My long term tidy up!

[violetpop]

Well I have finally ended up with a turbo Falcon! After a long line of falcons including an XD, el and ultra tough Xa I have picked up a 11/06 bf mkII turbo. Ex cop car.

 

On first inspection the car is rough with clear coat separating and rusted out boot from spoiler being removed. Under the car, near on every bush is worn and will need some attention. Engine and trans mounts are shot, different bushes shot. Tail shaft center bearing looks ok and front control arm bushes and ball joint look pretty good too.

 

The plan is to go right through the car and tidy up everything as needed before thinking about going fast.

 

The goal is to have a sleeper car just a regular looking xt falcon with baby on board sticker outback with approx 300rwkw. I have sourced some ba xt bumpers, lights and grill and in search of xt side skirts also.

 

Inside I want it quiet and comfortable so I have sourced a boat load of sound/heat deadening and will fit on top of the front plastic arches, under the carpet, roof and doors. I want it to feel nice inside.

 

So far I have sourced:

 

All rear end bushes in kelpro rubber

Kelpro engine and trans mounts

Front crank seal

Rocker cover gasket

Trans cooler (will mount in front bar) delete heat exchange

Steel pan conversion kit

Ag pipe and joiner for cold air intake and trans cooler cooling

 

With a baby and life getting in the way, I plan to do things in stages. Shocks and brakes are high in the list too.

 

I pulled the cradle out over the weekend and replaced the diff bushes. It was a fun job and while the cradle was out I cleaned the back end as best as I could I gave it a lick of paint.

 

While doing this, I blew compressed air in just about every little hole and crack and nook and got 4 dust pans full of sand, rocks, dust, crud, crap. Its like free weight reduction!!

 

I started to change the engine mounts and noticed on the turbo side that the turbo stud nuts were loose and one even missing. So turbo out and on the bench to fix and will also give me greater access to the top engine mount nut.

 

Post up photos as I go along!

[violetpop]

Carried out a fair amount of work today... Trying to smash out as much as I can while I'm on holidays.

First up I got the turbo off to inspect the loose stud issue and gain better access to the top engine mount nut.

Surprise surprise there's wasn't even a gasket on the turbo inlet. So one loose nut, one stud and nut missing all together and no gasket.

The turbo is looking tired and sorry but will have to do for now until later down the track I can look at options. It also has a very small amount of play in the shaft (.5mm maybe)

I got to repco just in time this arvo to order a turbo gasket kit and a stud and nut.

 

Next job was to swap the mounts out. Trans mount snapped clean and engine mounts not looking a whole lot better. For me it wouldn't matter if the car had 60,000 or 300,00 I would change these parts over regardless.

[k31th]

just an FYI, but there was no gasket from the factory between the exhaust manifold and the exhaust housing of the turbocharger (e.g. the T3 flange) and as long as the two surfaces remain flat, there isn't a gasket needed for that point.

 

it's also completely normal to have one missing nut and/or stud nordloc washers and replacement nuts is the way to go to fix this on the manifold-to-turbo and turbo-to-dump-pipe connections.

[violetpop]

Oh good to know! Even with two nuts holding it on, it showed no signs of leaking which is good I guess.

 

Next up was to get the front bar off and run the cold air intake. I also modified the air box and fitted a 100mm joiner. I've glued it in place to seal it and I'll drill a few holes and bolt it in later too. Also grabbed a few pics of the back end looking much better with some touch up paint.

[gaz097]

Love the enthusiasm. I hate working on mine these days lol.

Also they dont really need a gasket manifold to turbo. Some people run them, others don't.

[k31th]

when you have access to a hoist like that, it makes your life much easier and probably therefore increases your enthusiasm to get started

[violetpop]

Makes all the difference mate. I need to get it out before the end of the year so I should have a few more days to get the trans cooler fitted and line the arches with sound deadening. Then look at paint work.

[violetpop]

Few more jobs done today. Started with mounting the transmission cooler. I originally wanted to mount behind the bumper but didn't get around to getting a fan for it so ended up using the soft mounts provided in the kit.

Not sure how I feel about it being roughly 10mm from the intercooler but I will monitor trans and intake temps through the torque app and see how things go.

Dropped the plastic pan, oil didn't look too bad and not much gunk on the magnets. Makes me think its been changed not long ago. After some research I ended up going with the Nulon for the refill. Once the car is back on the road I plan to do a full flush and change the valve body and adaptor seals too.

 

Fitted up the ba xt front bar, lights and grill and set the cold air intake into position. Should work really well. I've got a stack of the ag pipe left over so I might run some cooling ducts for the front brakes for the hell if it.

The turbo gasket set is ready to collect so tomorrow job will be to fit it up, fill the box with oil and maybe dump the diff oil.

 

I have a question for the pros to round things out.. I was giving the turbo a small clean up just getting some of the road grime off of it and blowing it lightly with air. Out of nowhere this washer came out. Now I'm not sure 100% if it came out of the turbo or if it was sitting on the somewhat messy bench. So my question is, does this washer belong to this turbo? If so, where does it go? Many thanks in advance!

[arronm]

Washer.  Not from the turbo.

 

Is the cir-clip still on the wastegate actuator arm at the flapper.??

[camo86T]

Not worried about potentially sucking up a bit of water with the intake duct inlet in the front bar there?