fbekholden.com

Nerd alert. Here is everything explain in pictures.

Most impressive - far better than my childish scrawl on my post

My grease monkey brain just had a seizure

Admire your concentration scooter. This all makes me giddy.


FB ute fixer upper, EK van on rotisserie

Drawing pictures helps me make sense of things It will hopefully help me remember when its time to wire it into the car.
It's been a bit of a head scratcher that's for sure.

Now its back to the fuel tank. Was hoping to do a height measurement today, but I can't for the life of me work out where the rear bump stops have gone.

Citric acid is great for cleaning up parts - until you forget to take them out. Pot metal rocker cover decorative nuts.... into the bin!

Last job on the intermittant wipers. 3D printed box to mount on firewall/center console. Maxtronic, my circuit and relay all stuffed in the box. Wired it up so if the box has a failure, it can be removed without changing the functionality of the 2 speed wipers.

That’s a bastard

funkyscooter wrote: Wed Jul 02, 2025 10:51 am Citric acid is great for cleaning up parts - until you forget to take them out. Pot metal rocker cover decorative nuts.... into the bin!

If you’ve really got your heart set on using those nuts, let me know. I think I’ve got a set here you are welcome to. They are packed under the house, so would need to remind me once the shed is built.

Cheers,
Harv

[/quote]

If you’ve really got your heart set on using those nuts, let me know. I think I’ve got a set here you are welcome to. They are packed under the house, so would need to remind me once the shed is built.

[/quote]

Thanks for the offer Harv - I might just take you up on that.

That’s a bummer…… how long were they in the citric acid?

Had the same issue with the die cast bars on an FB cowl vent.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Few weeks back I went down and visited Brett and Project 2. 7 hour round trip to collect a bonnet, with a plan to use the front of it to repair my bonnet, which lost a fight many years ago with a garbage truck.

Idea was to take the skin of the donor and use my frame. But before I started with the transplant I decided, as the front of mine was in such bad shape, to have a go at repairing it as an exercise.

Failed to get a before photo, but here’s what it looked like after my first go at popping out the main dents. The main one released with a very loud and satisfying pop. Method was to use hardwood wedges to force the dents out following the main crease lines. Didn’t want to just belt it with a hammer as it would only stretch the metal more.
After round 2
Off with the bonnet latch to get more access and time for some hammer/dolly. I ended up using the dolly as a hand held hammer to work broader dents out, and hammer/dolly to get the creases.
After another round things are starting to take shape. Missing the subtle centre line that fades in from the top of the nose to the bonnet bar. Starting to think maybe I can get this good enough.
Slept on it, and woke up with a plan to get the centre line. Bent some filler rod and taped it to the underside to use as a guide. Made this little dolly for another project - should work to create a subtle line. Some hours, and a strip disk later. Recreated the line by hitting it from the underside as shown above, with a bit of hardwood with rubber around it on the back, then planishing it from the top with the curved dolly underneath sitting in the guide. Then general fine tuning, shrink disk, planish, check flow of curve with straight edge, repeat repeat.
To say I’m happy with the result is an understatement. Really didn’t think I could get the shape back. If the damage was in a flat section of a panel it would have been a different story, but that curve really holds the metal in place. I have gone more pronounced with the centre line, I think it flows into the bonnet bird nicely. So much so, well I have gone this far……

……Might as well take the line further. Same method - wire as a guide - with slight increase in degree of difficulty as I want to start the line wider to match the back of the bird, and then taper out to nothing. The design is also based on the limitations of access to the panel where the braces cross. Crawl around on the floor with the bonnet balanced on wood blocks and sand bags. Rubber backed block then just lifts it enough so the centre of the panel is taking the weight. Hit the underside with dolly at. Least a couple hundred times. Repeat, check, repeat, hit a lot harder than I thought I would have to, check, realise I hit it too hard, bit of planishing etc.
Result! Pretty happy with that. If only I had have had a crack at fixing it BEFORE I bought the other bonnet. Oh well, the trip was worth it, Brett has given me some great inspiration moving forward, and I even ended up coming home with a decent repairable set of FB trims as well.

Amazing work Scott. The sheet on the bonnet is pretty light and impressionable by my experience, in that the bonnet on my ute has bum prints on the front from resting mine against it. Anyway, a thorough skim bog will have it looking smooth as Stephen’s scone in no time……..


FB ute fixer upper, EK van on rotisserie