[Claytopia]

So the motor came out without a hitch and bolted up to the engine stand - and is still there to this day. Now I can tell you that it appears to be the matching numbers block. Being out of an XB it is one of the square cast examples (not the d) and my block for some unknown reason has the letter ‘r’ stamped into the middle of the square, I did a bit of research (ok fine I googled it - that’s research right?) and looked over the top two pages of entries and found nothing. If anyone has any ideas or theories on what that ‘r’ means I would love to hear them.

Next we dropped the top loader out onto a trolley and it was wheeled under the bench, it looks a little cute sitting there; the little top loader sitting next to its big bloated cousin the FMX. I know that the FMX is never going to see any km’s in any car that I own but I just can’t put it out to pasture.

My car was originally fitted with the FMX auto but when I bought the car it was fitted with a top loader. But as the XB’s were the last of the GT’s I believe they had started to fit the Borg Warner manual box’s at that stage but I tell you a Borg Warner has got about as much chance of getting put back in as the old FMX... None!

It’s funny; as a kid growing up, we all had to have manual cars because Dad always said “you can’t push start an auto” and its true you can’t, I can also tell you that none of us kids ever needed to push start anything but it’s funny how these things stick and so I still have a preference for manual cars.

After the motor, I started to pull apart the dash. Now I can tell you that wiring and I go together like oil and water or chalk and cheese, so the majority of the pictures I have taken were of pulling the wiring out of the car and while I would love to bore the shyte out of you with a quarter of a million pictures of wiring looms and connectors I just can’t bring myself to do it; and so here is a picture of my little girl having a drive of Dads big car with the dash half pulled out.