Ford Falcon Problems

A snapped tailshaft is very unusual these days, and suggests a material fault in your shaft. I would expect that Ford would replace the shaft almost without question. We'd certainly like to hear more.

Ford's claimed fuel consumption for that model was 11.4 L/100 km overall, which means you should get 550 km or so from a tank of fuel. Regular unleaded was Ford's recommended fuel for your car, that's 91-  octane. They also gave the tick of approval for E10.

A recalibration using a chip would probably help, but I don't believe there is one available for your car. I would be giving it a tune-up, service the LPG system, and replace the spark plugs and leads, to make sure the car is running at its best.

Based on your figures it's consuming about 50 percent more LPG than it should. It should be doing around 17-18 L/100 km on LPG, not 24-25. I would have the LPG system serviced, and the spark plugs and plug leads changed.

A/C compressors mostly fail because of a lack of lubricant through a loss of refrigerant gas in the system. The gas carries the   lubricant that keeps the compressor and other system components alive. I can't recommend an alternative system that you could turn to for your car, instead I would have the system checked for leaks that might be causing a loss of refrigerant, make sure the system is fully gassed, and check it at least annually.

It is quite a common problem with cars that have to start on LPG. Most dual-fuel cars get around it by starting on petrol and then automatically switching to LPG after a few seconds. There's probably nothing wrong with your car; if it's running well otherwise, I wouldn't be concerned about it.

We haven't had any specific reports about the diff in the FG, although we had plenty about the diff in earlier models. If you've given it a hard time you might have cooked the oil in the diff, so have it changed.

It can happen at any time, it doesn't have to be at 170,000 km. It happens when the transmission oil cooler, which is in the radiator bottom tank, fails and allows engine coolant to enter the transmission fluid stream. It's common with the BA and BF models, but not the BFII, which had an external transmission fluid cooler to overcome the problem. The only real way of ensuring it doesn't happen is to fit an external transmission cooler and bypass the one in the radiator.

You've probably got a number of problems. The rattling noise and the vibration could be the exhaust hitting part of the body; the overheating could be a radiator issue.

The BA is well out of warranty, so the issue of being fixed under warranty doesn't come up, and it's doubtful that Ford would have automatically changed the head on the basis of a maybe. The best thing to do now is to repair the head.