FOMOCOHO

The higher nickel content gave the Australian Blocks better wear resistance than their American predecessor. Be careful Gerg when comparing hardness to wear resistance, if you think back to your metallurgy days… hardness is a measure of impact resistance only and doesn’t take into account the whole micro-structure of the material so "superior wear resistance" is the term used to be more accurate. Hence shorter tool life.
 
Basically when the 30x blocks were sent over to re-qualify the tools it was found life expectancy of the boring-tools was much less than they had encountered previously with the American Iron. They tested the iron and found the Australian iron, although with-in spec. was superior by far for wear resistance. I'm sure hardness would have been part of that testing and determined to be higher too. They upgraded to tungsten carbide tooling and that fixed the problem, prior to sending the tooling back here.
 
A different casting process was used in Geelong than CCP too; which is much more stable.
 
The drama with the tooling being damaged & having to be sent back initially was a totally unrelated event that happened during shipping.  

Yeah, I saw news of the two versions some time ago. I thought the Buttermore version was more trustworthy being made here too.
 
 
Cast is cheaper than machining out of a solid billet too!  
 
 
I think this differential billet was about $6000 from memory, but was some time ago now, scanned from Sandvik propaganda lol.
 
 

The Arrow block is chinese cast. I don't know that I trust their steel.
 
Look up the TMeyer Inc. Track Boss Cleveland block.
That's the Tod Buttermore block, finally being put into production.
 

I've read that originally, the tooling was pretty useless due to the hardness of the Aussie iron, sent everything blunt in no time and they couldn't get the tolerances they needed. That whole line needed a complete revamp before production was feasible.

That's entirely possible. The Cleveland Casting Plant (CCP) had to fill an order for 60 000 blocks for Ford-Aust. before packing up the tooling in late '73. It could well have been one of them if it's here but never made it to production for some reason. Whatever the case CHESTNUT is right, it is of CCP origin.
 
The cast-tooling and machining-tooling was shipped in '74. The first blocks were cast here in mid '75. Damage to the machining-tooling meant they couldn't be machined until '76. After the machining-tooling was sent back, 30x raw Oz-cast blocks had to be air-freighted back to CCP to re-qualify the machine-tooling before it was all sent back here a second time. Don't know what became of those 30x blocks either! May have come back, may be still there... some-one knows!
 
Edit: If they did come back, it would have been with the tooling... bet they didn't air-freight them again! 

Haha, you're wrong Dave... A to M without I (because it looks like 1... and J).
 
It ain't rocket science... which is just a big kerosene shower-head anyway (but that's another story!). 

Haha, you're wrong Dave... A to M without I (because it looks like 1... and J).
 
It ain't rocket science... which is just a big kerosene shower-head anyway (but that's another story!). 

you can use any early dizzy be points or electronic ,MSD,ICE,MALLORY,plus the ebay bosch copys are ok for a std engine,XC had an electronic dizzy in the later model range and are quite rare to find these days,the best one on the market is the ICE dizzy as you can use them on any cleveland block late or early,but at around $1100 for a kit might be a bit steep for punters.

Cheers Chestnut... so he is reading it right! All pre 1975 blocks are US stock and should be 'CP'.
 
Will most likely need a points dizzy. Is your 'CF' block points???

and my 1982 pillowblock with GF 

There's an old fitter's trick with tapers. It works on tie-rod ends every time I find. Don't need a bigger hammer, just need two hammers (engineer's 2 pound is fine). I'm not sure if you can get to opposite sides on the upper ball joint from memory but if you can shock it at the same time with a blow from each side... this should expand the cast housing momentarily and break the seal. Then use your usual tools/method & it should come out.

Empty tomato/soup/whateva tin... upside down (ie open side against seal). Whichever you can find that sits in the middle of the seal. I think the 'champignon mushroom' tins are good (with or without butter sauce, doesn't matter! ) as they're only half height (so stronger). You'll need a new tin for each seal though as they will crush some.

That's what i was trying to say gerg... 2 hammers be better than one, you 'ol fitter you! 

+1 hammer & dolly. You can't just whack it from one side though. I like to get a decent thump-o-meter on the opposite side to where you're hitting so there's some inertia to hit against, otherwise the whole lot just bounces. If you must apply heat, don't go any more than a couple of hundred degrees otherwise you'll weaken the high strength metals.<br /><br /><br />Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

What shits me about it is that what we drove is/was different to everywhere else in  the world. We had our own identity. You knew you were in Oz.
 
What's the point of travel if everywhere is the same...McDickheads on every corner and Kia's & Hyundia's in all the parks. 

What shits me about it is that what we drove is/was different to everywhere else in  the world. We had our own identity. You knew you were in Oz.
 
What's the point of travel if everywhere is the same...McDickheads on every corner and Kia's & Hyundia's in all the parks. 

Well............  not sure whether to celebrate the birth, or mourn the funeral.

Didn't think it was really that critical but since you want to dispute I remeasured...
 
FALCON measures 23.15 x 211.9 mm
5.8 measures 33.8 x 118.35 mm
 


 
Beauty about a dial is I don't need good eyesight....
 

Here is a genuine nascar xe number block and it has no pillow's ,maybe its an early one from the first 1975 cast ones ?

Refer sales brochure for photo of factory option 20-spoke Volante alloy-road-wheel, as below.
 

Yep, I use Castrol TQF in the old stuff, not to be confused with TQ95 which is NOT recommended for M2C33 applications.

Yep, I use Castrol TQF in the old stuff, not to be confused with TQ95 which is NOT recommended for M2C33 applications.

Castrol TQF in mine, (same as M2C33 spec)........ yep 10 litres.!!

This HD tailshaft goes from C6 to 9"diff in LWB situ (ZJ&K/FC&D/ute/stn wagon). Not sure if these are the dims you want. Maybe I need to take a further measurement from the centre of the uni to the end?
 
First shot shows 31spline C6/FMX yoke in comparison to C4/C10 yoke in background (from an XD Fghia 302C C10)
 
 
 

 
Showing 31 spline...
 

 
working length reads 52 mm...
 

 
Total shaft legth before radius reads ~110 mm...
 

 
Outer Diameter reads 42.8 mm...
 

 
Overhead shot...
 

 
Let me know if you need more... hope that helps!

Small update. MSC's home is getting there. All repairs complete and rubbed back. I ended up going a bit further than planned as there was some deep scratching on the passenger side of the bay that I just couldn't live with.
 

 
Undercoat down
 

 
and then