1997 Ford Falcon station wagon

Well just got home from my trip with a ford club. Did over 400km's today and the car was almost faultless. The only issue was a plug came loose which stopped the car from idling. To my suprise I just worked out what my approx L/100km's were and got 10.1L/100km's. Now seeing that is the first run with the intake and exhaust I think that was rather good and if I had been a good boy all day It would have gone in to the mid 9L/100km's.

One thing I do need to check is the temperature. I know the sensor and the gauge are fine but at normal driving the temp does not get in to the normal range at all and when cruising at 100km/h the temp sits half way between normal and cold. Is this going to be an issue in the long run?

 

Mine runs in the same range from Cold to Normal, rarely above Normal. BUT, the choke kicks out once its warm (fairly quickly - maybe 5 minutes), the heater belches out nice heat, and the car runs like a champ. I suspect the temp switch needs replacement, OR, my timing isn't advanced enough. I changed the distributor vacuum advance springs last year, but I also changed the entire vacuum line setup from being the 1979 (3.3L I6) setup to the 1981 Mercury Capri (3.3L setup).

If yours is getting good mileage, then the Temp switch is off a bit, I think.

 

holy....youve sure done alot since the last time i checked in!!
hope your feeling better

 

This morning I had to drop the family off and on the way home I thought I would go try get some pictures of the car in the heavy fog. Unfortunately when I got to where I thought would be a good spot the fog had moved on, but still tried to get a couple of pictures and hopefully when the car is done I will get up to the same spot when the fog is around again. Please excuse the state of the car as it is not painted and a little damaged and dirty from all the driving I did over the weekend

 

Bonnet pins installed. It has taken me most of the day to finish (had to keep stopping due to my health) although the actual fitting of these bonnets pins was rather easy. I have taken the car for a drive with the factory latch removed and the pins seem to hold the bonnet more securerly.



Tomorrow I will see how I am feeling and possibley look at what I will do with the area where the factory latch bolts to the radiator support panel

 

Looks mean!

 

That paint sure looks rugged. Time to break out the rollers, right Norm?

 

Absolutely! The Rustoleum Tremclad works great on plastic too! I wonder if they have it in Australia...

http://rustoleum.com/

http://rustoleum.com/cbgcorporate.asp?sn=in&ci=2

Yep!!!

 

Yes the paint is a bit dodgey at them moment. just a question of sanding the car smooth so I can re paint it right

 

as im an aussie and i know your model well, i can see the amount of work and modifycation you have done on it, top work all round

 

Well another piece of the long term puzzle has been found and secured. So some time in the next couple of weeks I will have a super charger sitting in my goodie pile along with the wheels waiting for the day they go on the car.

The supercharger in question is a Toyota SC14, now in the grand scheme of things this s/c is a tiny bit small for my motor so it wont really show much in the way of power gains in the upper rev range, but it will add up to 30% more power down low where the car is lacking a little bit. And for those who know about these s/c's will know that it has a pulley similar to what you find on an air con compressor so with the flick of a switch I can disengauge the s/c

 

i know the sc
with the low boost you an have the clutch work and turn it off,but when u want more boost and change pully size its on all the time. i think there a great sc for what they are

 

I wont be chasing big numbers. This s/c will be more about enhancing what I have and for $80 for the s/c minus the pulley its just another thing too good to pass up and I know from a mate who run one of these s/c's that the easiest why to get a pulley is to use one from an aircon compressor on a toyota 22r motor

 

Yesterday I took the car for a drive to Warwick for a hospital appointment but managed to find out some info while I was out there. Firstly I will be getting the new outer rims for the BBS wheels with a 3- 3.5 inch dish, I was hoping to try get 4.5 - 5 inch lip but trying to find tires was going to be almost impossible and upto almost 2 grand for 4 tires.

I also spoke to a performance shop who can supply with a tickford head that is able to flow up to 400hp which could be an option along with custom extractors. If I go that way I would need to work out what cam, chip and injectors would be needed and then most likely having to change my gear box as well.

On the way home though there was a couple of little issues with the car. Firstly my rear bar is broken. I had to drive a little off road on the wrong side of the road to avoid a semi cutting a corner and the rear end of the bar hooked on a tree stump and all the mounts on the right hand side and one of the main mounts as well. It also manage to break the passengers side tail pipe so that is now off.

After all that I was able to get the rear bar partly attatched so I could get home only to loose the power steering 15mins later. After about 10 minutes of trying to drive bumpy very twisty mountain roads I was able to find a place to pull over to have a look. I found that fluid had come out of the top of the pump but the cap was still tight and in place and after removing the car I found that the pump was still full of fluid. So I continued on and after another 5-10 mins later when the road got flatter the power steering returned.

So now the the fun of trying to work out if I continue with the rear bar and twin exhaust or try something else and trying to work out what the problem is with my P/S

 

all that in one outing,i feel for you with problems like that, i rekon stay with the theme you at,looks good, and hope you get the problems sorted out