I guess it is time to start up a new build thread now that my '98 AU Forte is no longer my running project (a.k.a. decommissioned). I was in need of a new car as the old AU was having too many dramas to keep persisting with; the straw that broke the camel's back was the fact that it no longer wanted to go in reverse -- even after fixing up the gearbox. I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do as I have a little bit of cash saved up. After a bit of decision making, I decided that I wanted to buy an EL Fairmont, preferrably a Fairmont Ghia. Searched around for a few weeks and after a while found one on eBay going for $1,000 on a Monday afternoon; the ad for the car read as follows:

"for sale is my 1998 el fairmont ghia. it has the tickford engine and lsd which are running in good order. has had radiator, starter motor and power steering pump replaced. auto has recently been serviced. i have lowered it but have the original springs if u want them. bad points. has a very slow leak out the back of the power steering pump i think the thread might just need thread tape, has a few dints and the paint is in ordanary condition. any inquiries call Brock on ********** advertised elsewhere. has just ran out of rego and im only selling it cuz i got a new car."

Images below are from the listing as well.






After about 5 minutes of "Umming" and "Ahhing", we decided to make a call to him to see what was wrong with the car, what he could tell us about it and to offer him a lower price for it. After a few more minutes, he told us that there was nothing wrong with it other than the issues that were listed in the advertisement and that the muffler was also going to need attention. He also mentioned again that it was merely because he was upgrading to a newer car that it was going off the road. So we offered him $900 and he said yes, so I was rather "Stoked" about him accepting and so to show we were genuine, we offered to put a deposit into his bank account.

Unfortunately, we weren't able to pick the car up until Friday, after I finished work in Toowoomba. So we made sure we had our permit to move the car from where it was situated up in Yandina back to my place. It was the only thing I could think about that week; all of the modding that I had and have planned for it and what I would do first... We went up to Yandina, which took us until around 8:30pm and had a chat to the owner's mother (as the owner went out for the night) and then exchanged the money for the car and its necessary receipt, as well as my first set of spare keys (even two glove box keys).

Now I know its a general rule of thumb not to view, let alone buy a car during the night as you can't see all of it's faults; that wasn't something that was going to stop me from buying the car though as it was exactly what I wanted for a price less than half of what I was willing to pay. Any money I made from buying it so cheap was destined to be used in fixing it up for it's roadworthy.

Images taken the morning after picking up the car.












Pulled into a service station to fuel up as it only had about 20kms of fuel in it. Decided that would be the time to check to see if it still possessed it's original "Tickford" engine, which to my surprise (and something that I was prepared for it not to have), it did. Stopped off at another service station for dinner and as we're driving in, there is a police car with some cops getting into it. Even though I had a permit for the car, I had a gut-wrenching feeling that they were going to come over and inspect the vehicle that just drove past them without any plates on at 9:15pm. Sure enough, thats the first thing they do, so we showed them the permit and they were on their way. Somewhere along the way, not far from having left the previous owner's house, I managed to lose the front left indicator -- still have no idea how that managed to happen though.

Got back near Blacksoil and the car's coolant sensor lamp lit up on the instrument cluster. Turned out that the car had head problems (make your own dirty jokes here) -- something that the owner didn't mention at all. I was prepared that something may have needing replacing or attention; I certainly didn't expect it to be having to pull the head block off. Sure enough though, a member of Fordmods.com and myself pulled the head off and he cleaned it up for me very cheaply (which I'm still very appreciative of). I got gasket set from Repco (made sure it was an AU one as the EL version were s**t cork instead of graphite). So after having the car for a fortnight now, its all back together and running smoothly. I'm very fortunate that the head wasn't warped and didn't need any machine work done to it as the only problem was the original gasket that was on the head.

Head work done to the car.





















Finishing up (and degreasing the timing area).





Final result.





Whilst we were at it, I decided that I'd replace the headlights, as they were pretty rubbish, as well as the water overflow bottle. I also replaced the spark plugs with NGK plugs and the leads with Bosch Performance Leads, as well as a new Gates Racing fanbelt. Grabbed some new terminals for the car, one with a digital readout on the positive terminal for the voltage of the battery -- speaking of batteries, I also bought a new one as well which was a Marshall X56D. Now I'm not entirely "Savvy" when it comes to batteries and I was wanting to buy a Deep Cycle Battery for my car as I will be running some heavier sound equipment than just the premium sound system that the car originally came with. The sales person assured me though that I wasn't going to fit a Deep Cycle Battery into my engine bay without modification and that I just wouldn't need on. He said he'd do me a deal on the Marshall battery and so I got it for $135 with a three year warranty. I haven't pushed the battery with the sound system yet as its not installed at this stage, but I will find out as soon as the splits, sub, capacitor and amp are all fully connected. Also decided to run 4g wire this time around instead of the 8g wire I used for the grounding and positive wiring to the amp, main reason was because I found a 4g package at JB Hi-Fi marked down from $200 to $98 which also had a huge fuse/fuse holder and ground. Hopefully it'll be an improvement over the old setup.

Old and new headlights.







New battery, lcd terminal and overflow bottle.



New amp wiring kit.



Sound system going into the car.










Its been a bit of a mad rush to get it together for the upcoming March 13th Queensland cruise. Its going in for roadworthy on Wednesday, so fingers crossed it passes and will be registered the same day.

Last edited by Teknoslasher on Wed Mar 21, 2012 10:23 pm, edited 5 times in total.

Wow, thats a pretty long story of events as to how you purchased the car and what happened getting it home.

Nice to see more of the Ghia's getting looked after, I've always wanted one myself.

Looks like the sound system you're installing is going to be pretty damn cool, I'm assuming its mid-level spec?

Hope the car passes the roadworthy with no problems, keep up the great work mate

nice work man im about the take the whole front end of my car its a little bent from a previous accident so the lights dont sit in there properly.

Were did u get the new overflow bottle and how much did it set you back

Thanks

I'll try not to burst the bubble too much,
But I'm pretty sure you'll be doing that gasket again shortly.

Looks like a tidy unit though, keen to see more as you get into it!

+1
2 mistakes, well 2 things that need special attention on these engines..
1)you really should have had the head skimmed/shaved..
2)although not as important at shaving the head, but an au steel head gasket would have been best, as the monotorqe composite type head gaskets are not that great...

I disagree as long as the head has no cracks and is straight their is no need to have it machined each to their own and in this case it was just the head gasket gone.

forgot nice car

Haha, yeah, it was a pretty long write up. I was planning on going to bed last night as 10pm, but spent up until 12pm going over the details, trying to add everything. I'm hoping that I'll be using this car for a long time as well, so it makes sense to clean her up a little.

The sound system is going to hopefully look very stock within the car as I don't want it to be cluttered excessively with amps and subs all around the boot. I've learnt quite a few things not to do from doing them with my AU. The wires I ran were very sloppy in their installation. I'd just run them in the door rubbers and then visably through to the doors and they weren't at all disguised. I think for this one to look good, I'll have to put more effort into it. I've run the front driver's wiring in to it already and am happy with the stock look produced from putting in a bit more time and effort as well. The Infinity splits are rated as 270W and the sub is only 300W; I simply bought it as it was a free-air sub to go into the parcel shelf.

Fingers crossed it passes without issue.



I bought the lights and overflow bottle from an ebay store around 3 hours from where I live. We drove there and collected the gear as I needed them pretty quickly. I paid just shy of $50 for the bottle, which is a brand-new, non-genuine bottle. I'm pleased with the product as well. You can find the supplier at this link http://myworld.ebay.com.au/carsrusaustralia/?_trksid=p4340.l2559.



No bubbles burst, worst come to worst, if there is an issue where it happens again, I've got a 2K Black AU engine sitting at home doing nothing (probably going to be selling it to be honest). As per what SV said, I don't feel like there will be a problem. The block had an engineer's straightedge put along it. Time will tell, but I'm very confident that the engine will be lasting me for quite a while.

Ahh fair enough then, however with the power rating for the splits, was that peak or RMS?

Did you pass your roadworthy?

For the splits, I believe thats peak.

She passed the road worthy without major issue. Things that need attention are 1 rubber boot for the brake pedal, new power steering pump as the other one is totally rooted and brake light for the parcel shelf. I've installed the amp, cd player and one speaker so far. I'll finish up with the rest of the gear tomorrow though as I want to have it going at its best for the cruise from Nudgee on Sunday. I'll have to get a 53mm or 57mm holesaw for my door trims and door panels so I can fit my tweets where the ghia symbol is. I'm very impressed with my install of everything this time around, much more detail has gone into it and it is definitely showing. I'll post up some pictures in the next few days, but I don't have my standard pc which has all of my resizing software on it.

In the meantime, heres an image of the car that I'm sure some of you will think I've downgraded from with a previous project that I lost faith and patience on:

So I needed a new muffler for the car; snapped up this little beauty from eBay for $50.


I also started work on the sound system, but between work and travelling to it, I'm left with no time until the weekend to work on it so I've only done the front woofers, cross-overs, player and amp system.

Upgrade to the sound system.






A few happy shots from the cruise on Sunday. Had a good time and was in good company.

Nudgee Service Station.




Beerwah Burnout Pad.



I'm looking forward to the next run.

what did you do with that Sub, if you put it on the back shelf would love to see some pics

good write-up and pics...keep the mods coming, ill be reading with interest... like mine i got stock and started the mods, 5 years after i got it its boosted...



fairmont ghias rock !

It has been so long since I updated this build thread, not too much has changed. I've lowered the car with King Springs, put on some new rims and have installed the sub into the parcel shelf. There's a few things I'm looking to do hopefully in the near future. Priority one is to get the hood lining fixed and the interior painted black. At the same time, I'm startig to strip down my '98 AU to a rolling shell to paint that up fully in hopes of putting it back on the road.



Update on the headgasket: I am happy to confirm that the car has just clocked over 390K and the headgasket, as well as all other engine components are going strong and haven't given me an issue. Probably my first car that's gone so well mechanically. *knock-wood*