PhilMeUp

Did the job on my BA XR6T ute a few months ago. Getting the tail shaft out is easy enough if you can get the car up high enough to climb under safely. I had already bought the replacement bearing at Hardy Spicer. The bloke there said to be careful with dismantling it - not to let the balls fall out of the CV joint. At home, once I figured that I was getting to a point where I could stuff it up, I took the tail shaft, tools, new bearing, etc, back to Hardy Spicer to clarify what to do. Someone there explained it to me again and I swapped the bearing over in the carpark. Took the tail shaft back home and put it back in the ute. The utes use a CV joint (ie leaf spring back end) and the sedans use a universal joint.

Hardy Spicer: http://www.hardyspicer.com.au/driveline_products.asp

Pad spreader: get one from Radum for $27.00 http://radum.com.au/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=8685&osCsid=5suinv5dunndmt9nffltguj861 Or, do a search for disk brake pad spreader on Aliexpress.com: http://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?catId=0&initiative_id=SB_20141217110338&SearchText=DISC+BRAKE+PAD+SPREADER I spent a bunch of money on a GiroDisc pad spreader, which is useful occasionally. Which allows me to push the pistons the whole way back in:

For rotor machining, take them to Nick at Marfleet in East Perth. He's good at taking off the minimum amount required. http://www.whitepages.com.au/searchBus.action?name=Marfleet%20Brakes&location=Perth%20WA

Thursday, 11th December, 2014 There was an advert on Gumtree for a pair of BA ute seats so I got there quickly and bought them for $60. I check Gumtree daily for various things and this is the first pair of ute seats that I can remember in recent times. Good timing. The driver’s seat is well worn, which is why the guy was selling them (he had put a pair of better seats in his ute). That wasn’t a problem - what I was after were the plastic brackets in the back of them. I also figured that there would be a few other parts from them that I could keep for future use. As mentioned, the driver’s seat is stuffed and the passenger seat is in good condition. Typical Falcon. These are the plastic brackets. The top left one is from one of the seats that I bought. Out of the four brackets (two per seat), two were already broken, but I only needed two good ones. The one on the right is from the Tornado seat. As you can see, they’re a useless design and easy to break. Something at least twice as wide would have lasted longer and cost no more to manufacture. One of the unbroken ones in the Tornado seat. The rod rotates, but the plastic bracket is required to hold the rod in position when the tilt lever on the side of the seat is pulled (the lever is connected to the rod). The rod rotates the fork, which then pushes the other rod, resulting in the seat tilting forward. Getting the replacement plastic brackets into place without breaking them wasn’t easy. I felt the pressure, as I knew that if I broke these then I would have to go looking for another pair of ute seats to get more brackets from. The white one in the middle of the photo is the replacement one. I had an aerosol can of grease in the shed so sprayed some of that in there to ensure future lubrication between the rod and plastic bracket. Getting the bracket into place and getting everything working on the first seat was difficult and frustrating. I was ecstatic to finally see one of the seats tilting forward properly. When I went to get the brackets from the other seat that I bought I found that the same problem had happened with these seats previously. I was a bit amused, as I had told the bloke clearly that I was only buying the seats to get these plastic brackets. He’s the original owner of the car that the seats came from, so he would have known about this quickie repair (and one less bracket for me to use). Still, if I break another bracket in one of my FPV seats then at least I’ve got a head start with figuring out how to fix it without using another bracket. The base of the other Tornado seat before I finished putting it back together. You can see the white plastic bracket on the left and the original Tornado one on the far right. Both are held in place by a single screw. Once I had both seats back in one piece and tilting properly it was time to put the rails back on. The station wagon taxi came in useful for this. After all this, both seats acknowledged my masterful skills and bowed gracefully before me. About time. I finally got both seats back into the car. All this drama just to get the dog hair off them. I received a bunch of stuff from the US today, including some Motorcraft FL-820S oil filters. I was going to do an oil change but I’d had enough by the time I got the seats finished. Continuing with the pattern of everyone trying to break my stuff, the oil filter that I opened was badly dented. This thing has taken quite a hit to dent that much. A second dent, on the other side of the filter. The remnants of one of the seats that I bought. I’ll be removing the wire mesh and four spring clips to keep as spares. The spring clips have a habit of breaking when gravitationally-gifted (ie fat) people like me sit on them. I’m rapt to finally have the Tornado back in one piece. What was meant to be two simple tasks - replacing the axle bearings and getting the seats cleaned - has taken over a week and consumed a bunch more time and effort than they should have. Now I need to finalise a decision on how to raise the car (reset the leaf springs vs buying new ones) and fix the interior driver’s door handle. From there it’s not far from being ready for a licencing inspection.

It's not looking good for either one right now, but Kickass Torrents is still working...

Create something like this:

Clear tape. With drawing pins poking through. Bonus points if you can put ebola/AIDS on the tips of the drawing pins. Create sharp edges.

Yeah, it requires a heap of force to push the ball joint fully in. An alternative for extra leverage: an AmPro T29771 ratchet. This thing extends out to give a bunch of extra leverage. With this, I can get enough leverage to push the ball joint in as far as it can go. I bought one ages ago but never really took to it. I bought that one via Amazon US, but local Ampro stockists should be able to get one in if you want one. I’ve gotten used to the extra bulk of it and use it for everything these days. I even bought a spare one to keep in my ute (with a basic collection of tools) - useful for removing tight wheel nuts.

Stiff power steering could be worn ball joints. Get the car up on a jack, remove the front wheels and push up and down at each brake disc. Look for movement at the rubber boot on the ball joint on each side. Any movement = replace ball joint ASAP. The part number for BA/BF is BA3395A. Do a search on eBay and you'll find them for around $60/pair delivered. The tricky part is getting them out and the new ones in. I bought a special tool for the job ($350) but there are cheaper options out there. Do a search on www.radum.com.au for ball joint and you’ll find a couple of kits there (ie $99). Part number: RDM-BM94-4063 http://radum.com.au/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=8686 How to replace them: http://www.fordxr6turbo.com/forum/topic/89015-photo-essay-replacing-babf-falcon-ball-joints

Monday, 8th December, 2014 Some wheeling and dealing resulted in me picking up an original Typhoon airbox. The difference from a standard airbox is the additional intake snorkel at the front of the airbox. The car came with an aftermarket K & N pod filter. To get the car through the registration inspection will require either a permit for that modification or to fit the original airbox. The pod filter doesn’t give any particular gain over the standard Typhoon airbox, particularly without the lid (it didn’t come with the car). I also keep my engine bays clean by washing them regularly. The original airbox means that I can do this without getting water on a pod filter. Before putting the airbox in I cleaned it with CT18 that I keep in a 5L Hills weed sprayer. Once it was rinsed I dried it with my petrol powered weed blower so that I could put it in the car straight away. The pod filter was easy enough to remove. The Typhoon airbox went into place easily, resulting in one less thing on the list of things to do before registration inspection. As mentioned, the seats were cleaned at a car detailing place. However, they’ve managed to break a plastic bracket in each of the seats, and now they won’t tilt forward. Now I’m kicking myself for not just stripping the seats down and washing the covers in the washing machine at home. I’ll check with Ford to see if it is a replaceable part, but I’m expecting it to not be available. Very pissed off. I was looking forward to putting the seats back in the car tonight, but now I’ve got yet another problem that will probably not have an easy solution. Lots of four-lettered words as I went back into the house in disgust. Putting the seats and seat rails back together. Ute seats tilt forward to allow access to the back of the cabin. There is the metal rod that runs from one side of the seat to the other. Someone has forced the seat forward without pulling the lever and this has broken the plastic bracket that holds the rod in place. This means that when the lever is pulled the rod moves instead of rotating and allowing the seat to tilt forward.

Thursday, 4th December, 2014 Bombing out badly on changing the axle bearings. I couldn’t use a hammer to loosen the axles late on Wednesday night (noise) so had a go at it on Thursday afternoon. The disc rotor has rusted on to the centre of the axle and no matter how much I belted it with a hammer it wouldn’t come loose. What should have been a fairly simple job is now going to be quite a challenge. I spent a bunch of time on Thursday thumping various parts of the disc rotors to try and get them to break loose, but could not get either rotor off. Plenty of frustration there. I picked up the seats from the car detailer and now they’re all nice and clean. No dog hair, or dog smell, on the seats! The foam is still wet, resulting in moisture coming through when I press on the seat cover. I’ll leave the seats outside for a few days to dry out properly.

The trick is to clean the reservoir properly. If that isn't cleaned then the new fluid is only going to be contaminated. I used to use/waste a heap of brake fluid doing this. Drain the reservoir with a 60mL syringe (used for horses, get one from a vet for about $3). Pour new fluid in. Swish it around. Drain it. Do this several times. Because I am flushing brakes on cars regularly (taxis) I have now got two spare reservoirs. I drain and remove the reservoir (8mm socket) and then put a clean one on. I'll then clean the old one later. This means that I don't have to wait for it to dry. Brake fluid is absorbed in water, so washes out very easily in the laundry (or dishwasher). I flushed the brakes on my taxi a couple of weeks ago in 45 minutes on my own. That's including adjusting the handbrake and bleeding from both bleed nipples on each Brembo caliper. Speed bleeders make it a lot quicker and easier.

The cloudy stuff is water. That brake fluid has been there for quite some time (years). Was it a workshop that supposedly flushed it? Torque wrench - each to their own. I'm regularly removing Falcon wheels and putting them back on, so using the torque wrench means that the wheel nuts are done up tight enough to stay on, but not so tight that will cause problems later on (eg snapping wheel stud when removing wheel nut).

That brake fluid definitely has NOT been flushed - it's years old. If that car was in a crash and it was proven that your brakes were a contributing factor then you could end up facing a Reckless Driving charge (extreme, but possible). Torque wrench: I bought an expensive digital one (Snap-On TECH2FR250) from the US a few years ago solely for the task of replacing the front wheel bearing hub (which needs to be tightened to 300Nm). However, I use it all the time for tightening up wheel nuts. This ensures the right torque, but also consistency across all of the wheel nuts. I tighten mine to 125Nm, which is specified in the Ford service manual. However, 135Nm has been specified elsewhere. Take your pick - not a huge difference between them. On the front bearing hubs, to get in amongst the wheel studs I use a Josco 100mm Wheel Wire Brush (item number 6318427 at Bunnings) and a cup-shaped wire brush for other areas. http://www.bunnings.com.au/josco-100mm-wheel-wire-brush_p6318427 Cleaning the inside of a disc rotor: Torque wrench and wheel nuts:

Negative. That brake fluid looks like it's years old. It certainly hasn't been replaced recently. If you've paid someone to do it then you got ripped off. These days for flushing brake fluid, I have a couple of spare reservoirs. I remove the existing one and put a clean one in its place (I'm doing this stuff often). Brake fluid dissolves in water, so you can drain the reservoir with a syringe and then remove the reservoir itself. That requires an 8mm socket on one side and disconnecting the cable on the other side. The reservoir will then lift out. Wash it in warm water and let it dry. This is why I keep two spare ones clean in sealed plastic bags. Brake shudder causes: - worn control arm bushes - rust between the disc rotor and the wheel bearing hub (pushing the disc off alignment). I use a cordless drill and wire brush to clean the rust off all the surfaces. An old thread about flushing brakes: http://www.fordxr6turbo.com/forum/topic/78762-photo-essay-brembo-brake-fluid-flushing Replacing front lower control arm bushes: http://www.fordxr6turbo.com/forum/topic/88363-photo-essay-replacing-front-control-arm-bushes-version-20/

This shows how to remove the door card: http://www.fordxr6turbo.com/forum/topic/89014-photo-essay-central-locking-repair Getting the handle off the card will require removing some of the plastic. A drill or Dremel would do this. How is yours damaged? Post some photos...

The first time I removed a centre console was last year. I was freaking out about it at the time and took hours. As with most things, once I've done it once it's no big deal. Removing the centre console, cleaning it with the garden hose and then cleaning the various individual plastics makes quite a difference. It's worth doing. Abuse on the car: it seems ok mechanically. No major dents anywhere from driving into things carelessly, except for the scratches on lower left bumper. The problem is almost all cosmetic - this guy just had a knack for putting grime everywhere. Each time I clean or tidy something up it's as though it was never dirty. The seats are sitting in the carport still half wet. When I get home tonight I'll put them back in the ute and leave the engine running for an hour or two with the heater on full. Cleaning the seat belts made one huge difference. The seat belt in the Tornado wasn't retracting at all before and now retracts fairly quickly. http://www.fordxr6turbo.com/forum/topic/89678-photo-essay-cleaning-seat-belts/

One of the three seat belts that I cleaned yesterday wouldn't retract at all previously. Today it was retracting at almost full speed. Experiment: successful!

Wednesday, 3rd December, 2014 After spending way too much time trying to decide what to do about the suspension I figured I’d better get some other things done. It needs to be raised for its licencing inspection (it’s too low), as well as have a practical amount of ground clearance for general use. It was time to get on with some other things while I finalise the decision on springs. As mentioned earlier, the handle on the driver’s door trim is broken. Although it can be re-attached easily enough, there is a bit of plastic missing next to the window switch. I went looking for a standard BF door trim that I could extract the handle from. It took some looking around, but I ended up with two suitable door trims. The second one will be for someone else who needs to replace a Typhoon door handle. Today, I decided to get the seats cleaned. There was plenty of dog hair and grime in the carpet. This will all get cleaned properly eventually. I am very, very, very much looking forward to that day. My efforts from the late nights last week have paid off. The centre console area, the dashboard and speedo gauges are looking a lot better. I put the seats in the back of my XR6 Turbo ute and headed off to a car detailing place. When I got there I made the spontaneous decision to remove the seat rails. This made the seats much lighter to move, but also ensured that no water would get into the electric motors or connections. All this took was a 13mm ratchet spanner and unplugging the cable on the driver’s seat. Tonight, I decided to replace the rear axle bearings. I’ve got a spare pair of suitable axles, which meant that I could put new bearings on them and then just swap the axles over. I pressed a new Timken 2985 bearing kit on to each axle with my hydraulic press. I already had a stripped wheel stud to replace, but managed to snap another stud when removing one of the back wheels. I’ll be putting some grease on the wheel studs on the replacement axles. I started removing the rear caliper. Although the whole lot can come off in one piece, I find it easier to remove the caliper from the mounting bracket separately. I used a 12mm ratchet spanner and 18mm spanner for this. This photo shows the easiest way to change brake pads. Remove one bolt, swivel the caliper upward and then push the calliper piston back in. This can be done with a g-clamp or a specialist tool. I use a Disc Brake Piston Spreader from Radum (stock number BM94-4062) - www.radum.com.au Once the caliper was out of the way (hanging off the chassis with a pot plant hook) I was able to undo the bolts holding the mounting bracket on. The bracket bolts were on tight but a long ratchet spanner had the leverage to loosen them. Once the bracket was off I could remove the disc rotor. And this is where the fun really begins. The disc rotor has rusted to the end of the axle, and will need to be broken loose by hitting it a bunch of times with a hammer to break the rust loose. However, it was too late at night to make noise, so I tried spraying Wurth Rost-Off Plus onto the centre and repeatedly hitting it with a rubber mallet (ie quieter). This is a very effective penetrant, but after half an hour of spraying this stuff and wrestling with the disc rotor on each side I had to give up. One of these days I’ll locate and buy a large pulley puller for this task. This also meant an end to the other plans that I had for the night. I already had a replacement wheel stud to replace the stripped one, but now I’ll need another one to replace the stud that snapped tonight. I also bought new upper and lower radiator hoses, a new fuel filter and a new drive belt. Although these items don’t need replacing yet, they didn’t cost much and replacing them now will ensure that they won’t be a problem in the future. The new coolant tank will wait until the car is on the road - I’ll put that on when the cooling system gets flushed. Apart from the fuel filter, I have seen each of these items fail and cause dramas on taxis (taxis don’t need fuel filters due to dedicated LPG) so I figure that I’ll have renewed ones on the car from the start. I get this stuff at trade pricing but here are the part numbers and retail prices: Item: Upper Radiator Hose Part Number: BA8260AMC Price: $19.44 Item: Lower Radiator Hose Part Number: BA8286AMC Price: $24.50 Item: Rear Axle Wheel Stud Part Number: AU1107B Price: $17.67 Item: Drive Belt Part Number: SX8620A Price: $54.70 Item: Fuel Filter Part Number: AFG55AA Price: $22.00 Item: Dayco Coolant Tank: Part Number: DET0003 Price: $44.60

I then finished the night by spraying a bunch of silicone spray into each of the window guides and then running each window up and down a bunch of times to spread the silicon up and down the guides. This made quite a difference - each window ended up moving noticeable quicker, which mean that each window regulator was previously pushing quite hard to overcome the friction in the window guides. This friction shortens the lift of the window regulators (ie the mechanism inside the door that windows the window up and down). This particular can of silicone spray has a useful plastic tube that flips up and down. The can sprays like a normal aerosol can when the tube is down. That would be a useful feature with a lot of other spray cans. By now I had gotten rid of most of the filth and grime that was inside the car when I got it. There is a lot more to go yet, but it felt like progress was being made. Then it was 3am and I’d had enough for the night. Time to go inside.

Then it was time to continue my cleaning rampage and have a go at the top of the dashboard. There bits of old Blue-Tak all over the gauges, so that all got picked off with fingernails. The gauges also looked a lot better after being cleaned. I’ll get the dust in the middle with a cotton stick later. It took a while, but I got all the smudge marks off the ICC screen. I also used cotton sticks to get into the corners on the outer edge of the display. Finishing off the top of dashboard. The glovebox is easy enough to remove - it just unclips at the bottom. I also removed the mesh filter (ie the cabin filter tray) - drop the glovebox down, slide the tray to the left and pull it outward. I cleaned the tray with a brush. The glovebox got cleaned inside with water. Surprisingly, that was about the only part of the car’s interior that didn’t have chewing gum sticks stuck to it. Another photo of the passenger seat. That’s going to be thoroughly cleaned by a car detailer as soon as possible. By now the diff oil was well and truly drained. I replaced it with Penrite Pro Gear 80-140 synthetic oil. The Motive Products Power Fill bottle that I got from the US makes it easy to put diff oil in. Just pump the handle up and down to create air pressure inside the bottle, hang the metal tube in the filler hole and turn on the tap. When diff oil starts to flow out of the filler hole then turn the tap off and remove the bottle. It doesn’t look so good with the effects of the flash, but the interior of the car was starting to look tolerable. I wanted to clean out the windscreen washer reservoir and replace the front indicator globes. The washer reservoir is accessed by removing the plastic splash guard inside the wheel arch. After removing the two plastic scrivets and one metal screw, I was able to peel back the splash guard to reveal the windscreen washer pump. This is one of the reasons why I wanted to flush the reservoir. The previous owner has added some detergent to it, but all that does is create a bunch of white streaks on the windscreen outside of where the wipers go. I stuck the hose into the top of the reservoir. And flushed out the reservoir. There was also some algae and other junk in the bottom of the reservoir that got flushed out. I removed the rubber seal from the pump and put that into place first. The pump then slid into the seal easily enough. If washer pump dies then a replacement can be bought from car accessory shops for around $20 (they are a common part). That orange thing with the yellow wire leading into it is the holder for the indicator globe. Luckily it came loose fairly easily and I was able to remove the old globe. There wasn’t a huge difference between the old and new globes, but it was worth replacing them. The new one is on the left and the old one is on the right. I once had a car knocked back at an inspection because the person reckoned that the indicators weren’t orange enough. The front indicators are not the usual BA15s globes that most other cars use - they are a BAU15s. There is a minor difference in the bayonet and a major difference in cost. Once I had replaced both front indicator globes I put the hazard lights on to ensure both were working.

Wednesday, 26th November, 2014 I started with an easy one - changing the diff oil. As expected, it was almost black. I left it draining for an hour or two while I did other jobs on the car. I bought complete new windscreen wipers during the day and put them on. The one ones unclip and the new ones clip in easily enough. The insides of the windows had various marks on them. They’ll get cleaned soon. The driver’s door handle will need to be fixed before the registration inspection. I haven’t got a solution figured out yet, but I suspect that there will be some plastic welding involved. The driver’s window also had marks all over the inside of it. I had a quick go at cleaning the passenger door trim. Not perfect, but a lot better than it was. The passenger window also cleaned up pretty well. On the window behind the driver’s door window there was some sticker residue from a previous sticker. That was easily removed with some eucalyptus oil aerosol spray. The side window cleaned up well. The driver’s door trim also got cleaned. The dashboard console was also looking pretty terrible. And looked a lot better after being cleaned. I removed the plastic and rubber part that sits on top of the steering column. That got cleaned inside with water and then dried with a towel. There are some tabs on the rubber that need to clip into their relevant holes underneath the speedo cluster. This took a few minutes to sort out, and I ended up using a small flat-blade screwdriver to push the rubber tabs into their correct places. The ICC got the Windex and towel treatment. The rear vision mirror was also covered in smudges so I cleaned that. I also got a cotton stick to get the grime out of the outer glass area. The mirror ended up perfectly clean.

Tuesday, 25th November, 2014 After not being able to clean under the engine at the car wash I was keen to find another way of getting that done. I’ve got a high pressure washer at home so jacked up the front of the car and put some axle stands in place. It was hard to get the lengthy spray wand aimed at all the correct places but I eventually managed to get things looking a lot better under there. Of course, this also meant that I ended up soaking wet. At least it was a warm afternoon, so I didn’t get cold. Tip: remove everything from your pockets before doing this. My wallet and various pieces of paper inside it ended up saturated. I was also pleased to see that the ZF transmission already had the optional pan with a drain bolt in it. That’s one less thing that I have to buy - the original pans didn’t have a drain bolt and made a mess when getting serviced. After thoroughly cleaning the engine bay from the top, this now meant that the entire engine bay area was now clean. With everything this spotless I’ll be able to let the car idle in the driveway for a while later on and then get back underneath it to check for oil leaks.

I had cleaned out the back tray with a high pressure hose the night before. There’s still some of the hardware for a previous hard lid but that didn’t come with the car. As I’ll be carrying motorbikes sometimes, I’ll be avoiding a hard lid and carry a conventional soft tonneau folded up behind the seats inside the car. The tray will be accessible for normal use, but I’ll be able to put the soft tonneau on if required. Still a long way to go, but it was starting to look like a proper car inside. I’ve got the lower steering column plastic but not the correct screws for it. I’ll put the plastic on as soon as I get the screws.