2006 Fpv Tornado F6 Ute - Cleanup & Resurrection

[Ralph Wiggum]

Nice pick up on the 6 potters.

FYI all hi series and dual cc equipped ba's got the sunload sensor and auto headlamps

[m1rkz]

Love the detail you go into. Great read mate and nice pick up on the Brembos.

[k31th]

very nice thread, Phil

can't be much more detailed than this...

how's the paint saga going?

[PhilMeUp]

very nice thread, Phil

can't be much more detailed than this...

how's the paint saga going?

Ford said a very definite no.

Absolutely no f*cks given.

I need to come up with a strategy with which to start round 2.

[PhilMeUp]

Thursday, 17th September, 2015

I was driving through a quiet suburban street last night when someone decided to stand in the middle of the road to block my path. I stopped, put the high beams on and figured that I might as well just go around him.

He was holding an empty milk crate in one hand and swing it at the car as I drove past him. It turned out that he broke the side mirror.

This wasn’t a huge problem - I already had a spare mirror at home, and they’re not hard to fit.

However, there was another problem to attend to first. Last week I decided to jack up the front of the car with my trolley jack and clean underneath the engine bay.

However, the trolley jack slipped forward off the crossmember. I didn’t realise at the time, but the top of the trolley jack ended up under the beam that supports the radiator. This lightweight beam, along with the radiator, had ended up taking the entire weight of the front of the car.

I didn’t realise that there was any damage until a few days later, when the car started to run warm. I opened the bonnet and saw that the thermofan plastic frame was broken. Oh dear.

I removed the thermofan and confirmed that it was fairly well broken.

Sure enough, the radiator was also well bent. This is the new genuine Ford radiator that I spent two nights putting in back in January.

You can start to see where the support beam under the radiator has bent upward.

Time to get the car up on ramps and have a look underneath.

You can see the marks on the black plastic splashguard where the top of the trolley jack slid forward.

I started by removing the bolts on one side of the support beam. I also realised that also the radiator is well bent, it wasn’t leaking. I had been trying for the last few days to find a secondhand radiator but hadn’t found one yet.

The bend in the bottom of the radiator.

I bought a replacement secondhand support beam. You can see how bent the old one was.

Another photo showing the bent support beam and its replacement.

I had done a pretty thorough job of cleaning underneath the engine on the day that I got the car home, but there was a slight oil mess on one of the front corners of the sump.

I went through a bunch of aerosol carburettor cleaner to clean up around the front sump area.

The rest of the sump area was clean after blasting it with water last week.

I made sure the entire sump area was clean. I’ll check it for a leak in a few weeks. I’ve had a leak in the same area on my taxi as well. The proper solution is to replace the sump gasket, but that involves the time consuming task of removing the aluminium cross member to get the sump off.

On the bottom of the radiator, the black plastic part in the centre of the photo plugs into the support beam.

The replacement support beam in place. You can start to see just how bent the new radiator is.

I bought a secondhand thermofan during the week, so decided to give it a rinse with CT18 and water before putting it in.

One cleaned thermofan, ready to be installed.

Problem time - the replacement thermofan had different mounts, and wouldn’t fit in.

[PhilMeUp]

The one on the right is the original thermofan. The one on the left is the replacement, and wouldn’t fit.

I tried putting the original thermofan back in. Although it was cracked and bent, it slid into place easily enough. It will still need to be replaced, along with the radiator, but it meant that the car could at least be driven again.

One thing that I never got around to was re-torquing the manifold bolts. I figured I’d have a go at it.

I started by removing the two pipes and steering pump cover.

I removed the upper bolts, that also hold the heat shields in place. Some of the bolts were only finger-tight.

With removing the bolts, I put them in a magnetic tray in the order that they were removed.

The rear heat shield was easy enough to remove.

The front heat shield took a bit of wrestling, but it came out fairly easily.

I set my Snap-On TECH3FR100 torque wrench to 27Nm.

The Snap-On TECH3FR100 torque wrench vibrates as it approaches the pre-set torque, and then beeps when it reaches the required torque.

I wasn’t able to access to front lower manifold bolt, so used a 1/4” ratchet setup. I estimated how much to tighten it after going over some of the other bolts to get a feel for how tightly done up they were.

I put the front heat shield back in place.

Each heat shield had a small bolt that attaches its heat shield to the outer manifold.

I had bought a new cordless Dremel 8220 a few days earlier, and was keen to use it on something. Using a small wire brush on the Dremel, I cleaned the threads on each bolt.

The bolts cleaned up well.

The Dremel with the wire brush and cleaned bolts.

Work in progress - 3:01am.

Putting the upper bolts in before using the torque wrench to tighten them.

I used a ring spanner to put the side bolts back in.

Then I was done with the torque wrench. I bought that on eBay US a few years ago, when the exchange rate was much better than it is now.

[PhilMeUp]

I put the first intake pipe back on.

And then the second intake pipe. That job was finished.

I noticed that the rubber mount was broken. I’ll replace that another time.

Coolant had gushed everywhere a few nights earlier when the car ran warm, leaving a coating everywhere over my normally clean engine.

Then it was time to replace the driver’s side mirror. I removed the black plastic front cover from the replacement mirror so that I could put the blue-painted one on from the original mirror.

The front cover is held on by three tabs.

I removed the driver’s door trim to get access to the three screws that hold the mirror on.

Within minutes the broken mirror was removed from the car.

The replacement one in place.

I clipped the blue plastic cover back in place. An easy job, and it didn’t cost me any money because I got that mirror for free from a wreck last year.

To clean the engine bay I sprayed CT18 everywhere with my weed sprayer bottle.

After rinsing the engine, I left it idling for a while to allow the heat to dry out the engine bay.

Then it was time to go for a drive and make sure that the cooling system was going to work. I’m going to replace the radiator and cooling fan once I find suitable secondhand ones.

4:29am - time for a quick photo at a local 24 hour servo before heading home to bed.

[PhilMeUp]

Monday, 21st September, 2015

Today I finally took the Tornado to a panel beater to get the paint chips sorted out, the front bumper painted and the cracked sideskirts fixed.

Within minutes the old paint had been scraped off the bonnet.

There was a HQ Expensive Daewoo ute that one of the staff was rebuilding for his 16 year old son.

The car was parked in the corner for the night.

[PhilMeUp]

Monday, 5th October, 2015

Today I picked up the Tornado from the panel beater. After spending two weeks in a dusty environment it was due for a wash.

The cracked sideskirts have been fixed but the replacement Tornado badges haven’t been put on yet.

I had also swapped the previously incorrect thermofan for a correct one. The one on the left is the broken one, with cracks in the plastic.

I put the replacement thermofan in.

The mounts for the crossover manifold are broken and will need to be replaced.

The front yard. The motorbike tie downs have been holding an old taxi motor in place in the back, but the engine (on its side) has been leaking oil into the tray. I’ve left the tie-downs soaking in water and Napisan for the night, and will flush them out with the pressure washer later.

No more paint chips on the bonnet.

[bamk2f6tornado]

Did you bury or burn the milk crate guys body?