Well BIG NEWS here.....Finally went down to have a go at getting the air con regassed, and it bloody well WORKED !!! I am amazed that I got everything good enough to actually work. Got a new TX Valve, and the system was vacuumed, pressure/leak tested, oil and dye in the compressor and new O rings, and regassed. It only cost me $160 which I am pretty happy with. So that was all good, a win for today, but on the way home, my car decided it would s**t a power steering pressure switch. Damn, I should probably have fitted the EL V8 steering rack when I did the conversion, ahh well, I'll eithier get another pressure switch, or I'll just find a bolt the same thread to screw in there. But yeah, pretty bloody happy about the air con working, and I'd like to say a big thanks to the guys at Kar Air in Ferntree Gully, because they did it for a really good price, gave me a couple of cool stickers, and threw in the leak dye for free. And they also let me watch the whole process which I enjoyed too. Took a couple of hours but was well worth it. Also a big thanks to FTG Auto Salvage for supplying the rest of the bits. I am gonna be hooking up a relay to engage the thermo fans to come on full speed whenever the a/c is on too.

Gab

Anyway a few pics:

Shiny new TX Valve

Air con works !

Front end alot tidier

May as well put a recent pic of the rear too.

Gab

Last edited by Gab1 on Thu May 17, 2012 11:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

good news with the aircon now paint the inside of ya grille lol

Nah I prefer the black look to be honest brad

Maybe he means to colour code the centre rib Ghia style?

Sweet looking car, maybe get it out into the sun and get us some proper photos?

\the silver bit in the middle i meant lol

Looks good gab

Alright little bit of an update: On the way back from getting the air con done the other day, I noticed the temp starting to creep up a little bit, and it'd dropped a bit of water. So I went and got a cooling system pressure test done, and it showed up fine, so I just topped it up and it didnt get hot again. Few days later, I noticed it had dropped more water, so I borrowed a mate's pressure tester and tested it myself. Again, no leaks, must be the radiator cap. Found an old one here and fitted that, and bingo, no more water was getting lost. However, it still got a bit warm when we had a hot day. I went to a swap meet the other day, and I managed to score a brand new copper core radiator for just $30 ! Absolute bargain, fitted that, and got a shiny NEW radiator cap, and now it's not overheating any more.

I got a big mouth EF XR8 intake snorkel from FTG Auto Salvage last week, and I also swapped over the AU Air flow meter to the original airbox lid, because the one that it came with had been drilled for LPG, and it was also a bit cracked at the edge and wouldnt clip down properley. I also fitted the split fire air filter that I have, so now finally I have an air filter again ! The Snorkel made a HUGE difference to power and torque.

The power steering resivour cap had one of it's locking tabs broken off, and some oil was leaking out of there, so I fitted a cap from an old XD power steering pump, it looks exactly the same, but the locking tabs arent buggered. Hopefully the leak will stop now, but it's a bit early to tell. I also have a leak that's behind the front bar from eithier one of the power steering cooler lines, or an auto tranny cooler line, Bastard, the front bar has to come off. I'll do that next week, and I'll finally get around to buying some wire so I can wire up my cornering lamps !

Managed to pick up another 5 litre badge for the passenger side now too.

That's about all that's been going on with this car lately, I had a stall at the swap meet so it's still got all that junk in it, and it's very dirty and needs a good wash.

Coming soon, I need to paint both my mirors, and I need to get some tyres. That's really the next stuff on the cards.

Gab

I went out the other day to try to get some decent quality Hi Res photos of my car, and this is what we came up with:

Time for another update. Couple of weeks ago, I drove down to Taralgon, and I discovered that one of my axle seals was leaking, so I ordered up a new bearing and seal, and we tried to fit it, but we didnt do it properley, so I had to end up getting another axle. I got 4 brand new tyres the other day for my FTR's, they are only westlakes, they seem pretty good though. I also managed to pick up a front bar, and a bonnet in the same colour as my car from the wreckers, but the bonnet is pretty well screwed (clear coat is peeling off and it has hail damage) but the front bar is fine. At least it's all 1 color now and it has good tyres so the cops will hopefully leave me alone lol. A mate of mine is gonna paint up one of my heritage green bonnets to match soon, so I should have a pretty clean, straight car. I also got a new boot carpet from a Fairlane (which I had to cut down to fit), mounted my amp to the back of the back seat, and rewired my headunit. I have also done the blue LED dash conversion now but I havent gotten around to doing the trip computer and the climate control yet. We also sprayed the top of the rear bar with a pressure pack where it was missing paint, looks a bit better now but still not perfect. Oh and I got some floor mats too. That's all I can think of for now, I got some decent pics of my car in an underground carpark the other night, so I'll post them below.





Blue LED dash



Gab

Is that paky market place carpark?

Correct oball

Instead of replacing the rack switch, get a 3/8 * 24 bolt and a copper washer. That was recommended to me by my local P/S Guys.

Nigel

I sorta ended up doing that, lol, but I just found a bolt in my box of bolts that appeared to be the right thread, and I wrapped it in teflon tape, and it's not leaking lol.

Gab

Well I haven't updated this for a couple of months, Mainly due to the fact that I've pretty much just been driving it, and havent done alot to it, I've done some more stuff recently though, so I thought it was about time to update this thread. I got my bonnet back, all painted the same colour as my car, so now it's all one colour, and the paint is all pretty good. It actually looks like a car again lol. The bonnet still needs a cut and polish though. I did a service on this car recently, which included oil and filter change, checked all the fluids, put a bottle of injector cleaner in, gave it a coolant flush, checked the brake pads, checked the tyre pressures and all the usual stuff. The idler/tensioner pulley started making horrendous noises, and it threw the belt the other day, but a member on fordmods helped me out by delivering a newish tensioner and a newish belt to me. I also noticed when I had the belt tensioner off, that I have a slight leak from the water pump gasket, So I'll have to fix that next week (already ordered a new water pump) Other than that, there's not really much else to tell. Oh, I also got a quote on repairing the rip in my leather seat on the drivers side, not too bad at $75, but I havent asked my other mate yet, will see what he says.

Gab



This is just a little pic of when I serviced it, the tools and fluids I used etc, Nothing exciting, move along now, lol

lol does anyone read my thread anymore? no replies for ages, lol