Is that the SS that you're talking about? The ELs is just 2 bolts, the ones that the caliper slides on. I used loctite red (can't remember what number it was exactly) to hold it on until I get pads tomorrow. Brakes aren't exactly what you want to work loose while driving! I may as well change the fluid too while I'm at it.

In other news, there's a bloke on here selling a JMM DEV 5 head and cam, as well as a Tickford head, in Brisbane. It will be a month or 6 weeks till I can afford anything but I will start saving for it. That along with a manual box and that rebuilt bottom end should give my car a bit more punch. The only trouble is that apparently JMM keep their cam specs hidden, so I'd assume a J3 tuner wouldn't be able to tune it without measuring the cam.

Alrighty, I changed the right side pads, cleaned up the bolts and threads and chucked them back in. The only slightly tricky part was compressing the piston back in, but that was easy. I just got Caliber brand brake pads as I am broke at the moment and they were 46 from Supercheap. Apparently made by the same people as Bendix so they will hopefully be all good.

Tonight I did a quick bit of maintenance, the top idler pulley was really squeaking so I took it off, took the bearing seals out, cleaned the bearings and repacked them with grease. Like most bearings they use the grease bloody sparingly when they assemble them. So I put that back on, tensioner back on, belt on and the squeaking stopped. Huzzah. I even put the belt cover back on, it has been sitting in my shed for months.

I also took the paper gasket off the ICS (or several gaskets as I put 3 on when my car was screwing up, I thought perhaps they were leaking/too thin) and resealed it with 1. My car now idles properly...as tough as it sounds hunting for idle with 1 muffler and extractors, it was annoying and sometimes nearly stalled when I put it in gear.

Today I started to tidy up my exhaust a bit. One part of it rubs against the spare wheel spot when the car is cold, it's really annoying. I took the whole thing off up to the extractors, I have to cut the cat down about 1 inch to move everything forward, as it's slightly too long and makes the whole show go to hell. While I'm at it I'll put some red sealant onto the gaskets as they leak a little bit, you can hear a slight hiss from them if you plant it.

The car is still hunting idle and sometimes nearly stalling...I dunno what the hell is going on. I took off the ICS and it stalled so I assume it's working and the butterfly isn't leaking. Perhaps my TPS is a bit out, I think they are supposed to read 0.71volts at closed throttle but don't quote me on that.

Ah, cutting, lining up and welding exhaust pipe reminds me why I hated doing this the first time! I took a few pictures of the exhaust before and I'll take some afters. Probably room on the back of the tailpipe to put a 12 inch hotdog on. The only muffler is pretty low, it's nearly lower than the bottom of the diff, so if possible I will try to tuck it up a bit.

The exhaust is back on and the rattle is gone! The tailpipe was hitting the rear sway bar or whatever it is, and also rubbing on the spare tyre well. Now it's got about 25mm or so of clearance so it's all good. Also, I happened to notice my exhaust oxygen sensor was loose...I tightened it back up and the idle seems better, seems like that may have been the problem! Darn it.

I took the Foulcoon for a burn to brissy this weekend. It got as low as 7.8L/100kms which was pretty awesome! Then I hit Brisbane, ha, ha.

Anyway, I was going down to watch my mate compete in a powerlifting comp which he came 2nd in (beaten by a lighter guy who lifted a tiny bit more per kg of bodyweight) but he got a total of 717.5kg (272.5kg bench, 275kg squat, 170kg bench) @ 107.4kg @18 years old, all of which are world records. Here's the video for those of you interested in weightlifting.

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As for news on the Falcon front - the join between extractors and cat is leaking like crazy, tomorrows job is to fix that up as it's friggin annoying to drive past a wall and hear that ugly leak.

It's been all quiet on the Falcon mod front as I'm pretty unmotivated at the moment. The cat/extractor joint is still leaking which is crap, because a) it stinks b) it's unroadworthy and most importantly c) it's gotten rid of some of my burble. I need to yet again rip the cat off and see what the go is, I bet it's on a slightly wrong angle to seal completely.

A bloke on here (61xkwagon) and I might meet up for a cruise some time which should be pretty cool. I haven't been for a 'just for fun' drive for months because I'm broke, ha, ha.

I've sourced a T5 for my ride, in a few weeks I'll have a bit of cash so I'll buy that, a rebuilt engine sans head, (hopefully) a shaved head, and will slowly assemble everything in the shed to try to minimize the time my car will be out of commission. I will probably look into a Wade 1521a cam and get a J3 tuned to suit, that should sort it out power wise for a fair while.

Then again, maybe I won't, I'm sure everyone knows how it is with plans about car mods, ha, ha.

Oh yeah, just a thought I've had a few times lately...with my exhaust setup now, it's basically solid, in that I mean if you push on the rear tailpipe, you push that, the rear muffler, the pipe to the cat, the cat, the extractors, and the bolts that hold the extractors on. The only give in the system would be the tailpipe curve that goes over the diff bending. Now, not that I plan on getting rear ended anytime soon (no homo) but if I did, it might have bad consequences for my extractor's bolts/ bolt holes. Has anyone put a flexible pipe on the front of their cat to give it a bit of movement? Or am I just worrying about pointless stuff?

While pondering what to do I thought about making a larger throttle body for it too from scratch, but then realised the logistics of getting bearings, the ISC, TPS, butterfly to seal etc. etc. It would be far easier to get a stock TB and just bore it out. On the note of machining, the other day I machined a new firing pin for our Boito from a rod of steel, using nothing but a drill, files, an angle grinder and a micrometer. Who needs a fancy pants lathe.

It rained a lot here lately, miserable drippy rain so I didn't really do anything for a few days, it was a bad attitude to be in.

I could build a decent engine for fairly cheap (including rebuilding it in 1 week with a 10 000 dollar crank ), I have everything at the farm to do it all, even a car hoist, so it shouldn't be too hard, but there's always unforeseeable problems. I've written a list out of the parts I need, prices etc. and am going to stick with that, thankfully I don't have a credit card so I'll stop when I run out of cash haha. That tax cashback will be a nice bonus (if you consider money that you earned being taken away from you then a portion given back a bonus!)

I want to tidy up the body a bit too, I'd LOVE to respray it but it's a big job, it's nearly easier to buy a car with better paint and put all my gear into that...

Holy moly, I just checked out the wreck of your XR6 in your thread...scary s**t. I've had an incident like that (wet brake pedal/shoe) and it sure was an eye opener. Gotta be careful in that jungle out there.

Alright, I've done a few little things to the car. I tidied the inside up, vacuum, took all the s**t out, I'm terrible with keeping the interior clear as I just throw s**t into the back seat and forget to take it out. I took the stuff I don't need out of the boot and just kept the essentials. Jack, tyre iron, a few old towels, water, and my toolbox.

One of the little plugs in the bottom of the spare tyre well fell out, so I cut a piece of aluminium to plug it and used silastic (spelling?) to block it off. M trailer plug was also hanging off so I took the bracket of it off, cut the busted plug off and taped up the wire and put it inside, and blocked off the grommet that it went outside through.



I wiped the engine bay down to make it look a bit nicer, it was getting a bit dusty. Excuse the fugly header tank, I've gotta paint that. My snorkel is also broken, one of the holes busted - looks like I'll have to replace it with an EL GT snorkel, bugger.



Me and 2 mates went for a cruise to the next town over on friday, because my friend got a new motorbike and wanted to go for a trip. s**t weather, no one was out to cruise with and SOMEONE that came with us (guess which gender ) kept whinging about it being boring, etc. I dislike that, people who pull the "I'm not having fun so I'm gonna stop anyone else from having fun too" thing.

Also, I found this



on my grandpas old XP Falcon ute (maybe an XR, I dunno)



Pursuit 170! When (if) I ever get 170rwkw in my EL, I'll put it on the back as I'm missing the Falcon GLi badge.




Flash on, so you can see the chrome.
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I also found a 4.0 Litre badge off a Valiant...I could also put it on the back but I dunno if it'd suit. I might just keep it as memorabilia since that Valiant was also Grandpas car.

Back to uni, I moved back down to Brisbane. Dad had an emergency hernia operation so that was kind of a frightening turn of events the night before I was going to move back down, but it's all cool now.

There's been a bit of a setback in my new engine/gearbox build...bugger. The JMM Dev 5 head and cam a bloke on here was selling are sold. Darn it.

So...as of now I need to source everything bar the block. Anyone got a T5 and/or Tickford head for sale in Brisbane? Thankfully my LSD is still sweet, the auto gearbox doesn't like Brisbane though.

There's a manual XF ute for sale on here...I'm kind of considering it, I always wanted a ute, but I'd rather have my car with a fresh donk and gearbox.

Does anyone know if an EB2 head will fit onto my EL? I found a polished, ported and shaved one on here. I assume it should be all sweet...the only difference i know of is the rocker gear in the EA-EBs are 14 mm shims and I guess the HLAs are different too.

im going to pick up an ef tickford motor tommorrow you can have it for $200 i think its got bout 350k on it but the head's the important bit

Sweet! I'll be heading back home next weekend so I'll come and grab it on the way through if that's ok? Depends if this EB one is for sale.

We still need to go for a cruise haha. We went to the bay the other weekend and it was terrible. It had been raining so NOBODY was out, waste of fuel getting there.

yeah thats ok i guess you have a trailer then haha oh and that xp ute in the last few pics how much rust is in it?