Ando81

An fg motor would be good fun with the extra grunt Jack. Like you say though, not worth cutting a good ute though I don't think. If it was a rough old pig then I'd say go for it but not an outback

Ha ha. I'd be happy to see a broken bolt in there mate, or a loose one. Hoping to get to it after work tomorrow, been busy playing with my ranger that I bought as well so spare time is hard to find lately

Thanks for the suggestions fellas, I'd gladly put another pushrod in it if it's that easy. If it's not a bent pushrod then the plug idea shouldn't be too hard to do either

Well fellas I was worried that this day would come. I went for a drive on the weekend and I think the head thread repair has let me down. I drove 25kms and slowed down to turn into a driveway and changed down to second gear and the old girl started to run rough and tick at idle. It's definitely running on 5 cylinders so I suspect that the thread has pulled out of the head and therefore not opening the valves on that cylinder. Will have to use the inspection camera to see if it's the problem but doesn't look like a quick fix. Might have to put that other head on after all. I got 12000km out of the helicoil repair that I did

Thanks for all the great tips lads, will get onto it when work isn't so busy and hopefully get some feedback for you all

Thanks for all the great tips lads, will get onto it when work isn't so busy and hopefully get some feedback for you all

Sorry bout the double post

Cheers Deankdx, I might have to pull it apart to check the joints. Thanks for the helpful diagram too

Hi all, just wondering if someone can explain why my digital dash stays fully illuminated sometimes when I start my ute. Sometimes I have to remove one of the plugs from the bottom of the cluster to fix it and sometimes it goes back to normal in a few seconds. Sometimes if I turn the key off and back on again it resets back to normal too. It seems to be doing it more frequently lately.

Yeah can't really help ya with the width being that tall, I've got 225-60-15 on my xf sedan that's lowered 2 inches and it's never scraped but those 4x4 tyres are quite tall, fingers crossed they work for ya mate

Hey Jack, are those tyres to suit a 4x4? Those big side walls would probably put your speedo out by a fair whack. I've got 225-70-15 tyres on the rear of my ute and its out 7kms at 100km/h

Aren't the old crossflows an awesome bit of kit? She just chugged away on 5 cylinders hey? If it was me, I'd just find a reasonable second hand head and chuck that on to eliminate any worry about the old corroded head. Pretty simple job to do and if you can do it yourself it will probably save yourself about $500-$600

Yeah I like the look of your setup Mark, very neat mate. They would be the biggest size I reckon ya could go without looking silly. Plus yours looks better with round lights coz it's an xh too, the square xf might look odd with round lights on it I thought.

Cheers mate, I just had to do a good deed for a mate and drove his Amarok that's got Narva 225 hid driving lights on it. Wow, they are bloody awesome but my xf would look terrible with a pair of those hanging off the front of it.

I was in my local Repco today and saw a big red light bar on special for $99 for a 12" which seemed very reasonable. Anyone seen if they are any good or not?

I remember pricing those years ago and almost died when the little chick at the auto shop told me they were $100 a light. They would have been well worth it compared to these ones that I have now.

So I've fitted the lights and tried them out using Osram night breaker globes and they are a bit underwhelming. Maybe I need to put a new relay on them and try to get more power into them. They definitely show a lot more of the edge of the road but for pencil beams, they don't seem to light up for a long distance down the road.

As soon as I purchased these lights I noticed the Osram led driving lights I was watching on eBay had been reduced to $55 a pair. Probably should have just waited and got those

So I ended up buying a secondhand pair of these hella comet 550 driving lights to see how good they are. They came with 100w globes but I reckon my narva intense 55w globes are brighter than those. Will have to get them fitted soon to test them on the open road.

I haven't removed it yet, just tightened the bolt on the adjusting tube a little and it helped a small amount but won't be driving it until I can pull it off and inspect further.

Has anyone had trouble with WASP tie rod ends? I jacked up my xf ute today and gave the wheel a wriggle and she went clunkety clunk, thought Jesus that wheel bearing must be loose but upon further inspection I noticed that the noise and play was coming from the tie rod end pulling in & out of the adjusting tube about 1- 1.5mm. Maybe the adjusting tube had some wear before I had the new tie rod fitted about 40000km ago and that was the reason for the premature wear. Any thoughts on this fella's?

Thanks for the help lads. A mate of mine is sending me a pair of hella comet 550 halogen lights to try and if I don't like those I will look for some 6inch led lights

So forgive me for sounding stupid, is a narrower angle number better for showing further down the road?

They wouldn't take long to drain a battery when they are using 300 watts total. That's 25 amps so a smaller crossflow alternator would struggle to keep power up to them after a while of continuous use