Hello all, my name's Justin and I've been a member of this site for a while now and I figure I may as well post something about my car. I'm 19 and just about to begin uni after a year of working so mods for the future aren't looking too likely. I'm incredibly lazy and like to do things myself, all this in combination with my lack of current funding means nothing too big for the future but I'm open to ideas and have already have a few in mind . I'm going and try and head down to AFD in Geelong this weekend because I've never been! But before I do that I'd like to introduce you to someone very special in my life.

I found this car on carsales a little while after my 17th Birthday, I originally wanted to buy a Datsun 260z (still do!) but figured something a little more practical and common would be better off for a first car. I really didn't like Commodores of that era and the overall quality of EF-ELs, especially the interior looked leaps and bounds better than Commos or earlier Falcons. My dad used to own an EF Gli and to be honest, I hated it, so I set out looking for fairmonts. I fell victim to falling in love with the first car I saw and this one happened to be it.




I hate to admit it but those photos and the number plate (hehe) did sway me quite a bit So much so that the other 3 or 4 falcons I looked at just paled in comparison. Leather + XR6 options was just a beautiful combination. I wasn't much a fan of the front so much, missing the front lip and a fairlane grill that made it look like it had a broken nose, but DAMN that car had a nice a** and I was more than willing to let a few little dings slide.

There was the basic starting points, extractors and a (rooted) catback system, the car had been well kept (hah!) and the price wasn't too bad at 7 grand so she was mine. She had 240k on the clock, the paint was decent and had Ford service history all the way up to 190,000 and the owner seemed like a nice bloke who took good care of his car. Cosmetically. He wasn't very car smart and relied on his mechanic for pretty much everything else. Unfortunately, his mechanic was a prick. A lack of preventative maitenence (I should say maitenence in general) and 50,000 ks worth of abuse can do a lot of damage to a car.

The trouble all started as soon the dodgy prick got me the roadworthy and I drove it home. Ever since then I swear the car has lived up to it's number plated reputation. The goddamn thing is a lemon and cursed, but I still love it The lovely mechanic had over tightened the handbrake and it would grind horribly against the rotor when coming to a stop, also, while driving it on the freeway home the front indicator fell out and was bashing against the side of the car at 100ks. Joy.

And it had only just begun.

Oh and in the first week the car caught fire.

More to come soon

EFII Ghia's are always a nice pickup !!

looks good in the pics.

when i got mine it had a dodgy rwc, and lots of problems, im sure once you sort them out youll be happy, and broke if you hang around this place too long

Hm, I realised I could probably write a novel on this car, but the end result of a cheap daily runabout for uni isn't anything amazing, so I'll just get it over with! So what had happened in an attempt to get a quick roadworthy sorted, a few things got "adjusted" instead of fixing or replacing. One of these "adjustments" happened to be done to the front drivers side headlight. You see, the globe mounts inside the headlight itself had broken off somehow, so in an attempt to fix this, it had been decided that stuffing rags in and around really f**k hot globes would be an excellent idea. Cue me cruising up on my front lawn one night to notice my right headlight flicker and pop and then smoke start coming out from under the bonnet. I shat myself turned the car off, popped the bonnet and doused the headlight before the fire could spread. The lens had a nice hole melted in it but thankfully nothing else was damaged. That was just the start of a long list of things that have gone wrong and been replaced, so far I've replaced or fixed in the less than 20,000ks I've driven it;

- Alternator & Battery
- Oil leak from rocker cover (still another one somewhere :@)
- Harmonic Balancer wasn't balanced very harmoniously and threw a belt, new belt, new water pump, new harmonic balancer
- Power steering pump (still leaks from somewhere grrr!)
- "Custom" piece of crap exhaust, crush bends, 3 hot dogs, large rusty rattly muffler. Replaced
- Lower radiator hose exploded on the morning of me doing an advanced driving course, probably resulted in a cracked or warped head driving around all day with little to no coolant. I can't see anything or tell
- Radiator exploded on seperate occasion, replaced radiator, radiator hoses, thermostat (cracked thermostat housing, replaced that too)
- Lifters just replaced, still ticks

Work that still needs to be done;
- Suspension is screwed, two and a half thousand dollar pedders quote screwed.
- Handbrake was never fixed properly
- Worn valve seats, I think, inconsistent cylinder compression, really cant afford a rebuild.
- Injectors possibly blocked
- Cosmetic things here and there, repair dings, paint calipers, paint wipers
- Boot install and other audio related stuff (deadener, rear coaxes, boot rattle)
- Debadging
- Bigger cam
- EL GT Wheel and gear boot
- RIMZ ULEH, so hard to choose though

And that's about all I can think of, for now! Anyone else have any ideas I'm kinda stuck as for things to do on the cheaper side of the scale and I really don't want to be stuck only doing things I HAVE to do to the car, as opposed to fun things I want to do

Here she is today, it's been raining alot here so it's a little bit dirty AND I GOT EGGED BY SOME C*** as well. Just on the window mostly thank god. Gonna go over the whole thing with the clay bar and then polish and wax and attempt to redye all the vinyl/plastic trims before sunday. Will post before and after pics when I get round to it!



Now for the fun stuff I've done
- Rebuilt 3:45 LSD ( still whines wtf?)
- Pacemaker 4480's with single, straight through muffler, mandrel bent 2.5inch Redback system
- T5 conversion, tailshaft, ecu and rockin a 70 dollar PBR ebay clutch
- Mild cam, not sure which
- Riding on lows (don't plan on much lower, unless I chop a coil already low enough to be a pain especially in the rear)
- EF Fairmont Grill (best grill next to FBT, easily )
- EL Tickford front lip with EF sides and rear
- Brand new headlights with HIDs
- Dark blue tint
- Slotted all round
- Audio install, Alpine 9887, HSK 165 splits, JL W3 in gigantor box

More glamour shots will come when the car is a little more sexy lookin Questions, comments, feedback, opinions? I'd love to hear them. Hope to see alot of you at AFD this sunday!

I do quite like the EFII's I think it looks alot smoother and... dunno how to say it, stealth? As opposed to the EL Ghia with all the chrome trimmings. Not to badmouth them though, just I tried the chrome route and personally thought it didn't suit the EF.



Ahhh I know what you mean, already broke don't worry about that I think once I sort out all the problems I'll be bored to be honest! It's all good though, just gotta get that balance between what you want to spend money on and what you NEED to spend money on. For instance the suspension is rough, but bearable, and an expensive fix. Wheras a bigger cam... Oooohhh, decisions decisions

awsum car man, love th dark black, one of the best color in e series i reckon, plus you have a ef ticky kit

Looks good man

I cannot agree more with you when you say that the EF looks a lot smoother than the EL, not that im biased or anything , tried the chrome route as well and it looked alright, but the original EF Fairmont still looks a tad better

Nice ride!!

Hi, whats the deal wth the first pics of the car and the second pic?

you have an NF front grill and then you have a fairmont grill did you change it from the Nf one to the fairmont one?

The first pics of the car was how it looked when I bought it, in those pics it was lacking the front lip spoiler as well. I actually sold the grill on here not so long ago actually. Didn't particularly like the look of it and it was the only bit of chrome on the car really and it just didn't suit it. EF Fairmont one looks alot better I reckon


It's supposed to be sunny and clear for the next few days so I'll give her a wash and get to work on the paint cleaning and stuff as well. Will post pics up after a bath. I also bought this stuff called "forever black" for plastic trim in an attempt to repair some of the damage that sun and neglect can do. It turned out alright I guess, the stuff seemed to be basically boot polish haha. It streaked a little bit so maybe a new lick of paint would be in better order but it's kinda hard to spray a car on your front lawn. We don't have a garage



Turned out pretty well on the rear window trimming, helps it blend alot more to say the least.



I honestly didn't think I'd be able to fix that up with anything other than paint so I was quite suprised to say the least. You can still see the damage under it but at least it doesn't look so terrible now.



You can see the finish it left, kinda streaky, I'll give it another coat of the stuff today to see if its any better. I might also try and respray my wipers as well. Does a gloss or a matte finish look better?



Icky!