lol... thinking about hungry, I just had lunch, tested out the new fryer, it's pretty cool, beats the old basket in a pot on the stove type. This thing is temp controlled, has a splash lid & a timer.

Anyway, that's got me thinking, I was cleaning out the cupboard in the laundry the other day, found a spare microwave in there, I might have to rig it up in the shed lol.

Cheers

ToranaGuy

Regrind cam and J3. Hell, why not? Seems to do most proud. Don't forget the head shave and cylender head reshape.

Its real cooking if you caught it and killed it bro.

Living the single life means culinary skills getting rusty......

I just got this head reco'd, which inc a shave, but I didn't have the cash for port work or the xr6 valves. I was thinking a lumpy regrind, the j3 chip, and then maybe look for some 3.45 diff gears, that would wake it up a good bit without costing too much.

I've been fishing, then gutted & cooked them, but not for years. Been rabbit shooting as well, made a nice stew, but that was years ago too.

My fiance is usually at work at nights (hospitality), so I'm usually cooking for one, you get lazy at times... I'm lucky if we spend 2 nights a week at the dinner table, tho we usually get to have lunch together 4 or 5 times a week, depending on her work schedule.

I stated to organize my spare parts shed out the back this arvo, got my eBay special cabinets in there, stashed lots of spare parts & plenty more room to go. Also noticed how many sets of rims I have to suit the E series lol. I should probably get rid of one or two sets.

Cheers

ToranaGuy

Gave my battery a test on the tester at work today, it's a 420cca battery that is currently down to 297cca, cranking volts are down just under 10v, and the charge output of the alternator is 14.61v, so that alternator is cool. Looks like I'm up for a battery soon, probably next month or two, the Ghia has become a bit harder to crank over on cold mornings of late.

In other news, too busy to work on this misfire or fit a new valve cover gasket just yet, and my mates EF seems to have s**t the oil pump now, it has extremely low oil pressure at idle(hot or cold), with 15w40 oil in the sump, give it a rev, even just 100rpm greater than idle rpm & oil pressure shoots up enough to stop the motor rattling....oil pump relief valve might be stuck open? Anyways, that means to drop the sump & do the pump soon.

Fun times ahead if only this weather would get better.....

Cheers

ToranaGuy

a man of many talents!!!!

Thanks dude, I guess I might be. Over summer I hope to learn how to lay concrete, got a patch in the back yard that's stuffed, so planning on smashing it up, fixing the earth underneath & laying a good foundation, then replacing the damaged concrete. Also would love to concrete the other part of my driveway too, but have to dig up a tree stump first, need to buy the tools to do that job.

I have also worked out how to lay bricks along the way, fixing the back wall of my shed, I would love to build the bbq and outdoor kitchen of my dreams this summer too (brick & timber), I've almost got everything I require for that to go ahead.

In the past I have laid down floating floor boards in 2 of the bedrooms in my house, the 3rd has to wait until I do the bathroom reno's & install the door between the bedroom & bathroom to make it semi en-suite. I have also been reading & watching video's on how to do the valley & re-bed the caps for tiled roofs, mine have a lot of cracked mortar, a job to do over summer.

I also moonlight as an I.T consultant(I have a number of industry certs) when I have work, I used to do it full time, but these days it's nice to just do it when I have a client that needs some work, it's very ad-hoc, keeps me from getting bored with it like I did a couple of years ago when I was a full time consultant. I don't advertise, just have a small client base, what work I do is very profitable.

On that note, I've only had a couple hrs sleep in the last 24hrs, I think I might go get a couple hours of Zed's....lol.

Cheers

ToranaGuy

I can do all the concrete, brick and building work for you (or show you how)... In turn you can also do oil pump in my car. Actually... Nah, I can do oil pump.

Do you mind working out why the rear window wiper starts wiping and the interior lights flash off an on when the key is out, but when you start the car everything stops but the smart lock then decides to work.

All good. I'll buy an airline ticket out of this 70mm of rain an hour with volcano and earthquake risk hole of a country and do ya concrete. Here's a good idea though - Smash it up, don't throw it away - in true KIWI style, keep the smashed up concrete for something later. Anyway, smash it up, move it out the way. Clear 200mm lower than the finished height everywhere. Make sure to have a careful think about drainage angles. Dig 400mm deeper than finished height around the whole circumference. Drill into existing concrete that it will butt into and put starters of 12mm steel so that the new concrete will bind to this and prevent up and down and sideways movement but will allow for expansion and contraction. Put down a 100mm layer of sand over entire area. Put in boxing to contain concrete as poured. Put down black plastic over entire area, up sides of boxing to above ground level. Selotape any joins. Put down 50mm baskets to support 100x100mm 5mm diametre reinforcing. 75x75 could be even more use near heavy traffic area (such as front of drive or turning areas in particular). Have a think about where to put more expansion joins. You can join the reinforcing in these areas but I tend to leave a 50 mm gap in between so that you can pour concrete and then cut the concrete almost the whole way through. This means that the concrete will not crack everywhere, but will almost always crack where you have decided it should. 2.4m squares are about right in this climate for most things. You can do 10x2m or whatever if you're doing a large section across a property for instance. Have some edges tools to put a nice radius curve on the outside of concrete. A good trick I use quite often is to put sticks 200mm higher than the finished concrete everywhere and tie strings across (very very very tightly) at the 200mm high mark as well. When you pour concrete you know that the finish is always 200mm below these lines and sticks. That was you can do tricky things like put a sump in the middle of the concrete pad and know for a fact that the water is going to go there. Just remember to allow for this when preparing for the original sand layer. 50mm of sand is okay, 20mm probably is pushing it. Use a compactor. Lay drains under everything BEFORE any of this by the way. Dig drain hole three times bigger than your pipe, pour in some gravel, lay pipe, cover with gravel and then any clay or original earth. To do nice curves at the sides of the concrete you can make some pegs by cutting 50x50mm wood into spikes and hammering into ground. Use some 200mm 3ply wood (or similar thin wood) and soak it to bend around tight bends, or just use plenty of stakes and other handy debris to hold in position. Use angle grind and wire to tie the main reinforcing squares to a steel rod or two running around perimeter, suspended over the extra digging you did around circumference. Go to Bunnings and buy some concrete finishing products such as a retardant. Get concrete delivered, making sure to explain what finish you are after. Spray the retardant on the top and level and scree and do the edges and general vibrate the hell out of it all so it settles and all the air is out. You can use a hammer drill for this (you borrowed one to smash up original concrete,right?) by putting hammer drill against side boxing and vibrating. Watch your 5cubic metres of concrete turn into 3! Hahahahah! Also a quick vibrate on the reinforcing every foot or two will pay dividend in long term. Anyway, if you have put down a nice flat surface and you worked out amount of concrete properly you should now have a barrow of concrete left over. You should have dug a hole, lined it with left over black plastic and put a drain in the bottom. You then cover this with a few inches of concrete and push all sorts of interesting rocks and concrete debris into it. Wait a few weeks, hose it out a few times and it is ready for your goldfish. Uhm. Right, spray retardant on the top, lightly. Twelve hours later (or read the label for more accurate product description) rinse off with hose. This will take the top layer of concrete off and expose the aggregate (all the little rocks that are in concrete that actually cost you MORE per cubic metre than crappy concrete without so big rocks in them.....) Uhm, bugger. Where was I? Ah yeah, how about just finding a cheap plane ticket? I don't drink much, but do need pain killers to get out of bed some mornings... And my cars flashing interior lights even with no key in ignition is probably my own doing.

Any chance we could go for a drive to one of the Ford factories? A big a*** cruise to Geelong with a big banner saying "save the six" signed by the whole of New Zealand in the back...

Tony,

Those electrics will even give me a headache I think lol.

Great write up, It's only a little bit of concrete out the back for the time being, but when I have to do the driveway all that sort of care will be taken, for now, I need about a 100mm thick slab about 2500x2500 to fix the seriously cracked up crap I have now. A glorified garden path lol. When I need to do the driveway, all care will be taken, and a good reinforced slab will be laid. I'll even borrow a compactor from a mate & do it 100% properly lol.

I won't throw the smashed up concrete away, it will be used as fill somewhere lol.

If you could get yourself over here, I don't see why we can't go to Geelong or even Broadie with the banner for you, would make for a cool ford cruise! We could talk about the spare bed in the spare room too.

Cheers

ToranaGuy

Got a little work done on the red Xr8 this arvo. Got it outta my boggy front lawn & onto the driveway, swapped the metal brake line & put a new exhaust support rubber on. Bleed up the back brakes & it has brakes now. Rear pads are almost finished tho, so I gotta pickup a set of them at work this week. Discs are really good tho.

Went to remove a couple of spark plugs so I could turn it over & find compression on #1 to set the timing right, broke 2 plugs, so I also need to put a set of plugs on the shopping list lol.

A little progress, but I didn't get to change the dizzy cap & rotor on the Ghia like I wanted to. Ah well, maybe tomorrow night after work.

Cheers

ToranaGuy

Last night I swapped over the dizzy cap & rotor button, now the Ghia runs a lot better but it still has a miss. Maybe too much has been shaved from the head & I need to try shorter reach plugs to back the timing off a couple degree's? Timing looks ok with the timing light on tho.

The battery has been getting worse the last week, almost left me stranded this morning, so I picked up a battery at work. We have a deal on with the Ultra Hi Performance batteries, where you get a model car (a9x or cobra), so I picked one up & got the model torana too.

Install it & one new battery terminal on the negative side tonight after work, those 620cca of power spin the old SOHC over nice & quickly now. Yay! It's also motivating me to tidy up the wiring around the battery too, will try & fit that into my busy weekend this weekend.

I also picked up the brake pads, spark plugs & extractor gaskets I required at work for the Xr8, just need to find time this weekend or a night this week when it's not raining to do some work on those jobs.

Cheers

ToranaGuy

Gotta love the Eseries, tonight the Ghia killed a starter motor, I can hear the solenoid clunking & the motor not kicking over. Got a mate to come & give me a push start (love the manual lol), so tomorrow I'm going to order one thru work. More money thrown at it this week, damn that car is being greedy.

Last 12mths I've done the following that I can remember

New Battery & terminals
Reco injectors
New Dizzy & coil
Cylinder head full reco & head gasket job
2 clutches
Clutch cable & clevis pin
Reco the T5 - full reco at that
New bushes in the front end
Fuel pump
One LPG Injector
Thermo fan motor
Alternator

Still needs new ball joints & tie rods, a set of tyres as I'm nearing the limits on them, Touch up the paint. Repair both the front & back GT bumpers, replace the rear speakers, probably a gas converter in the next 12mths too.

What a money pit lol. Problem is I'm way too far in, there's no point stopping!

Cheers

ToranaGuy

Get a starter motor for a BA.

Smaller and much more powerful.

Cheers
BenJ

any difference in quality between Misterr Bosch and AEX/generic brands at part stores ?

Do it! You should be able to get one cheap with your parts connections. Paid $132 for mine.

Don't worry guys, I wasn't going to fit the old type, the new smaller type is much easier to work with & easier to source as well.

I picked up an OEX brand starter thru work, it's the 1.4kw smaller type, took all of 20mins to slide under the car, rip the old one out, which was the same smaller type I fit up a few years ago(second hand from the wreckers might I add), and fit the replacement.

During that 20mins it had to start raining again, so I got soaked, but the job is done, starter in & it's starting very easily now. Yay!

I also paid a lot less than $132 for it (well under $100 but I can't say the exact price), that's the privilege of the s**t wages repco pay lol. Still tho, I've just thrown more than $250 at the car in the last week, and while under there I noticed some bad wear in the front rotors on the inside. So it looks like caliper rebuild kits, new rotors, pads & bearings are also on the to do list. Ouch!

Cheers

ToranaGuy