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I have been busy working away on the interior of the Darkside Garage Inc. Millennium Falcon Longreach. Still heaps to do.

I had the day off work today, so spent the day on the Escort, and it just got better and better as the day went on I started the day by getting the 1600 bottom end back together. Once that was done, I dropped the flywheel off to be machined ready for the new clutch. Then spent the afternoon with Rod working on the gearbox. We nearly finished making up the jig to weld the shifter in its new location. We have basically set this jig up so that this conversion can be done with or without the need of the entire gearbox, but rather just the extension housing and shifter rod. Now, for the moment we have all been waiting for (or at least i have )..... IT'S IN COLOUR! I haven't seen the car yet in the flesh. these are just photos that Mark has sent me. The front still needs to be blacked out behind the grill.

Big day today. The Escort is home at last Covered in dust First time washing it since December 2020 *not me in the photo* all nice and clean at last. ready to go into its new home. this is how you clean the inside, right? its fine, there is no interior at the moment Engine bay looks so pretty In it's new home. the shed is a little squishy with the car running this way across the shed, but once i get some shelving into the shed and a bit more storage ill have space to move.

Mark sent these through today. Bonnet and grill fitted and aligned. This makes me smile seeing it look a little more like a car again

It's in!!!!! Now to hook everything up.

Found a safe DIY method, for basic leak testing of Injectors - Connect compressed air, set at normal fuel pump supply pressure (often 40-60 psi) Leave for a few hrs, and results should show.

Crossflow powered cars first and third in the 2019 Queensland Modified Sedan Title. Mighty Clarko's Performance XE came home first, FG Falcon 2nd and Shallcross Cortina 3rd. FORD podium lock out. Yahoo. Long live the mighty crossflow.

Here's an old video circa 2007 with my phone taped to the steering wheel running from zero to 180 kph (i was inventive back then) of my pick a part special 4.0 it made 144rwkw around this time, and it made 177 rwkw with a tune later on (video quality is representative of its time) it was in my xh ute with an ex taxi au short motor (from memory had more than 860,xxx ks), ef xr6 head (94 dt) ea cam, el bbm intake, super cat extractors, crow vernier cam gear, yella terra billet flywheel, high flow cat 2.5 inch exhaust, t5 and 3.45 gears, it was a lot of fun to an 18 year old me, I put over 180,xxxks on that engine before it let go when the stock valve train decided that 2 years of turning to 7000rpm was enough and it dropped a valve, after it was tuned the rev limiter was set to 7200rpm and it saw it every time it was in 1st gear (18 year old me was hard on the equipment) and sometimes more often than that, I wouldn't mind getting another e-series one day and replicating this combo, although it would be really fun in something lightweight like an xp falcon

Pre crossflow use the same cam bearings as xflow, its an extra hole for the pre xflow to oil the rockers as they have an extra oil gallery to supply oil to the head and rocker shaft, that gallery gets supplied from the top of the cam journals, whereas xflow use the lifters and pushrods to supply the rockers with oil, its no real biggie just interchangeable bearings

Well, last Saturday was an epic day and has given me and my mate confidence and inspiration to push on harder than ever with the restoration of Granddad's old XC... After liberally lubricating each cylinder and leaving it for a week, we gently turned her over by hand. There were NO tight spots, weird sounds or unwanted friction at all and she turned beautifully... Battery was connected and carby was primed and after about 6 attempts, she briefly coughed and died... A few more attempts were made until, incredibly, the super fuel that was still in her tank (no, it HASN'T gone off at all) made it to the fuel pump and she ran long enough for me to get this very quick video. Pretty much a testament to the strength and engineering of the mighty crossflow engine...

more progress on the car. Back panel is in, but not welded. just getting things all setup before being welded in. more little imperfections being sorted out. factory creases from panel and body joins being smoothed. tonight after hours, we made a start on the underside of the car. got most of it done and prepped. (this was after only a short amount of time) Awaiting a conclusion as to how far Mark wants me to take the underside. Or rather, how far I think I should go with the underside of the car. given we got so much of it cleaned and back to bare metal tonight, id imagine another solid day and it will be ready to go underneath.

Evening all. I picked this up today. Let me know if the pics don't work. She's an early dentside F250 4x4, commonly called the 'Highboy' option. She has a 351C and manual trans, lots of rust in the floors and a fairly clean engine compartment.

I have news on the Escort. Quicker than I expected, but I have an answer from Shannons. The bad (but not so bad) news is that it is a write off The good news outweighs the bad. What I didn't realise is, that Mark, from the start, had quoted in such a way, that the cost sounded correct, and appeared correct to Shannons assessor, but also in such a way that they would write it off. Now in most cases, that would be bad. that the repairer has made the insurance company write a car off, but not in my case. Shannons will write the car off, and pay me out 100% of what it is insured for. Due to being older than 35 years of age, there is no salvage fee, so I get to keep the car, and its entire insured value. Working off Mark's quote, this means I will have around $3000 to spare, to go towards the cost of the chrome trim repairs, and the extra paint work. Depending on the cost of the extra paint work, i may also pay to have the wheels painted professionally, and, it has been suggested to me that I pull the engine out, and have the engine bay done at the same time. Which is looking like a pretty good idea to me. With the extra $3k up my sleeve, to get a full respray, including engine bay, i may not be too far out of pocket, if any, unlike with the XF, where I was a long way out of pocket. Im not sure about other states, but here in victoria, anything that is older than 25 years old, written off cars do not go onto the WOVR, which means the rego never gets cancelled, and they do not need an engineers certificate, or roadworthy to be put back on the road. So yes the car is a write off, but it actually works out better for me than if Shannons decided not to write it off, and repair it.

This thread is quite old, but it caught my attention. I have a 300ci factory EFI six in my 1971 F100. I transplanted it in 1998 - ousting the original 240. It's a 4.9 litre, 4" bore with 3.98" stroke. Armour guard brought 6 into Queensland during Expo in '88. They were fitted into F250's. 4 were ultimately crushed would you believe? Two survived - I have one and I believe the other went to a South Australian farmer who removed the EFI. Just though that may be of interest to some. Cheers.

I have been busy with a new direction on the interior still star wars themed but more Millennium Falcon. cheers Scott

Hard to believe that there's so much interest in Clevo's in the good ole US of A, that Tim Meyer and such will go to the lengths of making new ones...!!!! At the same time, deleting some of the inherent issues from the 1960-70's model. Bravo fellas. If I was in the 'States, I know what I'd be saving for right now.

Ok I have been a bit slow with the updates. but there is progress I also have my engine and gearbox, and front crossmember home ready to be cleaned up, and prepped ready to go in the car. Stripped the 1600 down ready to get a basic freshen up, and a couple go fast bits i was a little surprised to see the baffles inside the stock sump. 3 lots of baffles in total. not bad for a stock sump. I hate the blue paint on the block, so i started hitting it with paint stripper, to find under the horrendous blue paint, horrendous green paint haha. The blue is coming off super easy, the green wont budge. so, im going to keep the green as base coat and go over it with engine black Ive also ordered a big chunk of parts, which i pick up tomorrow. All the engine bits needed, such as full gasket kit, GT/Fast Road camshaft, new followers, clutch kit, 2.9 ratio quick steering rack, water pump, timing chain etc etc. all the service parts. Its the first big chunk of money ive spent on the car so far, and its a little daunting. I haven't even paid for the panel work yet Fun times ahead