2006 Fpv Tornado F6 Ute - Cleanup & Resurrection

[PhilMeUp]

I’m using coolant concentrate these days, which is mixed at a 10:1 ratio. This has been useful this week - I went through about 15 litres of coolant on Monday filling up both cars, and then I needed to fill up the Tornado again tonight. I keep a few old Tectaloy bottles to mix the coolant in. I measure 500mL of concentrate with a measuring jug and then fill the bottle to the top with distilled water.



I filled the coolant tank to the top. The taxi battery hasn’t been working properly lately, so I had put the Tornado battery in the taxi for a couple of days. I’ll get the taxi back from warranty testing or replacement tomorrow, and then I’ll be able to drive my car again.



I was extremely pleased to get the Tornado back in one piece again. The engine cooling system should now be working perfectly. It took me two hours to put it back together, although I could probably cut that in half if I had to do it again (now that I’ve done it once and figured out how to do so).

[PhilMeUp]

Sunday, 18th January, 2015

After replacing the radiator during the week it occurred to me on Sunday that there was still some coolant on the top of the plastic splash guard (ie the black plastic bit that attaches to the bottom of the front bumper). This would probably dry up and turn to goo later on.

Time for the extremely useful Ryobi pressure washer to get some use. Whilst replacing the radiator I had also noticed a few areas of greasy grime around the power steering pump area that I hadn’t originally cleaned, so I decided to blast some water around there as well.

I’ve been using CT18 cleaner for years but CT14 is better for greasy conditions. The problem with CT14 is that is wrecks the seals in normal spray bottles, so I bought a $30 CRC one from Repco to try out. That’s a tad expensive for a simple spray bottle, which is why it’s taken me so many years to finally cough up that much money for one. For that price, it had better last for decades. I’m almost tempted to have children just so that they can inherit it.

Being Sunday, it was also taxi washing day, so both cars got parked in the front yard. And both engine bays got cleaned.

I removed the cooling fans on the Tornado so that I could get to the top of the splash guard.



CT14 was sprayed all through the front of the engine bay. I used the pressure washer on the splash guard and some small areas around the steering pump and water pump, but nowhere else.



Much to my delight, the Tornado started up straight away and ran on all six cylinders.

The trick to washing Falcon engines is to not let water get past the coil cover bolts. The coil cover is the black plastic thing on top of the engine and underneath is a coil and spark plug for each cylinder. Although there is a fibre washer on each coil cover bolt, it is still possible for water to get past and fall into the spark plug holes. This results in the irritating task of removing the coil cover and coils to get to the spark plugs (which will have water around them, resulting in them not firing).

On my taxi I have replaced the fibre washers with heat-proof o-rings. This has been working well - I can spray a garden hose all over the engine bay now and water won’t get past the o-rings. I’ll be doing the same with the Tornado when I get around to it.

The SuperCharge battery has 650CC and 107RC (pretty much the highest ratings around). For around $150-160 retail, they are a very good choice of battery.

[PhilMeUp]

Thursday, 29th January, 2015

In amongst my slightly obsessive (and time consuming) cleanup on the interior when I first got the Tornado home the one thing that I didn’t do was clean the inside of the windscreen.

Although parking it with the afternoon sun shining directly on it is a tad extreme, you get the picture. It’s a bit of a mess.

I’ve never taken to having a dashboard cover, which means that I get grime build-up on the inside of the glass when the sun heats up the dashboard enough. And we’re all aware of how messy the whole car was when I originally bought it.

It also looks like my earlier attempt at gluing the sagging roof lining back in to place hasn’t been particularly successful, although it was at least enough to get the car through the licencing inspection.



This is what I do with my taxi when the inside of the windscreen is getting too grimy. I use a window squeegee, a towel, some Windex and a marker pen.



I keep a TomTom GPS in each car but when I clean the inside of the windscreen it’s always frustrating trying to get the GPS mount back in the same place. I use the marker pen to put two or three dots on the outside of the windscreen to mark where the bracket goes. You can see one black dot above the bracket, and one on each side.



Then I put a towel over the dashboard before spraying the window cleaner.



I don’t use much Windex - just a few small squirts. Because I’m only using lightweight half squirts, the towel is there to catch the droplets that don’t get to the glass.



I wet the window squeegee with water and remove the handle before using it. Removing the handle makes it easier to use in the car, particularly on the side of the glass when I curve the squeegee toward me so that the rubber lip can get as close to the edge of the glass as possible.



Doing all this covers about three quarters of the glass (ie as far down as the squeegee will get between the glass and the dashboard). Large drops of remaining water get taken care off with a towel before I wrap a microfibre cloth around my hand to remove remaining smudges.



Much cleaner now.



To finish, I put the TomTom GPS bracket back in place by lining it up with the marker pen dots. The standard TomTom brackets are junk, so I bought this one from buybits.com in the UK (SKU 6130).

This whole process only takes a few minutes and is very easy to do. It also helps reduce glare in bright light situations such as morning sunrises, afternoon sunsets and oncoming headlights at night.

Edited 29/01/15 11:50 AM by PhilMeUp

[RB Snake]

I use the Optima yellow top D34 in the taxis. 750cca and 120rc (important for the taxi equipment). They're expensive, but the only battery to last more than 18 months on a taxi and still be in great condition. If that doesn't speak volumes then what could. I put one in my XR6T. Also mate if you're still short on parts Freo taxi service (daddo) is getting rid of his Falcon parts, he's moving. They're onto using diesel Mondeos nowadays though.

[Cjafpv]

Well done mate that ute really needed some

Attention and you saved it love your work. But on a sidenote who coughs up the cash for an f6 ute then treats it the way the previous owner did . Also great read and I had a few small chuckles when I read tht a few small things hadn't gone to plan always happens the simplest things take the longest must be some form

Of Murphy's law. Thanks for

Sharing bud

[PhilMeUp]

I use the Optima yellow top D34 in the taxis. 750cca and 120rc (important for the taxi equipment). They're expensive, but the only battery to last more than 18 months on a taxi and still be in great condition.

I've considered the D34 but even at trade price they're a bit over twice the price of what I'm paying for MF50s. I'm getting around 12 months out of an MF50 at the moment.

I need to buy a decent battery charger so that I can charge it properly every couple of months and when I leave stuff on for too long and run the battery flat (Sundays and Mondays). Currently considering a Ctek MXS 10.

When the D34s get to $200 then I'll start using them (feel free to PM me how much you're getting them for).

But on a sidenote who coughs up the cash for an f6 ute then treats it the way the previous owner did .

He stopped coughing up the cash... which would be why it was repossessed by the bank and sold at auction.

Would love to know the full story, though.

Hopefully he gets back on his feet and buys an FG F6... which I can buy at auction next year.

Edited 29/01/15 05:24 PM by PhilMeUp

[PhilMeUp]

Sunday, 29th March, 2015

After not doing any major further work on the Tornado since I got it licenced in January, this week I decided that I was going to get the carpet cleaned properly.

I found a car detailer who was going to be in his workshop today (Sunday), so agreed to meet him there. This suited me perfectly.

When the time came I got a bit self conscious about the car being dirty, so decided to give it a quick clean before leaving.

I like to keep my engine bays clean, so gave this one a quick rinse with CT18 and water. The trick is to avoid letting water getting past the coil cover bolts, particularly the one near the DOHC logo and the one near the oil cap. Although there are fibre washers under each bolt, water can still sometimes get past. On my taxi I have replaced these with heat-proof o-rings, and I’ll be doing the same here when I get around to it.



I used the same CT18 and brush to clean the wheels, and then washed the car.

You’ll notice the dent on the front corner of the car. That’s a whole another story, which is still unravelling here. Someone reversed into the car a few weeks ago.





I got my Stihl blower out to blow dust off the dashboard, out of the vents, speedo cluster and ICC. This actually worked quite well.



Once I got to the detailing place it was time to strip the interior, starting with the seats.



Although I had done a fairly good job of vacuuming up dog hair from the carpet in front of the seats, once I removed the seats I saw that paying to get the carpet professionally cleaned was necessary.



I have no idea what this brown stain is, but it will be gone soon.



With the driver’s seat out, there was still quite a mess.







Before cleaning, all the dog hair had to be vacuumed up. This took almost an hour.



This guy’s vacuuming made quite a difference.



I also noticed that although there is an FPV scuff guard on the passenger side, the driver’s one is a normal Falcon scuff guard. I’ll be looking on eBay for an FPV one as soon as possible.



The seats and various interior items were kept away from the ute so that no-one accidentally knocked them over.



I finally realised that after putting in a heap of hours of effort into this thing, there was actually a moment where I could sit back and do nothing, while someone else did the work.



The cleaning part of the process didn’t take very long, but made a massive difference.



Nothing like what it was before.

[PhilMeUp]

While the centre console was out I gave that a blast with some water to get rid of some marks from when I spilt a drink a few weeks ago.



Then it was time to put the interior back together. As it was now dark, I decided to throw everything back in, take the car home and finish the job there.



Time to give the floor mats a quick clean.





The problem with washing floor mats is that they are wet afterward. Putting them straight back into the car means that the bottoms of the floor mats don’t dry. I wanted to see if the Stihl blower was any good for drying them faster. This worked well - the floor mat on the left has had about one minute of the blower.



The centre console went back in first, followed by bolting the handbrake back in place.



I made sure that the cigarette lighter power cables were plugged in properly. I once had these cables come loose in a taxi, meaning no GPS for the night.



Previously I’ve used a kitchen sponge to clean gear lever surround plastics, but these often leave water streaks. A quick spray of Mr Sheen meant no streaks.



The centre console, all back in place.



Behind the passenger seat I keep a toolbox of basic tools and the wheel changing kit.



The threads for one of the passenger seat bolts are stripped. I’ll get a tap and die set later and re-tap the thread.



The interior, all back in place. With clean carpet. That cigarette burn in the driver’s seat irritates me every time I get into the car, but I haven’t come up with an easy solution for that yet.



The other side of the interior.



When I originally got the car licenced I had to replace the switchgear because the headlight switch didn’t work. Luckily, I had a spare switchgear at home, but it turns out that the indictors don’t self-cancel when going around corners with this one. I’ve been meaning to figure that out since I got the car licenced, so started by removing the airbag. The two bolts that hold the airbag in place were removed with a Torx T25 socket. I bought a Wiha 76335 1/4” drive socket for this one task and used it for the first time.



Removing the steering wheel involves removing a bolt which has a Torx T50 head. I loosened the bolt half way, and then wrestled the steering wheel by its sides until it broke loose. Leaving the bolt in place prevents the steering wheel from flying off when it comes loose.



The clockspring. Everything looks normal.



Despite the word, “Top”, and an arrow, that part actually goes at the bottom.

[PhilMeUp]

With the airbag off the car I was able to clean the front of the airbag with some eucalyptus aerosol spray and a towel.



The audio control buttons had been grubby since I bought the car, so I was finally able to clean them. I used some Mr Sheen for this.





After pulling everything apart and re-assembling it several times, I still couldn’t figure out why the indicators wouldn’t self-cancel. I had a spare set of clockspring and switchgear, so decided to try some different combinations.

The second clockspring didn’t make a difference. However, when I tried the other switchgear the indicators self-cancelled when I started the car and turned the steering wheel back and forth. Thus, the problem was somewhere inside the switchgear.



Despite cleaning the audio control buttons, they still look very secondhand. I’ll look for a better condition set the next time I’m buying secondhand parts off a wreck.



Everything back in place.



The switchgear that I’ve used for now is from a BFIII wagon that I got some parts from last year. This means that it has the controls for the rear wiper that a wagon has. This isn’t required for a ute, so I’ll go looking for a secondhand switchgear and keep this one as a spare for my taxis.



My previous attempt at fixing the roof lining with aerosol glue hasn’t lasted for long. Sooner or later I’ll remove the hood and get it done properly.

[.Stripes.]

Amazing difference since you first picked the car up Phil, nice job so far man!