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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.

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

Hi Bear, Thanks for your input as well, Sorry about the message and then the addition of the topic, Greg doesn't accept direct messages lol, added the topic hoping he would answer. Greg, 3500rpm on the highway no thanks. I will need to revisit the cam. Great input, I really appreciate it.

I also had my reproduction stickers turn up today. Dealership sticker and rego sticker

Today was a good day I got a preview of the car in colour today. I actually had butterflies in my gut as i walked into the prep bay to check the colour out. No i didn't take any photos, because they have only sprayed the inside of the boot thus far. The stone guard coating is done on the underside, colour is going onto the body on monday. the days following will be doors, bonnet and boot. Once they are all painted, the rear suspension will go back in, because they need the rotisserie for another Mk1 Escort going into the spray booth asap. The front of my car will just go on a dolly, because I am still a long way from having the front end and driveline ready to go back in the car. Also today, I finished spraying the engine parts. I started bolting the bits back onto the engine, starting with the fuel pump, and im missing that 1 gasket from the "full engine gasket kit" so thats a bit of a bummer. Im not sure if i have any gasket material either that I could cut one out of. So instead, I bolted the steering rack onto the crossmember. It looks so amazing. Its going to be way to clean and shiny to want to drive haha BUT, I am super excited to actually drive it, but will be reluctant to drive it in the rain lol.

I picked up all my parts today. Im excited to start putting it all back together. The camshaft has me excited. it's peak power is 1650rpm, and runs out at 6000rpm. This is going to be fun having such a big power range. The steering rack, to my surprise is brand new. I thought the quick racks were refurbished cases with new internals. but the entire thing is new. date stamped 03/19 and then stamped 02/21 for when it was built as a 2.9 quick rack. I also priced up a brake upgrade. Yesterford can supply BRAND NEW M16 (Mk2 Escort) brakes. Someone out there is making brand new M16s. with the correct rotors, and the little imperial to metric brake hose adapter to suit a Mk1, for $620. Then in the future, if i want to go better again, i buy a spacer kit for to space the split M16 callipers and install wider, ventilated discs. Im going to wait for the final bill from Mark before I buy the brakes, but it is definitely the way I will go. it has always been a little lacking in the brakes, the little tiny front brakes have always struggled a little. And, for some stupid reason, the discs for standard Mk1 are nearly double the price of the bigger solid discs that come with the M16 brake upgrade kit. go figure

Woo. Tomorrow I will have some progress photos. I am going to see the car in the morning before work. What I know is the back panel has been cut out, so that will be interesting to see, and the front left ¼ panel they ended up repairing instead of replacing. apparently spent a solid days work on it to get it properly straight, all the bog removed and currently in bare metal. There has been phone calls back and forth over the past couple weeks just figuring out more and more details. I think my bill from the panel shop is going to be higher than i originally intended, but i cant help myself, asking them to do extra stuff They are going to roll the guards, so my 13x6 steel rims will hopefully fit. they have a lower offset than my alloys, so they are going to stick out about 10mm further. by rolling the guards i should have no issues with clearance. They have also inspected the chassis, on the driver's side where my front leaf spring eye is on the chassis. Its always been in the wrong spot, appears to have been welded in the wrong spot from factory. 10mm further back, hence i have always run offset pinned lowering blocks. well, they are going to fix that also, and get the eye mount in the correct spot Mark has given me free rain of the workshop, so i can come and go whenever i like if there is anything id like to do underneath the car, especially now while its in the air. He suggested i spend some time over there getting the underside cleaned up and body deadened/stone guarded. On the gearbox front, Rod ( @2redrovers) helped me finished cutting the extension housing. I have spent some time getting it ready to be welded, but since then, I have been flat stick at work. I am temporarily filling a management role at work until march, so in an office from around 10am until about 5pm every day. makes progress very very slow In the mean time, I have also had the alternator on my LR Discovery 2 spit the dummy, so have spent the last couple nights after work getting that ripped out, and hopefully will have the new unit in, and car running again tomorrow night. So i have been without my daily driver too. Anyway, ill grab some photos of the car tomorrow to share with you guys. Im kind of excited to see the progress, but super nervous about it too

Cover whire wheeled, camshaft and timing set out. This thing definitely had love in the distant past - the camshaft is a Crane grind (230@50 / 530 lift) and all the cam bearings are mint. The head gaskets came off dead flat and looking like they're out of a packet. The more I strip stuff off this the better it gets. Figners crossed for the crank and rods. Ah yeah, I got the heads back as well. Hot tanked, acid bathed, hardened seats all round with a mild throat cut plus a valve job, new seals & mild performance springs. Nice.

I'll look into that mate. Hopefully it's nothing too crazy. Meantime the tyres turned up - 315/75R16 mud terrains. Extractors too. Very nice!