My new Ride

[Bilbs]

Sump is off, dreading putting k frame back in, prolly gonna have to pull right hand pipes off, but the results are,
Pickup is blocked up, i pulled a bigend off to check, they arent too bad, but will replace, i wasnt gonna take a main cap off, but good thing i did tho, i figured that i may as well since i had to pull a bolt out to get the pickup off, and well, bearing has signs of spinning, can barely read the stamp on the back of it, and the tabs that locate it are broken off a bit, and its all scored and worn, but thankfully the crank jounal is still good, so a set of bearings and clean the pickup it is, and i was also able to tell that the motor has never been opened in its life till now, the bearings that are in it are staped with the date of 7 feb 94, same month year as my car, so virgin it is

[Bilbs]

So, new bearings arived at work today, also got a new pump just cos i could i guess, and gives me a spare, so i finish work at 5, get all things together, and start on car, 8 big end bearings, the 5 mains, all now new, cleaned pickup of all the crap in it, bolted it back on, stuffed around gettin sump back on and the gasket into place, finaly had that done, put my new front crank seal in, balancer back on, got the k frame back on the car, bolted it in, new oil pump on, primed according to instructions, 5 liters of liqiod gold into the sump, wire to the start realy, oil pressure guage in, started cranking it, waiting, waiting, waiting, watching that guage like a hawk, NOTHING!, pull the guage out, crank again, still NOTHING, pull the filter off, and STILL FREAKING NOTHING!!!!, im just about to tear my hair out, or torch the damn thing, so after 6 hours woking on it, after having already worked 8, im now completely stuffed, trying to figure out in my head what could be wrong with it, and have to go in tomorrow and play with it even more! Im thinking about packing the oil pump with grease to see if that helps, and i will be checking that i can get oil up from the pickup pipe, and i will check, i dont know if its possible that the oil pump drive could have ****ed its way outta location, and not be turning or something stupid like that, so now its all checks i gotta do untill i find the problem, then i still gotta bolt the rest of the suspension and crap back in, I AM SO OVER THIS LOL

[Bilbs]

Well, HOORAY!! I have a nice and healthy 20 - 30 psi oil pressure at hot idle, and bout 60 as soon as i give it a rev, no strange noises, no oil leaks, everythings perfect now, well, i still want new pistons and cam, but at least the bottom end is all done, and the even better news for me, is that the motor, untill now, had never been opened, so now i know what i need to order when i do the full rebuild, but till then, i just thought id let yas all know that my ride is back on the streets again

[Bilbs]

Are powerbond race series balancers any good, i hope they are, im picking up tomorrow a brand new race series balancer, and new crank seal for $120, i should have done it when i did the bottom end, but i thought it might hold out for a while, but to no luck, it used 1L oil in the last few days, and it all came outta the front crank seal, which was new about 4 weeks ago lol, so now im upgrading like i soulda done in the firstplace, ill post some pics of it when im done

[Bilbs]

Well, it wasnt a Race series, but just a street series, but still hell of an improvement, looks way better than the orig one, it doesnt leak oil anymore, and timing is now a sinch with the laser etched timing marks on it, just point the timing light, and i can instantly see that it is spot on at 10 degrees, you just use the tdc notch on the timing case, and then line that up with the line you want on the balancer, instead of the other way round, and when i did the timing yesterday with the old balancer, it showed up that i had 12 deg, but it turns out that i do have the spot on 10 deg, well worth the money i think

[rch-13z]

nice ute mate, 5l manual cant go wrong aye... looks the part with the new front bar...
roof looks mint mate

[Bilbs]

just a shame i didnt use enough glue on it, and its come back down again, so im gonna get around to doin it again soon, but maybee in a slightly different color, and maybee with a certain logo embossed/stitched onto it under the sun visors, just for a lil subtle change to things

[Bilbs]

Just picked this up off Ebay today, now all i need to get is lock actuators, window regs, widow switches, hi lev wiper stalk, and i should have all the functions of a high level series car, now anyone who knows, will i need to get the ecu or this bcm modified/recoded to work, its from a vs statesman, and also, is there anything that i have left out in what the bcm can controll, or is it just for widowns, locking, wiper dwell, what else does it do?

[Bilbs]

went to the wreckers today, and i got from a VS St8o, All BCM plugs, Headlight switch, Wiper stalk with dwell, radio remote module, Key head, BCM - All for $20 - Not a bad score i guess, so the weekend will be filled with me out in the driveway with a soldering iron, some wire, a bcm, a testlight, and ill see where i get up to, if and or when i get this finished and working, ill post a how to with notes and wiring diagrams for anyone else wanting to do the same to their ride, but till then, i got some cans to drink, and a roadworthy examiners course to start, so ill bid you all a good night

[Bilbs]

Well, i gave in, im running around for 11 cents a kay now, LPG may be great for cooking ur snags on Grennan, but its OH so cheap to run your car on as well, and im only down a tad on power, i have MORE power on petrol now with the gas mixer on (cant work that one out lol) and as long as its treated right, gas wont hurt a motor, i have a flashlube system on it, ill be running it 1 day a week on petrol, i have always serviced my car every 5 thousand, both oil and filter, plugs have always been done every 10, as well as airfilter, and my fuel filter gets done every 20 thousand, so i cant see gas hurting the old girl, just hurts my pocket less now, plus the rebate is more than it cost me to convert it too

[wogboy_9000]

Hey Buddy, you've done some good work to that ute!
Where did you get the gas conversion done? I'm looking at getting the 5.0 done!

[Bilbs]

i did it myself lol, i do them at work, so at least i get that benefit i guess lol

[VZHSV]

got pics mate? do u have the direct injection system installed ?
notice power loss?

[Bilbs]

No, at the moment it is just a standard kit as fitted to cars for the last billion years lol, dont even have an oxy feedback sys on it yet, just a manual adjuster, im still waiting for the electronics side of it to show up, they are on back order from italy, but i have a 90L tank behind the cab, and as for power loss, i have a bit more on petrol (i wouldnt have guessed that after fitting a vapor ring that is only about 50 odd mm iin diameter, so maybee its all about airspeed, not airflow) and on gas, almost un noticable in low range revs, but up high after about 3500 when hard accel it feels to be leaning out a lot, but that will all fix up after the feedback sys goes on it, and it seems to run out at about 4600 on pet, so thats the intake restricion coming into play. But at the moment, its all worth it, im getting about 16l/100k on gas, as opposed to about 11l/100k on pet, gas l/100k will improve with closed loop sys, but even now, at about 65c/l for gas, its WAY cheaper and like my sig suggests, i still know where the pet switch is wen i want the ponies unleashed (side note, it could still spin the rears in the dry with a tandem trailer with an xf ute on it while i was on gas)

[The Write Stuff]

Nice ride there mate. I love the old VR and VS utes (which is why I own one lol) and appreciate someone who has done all the work themselves.

Interesting to see you lose power on gas as mine picks up grunt and makes a heap more torque on it - more than what it makes on V Power or Ultimate.

[Bilbs]

yeah, the fuel system on it is in almost top nick aside from a couple of leaky injectors, it has a custom tune in it, so its always been great on petrol, ill see how it is when i get the gas electronics side sorted, i wouldnt mind chattin to a computer/electronics geek that could make an interface device to allow the gm puder to control a gas stepper motor, either that, or fork out for a Vapor injection kit, and interface those injectors the the ecu, or wait and see if they get around to releasing the LIQUID gas injection kits at an affordable price, they are supposed to be the bee's knees, the gas bloke we get our stuff from says that every car that has been tested has picked up about 10% poer over pet, and an increase of 3 - 7% better mileage as well

[Bilbs]

long time since i been here, car pretty much same, gas sys is finished off, still woefull on power wen on gas, but makes me appreciate petrol a lot more, ahh, i now have slotted vt rotors on front, alpine tyre r component speakers, k&N pod filter, steering wheel, should be gettin new exhaust soon i hope too

[Phoenix21]

looking good mate