Eddie

[Blacky]

nice work - remember, any idiot can do one project at a time , it takes a special kind of idiot to take on multiple ones

[In the Shed]

nice work - remember, any idiot can do one project at a time , it takes a special kind of idiot to take on multiple ones

Very true

[FireKraka]

Great to see the wagons moving along BS please keep the photos coming on both projects.

[BS]

Had a good mate from my RAAF days 40th in Darwin last break so didn’t get a lot done except a heap of fishing, drinking beer and talking shit and reminiscing about the trouble we would get up to with a couple of other ex airforce mates. Funnily enough exercise pitch black was on at the time so we were enjoying kicking back sinking a few tins watching all the poor diggers do beach landings. Crazy how many sharks and crocs there are up there…Not sure I’d be keen invading that part of the country by beach landing…






Anyway that set me back a bit time and liver health wise. The goal was to try and have the car ready for Pete’s dirt drags in Cottonvale at the end of August.

I made a few assumptions at work last fortnight trying to be clever and having the bits delivered ready to go but got a few of my assumptions wrong which was a bummer and caused further delays…

Thrashing hard so not really taking any photos of what I’ve been doing but so far I’ve managed to:

Get the grey, gearbox and clutch out of the FB wagon into Eddie. Fitted the modified impala floor shifter but need to get my head around the linkage setup. Not sure I have this right and haven’t had the time to test. I guess I’ll soon find out if I have it right or not… most likely I’ll have it wrong…

Fitted the clutch master and slave from the fb onto the ek. These were replaced on the fb not long before I took it off the road for the ls transplant.

Fitted the brake master from the FB. As above it wasn’t that old.

Bought an aftermarket vh44 replacement booster, reversed it so it fitted in the existing mount. I’ll send the PBR one away to be reconditioned and use it on the pink ek. If this aftermarket one lasts me a year or 2 I’ll be fine with that. Looked ok quality from pulling it apart and reversing it? It’s a toro branded one?

Fitted new brake shoes, wheel cylinders and machined the drums on the hr front end. Wheel bearings looked like new and grease was fresh but repacked them and readjusted them while I was at it anyway. Ran a grease gun over the front end and fitted the steering box brace from the FB.




Replaced the battery box and leads. Again from the FB..

Went to fit the shoes and cylinders to the rear. Realised it was still an EK rear end. Swore and kicked the tyres because for some reason I thought it had a HR diff but never bothered to check… spat dummy and ripped the diff out including the rear sway bar which made jacking the rear end up painful and swapped it with the diff from the FB because I knew it was fine and again I redid the brakes not long before taking it off the road. Threw in some 2” lowering blocks while I was at it. Fitted the tailshaft from the FB again it was a known commodity.





Bled the brakes, bled the clutch seem to be ok.

Replaced the water pump, noticed the old one was a bit crunchy when I swapped the grey in. Cooling passages looked surprisingly clean. Rolled the dice on a China spec ally radiator but a tight arse pays twice. Completely wrong size so dropped the modified red motor radiator off to be recored. This radiator has the top tank inlet moved to the middle of the tank. I will have to mount it up a bit higher than when it was fitted with the red motor because the fan of the grey motor hits the top radiator hose. Have heaps of clearance to the top tank of the radiator though so shouldn’t be a big deal and I guess will help with bleeding the cooling system.




China spec radiator will go on my run stand.

I think that’s about it. Cutting it fine and no fat left in the schedule for stuff ups so not sure if I’ll get it done or not as I’ll be bound to stuff something up along the way.…

Ive basically go a day and a half to finish the cooling system, rip the door cards off the 2 passenger doors to try and get them working.

Last but not least is the fuel system…

Tank had maybe 3L of stale old fuel which has turned to varnish and made the tank seem like it’s full of rusty gravel. Don’t really have time in the schedule to clean it out and line it but I have a 3.5 gallon moon tank here. Toyed around with the idea of front mounting it but seems a bit “rat with a gold tooth” which I wasn’t a fan of and I’d need to fabricate a frame to mount it in which I don’t really have time for.




Plan B is to mount the moon tank in the boot area but to try and seperate it from the passenger compartment I’ve ordered a 54l metal esky that I’ll hopefully be able to mount the moon tank in and just run a fuel line out through the bottom of the esky/boot floor. If not I’ll have a cool esky I can take beers out of to drown my sorrows when I blow the deadline..

A fair bit to do, not a lot of time to do it. Hopefully it works out?? Let’s we how we go. It has been fun getting this old shit boxes going again though and not having to do things to the level of detail and care as the FB. Every bit you do you can almost feel the car freeing up and moving nicer again. Need to get this off my liver and get back onto finishing the FB and Mrs caravan for the nats next year instead of wasting time and money on distractions like this….

If I do get this going it should go ok though given all the quality FB bits on a shitty EK.

[In the Shed]

You have been busy………. Don’t like the look of them locals up North, not to be messed with

[Errol62]

Good luck Brendon. I hope it all works.


FB ute fixer upper, EK van on rotisserie

[Harv]

Fitted the modified impala floor shifter but need to get my head around the linkage setup. Not sure I have this right and haven’t had the time to test. I guess I’ll soon find out if I have it right or not… most likely I’ll have it wrong…

Give us a yell if you want the instructions or photos for the Impala shifter. Pretty fair chance I have them.

Cheers,
Harv

[Blacky]

For some reason I cant see the pics but it sure sounds like you have done a lot !!!

[BS]

Fitted the modified impala floor shifter but need to get my head around the linkage setup. Not sure I have this right and haven’t had the time to test. I guess I’ll soon find out if I have it right or not… most likely I’ll have it wrong…

Give us a yell if you want the instructions or photos for the Impala shifter. Pretty fair chance I have them.

Cheers,
Harv

If you have these handy Harv that would be a good help.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Harv]

NP. Which gearbox or shifter is it?

There are model number-serial number stamped on it which will help too.

Cheers,
Harv

[funkyscooter]

For some reason I cant see the pics but it sure sounds like you have done a lot !!!

Having the same issue here and on Clay's panel van page Blacky - had to clear the cache/cookies for this site to get them to load.

[Blacky]

For some reason I cant see the pics but it sure sounds like you have done a lot !!!

Having the same issue here and on Clay's panel van page Blacky - had to clear the cache/cookies for this site to get them to load.

I don't know how to do any of that stuff - I have googled it and tried to follow the directions but they might as well be written in Sanskrit - its a totally different language .......