All, good.

I have it sorted now, The battery relocation kit i had has a pair of similar terminals, so they will be utiliesd

Cheers and thanks. Keep up the good work

Brett

No dramas. Cheers mate

Oh yeah....



This was yesterday morning down at Streetbuilt Racing. The boys did an excellent job doing a small makeover. All gaskets changed (minus heads), Melling oil pump fitted, Powerbond balancer, new water pump, lower manifold & timing cover bead blasted (looks new and shiny!). Test fitted the KB to check clearance on the passenger valve cover. There's about 1mm!! I'm using 94/95 mustang fuel rails, so I don't have to worry about clearance issues with aftermarket rails/regulator etc either.

Damn that looks awesome! And I must say, I highly admire your attention to detail and motivation!

Looking very good

Thanks mate

Been too busy to update lately, so will do a big one here.

Some extra snaps I took the other day whilst in @ Streetbuilt Racing. We dummied up the KB to check for clearances and to assess the snout mounting. Shouldn’t be too difficult by the looks…

A poofteenth of clearance between the head unit and valve cover. Reason: YT adjustable rockers = requirement for taller covers = clearance issues. These covers a only a little higher than stock, and manage to fit nicely.


Snout:




So bought the engine home in the trusty ‘white knight’ – who’s clutch has just thrown it in, so not happy bout that atm!!


A pic of my new 2nd hand clutch (thanks to Marty – “XR 59 WA”). McLeod RXT Twin Plate


My mate that was going to help my put engine in had the flu that seems to be kicking around, so I recruited someone else from the kitchen…. I mean… the house….


Also her idea – running chains with rags to protect the ally valve covers. We couldn’t get the angle we needed with the strap, so did it this way instead


We put it in very carefully, with towels around so we didn’t scratch the paint. Went pretty well…




Saturday I tried out some dash painting. I had to try the vinyl dye for myself, so practiced on a spare EF dash.




After cleaning really well, I used VHT Vinyl Dye. This stuff is amazing. I only painted half, but ya get the idea…



After an hour I tried to scratch the paint off and mark it – it doesn’t mark! It’s as if it’s factory!! Love this product!!

Did some other bits in Satin Black. Was tempted not to paint the plastics – as I am aware these will mark easily, but they didn’t look right. So everything will go black.




Happy with the result, I went and did the real thing:




Yesterday I started on the demister…Something I had been dreading. Thanks to some helpful people, I took on some suggestions and tried a different method to what I was going to do originally. Basically involved utilising (butchering) my XH dash to pieces!!







Last night I painted the lower parts of the dash… (hoping to put it in today!! )

Geez, the Mrs doesn't hold back getting into it . . .

LOL

Relief at last!!

Only thing that stopped me buying an xh was the dash. I love what you have done to this one mate !

Do the vents all work? Got the close-ups? This is one of the next planned updates for my xf...

Guess I'll find out when I apply power to it all. I can't see why it wont work.

I had to remove the dash yet again to make the vent holes larger. They were too small for my liking, so removed dash and cut more of the plastic off.

On another note, can anyone please tell me what this is for? Yellow-Green & Red-White. Located in LH foot well next to ECU plug. Please tell me it's not supposed to plug into something behind the dash

pretty sure its for power antenna

Correct. That's the bcm controlled antenna. It's actually a manual unit with the bcm controlling on time so you get half-height etc

Mine in my xf works

Cool! Thanks! (Phew!!)

Some updates from yesterday’s efforts;

As you’ve seen, I had the dash in by about 9am Everything wired in, bolted down and sitting very nicely aligned. Then I thought I’d inspect the demister vents with a torch through the windscreen…

Not much gap, in some places the gap had closed over completely. As much as I hated doing it, the dash came out again!!! I cut much more of the top plastic. Didn’t matter too much, as this bit isn’t load bearing. Put it in again…for the last time *touch wood*

Pics….

Early morning install (1st time). You can see how much I cut off (not enough) *commence abusive language here*




Thinking it was good….


Out again…more cutting


Everything was lining up nicely, apart from this passenger side. I had to find a way to force the corner of dash up hard against the firewall.


Absolutely no movement or creaks anywhere now!! VERY happy!! SOLID!!

Painting… I did everything while it was there. Vents, trip computer, climate etc. I need to track down some black buttons (EF??)…. Later on….





Tried to take a pic of the demister vents. It’s hard to take a decent pic!!


I really wanted to sort the ugly gap at the top of the dash…. If I didn’t do it now, then it probably woulda never happened. This took hours of fkn around!!! (I mean…hours!! – test fit, remove, cut….test fit, remove, cut…!!) I also sorted the LDR/phot sensor for the climate…




Not perfect, but I’ve seen worse. I’m pretty damn happy with how it came out with the gaps…


Some pics of everything painted black



Will probably put the steering column & centre console in today, and might try and wire in the autometer gauges. I would really like to apply power soon and test what I can (without engine!)…