Morning all,

Quick history, I am building a new ED rally car. I have previously rallied one but I did the conversion with a few friends over the course of a weekend and it only lasted 3 seasons before I broke it

So after running Several different rally cars over the years including a EVO and Rolla I decided to build a ford from scratch with all the rally toys.

After working on my ED for some time I realised I should start a build thread, so far I have already had the roll cage fitted and started work on relocating the fuel tank from under the car to inside the boot and currently I’m working on the front suspension and brakes.

At this stage iv got a mix of ED,EF,AUII,BA & FG parts for the car so she is definitely going to be a little different to the normal ED.

Also Feel free to follow me on facebook http://xerxas.com

Current Parts list.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1onqLQ3Hb2xcGt5l3TX4Uqrs36McuFQNjbVKZYMOQJD8/edit?usp=sharing

**Edit - Typo's and Added Parts list link.

Last edited by XerxasJade on Tue Jan 09, 2024 3:51 pm, edited 3 times in total.

The Build started in February 2019 with a really clean donor car, managed to pick her up for under $1000 bucks and did a whole heap of kms in her as a daily before deciding to do the conversion.







**Edit fixed photo Links**

Last edited by XerxasJade on Thu Aug 13, 2020 12:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Striping began right away.

I had a prearranged deadline to get the car striped by so that it could go to the cage builder, part of the arrangement with the cage builder was that the seat rails for the racing seats would be in before I sent the car to him.

Stripping

Stripping


Test Fitting Seat rails (Drivers Side)


Working out Pedal Postion


Finished Seat Rails


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Last edited by XerxasJade on Thu Aug 13, 2020 12:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.

In April it went for its Cage, The cage is built to National Rally Speck with a couple extra bars at my own request. Walker Chassis did an amazing job and the cage came out amazing.

Walker Chassies
https://www.walkerchassis.com.au/













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Last edited by XerxasJade on Thu Aug 13, 2020 12:19 pm, edited 3 times in total.

More Recently, I have been working on removing the rear wheel well for the spare and relocating the Fuel tank inside.

I have also started on the Front suspension and brakes, the rear is coming along resonably well but I dont have many photos of it yet and the front is waiting on my suspension to arrive.

While I have been waiting on my suspension I have been cleaning up all my Control Arms, Knuckles, and Wheel Arches ect.

Cutting the rear out




Wheel arch before


Wheel Arch Primed


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Last edited by XerxasJade on Thu Aug 13, 2020 12:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

After putting on three coats of primer, I then added a couple of coats of black and finished it off the textured black stone guard, hopefully this will minimize chips so I don't have to repaint it as often as the last car. I haven't decided how i'm going to do the liner yet but it will be some sort of rubber rather than the factory plastic.

I also cleaned up the new AU Stub Axles, EF Drum plates & Watts link bars so that I could paint them.
The AU stub axles in particular came off a wreck and were pretty bad, I forgot to take before photos, but i'm really happy how they came up.

By replacing thew ED Brake plate with the EF one, I don't have to use the ED calipers with the integrated hands break and can use later calipers which are designed to have the separate drum handbrake and just delete the entire cable handbrake completely. This will make changing pads significantly easier as I don't need to screw the piston back in like in the ED ones.

The later model calipers are also a lot more reliable and easier to rebuild so its a win win.

Running the AU Stub's obviously allows me to run AU Hubs, Floating Disks and the AUII Twin pots which will give me a lot better pedal feel and also are a lot easier to change and also easier to get parts for. I particularly like the floating disks and hub setup which will be a lot easier to change at an event in the case of a failure than the ED ones with integrated bearings.

In a perfect world Id go and get a set of BA brakes but we have a 15" control tire so anything bigger than the 185mm disks off the AUII wont fit under the rims.

Finished Wheel Arch


Drum plates, Stub Axles & Watts link Bars


ED Brake Plate - Rubbish


ED Rear Caliper with integrated Handbrake


ED Rear Caliper from a different angle



EF Rear Caliper off a wreck for test fitting.


**Edit Fixed Photo Links**

Last edited by XerxasJade on Thu Aug 13, 2020 12:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Nice write up mate. Looking good

bugga! ... lost the pics


did look awesome tho. any chance of em back?

I didn’t realise they wernt working, they look fine my end, I’ll check it out tomorrow.. probably a permission issue on the hosting site, easy enough to fix.

Thanks for the heads up.

My wheel studs arrived today, so while on lunch I pressed out the factory length ones and replaced them with the long ones.

Factory Wheel Studs are 51.5mm long and with the mags that I run (In the photos at the top) they end up well inside the recessed holes on the mag and are super fiddly to start without cross threading.

I realize that for a lot of people this may not be a issue worth doing anything about but for me when you might change anywhere from 4 to 8 tires at a large event it drives me insane.

So to help with this I have gone for longer studs that are instead 73mm long.

I also finished cleaning up my upper control arms and got them ready to paint, I added the Ford part numbers to my parts list noting which side of the car each was from because knowing me I will have forgotten by the time I got to put them back together.

Upper Control Arm


New Hub with Factory length Studs


Stud Length Comparison


New Hub with long Studs


Hub Fitted to Stub Axle

wheel arch looks clean as......






not sure why you had problems chucking pics up as i do my pics thru imageshack as well. i just use the Hotlink for forums: link, copy the link then paste.


keep up the goood work tho.


Cheers

So its been a little quiet the last few days on the car front. Because iv been waiting on some good weather to finish cleaning up my lower control arms.

However while I was waiting I got most of the parts to rebuild my calipers. as well as the Lower Control Arm bolts, nuts and caliper attachment bolts that were on back order from from Melbourne.

So hopefully this weekend I can start on the caliper rebuild, assuming the guide bolts arrive in time.

Also I had a little present from MCA Suspension (aka Murray Coote Automotive) in the form of my MCA Gold Suspension, so now I have some extra motivation to get the K Frame in.

I don't think ill have any more updates for a couple of weeks as until I get the lower arms cleaned up and the new Nolatane bushes pressed in there isn't much for me to do other than fiddly body work which is pretty boring.

Lower Control Arm Bolts - Part Numbers have been added to parts list.


MCA Suspension


Custom Spring Rate King Springs

Morning all,

So it’s been a fair while since my last update, mostly because I had a few budget issues but there has been a reasonable amount of progress, budget permitting.

Since my last update I have been working on the boot section, as part of this I am relocating the fuel tank into the car (to prevent rocks etc. damaging it) and I’m also relocating the fuel and brake lines inside the car for the same reason.

Within the boot I needed to fit the Tank, Surge Tank, fuel pumps, fuel filters, VH44's, Vacuum Pumps & Vacuum Storage Tank.

It took a bit of fiddling but with the help of my 3d Printer we got there.

I still need to make both the top and front firewalls, so please forgive the Ryobi carboard that I am using as a template until I make the final firewall but otherwise I’m pretty happy so far with the progress.

So a quick rundown of the system before the photos:

Fuel System --- I have two pumps (Primary and Redundant) that will pump from the tank via filters to the surge tank. Two more pumps (Primary and Redundant) will pump to the engine via filters. The engine return (not fitted yet) will drop into the surge tank and the surge tank overflow drops back into the main tank as demonstrated in the diagram below:



All of the fuel lines in the boot are -8 100series Areoflow with Areoflow fittings and once I get out of the boot and into the cabin I will switch to 200seres but inside the boot 100series is more than sufficient.

I still have a couple of Areflow lines to make and install but I won’t be fitting them until I have finished making the hard brake lines and I still have two of them to make.

Vacuum System --- I am running to SAAB 12v vacuum pumps into a storage tank with three VH44's, One each for the Front Brakes, Rear Brakes and Clutch. I have had a few comments about the one for the clutch but I have a bad left ankle and with a heavy duty clutch it’s a no brainer for me.

In an effort to make things easy and quick to replace should any of the VH44's play up at an event they all have 350mm flexible braided tails going to them with banjo fittings to assist with removal if needed, with that also in mind the I put the vh44 for the clutch closest to the rear as it is the most likely to fail, because of the way clutches are used.

And now for the pictures:

Early test fit of pumps and filters


Final fit of pumps and filters


Test Fit of VH44's


Final Fit of VH44's


Hardlines and Vacuum Pumps


Vacuum Tank and Test FireWall Template

Well its been a while again.

The firewall has been driving me insane, however with much encoragment by my partner, several redesigns and countless templates made by my father. I finally have a solution that will both work as a firewall and still allow me access to the suspension tops for adjustment.
Now the firewall is in I have been able to finish mounting the brake lines and I have started making the wiring loom.

Progress is slow but at least its still going.

The Work Continues,

I have been working on some spare tire holders that go where the back seats would normally be and also started painting the rear section that goes under the lights and bumper.

The whole car will end up with a red exterior but I will pay someone to do a panel on respray once it’s mostly together so at the moment it’s just a matter of putting the red under all the panels so I can start test fitting things like the boot and tail lights.

Cutting out the spare tire holder


The frame is cut out of 3mm 2050 aluminium in a shape that can be bent into a U, from there I have added five 20x230mm solid aluminium bar supports which are tapped and then held in place with 6x40mm stainless steel bolts.

I designed the buckets so that the tire sits against two of the round bars at the bottom and one at the back, with the additional two bars to hold the restraining straps when they eventually arrive from America.

The retaining straps are going to made out of SFI quick release lap sash seat belts. The idea being I can get the belts tight and then when I need to change a tire in a hurry at an event. I have the quick release to get them out quickly. This should be a lot less fiddly then using ratchet straps.


Test assembly after bending


Tire Test Fit


Test Fit in Car



There will be two frames in the final car, with one access from each side, I have got some 50mm round bar which I will use to level the two frames as the ED floor isnt level.

Those will have 10mm Stainless bolts going through to the under side of the car where 50mm washers will spread the load and create a sandwitch plate. Once its all bolted in place the flames will also be straped back to the cage in some way.

Painting the Lights, Boot Surround and Bumper Area.



Once the red paint dries Ill finally be able to put the boot back on and finish the wiring in the boot, I can’t wait for this as getting the revise lights and a boot light (which is being fitted to the boot lid) is the last bit of wiring that needs to be done before I move onto the passenger cabin.

Lastly I have been working on covering any holes that could let dust in, as well as selling all the locations where I plan to add expander foam to reinforce panels like the side sills. I don’t have any phots of that yet, but y0ou can see some of the plates in photos above.