My Dad lives in Empire Bay. I saw him yesterday and he invited me to raid his tool box which includes an air compressor .

Haha I just had another look at that ad. It lists safety features as 'Back seat safety belts'... and that's it.

Thats awesome!
So are you going to have a crack at spray painting it with a gun?
Haha yeah it doesn't have much detail/pics either, it'd be a bargain for anything under $2K I reckon...

I will definitely be doing the colour with a gun, either in the spray booth at work or at home with said compressor. The drawback with doing it at work is that it may get damaged either in transit or after painting.

I learned to do the painting part of 'spray painting' at work. We don't do much prep work. Wipe down with thinners and then apply lol. I'm good at red (see bell housing)

If you're able to set up a covered area at home that'd be ideal?
Just with all the cold weather this may prove difficult
Ah yes that explains that work of art bellhousing!
I experienced it first hand and actually thought it was too good to be hidden underneath the car lol

Well I just got back from Mudgee and the MUDgee field days. It all went well except that 4WD would have been nice to get out of the car park. So much mud...

I was going down the aisle with 2 wheels on the mud and 2 wheels on the grass making good progress until the prado in front of me was going about 2 km/h, so I had to slow down. Mistake... I selected reverse so I could get a run up and not get stuck again. Keep going keep going... I had to stop again so I wouldn't run over about 30 people. Last try, I'm not stuffing around this time. Apply 5,000 RPM. Yes! Tractor not required. One was required for Fiona's father. He went right down the middle of the track .

Before I took it mudding:



I don't know, it doesn't quite fit in:





And after:





We went home via Bathurst, so it would be rude not to take it for a lap.



There must be thousands of photos from that angle only with a different car in pole lol.

I can only say that I have some work to do before AFD. Not to mention replace or re-finish the windscreen weather strips, paint the wiper arms and the cowl, carpet the amplifier rack and install the plastic speaker spacers.

Cheers,

Evan.

Hahaha it definitely is out of its element there Ev!
Being manual yours definitely would've made driving through mud interesting
Nothing a good high pressure wash can't fix though...

Hmmm, Photobucket won't let me upload....

(EDIT: Proper photos posted)

Anyway, P-plater update! I washed the car







I also spend some of last night and tonight ripping out my amps so that I could cover the amp rack. The finished product is a big improvement.



So that's one thing off the list...

Cheers,

Evan

Ok, Photobucket wants to work today...

So this afternoon, I pulled out the rear speakers to change the spacers to the plastic ones



Unfortunately, it seems I need spacers to fit the speakers to the spacers .

I had to use the dremel to remove some material to suit the speaker basket.



I managed to get one fitted up with a few extra holes drilled.





I ended up fitting the factory speakers to fill in the holes and since the amps are in the garage at the moment so I have something to listen to lol. Amazingly, while one of the speaker cones is fairly ripped from the chassis, they both still work albeit, a bit scratchy.

Cheers,

Evan

Haha typical P plater update
Nar looking good Ev, its cleaned up pretty well from the mess you made of it taking it 4wding!
Nice work on that carpet too!

HaHa yep. Imagine if I polished it!

Hey everyone, as I'm sure some of you know, especially TROYMAN, my EA T5 has started getting a little worse for wear. So, on Friday night, I went down to Liverpool for a chat and to pick up Troy's EF T5. And yesterday, I installed it with a little help from my mate Andrew 'Bravo'.

Change of venue. I wanted to do it at work because for one, it was going to rain (it didn't) and if need be there is all the machine tools and welding equipment.



I got the car lifted and after 40 mins I had it pretty much out, which was when Andrew showed up. We cracked the 4 bolts holding the 'box to the bell housing and it slid out easy as 1-2-3. We swapped over the shifter as the EF one was missing the bush. We re-greased the EA shifter before installation. We also swapped over the gearbox mount and the reverse and neutral switches as they were known working units. The switches were tested with a multimeter before the 'box went under the car. Good thing we did that as the pin that operates the neutral switch was missing in the EF 'box.

Before we knew it, the input shaft was greased and everything was ready for installation.





It goes there:



Refitting was as easy as putting a slippery thing into a tight fitting hole. Minds out of the gutter please...

That's very easy indeed.

We also fixed the gear knob as it never ever fitted properly. The knob is mounted via a collar which grips the lever and the knob screws onto the collar. Fine in theory, but the cheap grub screws chew out the threads and making everything floppy and rattly. What Bravo did was drill and tap 2 of the 3 holes to M6 and then drilled indents into the lever to locate the bigger grub screws. I installed it to the car and it turns out we got the orientation of the gate indication about 15 deg out. I ended up shimming it with 2 M10 washers.

And the last thing was finally fitting the missing bolt from the drivers side engine mount.



All the day cost me was 29 cans of XXXX and helping him bleed the brakes on his Pootrol.

***********************************************

This morning I went to P&P. I picked up some EF wiper arms and weather strips as mine are corroded.

Gee, I hope next Sunday won't be like today...

Cheers,

Evan.

I forgot to say anything about driving with the newer gearbox.

It is in a word, fantastic. It's quiet except for a nice little whine in 2nd and 3rd. I have had to adjust my driving style to compensate for the slightly taller gear ratios. It does a little under 2300 RPM at 110 km/h. That's down from 2450 RPM on the EA unit. That should help economy slightly.

-Evan

glad your happy with the t5, the neutral switch was never connected in my car,,lol but the reverse switch was ok..

i found the ratios of the later t5 are more suited to the torque of the 4ltr and gave the car more mid range acceleration...

Well, today I swapped my weather strips and wiper arms for EF items to make it look a bit respectable for AFD. I am pleased to report that there is no dirt and no rust under the weather strips (thank the good lord). The EF I got them off looked like it had been rolled at some point with the amount of soil under the weather strips. You could plant crops under there.

I got the weather strips changed no problem. The wiper arms were a little bit more difficult. It actually would have been easier with the bonnet off like the car in the wrecking yard. After some alignment issues, it was done.

Result:





What else did I have to do?



Cool thanks.

Yeah, just need to re-insert the amps and I think it'll be show car spec .

Cheers,

Evan

Definitely looks neater!
When you change bonnets over again paint/replace the wiper cowling, it'd be so much easier without a bonnet on!