Ha, you beat me to it!! That's exactly what i had in mind, those plastic fins can easily be removed and replaced by mesh. Besides, they will have to come out so i can colour code the painted part of the grill to match the body. Best thing about this EL Fairmont grill is the fact that it uses the larger size "Ford" oval badge unlike the EF one, which means i can finally use my black "Ford" oval badge i have had sitting here for ages. I still can't believe i got it for $17, gotta love Pick a Part. I know the last EF grill i got was $25 or something, but because this one is plastic, i got it cheaper. Now i have a collection of spare grills



Thanks buddy!! Man, i spent a s**t load of time getting this thing looking anywhere near decent yesterday, was glad it turned up looking alright today . I must say though, the pic's are doing this thing more justice than it deserves, the body/paint work was/is pretty s**t - not bad for the age, but heaps of little scratches in the clear and not having enough time to even do a quick polish and wax makes it all stand out. Luckily the cars are parked next to each other and all you notice is the front end.

Haha, that's the second comment i have had on the heat wrap today. A guy at the show said it looked good, the carbon type look it has suits the rest of the engine bay. I don't mind the stuff, it's 10x better than white heat wrap that's for sure, and does it's job when it comes to keeping most of the heat inside the pipes rather than radiating out into the engine bay. But it still can't beat HPC . Later on down the track I plan to maybe get the extractors stripped back to bare metal (as they are actually chrome coated right now) and get them HPC'd in either satin black or a chrome like finish.

Keep us posted on your EF, will be interesting to see what you have got up to


Thanks mate!! For sure, NZ does have some very nice Ford's running around. First time i have seen some of these trucks in person so it was great to see, there was a couple of F100 pick up's that definitely caught my eye. I was surprised at the amount of Mustangs out on display though, i reckon about 1/3 of the cars out there today were Mustangs

Pity i didn't manage to get any good sound clips, there were some mean sounding 8's

Decided to polish my BBM today, ripped a spare one of and got it to the sanding stage, going pretty good so far, all casting edges gone off outside etc... Will try get some pics up when done!

Your thread motivated me!

Nice!! Glad i could motivate someone into carrying out such a time consuming job

It will be well worth it though mate, it gives the engine bay that much needed extra bling. Keep at it, try and get it as smooth as you possibly can before hitting it with some metal polish and you will be stoked with the finish

mate engine bays looking sick, now all it needs is a turbo haha joking man, pretty much got it at the stage where there isnt much else to do to it. definately a clean car.

Haha thanks man, yes the space above the extractors definitely does look lonely, could easily fit a turbo or 2 on a custom manifold in that space

Well today, i did my weekly visit to Pick a Part to see what i could score. Needed a fuel sender unit for the old man's EF XR6 and i was in luck. The EL Fairmont i pulled the grill off was still there and still had the fuel pump/sender unit still in secured in the tank. Pulled that out then noticed the chrome number plate surround piece on the bootlid and took that too. Was also going to take the EL Fairmont door moulds with chrome trim but someone had taken one of the doors rendering 3 moulds useless. Scored the fuel pump and sender unit for $28 and the numberplate surround for a whopping $4

Still a little undecided on how it looks when i trial fitted it, didn't want to drill and holes and find that i didn't like it so i dummy fitted it with the number plate. I think it looks okay, covers up some of the scratches in that area and adds a little more class to the rear end with the extra chrome, but in saying that i do like the clean look it has without it. Thoughts??

Without


With

hard to say..... i never really was a fan of the EL number plate surround on my car, and since yours is a dark colour as well id say leave it as is

maybe on a lighter colour Fairmont it would suit better and not stick out so much

Agreed it's a tough one, I'd probably leave it as is to be honest.

I was very close to buying one of those chrome surrounds last night (on ebay for FIFTY dollars!), now I'm glad I didn't.

I'll look for the NF/L chrome surround.

Thanks, I hear ya fella's. Thought i'd grab it just in case it did look good. If not i can always flog it off for some ridiculous amount, have seen them go on Ebay for prices like what you saw pistonhead

It doesn't look as bad as i originally thought it would, it does attract a bit too much attention to the centre of the rear end which is the main thing keeping me from putting it on. Will spray the inner grey part of the surround maybe body colour and see how it looks then, hoping it might balance it out a little. I have no idea why Ford sprayed the inner part grey

some Awseummm pics in there .....nice pics of ur own n nice job:) and for my 5cents if its worth id leave the number plate surround on

Thanks TassieTiger. I guess i will have to see how it turns out after i spray that grey bit, then will do another dummy fit and will decide from there whether or not i drill a couple of holes into the bootlid for the surround to go on.

i think it looks nice aye.

Done



btw, ive heard the inner part is actually chrome as well, after you strip the silver paint off...... but dont quote me on that

Me too mate, but i'm still undecided on the whole look of it, although the chop up above is making it look a lot nicer.


Aha, FordFairmont you're a legend mate!! Its looks a lot better that's for certain, breaks up the chrome nicely. Hmm, i tell ya what though, every time i see the picture it grows on me more and more. I think i may just end up biting the bullet, painting it then fitting it up this weekend..


Yep you're on the money. The entire surround is chrome, that grey part is painted straight over the chrome. Kind of like what they have done with the chrome grills. I did think about stripping the paint off but i think it might be a bit too much chrome and stand out even more

We'll see what happens on the weekend, might even paint up the EL grill and throw it on to see what it looks like..

KWIKXR, when I fitted mine, I broke the studs off with pliers and just screwed it under the numober plate screws. Still fits perfectly, but you don't have to drill holes and you can take it off later.

Didn't think of that at all, even though i did exactly that when i dummy fitted it today lol. Good idea man, would make for very easy fit/removal and no need to try and guess where to drill holes. I think i'll do what you did