What Did You Do To Your Car Today?

[Serangan]

Took it round Baskerville today. safe to say it was amazing. Gave the tune a good run see how it was and wow. was breaking traction in third easily! Best fun I've had :D

Brakes didn't fade at all, dba t3 fronts with bendex ultimate pads just lots of brake dust.

[JETURBO]

Lol what was I saying haha

[Serangan]

ha I realised that after I posted that. tied into the topic well

[discostig]

Car mode all weekend except when I was dragged away for a get together yesterday arvo/evening

-Jack up, place on stand

-Dumped oil/bin filter after about 8000km (a week overdue), fit new filter

-Fitted Fumoto drain valve! Should make next time a bit easier and stop thread stripping out in coming years

Bloke was unsure exactly which one I needed, their site lists two possibilities:

Ford Falcon 6cyl 4L 12mm-1.5

F-109

Ford Falcon BF XT MkIII 4L 12mm-1.75

F-107

Turns out it's a 107 for me (actually a 107N as I opted for nipple model) so I'm sending back the other for refund as the nice bloke suggested when ordering

Fitted up, it's clear it would take a "magic bullet" type of rock to make it accidentally open on the road (would need to head towards camera to push the lever down and then to front of car/left of pic):

On with the usual maintenance

-Took off crossover and engine bay piping, quick clean with degreaser inside the pressurised side to rid the thin oil film that always accumulates

-Cursory clean of crossover exterior, still looked patchy after drying, disregarded and moved on

-Clean K&N panel filter with cleaning/re-oil kit

-Remove fans at front of engine

-WD40 on pulley shafts, bit of noise from one a month ago was stopped with the same trick, hopefully it keeps going, think it was water pump IIRC :/

-Degreased around/under engine, oil is slowly seeping out over the weeks, might need to get timing cover resealed (has weeped since I got the timing chain system fixed), or Ralph mentioned it could be the top two bolts (Torx bit, T40?) that have 90% flogged out no longer pulling cover down enough. He's probably right, so:

-Decided to remove the cooler piping hangers that are spacing those those bolts out a couple mm and reducing the thread in the head they are grabbing. Cooler pipe floats in midair fine thanks to the firm clamps at each end anyway.

-Heat shields off to access exhaust manifold and turbo bolts

-Tighten up manifold bolts, centre to ends (except the four top row ones that need to come out with heat shield, that always bugs me)

-Tighten up easily accessible turbo bolts

-Spend the next hour painstakingly tightening hidden bolts, from above and from below car, get oily grit in eye despite wearing "safety squints"

-Put on safety glasses, can't see anything now due to glare

-Skin knuckles on both hands, not too bad though

-Back to safety squints so I can at least see what I'm doing and finish off stupid bottom bolts

-Avoid bothering to tighten the turbo to manifold nuts as they are looking pretty sad and rounded...should really buy replacements

-Inspect bee guts all over door rubbers (hit a swarm of them on the freeway, now making a peeling noise as I open doors due to sticky pollen+bee juice cocktail)

-Take photos

-One of many bees I found throughout the day

-Forget to clean rubbers, absent-mindedly move on to next step

Feeling industrious I decided on doing a couple things that have needed doing for a while:

-Try removing driver's side wheel well plastic shroud to access bonnet cable path

-Attempt to undo well worn scrivets with screwdriver - fail

-Attempt to "undo" scrivets with snips - succeed

-Shroud removed, free bonnet cable from clips inside

-Take off front garnish/panels to access bolts for hood latch, remove latch, remove old cable from latch

-Pull cable/rubber grommet through into driver's foot well in cabin

-Run new lever/grommet/cable back through and fit into place

-Test out

-Much better, used to have to pull it slowly all the way to the end before it would pop, felt like cable was about to break. Stoked!

-Still got half the day left so off comes the bumper to check on rust spots I found years back when I installed the halo lights...look just as I remember them, praise you Jesus/Satan:

-Take to rust mound carefully with paint scraper - chunk comes off nicely

-Rust comes off with finger nail in a few places to reveal paint, this is encouraging

-Fine sandpaper and rust converter removed the rest, got a bit excited and down to the REAL primer in a couple tough spots

-Brush knuckles against bar whilst wiping and discover rust converter is a 10/10 at reminding you where you skinned your knuckles earlier

-Made use of new touch up paint (bought to fix door chip donated to me by careless carpark parent a couple weeks ago...still yet to fix that)

-Happy with result:

-Not sure why Ford put a sticker on BEFORE painting the right end of the bar, but it peeled off during the wiping and I'm not bothering to paint over it. I'm leaving it as proof there is real primer under my primer

-Looked at a spot where the bar edge is sadly rubbing against the intercooler, can't move the cooler back as it's against the condenser, can't move it sideways as top mounting bolts have no leeway

-Measured the end tanks to be at least 4mm thick and the rub is maybe half a mm deep after 4 years so not going to concern myself with it further

-Slipped space age Styrofoam block in between the driver's side front bar and where it normally rests on the black support in above pic. Combined with putting screws in where they were missing on edges of those black plastic supports, it reduced sag 75%. Not bad, has been bugging me for years

-Zip tied foggies/horn power cable conduit up behind metal bar to stop it making appearances in front of lower intercooler, another thing that's been bothering me for a year or so

-Reassemble car putting wrong screws in a few places as usual, only found out once I put the fans back in and the leftover screws were either way too long or too short. No spares though which is nice

-Heat shields back on, bolts in - bit devo though as the rear most top bolt is chewed out :( Not sure if this is due to being loosened when cold (sat overnight) but previously tightened when warm. Hopefully it won't cause major issues

-Tactical zip ties used to replace scrivets in wheel arch, booyah

-Lower car down again

-Remember to put new oil in car before testing for leaks

-Forgot to clean throttle body

-Better than the other way around

-Pronounce weekend a success despite chewed exhaust mani bolt and rain discouraging me from a test drive. Got packed away in time for dinner instead of finishing at 1am for once!

Edited 21/09/14 01:55 PM by -Stever-

[Ralph Wiggum]

Any plans to paint...... Oh wait the day has come.....

[JETURBO]

Good work steve r

["Captain Retard"]

I've got a slight weep from either the front of the sump or the timing cover as well.

I'm thinking of giving this stuff a go.

As it's only a small leak, more annoying than anything else, it's not worth all the trouble of pulling the sump off.

Anybody used this stuff?

[discostig]

What else would it attach to? Any chance it would accelerate wear and tear? Might be better than paying the proper bucks. I think I'm losing about 500mL to 1L over 7500 km which is not cool.

[Ralph Wiggum]

I've never been a fan of stop leak type additives.

I've had success in the past with older weepy engines and adding a small amount of ATF (aprox 15 to 20% of the volume) to help soften the seals. You need to do this immediately prior to an engine oil change though. Run it for 20 to 30mins and then drain and refill.

I doubt this will help you Steve due to the KM's on you car. Hindsight goggles on but surely it would have been leaking when the trans came out? Missed opportunity to fix it properly unfortunately.

When you're ready to replace the exhaust manifold bolts let me know. I'll sort out some Nord-Loc washers for you so you can run the serrated head/washer incorporated bolts not Fords cheesy pressed washer style attempt at a self locking bolt.

["Captain Retard"]

Yeah I've used this sort of stuff in the past with some success in old cast iron lumps but not in a "modern" engine.

I'm more worried about what other holes it may seal up like turbo oil feed etc.

Will do some research.

I've just changed the oil so will have to wait till I try Ralph's cure.