PhilMeUp

Go and have some real fun... have one let go at 85km/h with four other people in the car. K Mart have been doing vehicle inspections for a while now. http://www.transport.wa.gov.au/licensing/metro-vehicle-examinations.asp I used to get my control arms done at Wilkinson Suspension every 18 months or so. They use Roadsafe bushes and ball joints. I was getting 80-90,000km before there was movement in the ball joints, and the bushes were completely stuffed by 110,000km. Then I learned to do it myself. When I put complete Roadsafe lower control arms on one car a couple of years ago there was movement in both ball joints (ie each side) at 38,000km. Roadsafe stuff doesn't go near any of my cars any more. At Wilkinson Suspension I was paying $23 per Roadsafe ball joint. The genuine Ford ones last much longer, and can be found for around $30 each on eBay. Do a search for the part number - B3395A. Replacing ball joints at home isn't difficult - you just need something to push the old ones out, and press the new ones in. Radum sell a kit, or do a search on eBay for "ball joint press tool" and you'll find options for under $100. Either keep the kit for later use, or resell it on Gumtree once you've done the job (you'll get back what you pay for the tool). eg http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Press-fit-Type-Ball-Joint-Tool-Frame-Service-Carbon-Steel-Truck-Brake-Anchor-Pin-/151774690205?hash=item235679fb9d:g:ZNkAAOSw~gRVyHDY I bought the expensive G & G Technics mini-press for $350, but since then I've been regretting paying that much since I've discovered the cheaper options. If anyone wants to buy a slightly used G & G Technics mini-press for $349 then let me know. These days I check for movement in the ball joints whenever I've got the front wheels off. I try to move the control arm up and down, and watch for movement at the rubber boot on the ball joint. I keep two spare new ball joints at home, and replace existing ones as soon as there is the slightest bit of movement. I'm a tad paranoid about ball joints these days... The photo guide that I did a while ago: I'm a nerd. I use a torque wrench to tighten wheel nuts to ensure consistency. That's all part of my strategy to avoid brake shudder (ie uniform pressure on the disc rotors). I do it with the front of the car jacked up, but with the wheel just touching the ground so that it wont rotate. I want no interference on the wheel studs and nuts when I tighten them up. The Ford service manual specifies 125Nm. The FPV section specifies 135Nm. I go with 125.

The Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetric 3 has been released. http://www.tyrereviews.co.uk/Article/Goodyear-Eagle-F1-Asymmetric-3-Launched.htm

To get it passed without an emissions test requires the standard intake plenum to be on the car. No problem, I've got one from an old taxi motor (it's the same plenum across all the Falcons). But, then there's the issue of piping from the standard location of the throttle body (ie in the middle of the engine bay) to the front corner of the engine bay (where the intercooler outlet is). I recently bought a Plazmaman HP800 intercooler kit out of Gumtree. That intercooler normally works with the throttle body in the standard location, so I could use that piping to at least get close to the existing intercooler HP1000 outlet. I keep flipping back and forth between setting it back to standard for an inspection, or getting it engineered. Getting it engineered has the benefits of making it semi-legal (ie at least on paper), which also helps to ensure that any possible insurance claims won't get stuffed around. Unlikely, but engineering would help to cover that one. Putting it back to standard would have been the quickest and easiest way if I... a) had an Xcal with a standard tune, and b) had the skills to swap the Plazmaman intake plenum with the standard one. With the Plazmaman plenum, the bolts are underneath and impossible for me to get to. It's not a fun job, and tuning workshops are still busy in Perth at the moment so have been quoting astronomical prices for it. Getting through an emissions test should be a matter of putting on the standard dump pipe and catalytic converter, and then playing with HP Tuners and the emissions testing machine. Not actually that hard... if you can get HP Tuners and an emissions machine together at the same time. Getting reliable information about passing an emissions test has been extremely difficult, and a lot of what I've been told by various people has been crap. This has certainly helped to drag the process out a lot longer that it should have taken.

Did the car have to pass an emissions test?

Recent attention has been on sorting out an Aprilia SXV550 motard bike that I've had sitting around for three years. Another project that was meant to take days, and went wrong. Now that I've got that converted from track bike to road bike (and licenced) I'm going to be focussing again on the Tornado.

Didn't have any way of salvaging the existing tune, or putting a standard tune on the car (ie no Xcal). I'm looking forward to getting the car re-tuned later on, but need the existing tune for now. Refer to bottom diagram to explain this further. I've got an Xcal 3 on the way. I bought a married one for $50 and then spent $10 posting it to the place on eBay that reckons that they can reset them for $150. So, for $210 I should have a fresh Xcal3. Then I'll get the tune copied from the car and onto the Xcal3 using HP Tuners and some other stuff. I have found a place in Perth that has both HP Tuners and an emissions testing machine, which means that they can play with the tuning until it passes an emissions test. Bloody ripper. It will need a standard cat and dump pipe on there, which I've already got. The taxi world in Perth has collapsed, and financially I basically try and survive day by day these days. Last year was bad, but it's completely deceased this year. I'll be borrowing money for anything else that I do with the car in the near future, and will be changing jobs soon. With tuning, emissions tests, etc, there are people and workshops that know how to get cars through an emissions test. But there is no interest from anyone in sharing that info. There was one place that could do it on a drive-in/drive-out basis but their price was "around $1,500". Stuff that. I drove for 45 minutes to one place, had a 60 second conversation and then drove home again. That was to see a bloke who tunes Commodores, and all he would tell me is that he tinkers with the air/fuel ratio and ignition timing. He wouldn't even consider looking at touching a Falcon. I'm used to taxi workshops, where things are done cheaply and efficiently. Ask a taxi mechanic a question and he'll generally give all the advice that he can. In the tuning workshop world, things are done secretly and expensively. Ask a tuning person a question about getting through an emissions test and it's like talking to a lawyer - you'll get thirty seconds out of them, but that's it unless you're going to immediately pay thousands of dollars. Ah well, lessons learned (very, very slowly). Fair enough, tuning workshops want to protect their performance tuning data, but they could have been a hell of a lot more open to getting a car through an emissions test (ie very few places have any interest in it). However, there is a plan in place right now that actually might just work. I'll hopefully know within a week, and if it works out then I'll be posting info about an emissions solution everywhere.

That's one of the things that I've been working on. However, getting a car ready for the engineering process is a complex process, and requires adequate preparation. The initial part of that preparation is finding a suitable brick wall. The wall must be solid. Before even starting the engineering paperwork, the applicant needs to move his head in a backward and forward motion. When moving the head forward, it must then be applied to the brick wall with a suitable amount of force. How much force? As much as humanly possible. This is why the wall needs to be solid. A thick limestone wall would be worth considering. Concrete walls are good, but tend to crack when applied with the amount of force required for the engineering process. I have actually been going through this process. I wasn't exactly a pretty man before, but I'm damn ugly now. Another couple of thousand hits against the wall and I'll almost be ready to fill out the first page on the paperwork. Moments before starting the engineering process: One hour after starting the engineering process: (I've actually got a possible solution lined up... I'll know in a few days...)

Saw the post this afternoon (Monday, minutes after it was posted). Was going to snap them up, but then had a think about it and realised that I actually don't have a use for them. So, all yours. You can even keep my Xcal4. I got an Xcal3 cheaper ($210).

Three years ago I bought this thing - a fairly well blinged Aprilia SXV550 motard bike. The original owner set it up for track day use, whereas I'm going to use it on the road. This meant tracking down lighting, dashboard and other rego stuff. Great fun. It hadn’t done a whole lot of work - 17 hours. It was sent from MacKay, Queensland, to Perth. Unpacking it was fun. After massive initial enthusiasm, things fell by the wayside, and it become a long term unfinished project. Bugger. It was meant to replace my other one, which was fairly close to standard. It has all sorts of interesting things, including: - Alpina wheels , 16.5 front , 5.5 rear - Sach kitted forks , Ohlins rear shock with adjustable ride height - STM slipper clutch - Silmoto Dual Outlet Exhaust (ie a bit more power, but not too noisy) - Complete Beringer front brake setup - Iceparts Quick Shifter - Shortened swingarm - Goldspeed street legal motard tyres (ie grippy suckers) - Optional 12 litre tank and seat (I’ve also got a Seat Comforts seat to go on soon) On the first night I was up until dawn swapping parts between the two bikes. Swapping the exhausts took ages. There were phases of actual progress. There were exotic bikes all over the place at one stage. Now it’s down to one SXV and one KTM. The new one is just about brand new, despite being eight years old now (2008 model). I finally got it licenced a few days ago. I took it out to meet some other Aprilia SXVs. Within the first km it developed a flat rear tyre. Not impressed. It will need additional lighting and a laser jammer as soon as possible. Hopefully this one won’t keep going through oil pressure switches like the last one did. That was a whole lot of fun when each switch let go, resulting in engine oil being fed through to the back tyre.

Which tyres did you choose?

I thought that I'd done that on my taxi, but it turned out that I hadn't. I've definitely done it on my ute. I cleaned underneath the coil cover bolts with a Dremel and wire brush before putting o-rings on. When I washed the taxi engine bay a couple of nights ago just a leeeeeeeeeeeeeedle bit of water got past. Yup, one spark plug hole... full of bubbling water. Oops.

Photo guide for replacing ball joints: Lots of fun to be had when they let go...

The engine bay on my taxi - currently on 575,000km. Except that my master plan to stop water getting past the coil cover hasn't worked out too well - using heat-proof o-rings works for a while, but they only last about 6 months. After washing the engine bay tonight I'm now sitting here procrastinating instead of pulling the *$&# spark plugs out to get rid of the water that's now shorting out two of them.

Replacing a speedo cluster on a BA/BF Falcon costs around $50 for a secondhand one, and takes about three minutes to fit. Five screws to remove the cluster, and two electric cables that plug into the back of it. Don't know about FG clusters, but the BA/BF ones couldn't get any easier to swap out. There's a 90,000km BF FPV cluster for sale in West Perth at the moment.

This. Engine oil. Coolant - get a flush at Natrad or somewhere similar. Flush brake fluid (important). Transmission service - LifeGuard is expensive, use something else that's compatible. Not really required at 78,000km, but do it if you can. Diff oil - replace it with something good, like Penrite Pro Gear 80-140. Rear axle bearings should be ok, but replace them with Timken 2985 bearings if the back end gets noisy. Easy to do. Check the centre bearing. Should be ok, but get a replacement from Hardy Spicer if required. I did all sorts of things on my last two utes. Have a look through the two threads, some of it will be relevant to your car.

Bonus: If we do sound deadening in our cars then Ezy2Confuze can get some sleep in his car when the police are keeping the rest of the neighbourhood awake.

The problem with getting a modified Falcon engineered is getting past an emissions test. It can be done... but with an extra cat or two and some temporary tuning. Everything else is mainly paperwork. An engineer looks at stuff and tells DOT that he's satisfied that the car is still safe and legal. Costs a bunch of money, though.

Nah, there was that Tsunami wagon a few years ago, pretty sure it was red. There was a build thread on each of the main Falcon forums, including a big following on FordForums.com.au I went looking for that thread a while ago, and couldn't find it anywhere. Dunno why... but I'm assuming that either the buyer or seller wanted info about the car kept private? Knowing what I now know about registration requirements, there might have been an issue or two there as well. If anyone can find a link to any of the build threads for that car then post it here. Edit: Link here, but no photos: http://www.fordmods.com/the-garage-f53/the-ba-tsunami-wagon-build-details-t42466.html

Good idea... just like how Tandy Electronics shops were. (sarcasm)

Penrite Pro Gear 80-140. Expensive stuff, get it at trade price from Repco in Welshpool if you can't get a decent price locally.

There was a build thread for that car on every major Falcon forum. Once the car was sold, the build threads vanished. I went looking for the info a while ago, and there's nothing out there anymore.

What's small and white, and comes in a big black box? Lang Hancock. What's big and black, and comes in a small white box? Tiny Pinder.

A laser system is definitely worth having in Perth. I stuffed up a couple of years ago in my taxi. Went through three cameras throughout the year at a bit over 10km/h over each time... on long weekends... on the freeway... after midnight. Each one would have been 2 points... doubled to 4... three tickets = 12 points. All for doing 16-18km/km over on a freeway with no other cars nearby. Stuff that. I'll be putting something on my green Tornado, but the rear bumper thing is worth pursuing. For your FG, I'm not sure if it's the same as a BA & BF bumper. If so, then it's easy - just find a bumper from a wreck, get someone to plastic weld the licence plate recess into the centre and get the bumper painted (ie keep your original one intact). Will still cost a bunch of money, but money comes and goes... demerit points stick around for longer (as does driving record and insurance issues). -------------------------------------------- Radar detectors: The Valentine One that I have in my taxi has been invaluable. It gives no prior warning for rear-facing cameras, and minimal warning for front-facing cameras, but what it does do is tell me when there's a camera nearby, particularly at night. I've memorised those locations, and these days I have a subconscious habit of double checking my speed before going past those locations. -------------------------------------------- GPS: Keep checking Gumtree and eBay, and buy a TomTom 730 or 930. Either one of those two is the one to have. Bring it to me, and I'll set it up. I've set up my own POI (Point of Interest) files that have the locations of the fixed-location cameras. I set it to Warn When Near POI so that when I'm 250 metres way from a camera location the TomTom makes audio alerts (eg poilce siren). I change the alert sound every few months.

About bloody time. Very hard to find - very few spare parts staff have heard of it.

Cover up your rear licence plate with a pushbike carrier (or pushbike) and drive past as many police cars as you want.