i know.. im a little lazy..
back in late november 08 i upgraded to a 92 fairmont ghia... after hitting the 2nd roo in the ea which bent the chassis that time.

i looked at the whole car and added up the repairs and other things i wanted to do to the ea and figured it was far cheaper and saner to just get another shell and start over.
rego was due at the time of the accident too..
bit of a pity really but chassis damage kinda ruins the party. it only had a few days of rego left when it happened so i just handed the plates in and de registered it..
exterior looked fine but shifted the k frame back. and i somehow bent the top watts link bar?

so i got a eb Fairmont Ghia.
its has
full leather interior,
cruise control ,
elec windows, all of them work well. r\h rear sticks slightly at the bottom
tinted windows,
premo sound, even the stacker works a treat. missing sub atm
climate control,
3.73 working lsd,
abs. it seems to be working
engine doesnt seem to leak oil,
237ish k's on the clock,
towbar
duel fuel..
not bad for what i paid for it
only problem ive found is that the elec antenna doesnt go up or down, so the antenna cable\ rope is obviously broken

oh its cardinal red. im so going to have fun keeping this clean lol

but the mod list is..
extractors off the ea
manual conversion (auto has to die first)
lowering probably xr6 height
and some better mags.
thermo fans.. off ea

Last edited by 89S-PACK on Tue Apr 26, 2011 5:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.

a couple of months passed.. and i fitted the thermos and controller out of the ea into the eb.
then i got the itch for more power and to lose the stock sounding manifold which had developed a leak anyways..

so i fitted the cam 1673 out of the ea. into the eb whilst it was still auto as i intended to make it manual anyway.
when i was doing that i accidentally smashed one of the gas fittings off the lpg converter.
so i fitted the better impco gear off the ea to replace it.

drove it around for a while.. then i blew the headgasket. i bought a ticky head off kylebardell and fitted that.
then went over to manual which i think was the best mod on it prior to the new motor.
as my eb is a series 2 but has no smartlock. i had some issues hunting down a manual ecu for it
got one finally and i dont have any idle issues and i didnt have to do the resistor trick either

the car stayed this way for a bit after replacing the exhaust..


i moved out of home late 09 and the motor was dying so i sourced a au-3 E-gas motor for cheap thanks to kyle bardell.
decided to go to serpintine at the same time too keeping the log manifold as i didnt have the funds to replace my lpg gear for stuff to suit. and majorly cbf'd going to bbm either

a couple of days after i got the new motor i had to do a drive up to sydney.. (family emergency)
snapped the 3 rib belt just outside albury and boiled it..
fixed it and got it to start but it wasnt happy with running at all
was blowing alot of oil smoke.. and proceeded to drink 4 litres of oil to 3,00k's
chewing oil. difficult to start. and damn the mofo knocked and missed. everyone at the parramatta mini meet knows this lol
as everyone saw\heard it with a screwed motor..
got it home to victoria.. and did the motor swap a few weeks after.
pulled the old motor down and found no 6 and 5 piston grabbed the bore and i'd cracked it too.

did the au motor conversion.. and it hasnt skipped a beat.
only real issue ive had is the abs pump crapping itself and destroying the pads in the process as it was powered up all the time.
im in the process of fixing it as i dont really want to have to swap the lines to remove it..

but i better add some pics now..

when i got it..
needed sweet f a for roady too










then i got some mods happening..






then i lowered it after it went to manual..

Last edited by 89S-PACK on Mon Jun 21, 2010 10:19 pm, edited 2 times in total.

then the time to do the motor swap.. kyle bardell came up to my parents with me to help. as i dont have the room where i am living to do that sort of thing here.

old motor out..



cbf'd washing the bay as mum and dad are on tank water so i thought why bother anyways?

then i ground down the sump on the au motor for clearance..
i still dont have much. but at least it fits!




refitted the manifolds. and followed the tutorial on aff (ozecruisers section) on how to use the au tensioner with a custom belt. as i wasnt going to bbm.
and i was along the lines of au tensioners being the same as ef el.. if it broke i'll find one more easily the a xh one!





got it running.. and it hasnt skipped a beat apart from a little miss which i found was my leads dying so i swapped them for a new set

other than that.. the abs is the current gremlin im fixing as i'd like to keep it operational..
so untill i fix the brakes im just driving my daily around instead.
as the brake booster is doing funny things too. will be fixing that with a ef booster and master cyl with the lines modified to suit

update..
found the problems with the abs.
its a combination of things that blew cos some nuffy fitted the wrong relay! as ford use a dual position relay..
someone had fitted a horn relay there. thus making the braking system live constantly.
i hadnt touched the abs in the time i have owned the car as i didnt know where the 2nd relay lived.

oh well im making sure that doesnt happen twice
so its taken
new ecu
relays
and a abs pump as the one in the car doesnt sound that great.. ( i scored a good working one to replace it!)

and im replacing the booster and master cyl as mine died..
biggest win is i only have to get 2 ends changed to suit by a brake place, and they only quoted $15-20 to do it..
i could do it myself if i had a double flaring tool, but at that cost and the infrequency of the fact i'll need to use one. i'll just get it modded by someone else

hey all.. not much has happened with this apart from me nearly taking it off the road to part it out..
since killing the motor back in january. ive been lucky to have done 10 thousand k's in it since.
so it wasnt that hard to have some pretty i'll feelings about the eb. considering i'd fix something. then something else died. all in a space of 8ish months. as i paid the rego knowing it couldnt be driven at the time

the lsd diff blew.. (locked solid like a spool)
fitted a single pegger to make it mobile till funds are permitting to get another lsd.

the ea t5 was making some pretty horrible sounds so i found the issue with the el t5 i had been having. recified it and slipped it back in.

then i had a rather nice engine bay fire..
as the car is on lpg the installer back in 96 put the injector cutoff relay down low in the dipped part of the inner guard above the drain hole on the passenger side.
i was up at the snow.. it shorted out. melting all the aftermarket lpg wiring up to the main car loom.
as the car willingly ran on straight lpg i fixed it properly for now and the buggers fused this time!
got my hands on another lpg kit loom so im going to play swaps.. as taking the car off lpg isnt a option.

i have been having issues with the genie extractors splitting gaskets or just leaking just because it felt like it.. and the gasket wasnt that easy to find either as it was a odd size genie only had for a short while..
and me having had enough of the droney exhaust on the highway and funny looks from the cops i decided to make it queiter as i didnt fancy getting epa'd for it
a highflow system is still fitted. just with the rear muffler still in place. sounds quiet till i give it some. and its quiet enough to get through booze buses etc without worrying about the noise.
also got myself a set of pacemaker 4499's for cheap with std cat. gave them a fresh coat of paint and swapped them over.
it seems to be going better but the genies had cracked under the oxy sensor. i only found that issue when they were removed..
so anything would probably be a improvement.

so heres some piccys..



all thats just surface rust.. some sandpaper fixed that.
they'd been left in the weather after the past owner taking the old paint off





lastly fitted..

good write up mate.
always good to see an E series kept alive by using the AU engine.
did you use the AU alternator? any wiring differences?

thanks.. i try not to bore everybody when i update.. mostly what im doing i generally forget to take before pictures..

only reason why i went au donk is i liked the 4 bolt mains and mains girdle.
as i was going to do up a eb ed motor. decided not to when i figured for the type of driving i do the stronger bottom end would serve me better..

yep au alternator. had to swap the plugs over, but that was solder on the new one and plug in..
wasnt that hard considering it was mostly a plug and bolt up conversion.

colour codes on the wires are the same i found. so it was a case of matchup..


all the other wiring.. i just used the eb looms as i didnt go bbm.. or will ever be on this car
as i really didnt want to go to a el ecu which would either need a smartlock eliminator or a j3.. and i cbf'd running extra wiring either
but i scored a pre smartlock manual ecu from a eb2 so i didnt actually bother to do the resistor mod when it went manual

an update of sorts..

got it on the dyno finally to see how far out i got the lpg when i set it by ear.
as the au motor was hunting under load. (lpg was setup for the old motor)

it made
186.0 rwhp 138.7 rwkw
i dont think thats a bad effort considering the motor internals are stock.

only mods are xg snorkle, k&n panel filter, pacemaker 4499's
from the cat back its a standard system till i get another sports system
and the lpg kit is just a b2 converter, and a impco 225 mixer



i think i found why it flatspots on it too.
coil started to s**t itself so thats been replaced and is going much better, but wont know till i have the funds to put it back on the dyno
also im putting another wiring kit in for the lpg.. as mine isnt suited to the impco gear
i just bought a wiring kit im going to use instead what works with the impco gear..

threadmining again.. not alot has happened to this

last year i got around to swapping the lpg looms over with alot of sucess. and found a few answers why a few things were playing funny buggers.

the eb allways ran rich on gas and petrol. and whilst i was removing the old kit after fitting the new one i found the oxy sensor wiring had been tampered with for the old lpg kit.
with also finding a few bare unsoldered connectios too so it must of been either fitted in a rush or the installer didnt give a toss in "96"

the wiring had been cut and rerouted to the lambda controller by the brake booster. first car i'd seen it done like that as my ea,xf and now the new wiring kit for the eb only piggybacked off it.
the controller was dead when i bought the car so it been unplugged and as i didnt know the difference of it working prior i thought it was functional but was actually dead as it made no difference on the dyno when unplugged.

finally fitted the front bush kit i bought for the eb as my balljoints etc were stuffed. ended up doing all the bushes bar the camber kit ones.
was a massive improvement over from before. but i did go superpro over rubber so i have a little less give than std but its the way i wanted it to ride and handle so i like it.

some piccys


also fitted new rotors to fix the stuffed tone wheel issue i had for the abs

fitted standards as i didnt have any issues before as mine hadnt warped.

i still had a knock in the rear end and was having weird tyre rubbing issues. (scrubbing outer right sidewall, and i only have lows)
took it into pedders to have a proper look as i didnt have a set of car ramps or a jack after i broke it doing the front end.
found that my trailing arm bushes were stuffed and the wattslink bushes were soft also.

as i was going to do the bushes anyway.. i got the bushes to do the swaybar and wattlslink.
got a set of heavy duty new lower control arms for it. and found a nasty surprise. with the lateral movement i was getting combined with the stuffed bushes i'd bent the drivers side lower control arm! lucky i'd bought the replacement arms then..

pic of new versus old but i didnt take any pics of them fitted or the other bushes lol


upper top trailing arms are yet to be done due to finances..
was going to be done over the christmas break but nolathane and whiteline shutdown over chrismas and new year.. so i had to leave them for a while

and i was going to get them next pay till i screwed a front tyre picking up something on the highway at speed and killing the tyre as it went through the upper part of the sidewall and i now have part of the belt sticking out

as i want to keep matching pairs on the front. im up for 2 as the rears are mismatched atm till i can sort that out.

also nearly forgot..
ended up debaging the guards after some little turd did it partially for me.
im using the eb as my daily atm.. xf blew the auto again so im looking for a single rail conversion for it.

have a fair idea where it happened. but i'd love to find the person who did it though
all the guard badges were tampered with but they only got the drivers side ghia emblem off but not without digging the screwdriver into the paint and ripping the clear off under it.

when i was removing the other badges. found the 4.0 badges had been attempted as there were fresh scratch marks under both but they cracked the paint under the passenger side one and it tore a chunk off.
a touchup pen will mask it semi well but i was fair p****d it had happened.

the 4.0 badges were in good nick but were now a little inaccurate as the orginal 4.0 doesnt exist anymore. was thinking of fitting au intech 4.0 badges but have decided debadged looks good instead

so some pics of the damage

doesnt look like the scratch is deep but deep enough to be a pita to polish out


badges removed and yet to give it a proper clean and polish so it aint so obvious its been debadged


see the chunk of clear missing??

oh how at times i loathe this car..
i swear it wants to be a auto again, but i doubt i'd have any luck with those either.

the current t5 has decided that its fun to grind and howl every gear bar reverse.
clutch is adjusted right
clutch aint slipping
no pools of oil anywhere
oil level appears to be fine and nice colour as it hasnt been there long

im going to have to play swaps yet again with a spare ea t5 in the garage after i get a couple of seals and some trans oil tomorrow.
really didnt want to have to play cars this week but my hand is forced as i kinda need the car to get to work till the xf is fixed.
i was having to be quite abusive to get it to go into gear upshift and downshift.. so i broke something well...

btw anyone got a singlerail conversion so i can fix my xf too??
kinda over dailying the eb. and i wanna mess with people with the bullbar on the redneck ute pmsl..

scored a single rail conversion for the xf so thats in the process of being done as im doing it on weekends im not working or busy..
also gotta pay the rego on the xf in anycase.. might have to test it out on the concrete when its going though

the eb has been going by just. the ea t5 crapped a bearing. hence why it was changed last year.
picked up another ea t5 to replace it. just dont have car ramps here. and im trying not to pull both cars apart
kinda silly to do it that way. and if there is something else wrong im without a mobile car.
dont have anyone i could borrow one off so if the eb dies im screwed... no p\t close to work.

so heres hoping i have a quiet week at work and get the xf fixed in time lol

single rail bits for the ute..




was column shift.. now got to go floorshift so im going to have fun cutting holes


no pics of the eb currently.

Love the look of the eb mate, cardinal red is one of the nicest colors too bet she goes alot better with the manual too. Shame about some little prick trying to mess with you car though. What other plans do you have for it?

thanks mate.
i dont agree. i think cardinal would have to be one of the worst colours. moreso with the full colour coding.
but hey everyones opinion differs doesnt it?

yeah it does.. havent exactly been able to enjoy it though.
basically replaced the whole driveline last year and did maybe 7 thousand k's in it.
still fixing the gremlins..

i was p****d when i saw it but what could i do?
so i took the others off to try to limit the damage done if they came back.

plans.. drive it into the ground.
no real inclination to do any major mods to it anymore. i enjoy driving the xf more

might piss the climate control off though. annoys me how you cant opt to have the heater on for instance on recirc.
defaults to outside.. and thats a bit pointless in the snow. or on a cold night where its in the negatives..
so to fix that i broke the blend door on it to make sure it selected the mode i wanted