PhilMeUp

I had to slide the adjuster guide up and down a bit to get things to line up, but it wasn’t difficult to do. The completed job. Everything is bolted into place, and I’ve put the plastics back in. Note that the door seal rubbers go on the outside of the plastics in all places. There were areas where the rubbers ended up on the inside of the plastics, which I sorted out with a combination of fingertips and poking a flat blade screwdriver in there and rolling it along to feed the rubber back out. There was an instruction guide in the box with the new belt, which I found to be quite useless - it didn’t cover how to remove the plastics. I’ve kept the old seat belt for now - I’ll look into getting it re-webbed for next time (ie just the belt part replaced). That way I’ll have a spare sitting at home, ready to go. If re-webbing is cheap enough then I’ll do it at least a couple of times a year - I like having a seat belt that retracts easily.

A photo of the new seat belt, which also includes the upper mechanism. As you can see, the Torx bolt that I mentioned earlier to not loosen is part of the new belt. Once you have removed the old seat belt there will be this bracket. Mine fell out just after I took this photo so it was handy to check on the camera which way it goes back on. There are two small prongs that go into the hole to hold the bracket in place, and I then bent them out a little bit so that the bracket would stay there while I put the new seat belt into place. Once I had the plastics out I figured it was time to clean them. Off to the laundry I went. I tried a couple of things, but this is the stuff that I ended up using. You can buy these aerosol eucalyptus oil spray cans from most large supermarkets and chemists. This stuff is extremely useful for cleaning anything plastic. You can see the clean streaks on the left of the photo - that’s where I sprayed the stuff on and wiped my finger over it - it took a few seconds for the eucalyptus oil spray to soak in, but once it did the grime came off easily. Thanks to the eucalyptus oil the plastics ended up looking a lot cleaner. Now it was time to get back to the car. At the bottom of the seat belt, the belt roll is held in with this T50 Torx bolt. Removing it was easy enough, but it was a bit fiddly getting the bolt to line up with the new belt roll. The upper mechanism is held in place just by the one bolt at the top. At the bottom there are two hooks - you put the mechanism into place and slide it upward a little bit until the bolt hole lines up with the thread in the car pillar. Then put the bolt back in. By now it was all coming together. This is when I remembered that I feed the seat belt through the top plastic, before putting the bottom seat belt bolt back in. Once the bottom bolt was back in, it was time to get the plastics back into place. The bottom plastic was easy enough. With the top plastic, you have to make sure that it lines up correctly - that circular shaped bit in the middle goes over the silver bolt on the seat belt. You have get this lined up to get the top plastic back on correctly. This is the bolt that the circular bit goes over. Not hard to do, but essential.

The driver’s seat belt in my taxi has been due for replacement for a while. I went looking on the internet and through some service manuals for a guide on how to pull the plastics off but couldn’t find anything. I figured “stuff it” - I’ll have a go, and if I break the plastics then I’ll replace them. It turned out that I managed to guess right. This is common - the seat belt frays over time. When it’s only minor you can cut the frayed parts off with a sharp knife, or melt them away with a cigarette lighter, but sooner or later you are going to have to replace the seat belt. This is the bit that had me stumped at first - it turns out that you just poke your fingertips in behind the plastic and pull it out. There are two clips behind the plastic that attach it to the car. These are the two clips on the other side of the plastic. Where the clips clip into on the car pillar. Very simple stuff. At the bottom of the top pillar plastic there are these two tabs, which go into the bottom plastic. Be careful not to break these when you are removing the top plastic. Once you’ve got the top plastic loose then you remove these two screws, which help to hold the bottom plastic in place. I can’t remember when and where I bought these from, but they have proven to be very useful. Teng Torx socket set. I’ll be using the T50 for this job. Once the plastics are removed it’s time to start removing the actual seat belt. Do NOT touch the silver bolt in the middle - that’s part of the seat belt and gets replaced with the new belt. The bolt to remove is the top black one, which requires a 10mm socket. At the bottom of the seat belt the bolt is covered by this plastic cover. I removed this easily by levering it off with a flat blade screwdriver. When you do this, do it gently so that the plastic cover doesn’t fly off to somewhere where you can’t find it. Once the plastic cover is removed there is this T50 bolt.

Control arm bushes, mainly the lower ones. Sure, you can get a wheel alignment, but that is done when the car is stationary. When the car is moving and braking, the control arms move (ie worn bushes) and the camber goes out (ie inner tyre wear).

If you are going to replace the complete bearing hubs then contact the nearest SSS Autos for a price.

The cooler, with mounting brackets. Fitting in the car, in front of the radiator. Crimping the hoses, before removing the heat exchanger. What does a heat exchanger do? It’s an aluminium box. Gearbox oil goes in one side and engine coolant goes in the other side. The intention is to use the engine coolant to cool the transmission oil. It does the job, but not as well as having a separate cooler at the front of the engine bay. The risk is that the heat exchanger fails inside, resulting in coolant and transmission oil being mixed together. If things go really bad then this could result in a damage motor (eg blown head gasket or wrecked motor) and wrecked gearbox. The lighter black hoses on the right are the transmission oil hoses going in and out of the heat exchanger. The brownish black hoses on the left are the engine coolant hoses. This entire lot ends up being removed. The heater exchanger. Coolant hoses have been removed, and the transmission oil hoses are about to come off. There is the issue of getting the transmission oil to the front of the car, where the cooler is. Most people use the hoses that are supplied with the cooler kit, but this is where taxi mechanics will do things differently. The BA Falcon didn’t use a heat exchanger, like the BF and FG both do. The BA had a radiator with a transmission oil cooler inside it. This also worked well… for a while. Similar to the heat exchanger, when the radiator ultimately failed, coolant and transmission oil got mixed together, resulting in possible engine and transmission failure. Very expensive. So, for this job my mechanic got a set of the aluminium pipes that the BA Falcon uses. He’s used them instead of the usual rubber hosing. This is for increased reliability - the aluminium tubing will be stronger and more resistant to being torn open than rubber hosing. Mounting points for the aluminium BA tubing being fitted to the top of the transmission. And now the aluminium tubes have been fitted. The aluminium tubes going toward the front of the car. The brownish black hoses are the coolant hoses - instead of going in and out of the heat exchanger (which has not been removed), they are connected together. The front of the engine bay. You can see the BA aluminium tubes. The BF radiator is different to the BA one, so now we have these two aluminium tubes sitting there, with nothing to connect to. We’ll get to that in a minute. The cooler in front of the radiator. That black plastic to the left will be cut out and removed soon, too allow for the aluminium tubes to reach around to the front. I bought the BF kit instead of the BA kit (which is what I should have bought). This meant that we ended up with a spare set of hoses that we didn’t use because of the BA aluminium tubing. The mechanic made use of this extra hosing by using it as a protective layer over the hosing that we did use. He has then bent the ends of the aluminium outward (very carefully). The hosing is then used to connect these tubes to the cooler that is in front of the radiator. The black plastic that was mentioned before has been cut and removed. The hoses have been connected to the cooler, and a zip tie was used to hold the top hose so that there wouldn’t be force between the hose and cooler mounting. You can also see how the spare hose was used as a second layer. The mounting bracket for the gear selector cable had to be ground back to allow space for the aluminium tubes. And that’s how it’s done. You can buy the BA aluminium tubes from a Ford dealer or get them from a wreck. Or, just use the hosing that is supplied in the BF cooler kit. The BA kit is a fair bit cheaper than the BF kit because it doesn’t come with these hoses (ie the aluminium tubes are already in place). I got my cooler kit from Driveline Auto Parts, which is at the corner of Howe and Frobisher Streets in Osborne Park. If you’re in Perth their phone number is 9443 2211. They also have branches in Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia - http://www.drivelineap.com.au/contact.html

1) Downgrading brakes from standard specifications would be illegal. If there was any sort of crash then you would he liable for everything - your car, any other vehicles... and, the kicker... any medical costs that are incurred by other people (ie hundreds of thousands of dollars). 2) Standard BA/BF calipers are a dime a dozen. You'll find them on Gumtree, eBay, Trading Post, etc, quite easily.

Brembo pads are known for being dusty and Brembo discs are known for wearing out fast. Pads - there are heaps of choices. Personally, I use Hawk Performance ceramic pads (ie low dust). For discs, RDA and DBA each have options. The highly regarded/common one is the DBA4000.

www.sperling.com.au I recently bought some seat covers that allow for seat airbags - for a BFII.

I found someone who was selling a bunch of them on eBay UK about six months ago, so bought four. I'll put one in my taxi, one in my girlfriend's taxi and the two spares will be for future extra taxis or personal cars. They seem to be pretty common in the UK. It would be worth doing regular searches on eBay UK and US.

http://www.radardetectors.com.au/gps_tracking.html I actually bought four of them secondhand a while ago via eBay UK. Cost me around $A320 delivered for the lot. Figured they wouldn't be available secondhand regularly, so bought a bunch while I could. Haven't done anything with them yet, but have read on other forums where people have spoken highly of them. Next week I'll be seeing the guy that does fitting work for the place above, so will ask if these things are worth installing.

Has anyone here had any experience with the Tramigo T22? http://www.tramigo.net/

I'm pretty sure that the brackets would cost more than $50 each. Must find out sometime. Those calipers use a 325mm diameter x 32mm thick disc rotor. The calipers that use a 355mm disc are the Brembo ones.

I got a quote for them for about $200 each brand new (trade price) last year, but that was without the mounting brackets.

Ideally, you would find some front calipers that were called the BA Premium Brake Option. They were a good, strong caliper (almost the same as what was used on the late 90s Corvettes) and use a 325mm diameter x 32mm thick disc rotor (compared to the standard 298mm x 28mm). Wreckers charge heaps for them ($800ish), but they turn up on eBay occasionally for around the $400 mark. Hard to find, but if you come across a set then buy them.

Would love a G6E... in wagon form.... Going to stick with wagons for as long as I can - need the cargo space for suitcases (airport trips), wheelchairs, walking frames (elderly people) and the occasional pushbike. With an LPG sedan, the spare wheel goes in the boot, leaving space for one suitcase only, which isn't a whole lot of help if you've got three people and three suitcases wanting a $50 trip to the airport. It's going to get very interesting in a few years when there are no wagon taxis left. In smaller towns/citys (eg Cairns) then owners will get Priuses. They probably don't cover as many kms as a city car (ie fuel costs) and LPG costs more outside of major cities. In major cities it will get difficult. Some owners/management companies will try other cars (including Late model camira Sportwagon) but most will just stick with Falcon sedans because of workshop and parts support. Taxi workshops know what parts they use, so have plenty on hand. They won't be stocking many, if any, parts for Commodore/Kia/Hyundai/Toyota/etc. Getting body panels, bumpers, gearboxes and engines will be a huge problem. Yep, kept the wreck for $1,650 in the end, which works out ok. I'll be able to remove my stuff and re-sell the wreck privately complete for a profit - hopefully $3,000 or so. Don't know what it would have cost me if the Brembo stuff was still on there - that would have gotten VERY messy. Obviously, when I get the replacement car on the road there will have to be a bunch of things that have to be defined/exluded separately. This is going to be tricky - sure, I can have the brake setup completely excluded, but what happens if there's a crash (resulting in brake caliper or wheel damage) and it's 100% the other person's fault? I expect that there will be some interesting conversations with the insurance people. Bought another car in Sydney last week. Will fly from Perth to Sydney most likely on Sunday and drive it back to Perth. Got the same thing again - BFII silver wagon. Silver = looks good (especially with the chrome wheels) and hides dirt/dust.

The only way to have avoided that collision was to be in Knight Rider.

Leaf springs are ancient, but they are cheap to maintain. There is allmost nothing to maintain - just a handful of shackle bushes to replace once a year or so. IRS requires a lot more to maintain (knuckle joints, diff bushes), which means time off the road (ie lost of income) and maintenance cost. The Late model camira also hasn't been around in LPG-only form. They are coming out now, but it will be a few years before we see them available at auction. Having petrol and LPG together is a nuisance for a car that is solely using LPG. A VE engine bay is a nightmare to work in when there's the additional LPG stuff. I'm generally a Expensive Daewoo person, and would much rather drive a Commodore, but there is pretty much no workshop support for them in the taxi industry. The BA/BF sedan/wagon is a very outdated car, but an easy and cheap one to maintain and keep on the road. It will be interesting in a few more years though, when there are no Falcon wagons left. In WA a taxi can be no more than eight years old (from the date on the compliance plate). Ford stopped making Falcon wagons in September 2010, so in less than seven years there will be almost no taxi wagons. Yeah, so what? A sedan only fits one suitcase (ie spare wheel is in the boot), so anything else goes in the back seat. Want to get more than two people to or from an airport? Not going to happen - try and find a van or get two taxis. There will be similar problems with wheelchairs, walking frames and pushbikes. Some places over east are trying out other vehicles but are having enough trouble with to make them not suitable. In the eastern states, taxis have to retire even younger. I think it's five years maximum age. There is one VE Late model camira taxi wagon in Perth - taxi 354, which I see in the Fremantle area sometimes. There's a guy (Larry) who runs three VE Late model camira sedan taxis. I was talking to him about a year ago and he mentioned his maintenance cost for the previous few months - it was something like $11,000. Ouch.

Nothing would have prevented the collision - the guy ran through the stop sign and my driver didn't have time to react in any way. The beaurocracy about being told one thing the week before the inspeciton and a different thing after it was knocked back pissed me off. However, it's saved me some grief in the end because the Brembo setup is at home where instead of sitting in a yard somewhere. VERY odd set of circumstances.

For both front and rear Brembo calipers, I'm using the standard bolts that hold the standard calipers on.

Last week the car had to go through it's annual Department of Transport inspection. I wanted to make sure that the car would pass on the first attempt so made some phone calls and ended up talking to a guy call Phil (same name as me), who oversees modification permits for the DOT (and therefore is the expert on what is and is not legal). I took my laptop to him with photos of the braking system on this car. His first concern was the legality of the brake calipers - they would have to be tested and certified by an suitably qualified automotive engineer. However, when I explained that these are are same callipers that are used by Ford on FPV Falcons then that meant that these calipers could be classified as a "manufacturer option", meaning that Ford/FPV had already had them certified. The problem that Phil had was the mounting of the rear brake lines. The braided lines that I bought from Goodridge last year are too long, so have been securely zip-tied to the top of the leaf spring on each side. It doesn't look particularly good, but 52,000km later there has not been a single problem and it has proven to be safe. The response from Phil was that he wasn't particularly pleased about having brake lines mounted to the leaf springs but if I had any trouble at the inspection then to get the examiner to give him a call. ie: Sure enough, the brake lines were an issue at the examination. I got a guy who was determined to fail the car for whatever he could. I asked him to call Phil, but he refused to do so. So, the next day I was back to see Phil at his office. Now that the car had been failed by someone, his attitude was entirely different. What was acceptable a few days earlier was now completely unacceptable. Welcome to government departments. So, on Thursday night I resigned myself to pulling all the Brembo and associated stuff off the car and putting standard stuff back on. A phone call to CompFriction (where I got the brake lines from) got a good amount of interest from Dave, who was more than happy to make some shorter lines once I explained how much trouble these ones had now caused. But they wouldn't arrive in Perth in time. I managed to find a last minute cancellation and got the car passed on Friday morning. The registration expired on Sunday, so there was considerable pressure to get it cleared on Friday. What should have been a simple process was made stupidly difficult - I'll be keeping away from that particular inspection centre in future. So, back to normal life. After having this top-of-the-range brake setup for months I was now pretty disgusted about having standard stuff back on the car, even if it was only going to be for a few days. Oh, I was miffed. Luckily, I had kept all the original stuff boxed up in the shed. Not being in an overwhelmingly good mood at the time, I wasn't fussed about how much mess I made with brake fluid (everything got degreased and cleaned when I finished though). Why is all this stuff relevant? The plot thickens... Because…. Oh crap. An 18 year old P-plater drove through a stop sign. My day driver had actually finished for the day and was on his way back to my place, when this guy came through an intersection at normal speed. I got woken up by a phone call shortly after 1pm from the supervisor at the taxi call centre, resulting in me staggering out of bed and muttering all sorts of colourful language before making my way to the crash scene. I figured this was fairly cosmetic. Irritating, but at least I'd get a new front bumper out of it and I'd get some other panel work done while the car was getting repaired. Then the tow truck driver said that the car would be a write-off, which definitely got my attention. The whole front of the car has been pushed to one side, meaning bent chassis rails. Oh. Good. I've kept this car insured at the higher end of its value range, meaning that I can just about replace the car for what it is insured for. I'm rather pissed off that I spent $1,320 on a new diff that week and fitted new front wheel bearing hubs and new tyres, but the gearbox is on its last legs and will need replacing soon (ie $2,3000 for a good reconditioned one with stronger AU gearbox parts). When the assessor had a look at it on Wednesday he said it was a line-ball decision between getting it repaired and writing it off. I acknowledged that it was his decision but would very, very, very much prefer a write-off. By Friday afternoon I hadn't heard back, so called him again. He said that it will most likely be a write-off. This means that I can go shopping for a replacement car. A fun task, but tricky because of time constraints - I need something immediately. I've come to like the silver colour - it looks good (especially with the chrome wheels) and it hides dirt quite well, so I'm after the same car again - silver, dedicated LPG Falcon wagon (either BFII or III). There are a few options at auction places in various eastern cities, so I'll probably end up buying one and having it put on a truck and brought to Perth. Flying over and driving one on a road trip across the Nullabor is extremely tempting, but more expensive (ie loss of income). I've managed to lease another taxi full-time for two weeks to keep my day driver and myself employed for now. Things got really interesting yesterday (Friday afternoon) when I rang the assessor. He asked if I wanted to keep the wreck, so I asked how much for. The price he gave me seemed a little high, so he mentioned the nice chrome wheels and new tyres. I had spoken with someone at the insurance company last year about the extra stuff that I had put on the car (ie wheels, Brembo brakes, mobile phone kit, radar detector and a few other things) and was told that if the car was ever in a crash and became a total loss (ie write-off) then I would be able to put the original stuff back on the car and keep the extra stuff. The assessor was now saying that was not true, and that anything on the car right now stays there. A very heated discussed resulted. I rang the insurance company and it turns that that is true - anything on the car stays with it. The girl that advised me otherwise last year was a trainee and was incorrect. It's been referred to someone higher up and will be decided next week, which left me in a very pissed off mood all through Friday night. This could get interesting. Talk about a fluke. I spent Thursday night removing Brembo calipers, brake disc rotors and brake lines. If the stuff was still on the car when it was crashed on Sunday then I'd be in one hell of a fight with the assessor and insurance company about ownership of this stuff.

Last week the car had to go through it's annual Department of Transport inspection. I wanted to make sure that the car would pass on the first attempt so made some phone calls and ended up talking to a guy call Phil (same name as me), who oversees modification permits for the DOT (and therefore is the expert on what is and is not legal). I took my laptop to him with photos of the braking system on this car. His first concern was the legality of the brake calipers - they would have to be tested and certified by an suitably qualified automotive engineer. However, when I explained that these are are same callipers that are used by Ford on FPV Falcons then that meant that these calipers could be classified as a "manufacturer option", meaning that Ford/FPV had already had them certified. The problem that Phil had was the mounting of the rear brake lines. The braided lines that I bought from Goodridge last year are too long, so have been securely zip-tied to the top of the leaf spring on each side. It doesn't look particularly good, but 52,000km later there has not been a single problem and it has proven to be safe. The response from Phil was that he wasn't particularly pleased about having brake lines mounted to the leaf springs but if I had any trouble at the inspection then to get the examiner to give him a call. ie: Sure enough, the brake lines were an issue at the examination. I got a guy who was determined to fail the car for whatever he could. I asked him to call Phil, but he refused to do so. So, the next day I was back to see Phil at his office. Now that the car had been failed by someone, his attitude was entirely different. What was acceptable a few days earlier was now completely unacceptable. Welcome to government departments. So, on Thursday night I resigned myself to pulling all the Brembo and associated stuff off the car and putting standard stuff back on. A phone call to CompFriction (where I got the brake lines from) got a good amount of interest from Dave, who was more than happy to make some shorter lines once I explained how much trouble these ones had now caused. But they wouldn't arrive in Perth in time. I managed to find a last minute cancellation and got the car passed on Friday morning. The registration expired on Sunday, so there was considerable pressure to get it cleared on Friday. What should have been a simple process was made stupidly difficult - I'll be keeping away from that particular inspection centre in future. So, back to normal life. After having this top-of-the-range brake setup for months I was now pretty disgusted about having standard stuff back on the car, even if it was only going to be for a few days. Oh, I was miffed. Luckily, I had kept all the original stuff boxed up in the shed. Not being in an overwhelmingly good mood at the time, I wasn't fussed about how much mess I made with brake fluid (everything got degreased and cleaned when I finished though). And then…. Oh crap. Someone ran a stop sign, resulting in a very damaged car and some troubles with the insurance company about writing the car off and ownership of the wreck. To be continued...

Finally bought one of these things from the US a few weeks ago. I couldn't figure out any other way of easily getting the pistons apart in a Brembo monoblock caliper, so ordered a GiroDisc Pad Spreader directly from GiroDisc. It was $US225 plus $US65 post, which worked out to $A274 at the time. Had a tinker with it tonight. I've been using Hawk Performance ceramic pads for their low dust qualities, but had a set of Ferodo 2500 pads in the shed that came with some disc rotors I bought last year. Figured I'd try my first pad change. Also bought a 4mm nail punch from Bunnings for knocking the pins out. Did a quick lap of the block later with the 2500 pads and they definitely have more bite than the Hawk ceramic pads (which is to be expected). Was the GiroDisc worth getting? Well, I only used the thing for handful of seconds. It's one of those things that makes the job so easy that you wonder why you bothered to spend money buying the thing. But, I'd imagine that if I didn't have it then I'd still be out in the front yard trying to figure out how to get the pads out and push the pistons back in. I used it initially for getting the brake pads out - they were squashed up against the disc by the pistons, so I used it to push the pads apart at the points where the pins go through. That got me enough slack to easily remove each pad. Then I pushed in the side for a six piston caliper and straight away had all six pistons pushed right back. Damn, this was simple! It's a lot of money for something that I'll only use a few times a year. But, when I do use it for those few times, it will save time and make an irritating job very, very quick and easy. I'll try it sometime on a conventional caliper and see if it beats having to stuff around with a g-clamp. For anyone with monoblock calipers on their car and who will be doing their own pad changes, one of these things is definitely worth considering. For someone who changes pads for track days (and back again afterward), one of these would be essential. Photos: Mine came in a fairly ugly orange colour, instead of the red that was in most advertising photos. Bugger. Want to get all six pistons apart in a couple of seconds? That's what this thing does.

Both my girlfriend's and my taxi have been intermittently running rough lately. Deb's car is stalling sometimes, and mine is having phases of a few minutes each time where it is very underpowered. I had put a new stepper motor in each car a few months ago, which was about when the problems started. So, thinking it might be a bad batch of stepper motors, I replaced them with new ones again. No change. I had the throttle body on each car cleaned by a taxi mechanic who does this stuff every day. Again, no change. The problem wasn't electrical - it was clearly some sort of fuel starvation issue. Whenever my engine ran on low power output, it still did so smoothly - there wasn't the roughness that running on four or five cylinders would produce. So, it wasn't plugs or coils. That's where I was starting to get stumped and started to do some searching through Falcon forums, and started reading threads about oxygen sensors and PCV valves. The more posts I read, the more it seemed like either one of these two was causing the problem for each car. I finally decided to replace the oxygen sensor and PCV valve on each car. The first task was to figure out what each of them was, which wasn't too hard. Ford's price for an oxygen sensor is around the $400 mark, so more searching was done to see what alternatives there are. Sure enough, Bosch make one. Bosch stuff is sold very cheaply all over Australia by a company called MTQ Engine Systems. The part number that people had posted on forums matched the part number listed in the Bosch PDF that I found. Goody. This job was going to be done today. I decided that this morning, and nothing was going to stop that. Any natural disasters, terrorist attacks or armageddons would have to bugger off and wait until at least tomorrow. Today I was going to replace the *&^%$# oxygen sensor and PCV valve on the two taxis. I had been receiving substantial whinging from both the girlfriend and my day driver, and there was a sudden development today of an urgent requirement to shut them both up. So, having figured out what oxygen sensor to buy, I made the call to MTQ. The price in their catalogue was $39.50 plus GST, which was most acceptable. But, they didn't have any in stock in Perth, and would have to get them from the eastern states. This was not compatible with my declaration that this job was going to be done today. A call to Repco confirmed that they had them available. For $111. No worries, don't call me, I'll call you. A call to another auto parts company confirmed that I could get them for a trade price of $61.55 each. But, he wanted a parts order, on a letterhead, etc. He wouldn't do them for trade price for a taxi. I gave up and rang another branch. Rod was more than happy to sell them to me for trade price, but he only had one in stock. Crap. However, he immediately solved the problem by creating an order on the computer system to be picked up at the place that had the two in stock, at trade price. Ripper, it took a few phone calls and some stuffing around, but I finally had two oxygen sensors lined up. Girlfriend was called and informed of the situation - it was her job to go and pick up the sensors (ie NOW!), whilst I moved on to organising PCV valves (including figuring out what one is first). PCV valves were easy - they came to about $11.00 each from the usual Ford dealer that I get taxi parts from, and they had plenty in stock. I got the oxygen sensor out of my car and rang girlfriend to inform her to hurry the hell up. She did this, and my car had a new oxygen sensor a few minutes later. She went off to do other stuff whilst I decided to get the Aprilia out and go pick up the PCV valves. Doing my car was easy because the engine bay was cold. Doing Deb's car was going to be a pain because she would have to drive the thing to my place (ie hot engine bay). It all worked out rather well. After fitting the new oxygen sensor and PCV valve to my car, there was the magic moment where the engine actually did start and run properly. Deb arrived some time later and we left her car in my front yard with the bonnet up for a while. Surprisingly, it cooled down fairly quick and the same job got done on her car. She left about 10 minutes ago and just rang. Bugger, a phone call so quick meant that she'd already had more grief. No, she was calling to tell me how much better the gearbox kickdown now worked. Now that I know how cheap and simple it is to do replace these two parts, I wish that I did it weeks ago. Ah well, another lesson for future reference. The photos: Here's the old one that came out of my car, next to the new Bosch one that is about to go in Deb's car. Minor differences at the sensor end, but they look like they would both do the same job. Here's a photo of the clip on the one that came out of my car. This was difficult to disconnect - it was mounted to the firewall and there were hoses blocking my view of it, so I just had to feel around and guess how to unclip it. It turned out that was doing it the right way, but the plastic wouldn't come loose until some "encouraging" words were said. I used a small flat blade screwdriver with one hand to push the clip in and yanked it in different directions with the other hand. The Ford service manual PDF that I looked through before starting this said to use Loctite 767 or similar (ie anti-seize), so I got Deb to get the smallest amount they've got. Apparently smallest and life time supply mean the same thing. A photo of the engine bay in Deb's car, showing the oxygen sensor location and the LPG hoses that I also had to deal with. You remove this heat shield. There are three bolts on the top that require a 13mm socket. There are two bolts at the bottom that require a 10mm socket. The removed heat shield - you can see where the lower bolts go. I've disconnected two hoses from the LPG converter so that I can get to the oxygen sensor. I don't know what size spanner it takes - I just used a large crescent to loosen it. Here's the new one ready to go in, with the anti-seize on the threads. The new one in place. To tighten it, I used used low to medium force with a crescent. Pretty close to spark plug tension. Now it was time to replace the PCV valve, which turns out to be a stupidly simple thing on top of the engine. I got the plastic valve and the rubber elbow, which needs to be forced onto the PCV valve. The new PCV valve in place. I always use a zip tie to tighten the hose's grip, preventing it from coming off. The finished job. New oxygen sensor and PCV valve are in place, the heat shield is back on and the hoses are connected where they are meant to be. Here's the two old oxygen sensors side by side. On the left is mine; on the right is Deb's. My car is currently up to 457,000km and I'm pretty sure that's the original one. Deb's car is up to 280,000km and I'm pretty sure that's also the original one. This is also confirmed by the fact that they look identical, apart from the colouring on the sensor ends. Photos of the parts numbers. The part number for the Bosch oxygen sensor is 0 258 986 603. As mentioned earlier, the cheapest place that I can think of to get them is MTQ Engine Systems (www.mtqes.com.au). While you're there, don't forget to get some Bosch AeroTwin wiper blades ($15.50 vs $30-35 retail), some PBR Super Dot 4 brake fluid (ie what I use for my brake fluid flushes), a set of spark plugs, an oil filter or three, a petrol filter, air filter, drive belt and maybe a spare headlight globe or two. They also have Bosch brake pads, alternators and starter motors, as well as PBR brake parts (eg disc rotors). Get a catalogue and have a look through it while you're there - if it's Bosch or PBR then they have it at much lower pricing than everywhere else. How I confirmed the part number for the Bosch oxygen sensor: It wasn't that hard - some searching on Falcon forums found it easily enough. But, to make absolutely 100% sure, I went to http://www.bosch.com.au/content/language1/html/2230.htm and clicked on Engine Management Systems. On that page (ie http://www.bosch.com.au/content/language1/html/4543.htm) there is a link for Oxygen Sensors. Clicking on that downloads a PDF. For the 2009-2010 version that I got, the listing for a BFII Falcon is at the bottom of page 57.