2006 Fpv Tornado F6 Ute - Cleanup & Resurrection

[Vallidium]

That's awesome news that it's passed mate congrats ! I'm exactly the same with my car haha I have a massive list of little jobs I need to do, next one will be fitting those bleed nipples you suggested and then attempting to fix the peeling clear coat on the front brembos

[barnz]

Philmeup photo essays FTW. Way better than any workshop manual.

You really go the extra mile mate, I always forget to take photos when doing stuff.

Oh and shotgun the brembos if you change to 6 pots

Edited 07/01/15 10:26 PM by barnz

[FiftyOne]

Interestingly I've got clear peeling off my brembos & the boost gauge is intermittent too

If I can make one suggestion, service the trans while your going here. I don't care what anyone says, you'll be glad you did

[PhilMeUp]

If I can make one suggestion, service the trans while your going here. I don't care what anyone says, you'll be glad you did

Yep, the car will be attending the House of Wiggam some time in the very near future.

All liquids will end up being replaced.

Flushed/replaced so far:

- Brake fluid - flushed.

- Diff oil - replaced.

- Engine oil - flushed and replaced.

To be done:

- Transmission - to be flushed.

- Cooling system - to be flushed.

- Power steering fluid - to be flushed or replaced.

[PhilMeUp]

Interestingly I've got clear peeling off my brembos

They're easy to pull apart and get powder coated. I've got three pairs here that have just been powder coated and are still in pieces. I'll do a photo guide when I put them all together.

If you pull Brembo calipers apart you'll be stunned at how simple and over priced these things are. They are just two metal blocks bolted together.

The only problem is not having brakes for your car for a week or two. You would have to rustle up a set of standard stuff to borrow/use.

I would really, really, really, really love to find a 6/4 set in crap condition so that I can get them cheap and rebuild them.

The seals can generally be re-used, but if not then get the Stoptech seals and dust boots from the US for $US5-10 each.

For powder coating and cleaning up the bolts in Perth, the place to go to is Aeroplate (next to Perth Brake Parts).

[discostig]

Repainting (or powdercoating) peeling Brembos FTW! I love my burnt orange/pearl yellow ones so much. It's a great opportunity to add some personalisation to your own car.

Your F6 ute is metallic blue...you could get them painted white with black logo for something different. Or go metallic candy red! I was keen on metallic green against my silver car but chickened out.

Very cool seeing the tail shaft come out. Makes me wonder what mine is like after so many kms. Best I don't look perhaps.

Get Ralph to do some editing to your trans tune when you are there, he said he's managed to gain a couple L per 100km changing shift points if I recall correctly.

[PhilMeUp]

Friday, 9th January, 2015

Finally got the car licenced yesterday (Thursday). This was a huge relief and there was a smile on my face for the rest of the day as I did a few things around town.

I had been obsessing throughout the week about getting this licenced so was extremely tired last night. I laid in bed to watch some TV at 8:30pm, fell asleep straight away and woke up in the early hours of the morning.

By 4am I was hungry and figured that was a suitable excuse to go for a drive to a nearby 24 hour supermarket. My attempts at getting late night photos weren’t particularly successful.



I had just gone past a servo when the engine coughed and spluttered. This was about the time when I remembered that the one thing that I didn’t get done yesterday afternoon was to fill the tank with petrol.

A quick u-turn resulted but the car made it very clear to me that it wasn’t going to give me the three seconds of running time that I required to cover the 60 metres to the servo.

I had run out of petrol. Idiot. Hours and hours of late nights in the carport doing all sorts of cosmetic and mechanical stuff, and I run out of petrol on the first night.

It was an upward incline, so pushing the car to the servo wasn’t an option.



I left it parked in the bus stop for a few minutes while I went for a walk to get some petrol.



I have a KTM enduro bike and Aprilia motard bike, so will be keeping a ramp and tie-downs in the back. I’ve got the wider fold-up ramp in there for now, but have a narrower one that I’ll be putting in later. I’ll run some bolts through the wall of the plastic tray with the thread poking out into the tray and then use wing nuts to bolt the ramp to the tray wall.



I had a couple of empty 350mL fruit juice bottles from the previous afternoon that I hadn’t thrown out yet, so I walked to the servo with them.

Luckily, the guy at the counter didn’t give me any grief about them not being approved for carrying petrol. I rinsed each bottle out with a bit of petrol, filled them up and walked back to the car.

The Tornado lived again. Laughing like a manic idiot at my stupidity I immediately gave the car its first full tank of petrol.

The red and white colour scheme of the personalised plates doesn’t really match the blue paintwork. It’s $220 to get the plates remade, so I’ll procrastinate about that for a while before I give in and spend the money on getting them in a more compatible colour.



The low-light photos show how the bodywork needs polishing.







The Jaycar LEDs that I put in light up the interior with a bright white light.



A quick check of my costs spreadsheet shows me that this car has cost me $13,396.69 so far, before government stamp duty and registration costs. Not too bad for a 2006 Tornado - decent ones start at around $18,000 and with more km on them.

The $1,143.74 that I’ve spent on parts so far includes the $400 for the ROH Flare wheels and tyres, $150 for the rear leaf springs and $155.00 for an Earl’s Turbo Oil Line kit that I haven’t fitted yet. My overall cost will plummet once I sell the XR6T ute (I’ll make a profit on that, although that wasn’t the intention) and some Brembo calipers that I bought cheaply for the XR6T (another unintended profit).

The relatively low expenditure on parts shows that this project was more based on labour input than replacing physical things. And things like the indicator globes and rear axle bearings weren’t absolutely necessary; that was just me being thorough now so that they won’t be a problem in the future. I once had a car knocked back at inspection because the indicators “weren’t orange enough” so these days I replace the indicator globes when I first buy a car and then every couple of years after that.

Some other costs in the immediate future:
- Getting the carpet cleaned.
- Getting the cooling system flushed.
- Getting the transmission flushed.
- Repair and paint the cracked sideskirts.
- Extensive counselling costs, hitman charges and legal fees to keep me out of jail if some moron crashes into it.

The numbers so far:
Car: $10,800.00
Auction Fees: $999.90
Parts: $1,143.74
Key Coding: $110.00
Temporary Movement Permits: $45.60
Licencing Inspection: $88.45
Front Springs Fitting: $40.00
Wheel Alignment: $64.00
Wheel Winch Re-cabling: $55.00
Seat Cleaning: $50.00
Total: $13,396.69

Parts that I bought (total of $1,143.74):
- Indicator Globes
- Coolant Expansion Tank (not fitted yet)
- Rear Axle Bearings (both sides)
- Wheels - ROH Flare (secondhand)
- Earl's Kit
- AMCAP - Drive belt, radiator hoses, fuel filter and rear wheel stud
- Speed Bleeders - Rear
- Rear Leaf Springs (secondhand)
- King Springs
- Centre Bearing

Most new parts I got at wholesale or trade price, which is why I’d better not go publishing those numbers on a public forum. Let’s just say that I’m rather good at doing car stuff as cheaply as possible, thanks to what I’ve learned from the taxi game about parts supplies and pricing. That, and I’m just stingy when it comes to spending money.

The car drives superbly. I’m pleasantly surprised at how quiet and comfortable it is inside when driving - it’s worlds ahead of my BA XR6 Turbo ute which is only 12 months older.

The Brembo 4 piston front callipers and PBR single piston rear caliper setup is much better than a standard Falcon PBR setup, but not in the same league as the 6 piston front/4 piston rear setup on my taxi. I would love to find a 6/4 set of Brembo calipers in poor condition that I could buy cheaply and then recondition them myself to save money.

I’m already getting used to the 270kW power, which means that I’m going to be really pissed off when I get back in the 156kW taxi this weekend. That’s gonna hurt.

[turboknapp]

If and when your looking to let go of the Brembo calipers, hit me up Phil.

Will be looking for a set in the near future

Cheers

[.Stripes.]

Nice work Phil, it's nice to see all the work you've put in to save a Ute that deserved a lot more attention and love than it got from the previous owner. Looking forward to seeing further progress.

[Vallidium]

Car is looking mint mate, has come such a long way especially when you look back at the pics of it at the auction place !

Definitely will be keeping a eye out for the brembo photo guide you do, I read on a Mitsubishi evo forum that they all have the same issues with thier brembos and peeling and there was a guide someone did where they just peel off as much as the old clear as possible, give it a light sand and spray high temp clear over and it didn't look to bad, I was going to do that but obviously pulling apart and powder coating and rebuilding with new seals would be way better. I just assumed it would be very difficult.

Are you going to do the pwr transmission heat exchanger ? I'm thinking that will be the next big job I do, it's doing my head in with the standard heat exchanger on it