agentkiwi

In the boot are the wing nuts that hold the headrest in place. Its easier to take the headrest out & fit the speaker then re-mount & plug it in. Not all speakers will fit hence I went with the Sony. No drilling, cutting or f**king with original parts.
I put 4" 3 ways in the doors too. You have to mount the speaker under the spacer otherwise the tweeter hits the mesh on the front.

First piece of the puzzle

Faith in humanity restored. The guy who sold it to me fully refunded my money even postage. That wasn't fair so I'll go him halves.

First piece of the puzzle

Faith in humanity restored. The guy who sold it to me fully refunded my money even postage. That wasn't fair so I'll go him halves.

Faith in humanity restored. The guy who sold it to me fully refunded my money even postage. That wasn't fair so I'll go him halves.

I'm replacing all ball joints, tie rod ends, pitman, idler & buying the $450 Nolathane bush kit. Front & Rear.
 
I intend to do all of this over a long weekend in the next month or two so I'll be taking photo's & doing a write up as I go.
Should be interesting. The only thing I'm not looking forward to is drilling out the rivets in the old ball joints! Big fat ~10mm suckers!

Hey mate I had a brand new one, will check the shed when I get home to see if I still have it. If you cant find one anywhere else let me know, I wont need a spare anymore as Im goin to manual steering.

Motospecs can supply the new roller top - part no. A50280RM - branded as 'Newcom', where the 'Kirby Bishop' writing was.
Newcom Industries Pty Ltd, is the Pedders parent company, and who make the Pedders springs, rebuild their steering componentry, etc.

http://www.newcomindustries.com/
 
The Newcom roller top, also comes as a part of the Motospecs full steering box rebuild kit - part no. GSB-3021

Before they were available, I got some bush tops retrofitted with a bearing, by searching the Timken catalogue at Bearing Wholesalers.
The existing bronze bush, needs to be machined out on a lathe, and the recess where the bush was, needs to be center bored to open it up slightly.
The bearing I used, was a Timken full complement torrington race needle roller bearing, part no. 32208.
 
http://www2.timken.com/timken_ols3/Bearings/GST/WEB_GST2008/GST_BrgSrchDataPlus.asp?BrgMainType=TRB&BrgSubType=TS&Cone=33208&Cup=33208&Series=33208&PNum=33208&Unit=false&BrgImage=Images/TRB-TS.bmp&DataPlusStr=0.36::1.68::40::80::32::143::37.1::144::321.5::51::47::2.8::2.4::25::1.5::70::76::-10.9::9.316::6.684::2.898::0.4178::0.5822::-::&DataPlusStr1=&DxfFileStr=8350**37100**1.63**5120**22800**32200**143000**1.61**0.73**1.5748**40**3.1496**80**1.2598**32**1.2598**32**0.9843**25**0.06**1.5**0.06**1.5**14500**64700
http://www.timken.com/EN-US/products/bearings/productlist/roller/needle/Pages/drawncup.aspx
 
The Newcom roller top, is NOT a full complement torrington race bearing.
The bearing is branded NTN, with a part no. of SCE 208A

Full complement, means that each roller abuts the next roller, all the way round the bearing.</p>
Caged needle roller (torrington) bearings are cheaper, and have half as many rollers - which are spaced apart by a plastic insert (cage).
 
I have a NOS Ford top, which came from the factory with the torrington race bearing, (they were obviously being fitted at a later stage - XG?)
- Part no. XA3580AKT.
It's branded 'Kirby Bishop', and has a full complement torrington race bearing - with an outer cup part no. B208 (could be timken branded)
It must be a late production item, as the wording and finish of the top, is very average - hence the sand casting mould must have been very worn out.

The Newcom tops are cast very tidy, so they must've purchased and refurbed (or copied) the mould, then rebranded it too.

Interestingly, the four bolt holes are tapered holes.
BUT......
the holes in the Kirby Bishop top, are tapered with smaller opening on the inside, and larger on the outside.
Whereas the four bolt holes on the Newcom top, are tapered opposite - with the larger end on the inside.

One of them, has had the holes cast from the opposite end - ie, one top has been cast in a mould facing up, and the other, cast facing down.
How (or if) that would affect the fit, I dunno.
We'd have to compare it with a couple of tops, off some non-rebuilt steering boxes, to get the best two out of three or something.

On both tops, the holes are cast as part of the mould, they're not drilled afterwards.

Note the awesome quality control with the NOS Kirby top, in the last pic......
 

 

 

 

 

is this it?

Correct, that's the emission decal featured on my 1984 XE as well. They are different due to those changes. Otherwise I'd be following that. Thanks for the photo though mate!

That's XE model EFI, because it mentions vacuum hose at dizzy. XF EFI was fully elec dizzy.
 
XF ones also mention the ISC.

If the engine is cranking over ok, that tells you how healthy your battery and cables are. This is the most work they will ever have to do. The tape is just insulation, so as long as there is no bare wire it's fine. Earth doesn't matter anyway, it can only short out to earth, which it does anyway

The alt light isn't coming on anymore although it has done in the past.
I've charged the battery overnight and it seems to be ok for now. I'll keep testing it over the next few days.
I noticed the earth from the battery to the block has some insulation tape on it so I pulled that off and the thick wire is intact but a big chunk of factory insulation plastic is missing. That wouldn't be doing anything would it? Might replace it anyway.
Next I think I'll check the brake light wiring loom for any bad earths or connections as the guage only seems to flick wildly with brakes and indicators. 
Thanks for the advice so far

Bizarrely I solved this issue.
First was a new battery. The old one was poked.
I found, cleaned, tightened every single earth I could find, then with the help of the manual and member VDO found & checked some more.
long story short, those bulbs draw a lot of voltage & the guage is just telling me this.
I replaced all park, tail/stop & indicator bulbs with LED's the indicator & park ones have a load resistor built in & what do you know.....problem solved. All guages are stable and accurate with no flicking, dropping or other weird shi*
Happy with the result. The LED's are as bright & I got the coloured ones to match the tail light lenses which helps a lot.

Bizarrely I solved this issue.
First was a new battery. The old one was poked.
I found, cleaned, tightened every single earth I could find, then with the help of the manual and member VDO found & checked some more.
long story short, those bulbs draw a lot of voltage & the guage is just telling me this.
I replaced all park, tail/stop & indicator bulbs with LED's the indicator & park ones have a load resistor built in & what do you know.....problem solved. All guages are stable and accurate with no flicking, dropping or other weird shi*
Happy with the result. The LED's are as bright & I got the coloured ones to match the tail light lenses which helps a lot.

Bizarrely I solved this issue.
First was a new battery. The old one was poked.
I found, cleaned, tightened every single earth I could find, then with the help of the manual and member VDO found & checked some more.
long story short, those bulbs draw a lot of voltage & the guage is just telling me this.
I replaced all park, tail/stop & indicator bulbs with LED's the indicator & park ones have a load resistor built in & what do you know.....problem solved. All guages are stable and accurate with no flicking, dropping or other weird shi*
Happy with the result. The LED's are as bright & I got the coloured ones to match the tail light lenses which helps a lot.

Bizarrely I solved this issue.
First was a new battery. The old one was poked.
I found, cleaned, tightened every single earth I could find, then with the help of the manual and member VDO found & checked some more.
long story short, those bulbs draw a lot of voltage & the guage is just telling me this.
I replaced all park, tail/stop & indicator bulbs with LED's the indicator & park ones have a load resistor built in & what do you know.....problem solved. All guages are stable and accurate with no flicking, dropping or other weird shi*
Happy with the result. The LED's are as bright & I got the coloured ones to match the tail light lenses which helps a lot.

Bizarrely I solved this issue.
First was a new battery. The old one was poked.
I found, cleaned, tightened every single earth I could find, then with the help of the manual and member VDO found & checked some more.
long story short, those bulbs draw a lot of voltage & the guage is just telling me this.
I replaced all park, tail/stop & indicator bulbs with LED's the indicator & park ones have a load resistor built in & what do you know.....problem solved. All guages are stable and accurate with no flicking, dropping or other weird shi*
Happy with the result. The LED's are as bright & I got the coloured ones to match the tail light lenses which helps a lot.

Main thing is to settle on a good 1 & stick with it to get the benefits of that particular brand. I use valvoline engine armour 15-40 in summer & 10-30 in winter. Bit colder in NZ!!
My Ford shop manual lists 20-40 for a 302.

I still love those wheels rob!
 
I had a small issue on my xe when I had them, they caught ever so slightly in the front of the front guards. Small amount of massage and all good.
 
Gold vertini drifts look great, and come in staggered widths like rob's roh 19's.

Mate there should definitely be a screw in there. Take the disc off & you'll see you can re-align it like the other side. The wheel lug nuts will also help secure the disc but without that screw the disc can still move fractionally putting stress on the studs eventually shearing the studs from metal fatigue (its happened to me)
Your rattle could be from your inner brake pad if its lost the retaining clip or it could be the springs not being seated properly?