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2nd December 2006 - As Episode 1 came to a close, I had to find myself another shell. After a phone call to a mate of mine he sold me a 2.0L TC sedan. The good theory behind this is that the shell shouldn't have suffered the stresses put on it by a 6 so fingers crossed. It had rust in all the usual places plus a really nasty bit of rust in the rhr quarter panel but overall it was perfect for what I want. Interior apart from the usual rip in the driver's seat was 9/10.

The plan behind this one is to get it all sweet and swap all the goodies over from the Episode 1 and with a bit of luck get it registered using the old engineering paperwork as the benchmark for the mods.

6th December 2006 - 4 Days later, I had it stripped and up on the rotisserie and with pen & paper in hand started making a list of all the "To-Do's". The more I looked, the more I found. As previously stated, it had rust in all the usual places plus a few other spots I wouldn't have known about otherwise. One good thing is that it had ZERO bog in it so there were no surprises hiding under the paint. Once again I'm going to get carried away. What started out as a simple freshen up is turning into a full back to metal respray with colour change and probably a full vehicle overhaul. This is where I give my wife brownie points cos I'm going to spend another pile of money and time on a car. And it's not even a car she likes.

27th December 2006 - OORRIGHT!!!! I got a 10 day Chrissie break from work so time to tackle the car. The first two photos show the nasty rust in the right hand rear quarter. The 3rd shows what I had to cut out - after that bit there wasn't much left of the corner of the car. It took me 4 full lazy days to repair the rust in the qtr and weld up the fuel filler. The rest of the break was spent doing all the little things, repairing small sections of rust, removing the battery tray etc. Dunno how panel beaters do it everyday - between removing spotwelds and sanding paint back to metal I take my hat off to them. If someone knows and easy way to get paint off door and boot jambs please let me know.

13th January 2007 - Nothing to report as all I've been doing is repairing small patches of rust and rubbing back paint. Nothing is going to happen this weekend as I picked up a welding flash at work on Friday.

February 5th 2007 - This was the day that I'd satisfied myself that I'd finally finished cutting out all of the rust. It was almost like a huge milestone in itself. I am by no means a panelbeater and would never make a good one for how much time it took me to get it all done.

April 1st 2007 - Wheeled the car outside and gave it good clean inside and out. There was paint and bog dust from asshole to breakfast time. This is when I found out that bog dust is flammable cos it went thru the guts of my vacuam cleaner. 6ft flame front coming out the back of a $39 target special made for pleasant entertainment - also found out that my chosen tshirt of the day was made out of nylon and doesnt handle heat very well.

Wheeled it back inside and underbody blacked it.

And then came the fun part - spent the next month rubbing back guide coat WOOHOO. I tell ya if anyone out there has never rubbed back primer and guide coat then u havent lived.

Now came the tricky bit, I still hadnt decided WHAT COLOUR? A mate had 4 litres of silver fox which I considered for a bit. I pondered on the silver, wild violet, phantom, a mazda 3 copper colour, heritage green, blueprint, the new toyota blue, neo and probably a million others before settling on this blue.

April 29th 2007 - Painted the inside of the boot black, the door jambs, boot jamb and engine bay blue. I reckon it takes longer to mask everything up than it does to do just about everything else.

Around the beginning of May the weather starts to cool down pretty quick. I had the car off the rotisserie and masked up and ready to go for the top coat. It either rained or was too cold for the next few weeks to paint it. Along came........

Thursday May 10th and they forecast 29 degrees in the city which means low 30's where I live and 40ish in the shed. This was going to have to do. I took a day off work and put the colour on. Didnt turn out too bad considering I dont know shit about spray painting.

Last photo just shows how easy it is to modify and fit a parcel shelf and speakers when there is no rear windscreen fitted.

The front end in the engine bay shot is only temporary to get it rolling when i took it off the spit. Am I the only person who can dismantle a near perfect body and then never get the panels to line back up again hell of high water?

Saturday 12th May - Time to start reassembling and touching up of the fiddly bits. I pulled the front end out, stripped, cleaned, painted it and reassembled it with all new bushes. I'll have to blow the dust off the gear I have in the cupboard for doing wheel alignments now......nah I'll do it by eye for the time being and put that in the "TO-DO" list.

Saturday 7th June - Basically now was a time to reassemble and clean stuff up, anything to prolong me having to rub it back, cut and buff it. Diff got the same treatment as the front end, with all new bearings and a LSD centre.

Saturday 23rd June - You know how you get those feelings running through your mind that you've forgotten something?? Yeah well I did, I didnt trial fit the radiator before I painted the engine bay and guess what? It didnt fit, I had to scallop the radiator support panel out, and then repaint it. Bloody magic, it fits now.

Saturday 7th July - Somewhere in there I got time to refit both windscreens, all the glass and window mechanisms, inner door handles and all the rubbers. I also rubbed it back, and it got it's cut and buff. Now for fun bit. I'd spent so long putting this engine together and making everything look the part I finally got to put it in. The first photo is the trial fit, the other two are in-progress shots when I made the wiring loom for it.

August 5th - Lets start putting the interior back together.........and while we're there let's wire that up too.

September 8th - I bought a Hurst Indi shifter cheap on eBay. I've used heaps of B&M shifters before but never a Hurst. I wish I had've discovered them earlier. I reckon they shit on B&M for overall design, functionality and they dont look so cheap, pissweak and tacky. Where this thing kills a B&M is that it has two shift modes; a normal shift mode where it selects gear like a standard shifter and a "race" mode where it ratchets thru the gears like a B&M. Also the shifter handle feels more natural to hold, even if it is designed for LHD. These show the box I made to fit the shifter.

September 16th - Dragged the car to work, bought a box of mandrel bends, couple of mufflers and a length of pipe. Put it all together and it looks like this. For the record, this is what a "too-quiet" system looks like. And for all those custom exhaust experts in Perth who reckon you cant do it, yes it goes OVER the diff.

October 20th - That was it, a few minor adjustments here and there, a few loose ends to finish off and we're ready to rock n' roll. One week to go until All Ford Day and we were sort of on schedule. 3.5k's into it's maiden voyage and all is well. There's no bumps and rattles, engine sounds good and I got a horn a cat couldnt scratch. 3.6kms(I know this because the speedo/odometer is brand spankin) and it makes that sound we all know and love where something goes bang and bounces metal bits off the road back into the floorpan. I rolled to a stop, poked my head underneath and the pool of transmission fluid told me I needed a tow truck. EVERYTHING on this car from bumper to bumper is rechromed, reconditioned, or new. The irony in this is the only part of the whole car I didnt do myself let me down.

October 24th - Found a big hole in the extension housing, stripped it down and the governor was fubar. Fixed it all up and in theory it's all hunky-dory. I dont know for sure as I only drove it to the end of the street and back just to make sure it works. As it stands now(November 17th 2007) it still only has 7kms on it as I'm too scared something is gonna go ping again.

These are just a couple of Before and After shots I glued together. They show what a bit of chrome, paint, spit and polish can do.

	November 6th 2007: I took it out for it's first serious blat, all went well except for this "zing" at higher RPM. Never heard anything like it beforeand wasnt much so I didnt bother about it until I got home. At higher RPM the engine fan got sucked forward and hit the radiator - not enough for it to leak but it still raised an eyebrow. With that the fan and pulley went on ebay, I welded up the water pump and fitted an electric water pump with an electronic controller. I also had a custom allow radiator made and it has 4x8inch thermo fans mounted aboard. Will never get hot in its life. I had every intention of fitting a single T70 turbo to it and this is the unit I bought. Probably will never happen now.

	June 10th 2009: One of the few things I wasnt happy with was the paint. I got it pretty close the first time around but there were imperfections that I would spot everytime I walked out into the shed so I had it professionally painted. This took 18 months!! not bad considering I was promised 4-6weeks. This is what it looked like when it came back.

	August 3rd 2009: Now that it had an alloy radiator fitted the only thing left in the engine bay to draw bad attention was the air cleaner and dirty old holley. Holleys are a waste of energy but as this car is dedicated LPG it only serves as a throttle body. Introducing a K&N air filter and chrome 650 vac sec holley.

	August 9th 2009: It still needed something else so I had a play with photoshop and a few different designs for pinstriping. This is the one that I decided on. October 10th 2009: Along came Wazza to save the day and remove the old purple tinting and chuck on a fresh layer of AT18.

	The running, finished, driving, "I'm happy with it" product :)