PhilMeUp

Forget the 322mm setup and look for a set of 325mm calipers instead. The caliper is better and the discs are 32mm thick instead of 28mm thick.

I might have a solution for this. I've got the two door trims from a BA Pursuit. I'll have to have a look and compare them to the BF Tornado ones to see if they are the same. The door handles are slightly different between BA & BF, but BF handles can be fitted to BA trims easily enough. Problem is that these two trims are probably worth a bunch of money and getting them from Perth to SA would also be expensive. I'll take some photos and try and work out the value of these things later on.

Not any more. Most cars going on as taxis now are Toyota hybrids (Prius and Camry). The cost of LPG has gotten too high. Keep checking Pickles Auctions and Manheim Auctions.

Got the repair quote for the Typhoon, huh?

Yesterday I was looking at the front end setup on an FG that was on a hoist. Doesn't look particularly complicated to pull apart and put back together. Genuine Ford bushes will be expensive - I'm assuming that they can be pushed out and pressed in, like on other suspension arms. Someone said that they are made by Mackay Rubber in Queensland, so it would be worth making a phone call to them to see what their pricing is. Then there are the Superpro and Nolathane options. Prepare to spend hours reading forums about this, and many more hours trying to make a decision on what to do. Modern cars depend heavily on suspension bushes for driving smoothness and comfort. Rubber bushes help to achieve this, but they will also need replacing at some point in time, especially when the front ones are regularly subjected to heavy use (ie hard braking).

He's on the right track - under braking, the whole weight of the car gets thrown on to the front bushes. If even one bush is worn then it will flex. The wheel(s) will then bow outward and cause that tyre wear. Wheel alignments are done when the car is stationary, not when the car is moving at 80km/h under heavy braking. So, the alignment might be perfect in the workshop, but it's under heavy braking that your tyres are wearing (ie worn bushes). I haven't worked on an FG yet, but I know that the ball joint isn't replaceable on the FG like it is on the BA/BF. It's built into the arm, but the ball joints are known for lasting an extremely long time. Unlike the BA/BF, where the ball joints need to be replaced semi-regularly. If you've got the tools and skills then you could probably do the job yourself. See if you can find some arms off a low km wreck cheaply enough, replace the bushes and then fit the arms to your car. If you're in Perth then I can supply some leads on parts (new and secondhand).

That's a BA/BF, right? That's not alignment, that's worn lower control arm bushes. Which means that you'll wipe out the new tyres rather quickly. We need to get Wiggum, pull the pin and throw him in.

Each state will have different rules about this. In WA, a car has to be quite badly damaged before it is declared a stat write-off. In NSW it seems that it requires a minor scratch somewhere. There will be a govt person somewhere that will have specifications and can advise you on this. Although it's a messy situation now, it needs to be attended to now so that you don't end up with a bunch of grief in years time when you want to sell the car.

That's a big issue - something to take up with the head office of the company. At store level, it will be in the "too hard basket" and they might want to fob it off. Could such chassis damage end up making the car a statutory write-off and therefore unable to be licenced for road use?

This stuff is extremely thick and gooey. Might be worth a try?

Replace the lot if you're really keen. http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/GENUINE-FORD-BF-FALCON-4-0-DRIVE-BELT-PULLEY-TENSIONER-KIT-FAIRMONT-FAIRLANE-LTD-/121460979556?pt=AU_Car_Parts_Accessories&hash=item1c47a37764 Drive Belt SX8620A Idler Pulley BA8A617A Tensioner and Pulley BA6B209A

Explain to people that her hourly rate is $500/hour, but it's extra for fetishes and dom stuff.

You could just fill out a transfer form and use a random address (eg hotel). That would mean that you can keep the car licenced for the trip back. A bit dicey with legalities, though. Alternatively, do a deal with the seller where he keeps the plates and hands them in. Driving it from Sydney to Perth: - Fly to Sydney on the Tiger Air Sunday night/Monday morning at 1am/2am (depending on daylight saving). Cost is around $200. - Land in Sydney at 8:15am. - Taxi or other transport to the car. Or, have the seller meet you at the airport. - Here in WA, you can get a Temporary Movement Permit on the Dept of Transport web site. In NSW, the car has to be inspected first. Most workshops can do this. - You need a blue slip. Take this to Roads & Maritime Service (RMS) and then you can get a movement permit. - Insurance is the hard part. Talk to Shannons, etc. - Drive back to Perth. That RMS permit is valid in NSW, Victoria and SA. Not valid in WA, so you need to stop at the WA/SA border and use the internet computer at the BP to get a WA permit. I did the trip twice last year - once in 67 hours and the second one in 58.5 hours. Ideally, take a week and have a look around on the way back (Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, etc). Don't forget to drive a few laps at Bathurst (it's on the way) and check out the motorsport museum there. Take plenty of music and comedy CDs.

I’m using coolant concentrate these days, which is mixed at a 10:1 ratio. This has been useful this week - I went through about 15 litres of coolant on Monday filling up both cars, and then I needed to fill up the Tornado again tonight. I keep a few old Tectaloy bottles to mix the coolant in. I measure 500mL of concentrate with a measuring jug and then fill the bottle to the top with distilled water. I filled the coolant tank to the top. The taxi battery hasn’t been working properly lately, so I had put the Tornado battery in the taxi for a couple of days. I’ll get the taxi back from warranty testing or replacement tomorrow, and then I’ll be able to drive my car again. I was extremely pleased to get the Tornado back in one piece again. The engine cooling system should now be working perfectly. It took me two hours to put it back together, although I could probably cut that in half if I had to do it again (now that I’ve done it once and figured out how to do so).

Thursday, 15th January, 2015 I needed to replace the radiator, and whatever I got had to be of a reasonable quality and last a while. After making time consuming phone calls trying to get something at the right price, I ended up ordering a genuine Ford one. The part number is BA8005G and it retails for $347.56. I also ordered a new air filter at the same time (part number AFA1050, which is different to the usual AFA101 and AFL101). The new radiator, all shiny and new. The old radiator had a slight curve on the bottom of it. The new radiator, about to go in. All this hassle and disassembly just to get access to these four bolts. You can see where two of the bolts go in this photo (on the far left and far right). The condenser is in the foreground, with the radiator sitting in behind it. The bolts attach these two together. On a normal Falcon these are fairly easy to access, but on a turbocharged Falcon the intercooler blocks access. The left and right lower bolts went back in easily enough. The left and right upper bolts then went back in. Then the fun began - putting the intercooler back in. This ended up not being too difficult, but getting the nuts on to each of the four bolts wasn’t easy. With this one, I put the nut in a ratchet spanner and lowered it into place. I then had to jiggle it around until the nut started to rotate on the bolt thread. It would have been easier to remove the intercooler and mounting bracket together instead of removing the intercooler and leaving the bracket in place. Next time. And of course, I’ve just realised that I forgot to plug the wires back in to the sensor on the intercooler, which means I’ll have to remove the bumper again just to reconnect those two wires. Bugger. The intercooler, back in place. Then I put the headlight and bumper backing back on. Time to reconnect the radiator hoses. Lining up the bumper to go back on. It took some encouragement, but the bumper went back into place. Each side of the bumper clipped back into place easily. The bumper, fitted. Getting somewhere now. Putting the screws back in on the plastic splash guard. Inside each wheel arch there is one metal screw and two plastic screws (ie scrivets). The scrivets were in poor condition so I’ve left them off the car for now. I’ll order some new ones on eBay and fit them when they arrive. Having done all the hard stuff, I could finally do the easy job - replacing the air filter. The old air filter and new one, side by side. There are several different versions of air filter for late model Falcons. I’ve learned to make absolutely sure that a new air filter sits in the airbox properly before putting the lid back on.

I also stopped off at a Ford dealer today to get pricing on new sideskirts (ie the ones that I cracked last week). I knew that they'd be too expensive (I'll be getting mine repaired) but someone at Ford really has a sense of humour. $1,017.65. Each.

Tuesday, 13th January, 2015 I had a bunch of stuff to do around town today. Before driving the Tornado I’ve usually been able to let it idle in the carport for a few minutes to warm up so that I can accelerate up the nearby hill straight away. I was tight on time today, so got in the ute and left straight away. I had gone less than a kilometre when the dashboard beeped at me and I noticed that the temperate gauge was indicating that the car was overheating. I figured that maybe I hadn’t put enough coolant in yesterday, so turned the car around, got to the top of the hill and then let the car roll down toward home with the engine off. I poured a bunch of coolant in and then had a look around in the engine bay area. That’s when I noticed the green puddle underneath the radiator. This was obviously fresh - anything from yesterday would have dried up by now. A closer look showed that coolant was dripping from the corner of the radiator. I was getting pretty pissed off at about this point (that’s putting it very mildly). Actually, I was raging. All of the coolant had drained out overnight. Thus, it was lucky that I hadn’t left the car idling in the carport before leaving - it would have cooked within minutes and damaged or wrecked the engine. Replacing a radiator on a normal Falcon is a quick and easy job to do. I started poking around, but couldn’t get the upper grill away from the bumper. I tried a few things, realised that this job was going to be much harder than on a normal Falcon and left it until later. Amongst the job, there are four bolts to be removed that bolt the the radiator and condenser together. These can be accessed on a normal Falcon reasonably easy once the upper grill is removed. Tonight I had another look at it and realised that unlike non-turbo Falcons, the bumper was going to have to come off. Having not done this before, I did some Google searching and eventually found a PDF guide that showed how to replace the intercooler with an aftermarket one. This included photos showing how to remove the bumper, so I printed this PDF and took it out to the carport. Various bolts were removed and eventually the bumper came away from the car. I disconnected the fog lights and moved the bumper away from the car. However, I was still unable to access the four bolts that attach the radiator and condenser together. These bolts are hard enough to access on a normal Falcon, but with an intercooler in the way there was no way of getting to them. One of the headlights had to be removed. At least now I know to replace headlights - something else that I haven’t done before. It took some time with a 10mm ratchet spanner, but eventually I managed to get the upper bolt removed on the driver’s side. I have no idea how I’m going to get it back there when it’s time for reassembly. Eventually I realised that the intercooler was going to have to come out. Out of the four intercooler mounts, the two on the passenger side were easy to access. However, removing the two on the driver’s side was difficult. Eventually the intercooler came out and was put aside with the cooling fans. All this just to access this one bolt. What a nightmare. Eventually I managed to remove the four bolts, and the radiator then lifted out of the car. There were signs of damage to the bottom of the radiator from hitting a bump or speed bump previously. Signs of leakage from the bottom corner of the radiator. When I rotated the radiator around remaining coolant leaked out. I couldn’t see a crack or hole, but will be replacing the radiator with a new one. The battle zone. Time to knock off for the night. Getting both cars flushed yesterday has turned out to be a nightmare. The radiator on the taxi popped when being pressure tested, which meant a last minute dash to borrow a new radiator from the workshop that I normally go to (there wasn’t enough time to go to the place where I got that radiator from). Then a trip home to collect my toolbox and a frantic time in the carpark putting a new radiator in. The Tornado got home ok, but pressure testing the radiator has obviously created a leak. As much as I appreciate the testing process, it will be quite some time before I let anyone pressure test a radiator on any car of mine in the future. What was meant to be simple maintenance has turned into quite a drama. The radiator in the taxi was only six months old, so was covered under warranty. However, this still resulted in a verbal argument at the radiator supplier - I wasn’t going to leave until they replaced it. At least that didn’t cost me any money. However, replacing the Tornado radiator will cost me money. And I’m pretty sure that putting it all back together is going to be a hell of a lot harder than it was to pull it apart. Very frustrating day.

Monday, 12th January, 2015 As part of getting the Tornado into proper working order I booked both it and my taxi in for a cooling system flush. A few weeks ago I bought a new thermostat for my XR6 Turbo ute. This is the higher flow version, and was relatively expensive. I had kept the original as a spare (there was nothing wrong with it), so put it back in the XR6T and put the new thermostat in the Tornado. I removed the thermostat cover with a 13mm socket. The old Tornado one is on the left; the new one is on the right. The good thing about the o-ring seal is that there is no scraping off or messing around with gaskets. The thermostat cover was put back on. As I was getting two cars flushed at once, I put my KTM enduro bike in the back of the ute. That way I could ride it back home again and then take the taxi to the radiator place. Arriving at the radiator place. The cooling system was flushed. The passenger side sideskirt that I broke last week. The driver side sideskirt isn’t as badly damaged. Old coolant frothing out of the taxi coolant tank. Once the Tornado was flushed I was able to finally fit the new Dayco DET0003 coolant tank that I bought a few weeks ago. Filled up with new coolant and looking better. Someone sent me some new badges to replace the ones on the damaged sideskirts. I picked them up from the post office on the way.

What did I do to my car today? Nothing. Nada. Zip. SFA. 'Tis absolutely lovely.

Pulling the Brembo calipers apart for repainting or powder coating is surprisingly simple. The bolts are done up tight, so you'll need the right size allen key socket (8mm). I pulled six calipers apart in one night, although I was thorough with making notes about what bolts go where, etc. There are heaps of videos on YouTube showing how to do it. The mistake that I made was poking holes in the dust boots when removing them with a sharp pick tool. I'd love a PWR heat exchanger, but the cost is too high for the km that the Tornado will do. The standard heat exchanger does the job to a point... then it wears out and fails. I might look at buying a new standard heat exchanger (I get them wholesale). Both the standard heat exchanger and PWR one keep the transmission fluid at the same temperature (ie it's not like fitting a larger intercooler) so the requirement is long term reliability, not day to day performance. If I see a secondhand PWR unit for a couple of hundred dollars then I'll snap it up straight away. I also missed out on an SCT Xcal 4 last night for $300. Bummer. Sneak preview of some Brembo stuff that I've been doing:

Friday, 9th January, 2015 Finally got the car licenced yesterday (Thursday). This was a huge relief and there was a smile on my face for the rest of the day as I did a few things around town. I had been obsessing throughout the week about getting this licenced so was extremely tired last night. I laid in bed to watch some TV at 8:30pm, fell asleep straight away and woke up in the early hours of the morning. By 4am I was hungry and figured that was a suitable excuse to go for a drive to a nearby 24 hour supermarket. My attempts at getting late night photos weren’t particularly successful. I had just gone past a servo when the engine coughed and spluttered. This was about the time when I remembered that the one thing that I didn’t get done yesterday afternoon was to fill the tank with petrol. A quick u-turn resulted but the car made it very clear to me that it wasn’t going to give me the three seconds of running time that I required to cover the 60 metres to the servo. I had run out of petrol. Idiot. Hours and hours of late nights in the carport doing all sorts of cosmetic and mechanical stuff, and I run out of petrol on the first night. It was an upward incline, so pushing the car to the servo wasn’t an option. I left it parked in the bus stop for a few minutes while I went for a walk to get some petrol. I have a KTM enduro bike and Aprilia motard bike, so will be keeping a ramp and tie-downs in the back. I’ve got the wider fold-up ramp in there for now, but have a narrower one that I’ll be putting in later. I’ll run some bolts through the wall of the plastic tray with the thread poking out into the tray and then use wing nuts to bolt the ramp to the tray wall. I had a couple of empty 350mL fruit juice bottles from the previous afternoon that I hadn’t thrown out yet, so I walked to the servo with them. Luckily, the guy at the counter didn’t give me any grief about them not being approved for carrying petrol. I rinsed each bottle out with a bit of petrol, filled them up and walked back to the car. The Tornado lived again. Laughing like a manic idiot at my stupidity I immediately gave the car its first full tank of petrol. The red and white colour scheme of the personalised plates doesn’t really match the blue paintwork. It’s $220 to get the plates remade, so I’ll procrastinate about that for a while before I give in and spend the money on getting them in a more compatible colour. The low-light photos show how the bodywork needs polishing. The Jaycar LEDs that I put in light up the interior with a bright white light. A quick check of my costs spreadsheet shows me that this car has cost me $13,396.69 so far, before government stamp duty and registration costs. Not too bad for a 2006 Tornado - decent ones start at around $18,000 and with more km on them. The $1,143.74 that I’ve spent on parts so far includes the $400 for the ROH Flare wheels and tyres, $150 for the rear leaf springs and $155.00 for an Earl’s Turbo Oil Line kit that I haven’t fitted yet. My overall cost will plummet once I sell the XR6T ute (I’ll make a profit on that, although that wasn’t the intention) and some Brembo calipers that I bought cheaply for the XR6T (another unintended profit). The relatively low expenditure on parts shows that this project was more based on labour input than replacing physical things. And things like the indicator globes and rear axle bearings weren’t absolutely necessary; that was just me being thorough now so that they won’t be a problem in the future. I once had a car knocked back at inspection because the indicators “weren’t orange enough” so these days I replace the indicator globes when I first buy a car and then every couple of years after that. Some other costs in the immediate future: - Getting the carpet cleaned. - Getting the cooling system flushed. - Getting the transmission flushed. - Repair and paint the cracked sideskirts. - Extensive counselling costs, hitman charges and legal fees to keep me out of jail if some moron crashes into it. The numbers so far: Car: $10,800.00 Auction Fees: $999.90 Parts: $1,143.74 Key Coding: $110.00 Temporary Movement Permits: $45.60 Licencing Inspection: $88.45 Front Springs Fitting: $40.00 Wheel Alignment: $64.00 Wheel Winch Re-cabling: $55.00 Seat Cleaning: $50.00 Total: $13,396.69 Parts that I bought (total of $1,143.74): - Indicator Globes - Coolant Expansion Tank (not fitted yet) - Rear Axle Bearings (both sides) - Wheels - ROH Flare (secondhand) - Earl's Kit - AMCAP - Drive belt, radiator hoses, fuel filter and rear wheel stud - Speed Bleeders - Rear - Rear Leaf Springs (secondhand) - King Springs - Centre Bearing Most new parts I got at wholesale or trade price, which is why I’d better not go publishing those numbers on a public forum. Let’s just say that I’m rather good at doing car stuff as cheaply as possible, thanks to what I’ve learned from the taxi game about parts supplies and pricing. That, and I’m just stingy when it comes to spending money. The car drives superbly. I’m pleasantly surprised at how quiet and comfortable it is inside when driving - it’s worlds ahead of my BA XR6 Turbo ute which is only 12 months older. The Brembo 4 piston front callipers and PBR single piston rear caliper setup is much better than a standard Falcon PBR setup, but not in the same league as the 6 piston front/4 piston rear setup on my taxi. I would love to find a 6/4 set of Brembo calipers in poor condition that I could buy cheaply and then recondition them myself to save money. I’m already getting used to the 270kW power, which means that I’m going to be really pissed off when I get back in the 156kW taxi this weekend. That’s gonna hurt.

They're easy to pull apart and get powder coated. I've got three pairs here that have just been powder coated and are still in pieces. I'll do a photo guide when I put them all together. If you pull Brembo calipers apart you'll be stunned at how simple and over priced these things are. They are just two metal blocks bolted together. The only problem is not having brakes for your car for a week or two. You would have to rustle up a set of standard stuff to borrow/use. I would really, really, really, really love to find a 6/4 set in crap condition so that I can get them cheap and rebuild them. The seals can generally be re-used, but if not then get the Stoptech seals and dust boots from the US for $US5-10 each. For powder coating and cleaning up the bolts in Perth, the place to go to is Aeroplate (next to Perth Brake Parts).

Yep, the car will be attending the House of Wiggam some time in the very near future. All liquids will end up being replaced. Flushed/replaced so far: - Brake fluid - flushed. - Diff oil - replaced. - Engine oil - flushed and replaced. To be done: - Transmission - to be flushed. - Cooling system - to be flushed. - Power steering fluid - to be flushed or replaced.

Idle Pulley. Part number is BA8A617A. That's why you often hear taxis ratting like the engine is about to fall apart.

Yep, get a Dayco DET0003 from somewhere for around $40.