NA 6 in less than four hours (ie should be a 20 minute job).

Pfffft. Only having ZF issues in one of the vehicles. The other one doesn't go because of a P0121 error code that I can't figure out. Get yer facts straight. Meanwhile, I'm using a 527,000km ex-taxi. Sigh. (It seems that the troublesome green one has now infected the previously-reliable blue one.)

What can be swapped over: - Wheels - Brembo calipers, depending on the brackets - Brake pads - Disc rotors Pretty much nothing else. Entirely different front end.

Need more info. What brakes?