I believe you can probably actually bolt the EF Pedal box in - it was close in my XF - except that the XF had a different firewall. The advantage of the XG/H setup over the e series one is that its removable without having to pull the whole dash. As you are using an e series dash and EF series handbrake you dont need the handbrake hanger, nor do you need the mount for the BEM that the x series use as it will fit in its factory location. You should be able to use the Lower Dash Bracket from the EF/NF/NL instead of the factory XH one (the bracket going from trans tunnel, and bracing to the pedal box in the XH and XF). That way that bit dissapears.

I think you'll need to use the EF/NL pedal box as the back of dash plumbing is very different - if you dont, you may find some significant clearance problems. Lucky you for having an XH not an XF

For Demisters - you'll need to find an XD/E/F/G/H rear dash, and cut the demister section off (that goes to the heater box). You can then mount that behind your NL dash on the firewall. The NL Dash will need some form of openings cut in the back of it so that the demisters do have an outlet.

The EB Series Plumbing for Air doesnt have clearance for the demister, but I believe the EF/NL will. Especially if you dont have P/S Airbag (if you do, get rid of it). You can use a heatgun to reshape the normal vent pipes to get additional clearance.

The Demister Vent Flap assembly will need to be modified to work with the climate control, or you can take a "best guess" at how it might work, and use a combination of joiners and one-way check valves to get some kind of result.

You cant use the E-Series one, but the E-series (vacuum) motor can be made to fit the X Series Vent flap (my effort didnt look awesome, but did work well). Then you get the three positions.

If you relocate the servo on the top of the heater box, I would measure it. Where I have it fits the EB dash, but it was very close. Keeping in mind that I do believe the EF/EL/NF/NL have more clearance behind - it may not be as much of an issue.

Nigel

A pretty busy day today. Started with test fitting the heater box. I had been hearing mixed results with some saying the blend motor would foul on the top of firewall, and some saying it will fit no probs…




Well, I can say – it Don’t fit! I will have to move the blend motor. There’s not much room , especially after I reinstall the foam/sound deadening. Heres some pics of the XH and NL box side by side. Almost identical.





Anyway, I had to keep my mind on the current task; getting the bay ready for paint. So I finished off the grinding after an hour or so, and pushed the car onto the road to degrease and pressure wash everything (I didn’t wanna wreck my pavers!!)



‘Before’ shot


Taped up all the holes to prevent water getting inside


‘After’ (still looks crap!!)



Next was to cut and stick pieces of steel plate over all the bigger holes. As mentioned earlier, this is far easier than welding and warping the thin sheet metal. First I cut cardboard to size, and test fit, then trace onto some scrap (VK door!), and cut to size with tin snips.

Once I had every piece ready to go, I cleaned each surface with wax/grease remover, then I used panel bond to glue the plates all into place. I will let these cure for 24 hours.







I wasn’t going to block the windscreen washer cables/hoses off, but I reckon I’ve found another hidden route I can run them. Looks a little messy now, but it should come up nice once its filled. Tomorrow I’ll use fibreglass filler (apparently much stronger than normal body filler) to fill all the holes.

The final coat will be a thin layer of body filler. I don’t want this stuff cracking down the track.

Anyway, while that was drying I decided to try fit up some ‘pre-fabricated’ parts I purchased off XH5LWPN, from his old setup. Having the same type of vehicle makes for much less f%^&ing around!! These pictures explain it all….











I had to fit everything up, as obviously I don’t wanna be cutting and drilling holes in fresh paintwork!

Tomorrow the trust wire brush will come out, and hopefully I’ll get the filler down.

Nigel, your are a legend mate.

Great idea with the demister. I will cut my old spare XH dash up for that (or find an old XF one off gumtree).

I really wanted to keep the P/S airbag. I will have to test fit it up once I get to this stage and see if it fits.

How did you mount the side bits of the dash (behind kickpanels). The XH has an 'L' shaped bracket, and the EL one is slightly different, and welded to the EL body. I suppose I could bodge something up.

I would also like to use the EL centre bracket (on tunnel), but it wont mount exactly where it is supposed to I dont think. I might have to cut and combine the 2 somehow... Might need my mate to come back with his welder!

I believe the centre bracket bolts in correctly - while it doesnt look right, the holes in the tunnel are in the right place. But Im interested to know.

As per many EB -> EL dash conversions, you fabricate a bracket for the two sides above the kick panel. BenJ is one who did that (that comes to mind)

I am interested to see how this goes : If it goes well, I'll update my XF to the EF ECU I have in the shed and the EF Fairmont dash.

No problem. It may just be me, but it looks as if the bolts on my XH are too far rearward. I could be wrong. I posted up some pics ^^^ of the NL stripped out, as well as my tunnel.

Yes, I have been chatting to BenJ. He is very helpful. It's weird he could fit the heater box in with no modifications.

No problems mate. I will have to wait until the bay is painted before it starts getting serious, and bolting the interior back together. Due to the pain in the a** and the weight of the NL dash, I will probably do all my test fitting with a stripped down EF dash I have, and do the final test on the NL. I am looking forward to getting to it...!!

LOL. Dont forget, BenJ did an E Series, not an X Series. Our downfall is the firewall/plenum - they are that different.

Time for sleep

Nigel

On my EB1 wagon the floor hump mount was different to the EB11 and did not line up at all.

In the end, I left out the center mount on the hump and just relied on the two side mounts.

If I ever have to pull the dash back out again I may fabricate a center mount, but it has not proved an issue over the last two years.

Cheers
BenJ

Started today with cleaning up all the blanking pates & bare metal with the wire wheel. Also got rid of all the seam sealer. It was strange my ute has so much seam sealer, XH5LWPN had none in his engine bay from factory…go figure. BTW, those blanking pates are as solid as a rock. Dave from Gas 78 wasn’t lying when he said that panel bond adhesive is ultra-strong (apparently its used to hold the roofs on VE commodores).




After that, vacuumed what dust I could, then wiped everything down. Then sprayed wax/grease remover, then wiped again with clean rag. Then I mixed up the first batch of fibreglass filler. This was the first time I’d used it (I’d never really heard of it to be honest)… it s**t all over body filler!! Obviously the fibreglass makes its very strong. Apparently twice as much as regular filler….



Fill some holes (yes, looks messy)



Do some sanding


Some more



There was a factor ‘indent’ there before, and a hole





Got rid of 2 holes each side up here. They still need another layer, but this is the first attempt




I’m not looking forward to doing under there…


Or this side….



This pretty easy, but haven’t got to it yet


As the sun moves behind me (west)… my back tells me to call it quits soon….so I take some more pics




This used to be the handbrake hole. Needs more work


This area isn’t too bad now



Final clean to call it a day


Today was the last chance for me to do some work on it for the next week or so. I didn’t want the bare metal to rust up in the mean time, so after cleaning everything, gave a quick spray with Etch Primer to the required areas (tried to stick to the bare metal only)





Considering I’m in no way shape or form a panel beater, I’m pretty happy with my efforts today… Any experts reading this, or anyone that can give some pointers please feel free! Sanding really does suck!!

I probably have at least 2 or 3 days left needed to complete this phase I think. Once the fibreglass filler is relatively smooth, I’ll do a very light coat of body filler over the top to make it smoother!!

love the ute the ba seats make interior nice just throw in a black carpet and some coloured bulbs around dash would top it off

I had a thought about your heater box and the blend servo on top too - something id done a lot of playing with.

The XF Ghia's had a blend servo that mounted at the bottom of the heaterbox. The heaterboxes actually mount the same, but on the EA they deleted the mounts for the XF Blend motor, and on the EF they changed it again. Same functionality, and same internals though.

I did a lot of testing and the blend motor assembly, while being quite large, worked identically to the later EA -> EL one. So if you picked up an XF Ghia heater box with the blend servo and linkages, you should be able to bolt that in and make it work (youd want to test of course). No dodge hacks that way.

The plug is similar. Its been 2 years since I played of course.

Youd need to remove the setup for the thermostat, and put the thermosensor in instead (are you keeping A/C?).

Of course, if your not keeping A/C - have you considered just running standard EL Heater controls instead of the climate stuff? - much easier, can use your existing XH heater box, and just a few short wiring differences

Nigel

IMO if you can run CC and the high series electrics, all the better - the fairlane looms pretty much take care of that.
Yeah, my blend door motor mounted pretty much flush with the heaterbox front - just bent the front mounts vertical - the XH dash cleared it okay. The relay rod wasn't hard to make - mark the blend door arm's range of movement, so that you can apply 12v to the motor, and make sure the relay rod and bend door arm have full scale movement each way.
You don't want E2 errors once everything's together.

The EF/EL dash looks like the air ducting might be the clearance concern - easy enough as mentioned to hit with a hot air gun and reform it. Just hope that hard plastic where it plugs into is enough away from the BDM.

Quick update…

This weekend has taught me to have a new found respect for panel beaters! Spent Friday rubbing everything back, concentrating on the hard to reach places I didn’t get to last week. The big holes on the firewall were a real PIA. After getting the fibreglass filler down to a nice level, I skimmed the tops with body filler to fill in the small pits etc… Here’s some pics from that





I also got keen, and moved a tv out to the garage and ran the antenna… Thanks Channel 9 for now putting the NRL on GEM!!




The next bunch of pics speak for themselves, so I won’t explain each one.

I am absolutely stoked on how well the backing plate/filler method has worked for me – especially with the holes on passenger firewall. I must have spent about 3 hours each side alone, on the firewall hole - as it was so hard to work with/get big hands in there to sand. It will be sorta hard to notice anyway once it’s all back together, but at least its done now.

The holes from the windscreen plenum also came up pretty well as well. Everything has now been etch primed, and tomorrow I’ll sand the whole bay in 400 for a final prep before paint.

I’m hoping to book it in to be sprayed next week

I gotta go back to work on Tuesday, but my hands are looking forward to some rest!!

This takes me Back! I did this to an xd in the 90's. The worst part is when you realize you filled in a hole you needed, normally after painting

Nice work

Looking good Benno

Looking good, keep up the work

I've used normal body filler and the fibreglass filler and I've got to say that the fibreglass stuff is alot stronger.
The only downside to that is it's also takes alot longer to sand. =/

Also.. love the writing in the window... sums up how I've felt after hours of sanding back filler.