fbekholden.com

What Blacky said. Those are first-rate repairs you have done.

Rob

. . . noting that HD/HR passenger vehicles have 1-3/4" width rear brakes.

Rob

Everything's in the right position, but the engine mounts don't look right for a manual EK. FE-EK rear engine mounts are the compression-only type: a rectangular piece of rubber between two flat steel plates. The one in your photo (passenger side) looks like a compression/shear type, which makes me ...

"Did up the Hr front calipers yesterday , don't those piston boots bring out some colourful language ."

Yes, indeed. Had to get a brake place to show me how:

Install inner and outer seals in their respective grooves.
Lubricate inner seal and the outside surface of the outer seal with brake fluid ...

Blacky,

Your question goes to the heart of the matter.

All drum brakes self-energise to a certain extent on the leading shoe. I read somewhere that the self-energization is a very "steep" function of the lining's friction coefficient, in that small increase of friction coefficient will give a very ...

"Is it possible to upgrade FE-FC FB-EK front brakes to EJ-EH or HD" is a question which comes up fairly often. The accepted method is to change over to EJ-HD steering knuckles, supports, steering arms, backing plates and brakes as an assembly. But I got to wondering -

Is it possible to bolt EJ-HD ...

@Harv,

Yep. Got there and back. The car had its moments. I had to unblock the main jet a couple of times on Friday: one in the classic manner (stop car, remove air cleaner, start engine, rev, clap hand over air intake, check for correct throttle response, replace air cleaner, drive away and think ...

Clay,

Replacing the front wheel bearings won't fix the apparent free-play problem. There'll be something wrong with the stackup of parts, so either the nut's bottoming on the stub-axle thread, or the washer's bottoming on the outer bearing surface of the stub axle.

I can tell you what happens with ...

Today, I'm not so sure about the leaky fuel riser pipe hypothesis. I was about to try the hose-in-jerry-can trick and saw that the fuel pump bowl was full to the top. That wouldn't happen if the fuel riser was leaking. I started the car and ran it for about ten minutes. There was no hint of air ...

I'm not out of the woods yet.

This morning was a glorious opportunity to head up to Mount White and take the old two-lane road back, so I did. The car was very happy, except waiting to turn right off the Pacific Highway near home, when the idle "sagged" again. With the engine idling at home, there ...

Clay,

Refer to the "road draught tube" photo -

Rear shock absorber fouling on rear sway bar, if not at normal ride height, then at full bump?

Rob

Nope. It was something more basic than that.

Non-vented aftermarket fuel cap. It has now gone into the "naughty corner" and the old original-equipment cap is back on the car.

It's a lot of little, subtle things whose effects add together: sticky exhaust valve, wrong distributor rotor, wrong fuel ...

Today I went for a test drive up to a friend's on the Central Coast. The official reason was to deliver a replacement valve, that is, a thermionic valve, for the reverb unit in his vintage Hammond organ.

The car went well, but it coughed and fluffed a couple of times. And on the way back, the idle ...

I freed up no.5 exhaust valve and gave it a "rough-as-guts" abrasive-free valve grind with a drill: Initially I set the air pressure to about 10 psi, but with the weight of the drill on the valve, it didn't stay shut. So I upped the air pressure to about 20 psi, which allowed the valve to stay shut ...

Yes. Good idea.

The best results happen when you sit back and watch. The WD-40 ran down no.5 exhaust valve stem overnight. I notice that the valve now spins freely when closed. Bonus. I'll take mother out for lunch, then chuck the valve stem into a drill and give it a good whirl.

Rob