Hoodlining finished, steering wheel installed!!

Scottie arrived a little later than usual to find Damian already up in the shed preparing for the day's work... After stopping for a coffee and to discuss what was to be done, the boys returned to the shed. Scottie set to work investigating the installation of the Boss Kit (required to attach the new steering wheel).

During this investigation, Scottie discovered that there was a bush that was installed in the wrong place (it had been inserted before the top part of the steering pot instead of afterwards), and once this was installed in the correct order, the steering column had no more movement issues!! Great work Scottie!!


Meanwhile, Damian cleaned out the boot...

Ready to install the grungy carpet that he retrieved from the boot of the XD Falcon...

After some trimming and a cursory clean, it was installed!! It will do for now, but if the boys come across some other carpet it may be replaced down the track!!


Having resolved the issue with the steering pot, Scottie continued to install the Boss Kit...

Then after some careful discussion about how to locate the top/centre positions, the steering wheel was installed...

Damian thought that he should mention that he bought a flash new laminated windscreen for the front of Booger Mobile... There was nothing "wrong" with the toughened glass windscreen that was removed, but esCarpade scrutineering rules stipulate that the front windscreen must be of the laminated variety...

The boys like the slight green tinge to it, and the sunvisor strip along the top!!

Once the steering wheel was on, Damian reinstalled the gauges... Oh, and there is now a horn button, so the horn works at the press of a button!! WOOHOO!!

Next on the agenda was for Scottie to investigate the steering bump stops, which although Damian had put them back the way they came off the car, they weren't right...

After much discussion and trial and error, it was decided that the best way for them to face was as below...

However, it was decided that there was a slight adjustment to be made, so out came the trusty angle grinder!!

With the adjustment made, and Booger Mobile not set on fire, the steering bump stops were completed!!

While all this was going on, Damian was busily installing some rear-facing white LED lights (another esCarpade scrutineering requirement).

After much procrastination, the boys figured they had best get the sides and front corners glued in for the hoodlining, so that the front and rear windows could be reinstalled in the near future...

After running the engine for a while to get the automatic transmission fluid circulating (and adding about two litres to it), Damian prepared and painted a fan shroud (to push the air from the fan onto the engine more efficiently), while Scottie drilled holes for the installation.

Scottie worked on a bunch of little stuff as well, like installing rubber plugs to hold the wires in place inside the engine bay etc, and installing the copper line to the oil pressure gauge (quite a daunting task).

Another very productive day, but progress still seems to be slow... One day it will all come together, and the mighty Booger Mobile will be ready to start the process towards registration!!

Trivia Night - Sandgate Town Hall

The day for the Trivia Night rolled around, and Damian started the day with an interview on 99.7 FM, Northside Brisbane's community radio station. There was also an article in the local community newspaper on the inside front page, so a big crowd was expected!!

Scottie had to work during the day, so Damian was frantically completing the questions and answer sheets etc, then headed to the hall to set up the table and chairs.

Damian's boys wrote up a sign for the Trivia Night and put it out the front of the hall... The Booger Mobile sign board was also there, and little did patrons know that the answer to the first "non-visual" question was written on the sign board!!


Inside the front door, the money table was set up, with Booger Mobile and Camp Quality advertising!!

Damian's boys decided to pose with the Camp Quality banner...

Meanwhile, volunteers from the Sandgate Theatre group were stocking the bar and food items ready for a big crowd...


Damian, his wife Tricia and the boys got the tables and chairs all sorted out, meanwhile the band Chasing Blakey were busily setting up and doing sound checks etc...

Shortly after the tables were all set up, Annette arrived, bringing with her the raffle prizes... The red bags under the table hold the trivia night prizes brought along by Damian, many thanks to Tricia and Damian's mother in law Christine for supplying the trivia night prizes.

The guests started to arrive, and Chasing Blakey started to play a few songs while everyone grabbed a drink and something to eat...

The trivia night questions kicked off with much hilarity and discussions ensuing... Eventually (six rounds later) and after another musical interlude from Chasing Blakey, the trivia winners and runners up were announced, in a very close competition... The lead changed several times throughout the night, but in the end, the results were as follows:

1st place on 48.5 points - Big Bangers

2nd place on 45.5 points - Matt's Harem

3rd place on 43.5 points - The Thespians

4th place on 42.5 points - Peas in a Pod

Equal 5th place on 42 points - Mac Mobiles

Equal 5th place on 42 points - Booger Mobile No. 1

7th place on 41 points - Chasing Blakey

8th place on 39 points - Team formerly known as...

9th place on 37.5 points - Spongebob and Friends

10th place on 30.5 points - Gladiators

The individual multipart question was won by Glenis - a member of the team Matt's Harem - IN THE FIRST ROUND!! Much credit must go to her for knowing the answer with just the vaguest amount of information... Many thanks to the Book Shack in Bowser Parade Sandgate for their generous donation of the individual prize!


Glen (Damian's next door neighbour) banging away during one of the songs!!

The crowd was so big, the photo had to be taken in two lots!!

The right side (facing the stage) was much more popular for some reason...

Once the trivia was done and dusted, the impressive array of raffle prizes were drawn... Special mention must go to Samies Girl Seafood who donated not one, but two $50 seafood vouchers plus cooler bags...

Once the prizes were drawn, the first three rows of tables were cleared away and Chasing Blakey got back into it... lots of people left at this stage, having been there just for the trivia, but a number of party-hearty people stayed on and danced the night away!!

Later in the evening, Damian got up on stage with Chasing Blakey (whose lead singer was losing his voice) and belted out a few songs...

The end of the night came far too quickly, and Damian helped the band pack up, put away the remaining chairs and headed off home...

It was a fabulous night, with plenty of support from the guests. Many thanks to Chasing Blakey for putting on such an excellent show, and last but not least, Sandgate Theatre group for running the bar and the lighting, and donating the use of the hall!

Hoodlining finished... other bits done too!

Scottie arrived at Team Booger Mobile HQ bright and early... perhaps a little too bright and early, as Damian had woken up at around 6:30am, thought to himself "gee, I must get up and put the kettle on - Scottie will be here soon", and promptly fell back asleep!! Damian woke again at around 7:10am to the sound of Scottie yelling out "Helloooooooooo!!" Whoops!!

After the obligatory coffee, Damian and Scottie headed up to the shed. Scottie was keen to get some of the finer under-bonnet stuff sorted out... First cab off the rank was a bracket to hold the automatic transmission fluid lines.


And this is what it looks like fitted!!



After that, it was onto custom making a bracket to hold the radiator overflow bottle...

Meanwhile, Damian started painting up the two new rims.

Scottie continued fine-tuning his bracket...

Making it fit snugly around the overflow bottle!!

Damian suggested the location that the bottle would fit...

What do you know? It fits perfectly!!

Scottie wanted to install the horn, but it wouldn't work. Damian pulled apart the horn relay to find it was basically brand new inside - it had clearly been reconditioned... However, one of the wires was broken, so Damian resoldered it, and hey presto - one horn relay ready to go!!

Scottie installed the horn, and after the updated relay was installed, woohoo!! Horn time!!

Scottie installed the overflow bottle, and it fitted a treat!! His custom made bracket working perfectly as usual!!

Damian told Scottie that he wanted to get the hoodlining installed by the end of the day. After much discussion about how and where the pinch-weld needed to be attached, the boys took a trip to the shops to collect a whole bunch of new pinch-weld, plus some other items. They also stopped by Autobarn to see if their newly ordered boss kit had arrived - turns out it had!! They exchanged the old one, and headed back to TBM HQ.

Turns out the new boss kit wasn't right either.... *sigh* After taking another trip to Autobarn to swap the new boss kit for the old one, and armed with nothing more than new information about it, the boys returned to TBM HQ and got down to installing the hoodlining.

First stop, attaching all the pinch-weld (all 10 metres of it). Scottie was still unconvinced at this stage that it was being installed in the right place (Damian said that it couldn't go any other way, however Holden's don't install this way, but vertically).

Pinch-weld, pinch-weld and more pinch-weld!!

Now, for those who are looking for information on installing an XM Falcon Hoodlining, you need to put the pinch-weld on all the way around, then attach the little strips that Damian painted (you should use your own ones) underneath the hoodlining.

You then stretch the hoodlining down, and using a flat implement (the boys used a flat piece of thick aluminium with nicely rounded off edges), push the hoodlining up between the pinch-weld and the silver metal thing!! The little sharp bits on the back of the silver metal thing will then grab the hoodlining and prevent it from pulling back out.

The boys found it best to start in the middle near the pillar, then work forwards or backwards until the hoodlining is tucked up.

Keep gently stretching and tucking the hoodlining, looking at the direction of the wrinkles/creases and adjusting your pushing/tucking angle accordingly.

The drivers side was completed first...

Then following the same process, the passenger side was completed.

And here it is, basically completed, looking from the front.

The front and rear windows need to be installed to complete the tensioning of the hoodlining, and a bit of adjustment may be required to remove a few of the more obvious wrinkles, but all in all, it turned out fabulously well!!

Here it is looking from the rear! Once the windscreen and rear windows are in, hopefully the remaining few creases will be ironed out!! If not, meh, it's not a show car!!

Amongst all this, Damian found time to complete the painting of the rims...

All in all, it was a pretty eventful day. It started out fairly cruisily with the bracket making and horn-relaying, but after the debacle with the boss kit and the healthy debates over where the pinch-weld should be installed, it got quite stressful around mid afternoon...

Once the hoodlining installation was going smoothly, things calmed down again, and Team Booger Mobile did what they do best - heckled each other from the sidelines while achieving great things with Booger Mobile!

That's the great thing about teams - you need people with different personalities, skills and abilities to really achieve greatness... having a team with these qualities also comes with the added benefit of sarcasm, good-natured ribbing and the occasional quarrel...

Still, that's how Team Booger Mobile roll, and they are doing it for the kids - never forget that!!

Oh, one last thing... don't forget about the Team Booger Mobile and Annette Taylor (Kokoda Track) Trivia Night this coming Friday night - 26 March 2010 at the Sandgate Town Hall, starting at 6:00pm. Trivia, plus live band Chasing Blakey what more could you ask for???

Windscreen out, Hoodlining in (sort of)

Damian was up early and into the shed - today there was going to be a special visitor from Team Booger Mobile's "secret sponsor".

First task for Damian was to remove some of the internal mouldings etc that were going to be in the way...



After Dave arrived, it was time for the rear window to be removed... Turned out to be quite a simple task (after cutting the inside edge of the window rubber away).




One rear window, stacked away for safe keeping, with a gratuitous plug for Platinum Sponsor Cadist Consulting!!

Then, it was time to remove the excess gunge and general dirty bits from the window frame - this needs to be clean and shiny for the new window rubber to be fitted.

Once this was completed, it was onto the front windscreen... (Looking a bit dirty from being housed in the shed for a few months, and from last weekend's driving through the dam overflow on the test drive!!)

After working out that there were four screws (one in each corner) holding the windscreen in place, it too was quite simple to remove... then the cleaning began!!

Meanwhile, Damian discovered that there didn't seem to be any chrome mouldings or otherwise for the hood lining, so he thought that he had better prepare and paint the existing "hold down" strips.

Meanwhile, Dave had begun threading the hoodlining braces into the pockets on the back of the hoodlining.

What would a blog post be without Damian having painted something???

After clipping in the hoodlining braces, and sticking a bit more underlay on, it was time for a trip to the shops to get glue and clamps.

Here's the hoodlining with three of the four braces clipped into place...

And testing out the clamps to see how they go...

After stretching the hoodlining tight (front to rear) and clamping it, it looks a bit like this!

Due to the small lip that the hoodlining gets glued to, Damian suggested using a pack of small bulldog clips to hold it in place while the glue dried... Worked a treat!! (The parallel lines showing creases will be removed by pulling the sides tight and attaching them.)

After gluing and clamping the front, this is what it looks like! Starting to look good now!!!

Meanwhile, the rear window and front windscreen sit patiently waiting to be reattached...

When Scottie comes down on Sunday, the boys will get the rest of the hoodlining pulled into place, and may (or may not) attempt to install the rear window!! Damian suggests that "may not" is the most likely scenario, and he will wait for Dave to come up to help out again!!

Many thanks to Team Booger Mobile's secret sponsor, and to Dave for doing the hard yards!!