Cheers Snappity brother. That's SWEET... I have painted the dash out of one FAIRMONT wagon, but found a few wires snipped (it had an aftermarket alarm fitted and some other bits...) so am now going to pull the dash loom (complete) out of my other donor Fairmont sedan. It *should* be a case of plug and play then!




I suspect the oblong things are that too... And the way Ford put an extra layer of rubber sandwich on top and bottom of leafs at point where it connects to axles... Hmmmph - Causes a slight headache when changing to a different system - but no great problem.

*AM GOING TO GO AND MEASURE THE ORIGINAL ONE TONNE TOP LEAF NOW * Promise!!

Oh shi....t

I measured and forgot to put the measurement here. Bloody stupid New Zealanders...


49mm on inside of ring, esactly the same as Rickmonts.


While I am bumping this thread - Anyone have any advice on brake pads on my slotted and dimpled rotors? The guys said I should use semi-metallic, so I am - but after about 5000km on them they are sqweeling like a pig in a bad southern American movie whenever my foot even twitches in their general direction.



Still waiting for the mechanic to take the diff and gearbox out of my other white Fairmont (now a shell of its former self...) so I can get hacking and welding my replacement lowering blocks... A bit of a dag driving around this thing with it's a*** 3 inches higher than its nose...!

 

 

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File comment: The BEFORE, LEAFS IN REAR and XR6 IN FRONT shots suspension.jpg [ 48.18 KiB | Viewed 838 times ]

ONE DAY I will be able to afford a paint job for all my different coloured panels... Until then, this is it...!

For only a dollar a day, you could save this Ford from the embarrasment of looking like an assorted bag of Pascalls...

I played Gas Mechanic on Friday.
The OMVL converter s**t all over the BRC heap of crap. I should have done it 2 years ago when I picked it up and saved myself the $50 I wasted on a second BRC converter at the wreckers.
The pictures are looking great.
I should get some front springs for my cars.
OH yeah! By the way, I made a set of spring compressors from some all thread I found. My front struts are stuffed. hmmmm $140 for a new pair.

But before that I need to fix the loud bearing noise I have noticed from the front of the engine which I had thought was the alternator.
With my head under the bonnet it seems to be coming from either the idler pully (only 2 years old) or the air conditioner compressor ( arrrrgghhh) too hard I dont want to de gas/regas the air con!

Damn SickRickMont... I've spent most of the weekend doing my interior conversion and I am back down to have another go now...

I pulled the rocker cover and inlet manifolds off and totally pulled the interior out down to fire wall.... Carpet, EVERYTHING is out.

I got the dash back in last night, but dropped it onto the asphalt and scratched it up. This will mean I am going to have to re-paint it in the car later.

ANYWAY...

I thought my oil leak was mainly coming from the rocker cover - turns out that was on 25% of the problem. Have definitely found the water leak - heater tap and attached hose...

Still not sure where all the oil is coming from, other than that it is coming from the front, hitting various things and making its way towards the rear of the engine bay from there.

Is there a seal around the big wheel that sticks out the front of the motor where the crank would be?


DAMN!


I got some spring compressors from SuperCheap auto for $25NZ. Sold them to the garage guy (whose garage I use anyway) for $20 --- and he "practiced" by putting my left front in with me! Hehehehehehe.


Hope that noise ain't anything too major... I was just about to throw all the air con stuff out of my engine bay, but someone convinced me to put it back (resale value or some rubbish).... Not that I am going to get it re-gassed any time soon....


Still waiting for the other mechanic guy to pull the gearbox out the other one for me so I can wreck it and take the suspension bits I need to lower the back end... Rightiho, off to it...

I had a bad oil leak from the idler pulley bolt that goes through the timing cover a few years ago. I had a new o-ring fitted and stopped that easy enough. I had puddles of oil on the driveway.

Sounds similar (in the sense there is puddles of oil on the driveway...)

Am not sure where I find this piece you speak of tho... I know where the crank sticks out the front tho, so that seems logical to me. Point me towards it, and I'll have a search!

need some photos

YYYAAAAHHHHOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!

I was at the wreckers doing my stuff today and decided to pull another set of "leaf clamps" off a wagon that was there. I pulled the wheels off to find 1" lowering blocks and long U Bolts... I decided to leave the 1" lowering blocks there as I need 2 or 3 inches.

I did grab the top clamp bit that sits between the leaf and the axle so as to facilitate the manufacture of my custom lowering idea (see page 2 of this thread..)

Anyways...

BEAT THIS... $22nz got me the two leaf bits I need AND

-- wait for it --



A

B
L
O
O
D
Y

R
E
A
R

S
W
A
Y
B
A
R
!


Yeahp - That's right. $11 for a sway bar with nolathane bushes in most of it, but stuffed rubber ones in the mount that attaches to car chassis.

And $5nz each for the final touches to my home made lowering kit.


YYYYEEEAAAAHHHH!


B U D G E T . B U I L D . C O M P E T I T I O N

So far I've spent less than $200NZ (less than $180AUS) and have a 1 tonne leaf rear, XR6 low sprung front, new shocks all round, rear swaybar and custom 2.5" rear lowering kit on the way courtesy of some welding.


One of these days I'll work out a way to get a decent re-spray done. Until then I am happy explaining to people on a daily basis what the hell my car is!

The FAIRLANE GHIA front end gets a lot of odd head twists from Ford spotters. I saw another one the other day - we both slowed to about 10km/h and stared at eachother! The only two cars in the whole of NZ like this, and there you have it...




Am going to have to sort my s**t out and make that bloody custom air box for the pod filter... Now the weather is a bit warmer my poor engine is running hotter than ever by sucking air from the engine bay. Fine for motorway, but stuck in traffic around town kills it.



RICK - I don't know what to take photos of man... The main body of oil appears to be building up directly under the main crank pully at front of block... Where is the bit you speak of? Do you have to remove wheels and pullies to find it or something?

 

 

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File comment: The blue pipe will be thrown out when the 3" 33 degree bend gets put in... I have some stainless steel sheet to make a wall between pod and engine bay. car_air.jpg [ 56.55 KiB | Viewed 717 times ]

Last edited by fiend on Fri Aug 22, 2008 7:48 pm, edited 2 times in total.

And, since I now have eight of these leaf clamp bits I figure I can just weld the two together like this... Will cut a piece of steel to plug the end and provide lateral stability as a couple of these parts have actually been bent a couple of degrees by sideways G forces... Mind you, they are 15 years old and probably have never had the U-Bolts re-tightened.

Humph.

And, lying on the ground at rear of vehicle is my new swaybar!

Anyone have any ideas on how long the extenders from chassis mount to actual sway bar should be? Like --- SHORTER would provide better all round purpose I would imagine?!

 

 

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ford_rear_suspension.jpg [ 94.13 KiB | Viewed 723 times ]

That's awesome.

I was tempted to go to the wreckers this week as I was still home sick again but I didn't have any money and had to keep warm to save my poor voicebox.

Fantastic find with the swaybar. $11 what a steal!

It's been raining here all week and whenever I thought of opening the garage door for some inspired deconstruction the rain blew in.

We havent had this much rain for years.... good for the garden but bad for car rebuilding.

I really can't wait till I get the wreck out of the garage and there is room to move.

Fair enough - I have no garage big enough to open a car door in and park on the street. I have one donor in garage, but it must be moved out into weather to open a door or do anything. And by weather I mean I am straight across from Wellington airport. Has anyone ever flown in to Wellington in a Southerly? You think drifty boys get sideways - they ain't got nothing on the prop driven aircraft pilot doing 200km/h sideways with 30 people looking straight down the runway and the other 30 looking straight back up the runway!



Ho hum.


I cleaned all the rust off the sway bar just now and used rust convertor, an anti corrosive primer and a blue galv' paint on it.

In the process I discovered that what I thought were rubber bushes are actually Nolathanes! YAYAYAYAYA!!!!!!

Although two of the eight are rubber - which is why I probably missed it the first time.

Only downer on the whole thing is that I had to hacksaw through the small u-bolts attaching it to axle so need to find some more 76mm diamter by about 110 mm in length.... All good, will find them.

Looks like I will need to spend $12 each for new big U bolts to hold axle to springs anyway. Have worked it out to be needing 270mm...

All good.


Hope yourself and your weather improve wagon maniac...

 

 

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File comment: The corrosion free and galv sprayed sway bar and nolathane bushes that cost $11NZ (and two hours of work to bring up nice). car_sway_bar.jpg [ 66.06 KiB | Viewed 681 times ]

Well done, looks like new.
Been up to family events today so nothing progressed.

Hey - I got the price wrong on the sway bar. It wasn't $11NZ at all. The missus just found the receipt on the floor and asked if I wanted to keep it. I said "yeah" as no one is going to believe how cheap all this has been.

She handed it over saying "you paid NINE DOLLARS for that hunk of rusty old metal... You were ripped off"...

They have no understanding at all.
It's like the $180 I made by cleaning up a rusty cargo barrier I found in a junk pile for an 80 series landcrusher. 1 hour with a power brush and 2 cans of spray. Cost me $25 to clean it up and I sold it for $210 on Ebay.