PhilMeUp

It's actually covered in legislation - Regulation 120 of the Road Traffic (Vehicles) Regulations 2014: obscuring device means a device the use or operation of which would result in a plate on a vehicle being in an ID prevention state but does not include — (a) a tow ball fitted to the rear of a vehicle; or (b) a bicycle rack fitted to the rear of a vehicle; or (c) a bicycle carried on a bicycle rack fitted to the rear of a vehicle; --------------------------------------------------- A person does not commit an offence under subregulation (2), (3), (6) or (7) if the thing that is preventing the whole or part of a character on the plate from being read is — (a) a tow ball fitted to the rear of the vehicle; or (b) a bicycle rack fitted to the rear of the vehicle; or (c) a bicycle carried on a bicycle rack fitted to the rear of the vehicle.

If anyone ever figures this out then please post here. I HATE the pissy little handbag mirrors on the BA/BF. I've looked at the BA/BF and FG bases. I can't see how it can be done.

One of the stupid ideas that I have in mind for my ute (there's a bit of a list): We all know that it's now expensive to obscure a licence plate - $1,000 fine. However, the law makes an exception for tow bars and pushbike carriers. Look at some older cars - the licence plate is in the middle of the rear bumper. Add a towbar and it blocks the view of the licence plate. Last week I saw a BA XR8 ute in East Perth that had the licence plate in the centre. The towbar was obscuring part of the licence plate. Hell yeah. Turns out that there's a place making aftermarket rear bumpers. Not cheap, around $400 upward, plus painting. About the cost of a decent speeding fine. http://www.awcinfo.com Most cameras are set up rear facing these days (which also makes radar detectors fairly obsolete). Get a bumper that puts the licence plate in the middle, add a pushbike carrier bracket and you've legally obscured the rear licence plate. Or, get a spare standard bumper and do some cutting and plastic welding. ie create this: Other photos - this stuff is legal. Go figure.

Check the manufacture dates before the tyres get fitted.

I've got no problem with setting the car back to standard to get through an inspection. However, the verbal quotes that I've been getting are way overpriced. Workshops are still in the mining boom days - they're still charging top dollar. As I mentioned earlier, one bloke said last week, "two grand to get it over the pits and another two grand afterward." That's a tad expensive. I would rather have it done at someone's house, by someone who has experience with this stuff. That way I can learn a bunch more about the turbo setup and be more knowledgeable about this car for the future.

One solution is to get it re-tuned, including an E85 tune. Get an emissions test done on E85 (ie which it will pass). Then get it all engineered. It would then pass an inspection as it is. Problems: - Massive cost. Don't have that money right now. - DOT take at least a couple of months to process engineering applications.

Why didn't I set it back to standard at the start? There had been previous "negotiations" to get the car through an inspection. Different deals, with different people. Promises had been made. Nothing too shonky. No cash bribes. Heck, it was meant to get licenced on the it arrived in Perth. That had already been lined up. Unfortunately, people didn't come through at the last second. This has happened several times. If I see anyone from here in person then I'll explain things a bit more. There have been a few near misses with getting it through an inspection, which I've kept quiet about. A lot of people have met this car. A few of them have been very keen to see it licenced, and wanted to help with that. I've copped a bit of flack about it on here, but I've had to keep my mouth shut... not going to get anyone into trouble. As it is, the car will get set mostly back to standard for an inspection. The holdup right now is figuring out some piping to go from the Plazmaman 1000hp intercooler to where the throttle body will sit once the standard intake plenum is back on.

That's why I condense hours of f*ck-ups into a simple set of photos that makes it look I know what I'm doing. There's a reason why I don't put that stuff on YouTube...

DO NOT DRIVE THAT CAR AGAIN... Until the ball joints have been replaced. Use the Ford ones, they last the longest. Part number is BA3395A - search on eBay if you can't get them cheap enough locally. You'll need something to press the old ones out, and the new ones in. You can buy a mini-press from Radum that will do it. If you're in Perth then do the job in my driveway here and borrow my mini-press. If you don't have the tools or skills then take the car to a taxi workshop. They'll knock it out in 15-20 minutes per side. Photo guide: Avoid this:

Radar detectors are of little use these days. It's all laser now, which is precise and instant. The radar detector will go apesh*t, but it's too late. I've got a Valentine One in my taxi. It usually gives me a little bit of warning about front-facing cameras, but only a couple of seconds. For rear-facing cameras there is no prior warning, but it's useful having the V1 go nuts because then I know that I've just passed a camera. I remember that location for next time. For double-or-nothing, that's for demerit points suspensions only. For court-ordered suspensions, life gets difficult. You can apply for an extraordinary licence but you have to wait several weeks before applying, and then wait for a court date. The gadget to have these days is a laser jamming system. Not cheap - around two grand upwards for something that works. For fixed-location cameras, get a TomTom 730 and bring it to me to set up. I've got the camera locations saved, and my TomTom makes various warning sounds whenever I get near a fixed-location camera. Very useful.

Yup. That's to repent for watching the porn on the LCD next to it.

Nup, no Xcal. Which means I can't just flash it back to stock.

As we covered in PM a while ago, if you're available some time then the job is yours. Setting things back to standard is out of my league. It needs to be done, but I don't have the skills and experience to do that. I know a fair bit about the rest of this car from my taxi background, but I know just about nothing about turbo stuff. So, I need someone to do that for me. In anticipation of that, I actually collected a lot of the standard stuff when I first got the ute. I've got a standard intake plenum, dump pipe, cat, intercooler and airbox. Don't have standard injectors, though. I've asked around at workshops, but they're still in the mining boom days (ie pricing). One place was saying that it would be about $600 for labour to put a standard manifold on and then put the Plazmaman plenum back on after the inspection. Plus the cost of some piping. Another place that I went to this week was talking about, "two grand to get it over the pits... and then another two grand to set it back again." Stuff that. Even if I do get it done at a workshop then I won't learn anything. This is my third ute project in 18 months, and although they've been a sh*tload more work than I ever expected, I've also learned a lot. If standard stuff goes back on then I'd rather be able to watch it get done and ask the occasional question. With all of this, I have had no training - I have had no-one to teach me. I certainly don't have any natural talent for this stuff - I am one clumsy dickhead at times. So, if anyone has the skills and experience with this stuff, then contact me.

Yep, I was slack last night. I normally put axle stands under there as well, but I wasn't actually under the car. The bumper and air filter are at the front, washing underneath was just a matter of waving the pressure washer wand around and putting the splash guard screws back in was also easy. Yeah, I didn't think that there was a problem with them, but someone that was going to do an inspection on the car said that he wouldn't pass them. I want new tyres on the car now, but I don't have the suitable rims yet. Once I get an 18x9 or 18x10 rim finalised for the rear then I can get new tyres. Until then, I've pursued the cheapest temporary option to get the car in a roadworthy condition. Don't forget that I can later use those tyres on my taxi, so I'll be getting my money's worth out of them. There is actually a master plan for all of this, but it hasn't been coming through properly in recent posts. Cost is a major factor, and although the tyres fiasco looks like a waste it was the cheapest option at the time. I vastly underestimated what it will take to get this car through an inspection. This car has been here for eight months now, and it's still unlicenced. I've been very pissed off with the whole project for a while now, and it gets ignored for weeks at a time. I've taken the car to heaps of places and asked a bunch of questions. But, I keep getting answers that sound good initially, but turn out to not be an effective solution. Obviously, a standard intake plenum is going to have to go back on at some stage, and I've got one of those here. I checked the part number, and it turns out that all the Falcons used the same plenum. I've got one on an old taxi motor. But, then there's the matter of piping from the Plazaman intercooler to where the throttle body will sit on a standard plenum. To buy piping for just the one use is going to cost hundreds of dollars. Just to use for one day. There have also been a bunch of things that I can't post here. There has been wheeling and dealing with different people that can get the car through an inspection, but they haven't come through. I've been fed crap by a few people, and that's dragged things out a hell of a lot.

Friday, 12th February, 2016 There were some jobs to be done today that required the removal of the front bumper. I used my trolley jack to raise the front of the car so that I could get to the screws that hold the black plastic splash guard in place. The bumper came off easily enough. I also had my pressure washer out so that I could clean underneath the engine area thoroughly. The front bumper has previously been scraped on bitumen regularly. On each side of the grey plastic insert, the plastic has been ground down so much that it doesn’t properly attach to the main bumper. Because of this, the grey plastic flops back and forth. I’ll eventually get the bumper and insert repainted, but needed to put something temporary in place to keep the two bits of plastic together. The other side of the front bumper - also ground down. This is also why I replaced the suspension springs when I first got the car. I had a look at the bumper and prepared for the delicate and intricate surgery that was to follow. After almost zero time allocated to the planning process, I drilled a hole through the bumper and grey insert, and then put a small bolt in place to hold the two pieces together. The inside of the bumper. I used a washer on each side. Before it got dark I cleaned underneath the car with the pressure washer. That is one very large intercooler. I wanted to do any other possible jobs while the front bumper was off. I figured that it was time to have a proper go at cleaning the K&N air filter. The K&N filter was full of bits of insect. Some time ago I bought a K&N air filter cleaning kit, so at least I was prepared for this. As soon as I started spraying the cleaning stuff onto the filter various junk started draining out. I kept spraying the K&N cleaner, and was starting to get through the bottle. This stuff is expensive. I went back to my computer, did some Google searching and confirmed that other people were regularly cleaning their K&N filters with CT18. I got my weed sprayer bottle of CT18 and pumped it up to full pressure. I held the end of the wand inside the air filter and watched the CT18 flush junk out of the filter. I used a nail cleaning brush to try and get more of the insect bits out of the filter. Then I rinsed out the filter with the tap. It looked a lot cleaner then. There were still some bits of insect stuck in the middle, where the nail brush couldn’t reach, but this was good enough for now. I also didn’t want to wait hours for the filter to dry out, so left my weed blower pushing air through it for a while. This worked very well, and the filter dried out quickly. Inside the filter looked like new. Then it was time to spray on the K&N air filter oil. I sprayed on more than I thought I should have, but despite that there were no signs of excess oil. I’m guessing that it all soaked into the filter. The air filter back in place. There were no signs of the red K&N filter oil before I removed the filter - it was way overdue to be cleaned and re-oiled. I don’t know yet how often I’ll need to clean and re-oil this filter from now on, but I’ll probably start with six monthly intervals. I had now done the three tasks that needed to be done - washed under the engine, bolted the two parts of the front bumper together and cleaned the air filter. Time to put the bumper back on. The turbo boost gauge on the dashboard doesn’t work. With the Plazmaman setup the boost sensor is on one of the pipes on the passenger side of the car. This is good news - if I need to replace that sensor then it will be easy to access. When I was putting the splash guard back on, I noticed that the boost sensor is accessible without removing the front bumper. On the standard setup it involves removing the bumper and intercooler - a fair bit of work. I’m pretty clueless with a multi-meter, so I’ll figure out that problem another time. Putting the bumper back on. The bumper went back on easily enough, and it was time to call it a night.

Monday, 16th November, 2015 Tonight’s job was to swap the wheels between the two Tornados. The green one came with the original FPV 19” rims, but I’ll be replacing them with a higher profile tyre (ie 18”) and something wider at the back to handle the power (ie 18x9 or 18x10 instead of the original 19x8). There was also some inner camber wear on the 19” tyres. This will be an issue at a licencing inspection. I’ve got 18” ROH Flare wheels on the blue Tornado, so I’ll be keeping those wheels on the green one until I sort out something more permanent. The FPV rims can get sold with the blue Tornado. The chrome ROH Flare wheels don’t show up very well in photos, but they stand out well in real life. The green Tornado is often covered in dust these days. Not good. All of the wheels got cleaned with CT18 and a brush. Using a weed sprayer bottle with the brush makes this easy. There are various things that I do to prevent brake shudder on Falcons. One of them is to ensure that wheel nuts are tightened up evenly. I use a Snap-On digital torque wrench for this - I bought a TECH3FR250 and a TECH3FR100 from the US back when the exchange rate was good. I use a cordless drill to initially tighten the wheel nuts. Then I lower the car so that the wheel is touching the ground enough to prevent it from rotating. This to ensure that each wheel nut centres in its respective hole properly. Then I tighten each wheel nut to Ford’s specified 125Nm with the torque wrench. The Snap-On digital torque wrenches vibrate as they approach the pre-set torque setting, and then beep when they reach the setting. Half way through. The front FPV rims are on the blue Tornado. Swapping over the back wheels on the green Tornado. The blue Tornado, with the 19” FPV rims. The green Tornado, with the 18” ROH Flare rims. The ROH Flare wheels are a pain to keep clean, but they look damn good when they are clean. These 18x8” rims will do until I sort out something more permanent (ie something wider at the rear).

Friday, 13th November, 2015 Over the last few months I’ve been taking the Tornado to various workshops to see if anyone will pass the car with the larger dump pipe and hi-flow cat in place. It’s been all bad news so far. However, one mechanic wanted to also check the tyres, and commented that he would also knock back the front tyres because of some inside camber wear. I didn’t think that the tyres were a problem, but I decided to make sure that I’ve got some tyres that are guaranteed legal for when the car eventually does go through an inspection. I want to end up with 18” tyres on the Tornado, so will be putting the existing 19” FPV wheels on to my other Tornado, which will be sold with those wheels. I have a set of 18x8” ROH Flare wheels on the blue Tornado. I’d love to use them permanently, but this car will need wider tyres than what an 8” rim can accommodate. The ROH wheels will go on the ute temporarily, until I sort something out permanent. The problem was that the tread was getting low on those tyres. As I’ll only need the ROH wheels until I get some other permanent wheels, I didn’t want to spent a bunch of money buying new tyres. So, I checked Gumtree a couple of times each day for a suitable set of secondhand 18” tyres. They also had to have a minimum load rating of 95, which is the legal requirement for Falcon utes and station wagons. It took me a couple of weeks, but eventually I found a suitable set of tyres for $200. I drove 36km to the seller, and was extremely disappointed to find that his tyres also had a lot of camber wear on one side of each tyre. So much for them having the “80% tread” that I was promised. I was pretty pissed off about this, but kept quiet. Then someone else at the house showed me some wheels that he had. And the tyres on those wheels were suitable. They are Pirelli Zero Nero tyres, with almost all of their original tread. I bought the lot for the same price as what the other tyres were going to be ($200), on the understanding that I would return the wheels to him once I had the tyres removed. The lengthy drive turned out to not be a waste of time after all. The date stamps on the sidewalls indicated that the tyres were manufactured back in 2012, but they still have almost their entire original tread. I bought these AVS T7 wheels for $200. These are 18x8 and 18x9”, so will fit. They are badly scratched, which is why they were cheap. I’ll look into getting them repaired and either painted or powder coated. Lots of scratching, but no signs of hitting anything particularly hard. These tyres will be going on my ROH Flare rims, which are currently on my other Tornado. A photo of the inner camber wear on the existing 19” front tyres. It hadn’t previously occurred to me that these might not pass inspection. Needing a set of wheels with 100% legal tyres, I had spent a couple of weeks looking for either a suitable pair of 19” tyres for these rims, or a set of four 18” tyres for the ROH wheels. I don’t know yet whether that camber wear is because of a bad wheel alignment or worn front lower control arm bushes. I’ll probably end up replacing the bushes to ensure that I don’t get camber wear on whatever tyres I end up buying (ie they probably won’t be cheap).

Wednesday, 4th November, 2015 Not long after I bought the Tornado I bought some Advan AVS T7 wheels from someone in Queensland - pretty much the exact opposite side of the country to me. These were 18x9 and 18x10. I suspected that the wheels wouldn’t fit, but I got them cheap enough. I figured that I’d try them out, and resell them if they didn’t fit. The first wheel was removed. The gold colour on the AVS rim looked good against the green backdrop of the Tornado. I like the idea of having Australian colours (ie green and gold) on an Australian car, particularly as Ford is about to cease production in Australia. However, the front rims didn’t have the required offset to clear the spindle. There was only a few millimetres gap between the rim and spindle, which didn’t leave enough room for a tyre. The 18x9 inch rim fitted within the mudguard, but only just. I advertised the wheels for sale on Facebook and sold them the next day for what I paid for them. Nothing lost. A couple of days later I bought another set of T7 wheels (ie same shape as these) in 18x8 and 18x9 sizing. They’re badly scuffed, so I’ll get them repaired and painted or powder coated. Unless I can find another set of 18x9 and 18x10 wheels that fit.

Wednesday, 23rd September, 2015 After bombing out at various workshops with getting the Tornado through a licensing inspection, I figured I’d try going to a country town to see if things were a bit more relaxed there. There are two places in Northam that do inspections. Both said the same thing - any changes in the exhaust require an emissions test. Bugger. There was a third place that used to do inspections. However, he recently passed a car without even looking at it. The car belonged to a friend of his, who then sold the car unlicenced shortly afterward. The seller didn’t give the buyer the inspection paperwork, so the buyer presented the car at a Dept of Transport (ie government) inspection place in Perth. As the car was full of rust, it was immediately rejected. It won’t ever go on the road again. However, when the DOT checked the VIN it showed up that the car had recently been passed by someone in Northam. That mechanic is now being prosecuted by the Dept of Transport. Hence, the remaining two places in Northam are doing everything by the book. At one workshop I went to there was an immaculate HZ Expensive Daewoo ute out the front. Complete with the 5.0 litre badge that was so common on Holdens in the 1970s. Square lines on the Expensive Daewoo ute, versus the more rounded lines on the FPV. Look at the sizes of the wheels on each car. At one workshop there was a Expensive Daewoo HG Brougham. The HG was immaculate. Apart from the engine, it was almost the same as the day it left the factory. The HG also needs to pass inspection. It is illegal to have an uncovered hole in a bonnet, so the tunnel ram and air filters will be removed, and another bonnet fitted for the inspection. The car will later be freighted to another town, where the tunnel ram and bonnet will be fitted again. Come closing time, there was some useful informal discussion with the mechanic. Things have changed a lot this year - Dept of Transport have cracked down a lot on what is permissible in inspections. On the right side of the photo is a BFII ute wreck with 64,000km. I bought the two front seats to go in my taxi. Good condition BA/BF seats are hard to find. Originally established in 1833, Northam has a lot of old historical buildings. It is roughly 100km from Perth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northam,_Western_Australia More old buildings, including The Riverside Hotel. With nothing more that I could do in Northam, it was time to start heading home. Out on the open road. By the time I got to Midland, on the outskirts of Perth, the windscreen was covered in bugs. Due to cheap petrol pricing, there was a long line of cars lined up down the road. With almost no petrol left, I went around the line and went to the bowser on the left. One of the other reasons I went to Northam was to buy a set of AU XR6 wheels to go on a taxi of mine. I’m going to replace the standard Falcon XT steel wheels and hubcaps with the AU rims. The AU XR6 rims and the BFIII rims take the same size tyre. As well as looking better, the AU rims will mean that I can see how much is left on the brake pads without having to remove the wheels. The seats from the BF ute wreck were also folded out and put in the back with the wheels. After all that, my attempts at getting the car passed at a relatively relaxed country town workshop were unsuccessful. Ah well, back to the drawing board.

Monday, 21st September, 2015 Like just about every other FPV F6, the front bumper has various scratches. The plastic grill insert is also damaged and is flopping loose. I took the Tornado to a panel beater to get a price on getting the front bumper repainted. However, he was booked out for a while, so I didn’t book it in. I’m glad that I didn’t. I had a job done there on another car and the quality of the work is not good. Those white spots are paint chips. I’m assuming that this car has spent a lot of time on country roads. That corrosion on the heat shield irritates me. Some day I’ll remove the two heat shields and polish them. At a later time I’ll remove the front bumper and get it re-painted properly.

Got a couple of helmets here. What are the requirements?

What does God think about speed cameras? Does Jesus love Jaws?

In the taxi world, the aftermarket window regulators are known for not lasting very long. You're better off getting a secondhand Ford one from a wreck (ie Gumtree). Get a can of silicon spray and lubricate the window guides every few months. The AU/BA/BF window regulator is NOT the same as the FG one (I've looked it up before).

Check all the air pipes - one of them might have come loose.

This is my phobia. I drive for a living. I'll get out of taxis soon (hopefully) but will probably still be involved in passenger transport in some way (buses). If I get done then it's not just a matter of copping a 6 month suspension - Dept of Transport won't let me drive passenger vehicles again. My FPV ute has done some high speed stuff on quiet suburban roads (late at night), but is kept slow on main roads. I'm constantly looking for speed limit signs. The consequences are ongoing... try and get insurance once you disclose this one to any insurance company. A laser jammer will be required on the next car. I had two suspensions back in the 1990s for demerit points. No big deal, but then I couldn't get motorbike insurance. Lost two bikes to theft... uninsured. Cost me a fortune. Meanwhile, some moron can run a stop sign and kill a motorbike rider, and just get a small fine and a few demerit points. As you say, it's all about time and place. Both of these need to be carefully selected these days, and there are bugger-all moments of getting them both together. Considering the consequences of this one, it's worth getting a good traffic lawyer on to it. Someone who will investigate the case and ask the cops all the right questions. Just in case something wasn't done to procedure (eg training not up to date). A loophole is unlikely but go looking anyway. Condolences, and good luck with the court hearing.