deankxf

Going back a bit, these are a couple of photos rolling into Small Ford Sunday. taken no more than 30 seconds apart, on two different cameras, but makes the colour look completely different. this colour still amazes, but also annoys me with how both good and bad it can look depending on the light its in 🤣 the joys of metallic paint i guess. 
 
*the second pic is more true to the actual colour** 
 

 

 
I finally got the front bumpers back, and they came up fantastic. worth the wait. 
 

 
Now onto some mechanical gremlins. I had been having an issue with the cooling system. not over heating, but in fact running too cold. not getting warm enough to actually open the thermostat, which was a standard 89 degree thermostat. I figured it was because the alloy radiator was so efficient at cooling that yeah meant that I couldn't get her up to temp, and had no heater. 
 
This whole time I had been running just water in the cooling system, not coolant, to try flush the system out as best I can. I figured with this lack of heating issue, id pull the thermostat out and then put some coolant in. 
 

 
This is what came out. its a piece of gasket goo stuck in the thermostat. notice also the colour. that thermostat was brand new with this engine. so it has gone a very rusty brown colour thanks to the water. Pushing on the diaphragm by hand, the thermostat felt a little sticky. didnt want to move smoothly to open or close. 
 
So I ended replacing it with an 82 degree thermostat. not to make it run cooler, but so the thermostat would open earlier and start circulating coolant earlier. with that, and coolant in the system, it has made a difference. it gets up to the correct 88 degrees running temp now, rather than running too cold. 
 
Good Friday, the RSOCV had their annual Good Friday cruise. 
Over 30 cars got involved, and we went out to Warburton, up Mt Donna Buang (some of us more spiritedly than others) then back down and to Yarra Glen Hotel for lunch. 
Having driven the Escort up there previously with the 1300, flat out, and now with the 1660, also flat out, it was a much faster drive up there. I had a mate of mine in his Mini come along, who was behind me on the way up. Although I am not too concerned, he did tell me that it was blowing a bit of blue smoke between gear changes. granted I was pushing it, its the hardest it had been driven, and it was mighty cold up there. but it did it well. I adjusted the suspension up a bit to be stiffer, and boy does it turn well. 
 
On the way home, my buddy in the mini, and me couldnt resist but to see how they compared. its the first time the mini and escort had been out together. the Mini is a 1999 Rover, with a single point injected 1275cc, from Japan. Its since had a Cooper performance kit fitted, which includes a ported head with roller rockers, headers, exhaust, bigger injector, and a few other go fast parts. The Mini weighs 100kg less than the Escort, at 740kg, and with the Cooper engine package produces about 65kw. 
The Escort, a stock 1600 produces 60-65kw. Mine is a 1660, with a cam, weber, etc etc. 
It was a good comparison, the Mini nudged in front basically because i was slow getting into 2nd gear, otherwise equally matched. 
So for such a small engine in the Mini, it goes really well. its pretty quick little thing. 
 
I had to do a weekend run over to work HQ in Footscray, so jumped in the Escort to save the diesel in my daily. it really is such a great improvement over what it used to be in pretty much every aspect. able to sit on the highway comfortably, plenty of grunt to pull away, it just gets very warm in the cabin very easily, which was always the case. 
 

that motorad looks like just a brand name?
that part goes into the head where the hot water touches the spring part to let it open. 

so opposite to how you are holding it in the first pic
like below (only pic i could find on google)

Guys, thanks heaps, this had me sweating at 11pm haha.
 
I looked at the wording and was like ???? What??? Have I been wrong this entire time? (It happens a lot haha)
 
I went to look in the manual and it says "Place the thermostat back in reverse of removal" and without pictures I was nervous I was going to put it in wrong hahaha.
 
God I love this site.

that motorad looks like just a brand name?
that part goes into the head where the hot water touches the spring part to let it open. 

so opposite to how you are holding it in the first pic
like below (only pic i could find on google)

Ok, end up taking the crank to the machinist said those holes were strange but said wont be an issue. Crank getting a grind and balancing done.
Just glad there's no need for a replacement.

My Feb 93 XF van wiring is bog stock and I only have one relay at the brake booster and 2 down at the battery.
 
btw that red circled plug doesn't want to come apart at freeway speeds like mine did, fortunate to avoid a large backfire saving the dizzy gear and rear muffler.
 
 


 
 

I'm leaning towards neither of them being factory. 
 
unleaded XF has an EST computer and map sensor, likely just something to minorly improve emissions at the time. they were often replaced with the leaded dizzy from XE or XF (special LEADED rotor button needed if keeping the XF cap/leads, otherwise use XE rotor and cap/leads)
 
if you use an XE dizzy in the later XF, remove the ECU from the kick panel, one of My XFs had ignition breakdown with it still fitted (faulty) and when removed the problem was gone. 

Its definately factory, its all hooked up via the factory loom.
 
I have read this before somewhere.
https://www.fordforums.com/threads/xf-efi.45775/
 
If you check the comments, someone calls out the xf falcon later models, had the starter relay added.
 
Thanks\\Foti

@Thom may have an idea?

Could be an improperly done brinnel (hardness) test

Im pretty sure i held 5th at speed up there. I don’t remember really having to work 4th. 
 
i think once it was at speed, it could hold 5th up hill fine. 
i can cruise around in 5th at 60km/h for example. 

Well there hasn’t been much more work on the Escort, even though it still needs some finishing touches. 
 
Today however, I drove the car up to my good friend Michael’s house in Sunbury. Michael is the friend who found me this car for sale way back in 2016 when I bought it, and he hasn’t seen it since the accident. I figured it was about time i took it up to him to finally see it finished.
From place its a bit over an hour, and a good bit of sitting on highway with 110km/h speed limit. 
Today in Melbourne it was around 29 degrees. The Escort, sat on 110km/h, or a bit more, with ease. That 5th gear has made it such a better car to drive. This was also the furthest from home (as the crow flies) i had driven the car, and the most highway, and highway speed driving it has done. 
everything was good. Temp was good, oil pressure, rpm, sat on about 3200rpm at 110km/h. 
I think today was a really good test for it, and it seems to be good and sorted. I was a little nervous being that far from home in case something happened. 

i have toploader to go behind it and bg diff with 28 spline axels mini spool and 3.55 gearing i also have a overkill fuel system that it won’t need that i can put in it if i have.
it’s mainly 5kish for engine parts the rest is a different budget

The xf with column shift had rounded column covers like xe from memory. But that column isn't the height adjustable one so there may be enough differences to not fit without modifying that at least. 

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

bumping this for new members @Crebe (quality of protex brake master cyl) 

DID YOU BENCH BLEED the master cyl before hooking the lines up? video here it's a must do for new master cyls. 
 
 
XF brakes should be fine,  when working. if it's a master issue, it will still be an issue on 6 pots, so you need to confirm that is the ussue. 
My best method for bleeding brakes now (on my own) is to get a LONG piece of fish tank bubbler hose, or similar clear 1/4 inch ish hose (bunnings even sold it last i bought)and a bit of rubber hose that fits it tight and to the bleeder nipple.
and i basically pump the pedal slowly and if the fluid is all brand new you can even return it to the reservoir in a loop and keep pumping until no bubbles show.  i'll draw you a fine picture with windows paint if you need an illustration.  otherwise you need to keep topping up the reservoir to avoid sucking air when it's low. 
do this for the 4 corners and it's been the only way i've been certain there's no air in the lines. 
those suction one's haven't worked for a few people i know,  so it's something you can try before going further.
 
 
 

A mate of mine just got a 1996 master cyl (original) from a wreck at the wreckers, it was clean so he's just fitted it and it worked. 
20yrs ago i was blasted for using second hand good quality ball joints in something compared to new crap we are talking about here. which later i finally tried and they could have caused a serious accident (i tagged you but i'll link here also)
 
 

Up to XP i think was the auto + manual tunnels .  XR is same as all other Falcons .   A T400 fits right in XR as does a C6

Buy from china/india for 0.50c each, put in shipping container.
Ship to Australia.
Unload shipping container, sell to plebs for 10,000% markup?
 
To my knowledge, there's no real regulation of suspension/brake/general auto parts here in Aus, so they don't much care...
 
Even a 50% failure rate = still making money, it's very much buyer beware IMO.
(case-in-point - see @deankxf's experience with suspension components)
 

you can glue a dash mat on it.. fixed. 
the state of the other trim is pretty rough, sure it's not worth finding another interior or do you have good trim for it?

you can get them redone at huge expense ($800 rings a bell)
i've seen (and i'm likely to do similar on My gemini one) slicing out the high part of the crack so it's a bit lower than the top, mixing up some fibreglass resin and laying it in the crack , then bogging over, sanding and painting the whole thing . 
 
depends on your budget and if you care if it' cracks again(i think it's so brittle now it's likely to crack again anyway unless fully recovered)
 

I have had brake fluid squirting up and comming out of the master cylinder and running onto the area underneath. Only found it too late for the paint. The brake experts wont help or have no idea. All sorts of sugestions came from this forum so I decided to buy a new master after preasure bleeding and vacume bleeding, as well as putting on a new PBR CAP SEAL!  Now I read that the cylinder I picked "Protex" after being assured they were good, is not recomended as they have problems. SHIT AND F..UCK ME! Anyway you may have the same gremlin as me. If this new Protex cylinder is a fail, after I bash my head on the concrete floor, I will try for a rebuilt  origonal unit worth a bazilion dollars. How the hell do brake parts that are new be crap? How do they make it into the country. On the subject the Protex unit i bought would not let the fitting screw in far enough to seal the lines. The thread in the master was not tapped deep enough and so the fittings had to be changed. Cut the lines and add in new different fittings on a short new piece with a union. Dont buy Protex would be my recomendation! 

thanks @deankxf
 
In relation to XG radiator - mounting it I think I can solve - I can get top and bottom mounts, so provided the xf and xd radiator support and holes are in the same spot - this radiator should slot straight in. But.. I take your point the lower radiator outlet compared to the AU /EF will be a problem - 45mm for XG vs 38 for EF/EL and AU. I do like this options as it feels cleaner to mount and I know you can tweak the fans onto this radiator from what I have read.
 
I already have the ef radiator so let me have a muck around with it on the weekend and check where it’s getting caught and check the approach you followed.
 
 

this is a quote from Ant's wagon thread with LS2 or LS3? engine 
 
Just thinking about this.
The car now has a ve radiator and fans and when it was tuned I asked Phonsey to drop the temp at which the ecu turns the fans on as it always ran a bit hot with the falcon fans and radiator.
It cools itself brilliantly now.
The temp guage gets to 3/4, the fans kick in and within 20 seconds they pull the temp back to 1/4 so it's never really hot.
 
posts mentioning radiator in his thread are here (changed from modified use XD radiator when changing the intake setup to an over the radiator "OTR" setup. 
 http://www.ozfalcon.com.au/index.php?/search/&q=radiator&type=forums_topic&item=37

I really like the look of the RS wheels