gerg

Kero wiped on with a soft cloth can remove tar splatter off your paint without hurting it.

I think mag wheel cleaner has a form of acid in it? Muriatic or phosphoric from memory. Good old vinegar is another excellent glass cleaner, using scrunched up bits of newspaper

Metho is pretty benign when it comes to affecting paint, it's things like acetone that tend to hurt it.

Some aggro cams there!

I find the smaller "gasless" type welders have smaller tips so you can get in there a bit more easily, but I'd recommend using gas/mig wire with them for weld quality alone. To gain access yourself, you might have to resort to taking out the rear axle. Up to you to determine that I guess: the best welds are done from the most comfortable position possible. I hope your thin sheet welding skills are up to it, as XD-onwards Falcs had thinner sheetmetal throughout. As for protecting internal surfaces, you could get a can of underseal when you're done and attach a nozzle off a WD40 can with extension attached. Spray down the side of the inner guard with it till your heart's content.

My XB 302 (pipes now on my XE wags)

c'mon folks don't be scared.... the 6-cyl boys are gonna put us V8 heads to shame!

You can choose not to patch it at all, instead clean it up, treat it with converter and cold gal it, then body seal over it. Should last many more years. If you want to weld it, that might start a chain reaction of rust from inside, as welding burns off all the paint that protects it.

FMX was phased out in the 70's for more efficient designs in the C4 & C6. Ironically, in the 80's they revived the work they'd started on an overdrive version of the FMX in the late 60's. Thus the AOD was born. If I was into autos, this would be the path I'd take.

I remember a Zoom article ("Workhorse Wakeup") on their project car: an XG ute with over 200,000 km on it. They used a pair of second-hand RB20 turbos to make about 6 psi boost and through a 4-speed auto, it made over 200 kW at the wheels. Quite impressive for a budget beater.

Maybe a future write-up on any chip upgrades too?

Sounds like you're a bit of a pioneer then!

C6 I reckon, unless you want to spend up big on a C4 to make it live behind that much torque. You could always go a 'Glide if you're that way inclined.

Cable type pedals use a separate pivot that sits a couple of inches below the pedal shaft. Hydraulic setups use about a 2" longer brake pedal shaft that sticks out past the side of the pedal box, which the clutch pedal then uses as well. I did my XE hydraulic setup without undoing the pedal box, but had to cut off part of the heater box to get the longer manual pedal shaft in there. Shit job either way. I ended up pulling out the driver's seat so I could get in there and work without dislocating a few vertebrae. Not sure about X-series, but E-seres pedal boxes (auto or manual) all come stamped with a hole for the (cable type) clutch pivot to poke through. On my EF manual conversion I got a 16mm (5/8") bolt and used the shank part as a pivot with the threaded part going into the hole in the pedal box with a nut on each side of it, reinforced with large washers. The factory one isn't that different from my shonky version except the pivot is welded to a reinforcing plate that is spot-welded to the pedal box. Mine eventually started cracking around the outside of the washers I put in (the metal is pretty pissy), so I made up an extra bracket that went from the outside end of the pivot down to the firewall. Worked great after that. Still wanna do this?

<br />I reckon they were Ghia/LTD-spec and maybe thrown in as an option by a dealer on purchase or by the owner at a later date?

Hardest is always sorting the pedal box... A few options, none of them easy. You can modify your existing to take a cable pedal type pivot or just swap the whole lot. I chose the first one on my EF and it worked ok.

Dunno why there are haters of cast heads. They're bulletproof motors and the majority of those running Clevos have to "put up" with them. Just because alloy is better doesn't mean cast is shit.

Yeah fair call, banjos don't flow that well at low pressure, maybe a JIC/UN-O fitting would do it. Fuel pump flange is a good one if not using a mechanical one

Running e85 in a carby car means using a dedicated carby that's set up for it: ie bigger jets, squirters, power valve channels and idle feeds. Much easier with an aftermarket efi setup where you just flick to a different map for each type of fuel when required.

The yanks can't believe how cool our alloy head cross flows are. They even think our 2Vs are rad. All they have ever had is the log manifold and the best you can do to them is mill off a section and adapt a 2-barrel.

Pre-crossies have a siamesed setup as described, not quite the same shitness as that of a Holden Red but definitely not great for performance. The log manifold is the biggest hindrance, hence the introduction of the 2V. So you can put whatever cam you want in it, the bottle neck is always there. Classic Inlines in the US has a wealth of info and lots if parts to make these things go, but be prepared to pay.

Tits is the word I reckon

You can convert to Bosch electronic very easily. They are a brilliant unit for stock applications. You need to take off about 0.7 mm from the OD of the oil pump drive so it will fit in the block. You need to work out how much total timing your engine needs and work back from there. If it likes 28 deg total, then set it there and don't worry too much about idle timing until you want to start playing with dizzy weights/springs. Vac advance should be connected to manifold vac for best cruise/idle. Your dieseling/knocking might also be carbon buildup, hot plugs or valves. You could try an upper cylinder cleaner like the genuine Subaru one (I've used it to great advantage), or try a cooler thermostat. Also how breathy is your engine? Blow-by gases will cause your problem too.

There was a problem with XF series 2 heads having a swirl-inducing wing in the combustion chamber. Detonation was a problem due to the wing having a pointy end and thus a hot spot. The fix was to pull off the head and have the point milled off to make it more of an open chamber. Yours, coupled with the other mods, may be asking too much of even 95 fuel. The dieseling tells us that no amount of timing will change the fact that your mixture is pre-igniting.

In NSW, any structural change would need certification, but fitment of any engine not originally fitted by the vehicle's manufacturer would also need it. If you read VSB14 , engine section, it states that any engine fitted that has 120% of the power of the original engine fitted will need certification.