fbekholden.com

Thanks Stephen, yep I’m enjoying having the lathe - it certainly expands what you can do while playing in the shed.

I had a bit of a sweary moment when I was making the fender gasket. I opened the front door with the 1/2” bolts still in place and the front edge caught on one of the bolts and bent it out a bit.



After calling myself a firetruckin’ eedjut, I calmly went and got a comma dolly and nylon/plastic hammer and knocked it back in until I was happy and was able to like myself again.






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You’re doing a great job but I fear you may be working your fingers to the bone.

As I was leaving work tonight my mate, who was on his way in for the night shift, asked if he could borrow my steering column bracket so that he could do a fit up of his modified column from Alien (his bracket is elsewhere at the moment). He’s modifying his EK sedan for a 327 Chev.

“No worries” I replied, “I’ll rip it out of the car when I get home tonight. It shouldn’t take long, I think it’s just a couple of nuts or bolts”

Well, FFS!!! What a pain in the butt that was! After doing Harry Houdini under the dash, and using a ratchet spanner on the right nut and ratchet socket on the left, I finally got it off after about 20 minutes.
I reckon when I put it back, I’ll be ripping a few bits off, like the handbrake bracket, etc. to make it easier, and keep me from throwing spanners and ratchet handles around the place. I’m expecting to be bombarded by all the swear words I left up there under the dash as well.

I jury rigged a column holder upperer to keep it in place



and found that the rubber insulator was the three piece model



On the bright side I guess, apart from helping someone out, I’ll have a new insulator when it goes back in

Cheers,

John


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It takes about a minute to remove one of them if you pull the instruments out and attack it from above ...................................






















Just sayin'

Blacky wrote:It takes about a minute to remove one of them if you pull the instruments out and attack it from above ...................................


Just sayin'

Where were you about 3 hours ago?
Thanks, I’ll do that on the way back


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Have you got the box unbolted from the subframe John? Otherwise you shouldn’t need to hold up the column.

Geez I’ve got s few of them floating around here. Like blacky says a lot of that stuff is easy when you remove instrument cluster speaker cover ashtray etc.
cheers
Clay


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Thanks for the steering column tip Clay. I wasn’t sure so tied it up just in case.
As you can tell, I went at this in a hurry without looking into finding the simplest way, as my dinner was getting cold and Jezza needed the bracket NOW! - he’s got his car at a resto shop and time’s a bit precious. I tried undoing the handbrake bracket but one of the screws was seized so just persisted with more profanities.
Love the forum, thanks guys.

John


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He’s lucky to have a friend like you John.


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John I have one or two of those brackets if you want a spare I haven't used it for my VT steering column let me know if you need it mate.
Neil

A little O/T (sorry John), but I got caught out with one of those brackets.

The wagon had to have a collapsible column for the engineer. I fitted an LH Torana column. Stupid me discarded the break-away mount that Torana's use, and instead I used the FB/EK bracket. The engineer was none-to-impressed, and made me remove the FB/EK bracket. I had to source a Torana break-away bracket, and got one from Alien Retro columns. He had a few of them - suspect he removes them in his column conversion.

May be wise to mention to your mate to check with his engineer to see if needs the breakaway mount on his new Alien column in the EK sedan.

Cheers,
Harv

Thanks Neil. He said he only needed it for a couple of weeks, but good to know just in case. He does have his own one but it’s with another dude who did some bodywork for him and is now on holiday.

That’s good to know Harv. I’ve just sent him your message, thanks. I’ll also keep it in mind for when I do the FC conversion. Anyone else had to use a breakaway mount on a collapsible column?

Can anyone please let me know what the rubber seal/grommet/insulator that fits in the bracket looks like? The one that fell apart in mine looks to be a U shape. The only one I can find on the Rare’s site and in the parts manual looks completely round like a collar and I can’t see how you’d get it on without pulling the column apart.
If I can’t get a repro one, I thought I could use some leftover stuff that I used for the rear of the fenders which is about 2mm thick.

Cheers,

John


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Harv wrote: Thu Feb 21, 2019 11:45 am A little O/T (sorry John), but I got caught out with one of those brackets.

The wagon had to have a collapsible column for the engineer. I fitted an LH Torana column. Stupid me discarded the break-away mount that Torana's use, and instead I used the FB/EK bracket. The engineer was none-to-impressed, and made me remove the FB/EK bracket. I had to source a Torana break-away bracket, and got one from Alien Retro columns. He had a few of them - suspect he removes them in his column conversion.

May be wise to mention to your mate to check with his engineer to see if needs the breakaway mount on his new Alien column in the EK sedan.

Cheers,
Harv

...which makes you wonder what the point of buying an engineered column is, as when you install it in the car it will fail the engineers inspection

Hi John,
I got one in a Rare Spares firewall rubber kit. Here is a photo.... Walks down to shed....You could cut it at the top if you don’t want to remove the “honey pot” or control lever support, or use some sheet rubber cut to size.


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Errol62 wrote:Hi John,
I got one in a Rare Spares firewall rubber kit. Here is a photo.... Walks down to shed....You could cut it at the top if you don’t want to remove the “honey pot” or control lever support, or use some sheet rubber cut to size.


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Hahaha, you little beauty Clay. I saw your pic’s and it reminded me that I’d bought a package of random FBEK stuff for a good price off Gumtree a while ago.

So, also walks down to shed ......



I love it when stuff like this happens


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Well done. I got mine from the local outlet and at around $40 didn’t consider it cheap. But then I’m a tight arse, as well as a slack arse.


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