I've ummed & arred about what to do with this since I purchased it around 6 months ago.The first imagined incarnation I thought up was a simple built to a budget 'rat-style' patina'd & satin black affair, which slowly (after the initial paint job was near complete) started to lean more towards a true 60's inspired custom; Gloss black, gold flake, tuck 'n roll interior & the possibility of quad' style headlights, however it wasn't long before both of these ideas went out of the window and I made the decision to do something a little lighter than black... One rainy Sunday afternoon, after the Falcon was already in its finishing stages of paint, I sat in the garage looking over the car contemplating my plan of metalflake gold over the almost completed satin black, feeling a little less than motivated I threw on the Fuel Tank Annual dvd I hadn't yet watched and came across the story of the build of El Dorado's car club member Kyle DeKuijer's XL Falcon Squire wagon (viewable here - The Squire). Which is what inspired me to decide that the Falcon deserves better and that complete restoration with mild custom touches was the way. The new plan and the one I intend to stick to 'til the end is as follows... Paint & body; Paint now will consist of a high gloss off-white for the entire body of the car, as for the exact shade of white I'm currently undecided, but it will be an off-white, I don't want it to look like a fridge. The roof will be Holden VL Calais 'White Gold' with mixed in metal flake and there will also be scallops in the same colour (minus the flake) stretching the length of the sides although I'll be working with the factory body lines, (once I tape the car up, I'll use photos to explain moreso what I mean). All the badges and trim will be shaved with the exception of the trim that runs along the front of the bonnet and into the front of the guards, rear spats will be also added. The body itself (with the exception of paint) will mostly just be a resto job. Two above photos are the day after I got it home. Interior; The dash and all the metal areas will be red which was an original factory option, with front and rear bench in red and white vinyl. Engine/ Driveline; The currently non-running 170ci will be replaced with a 250ci out of an XW/XY backed by a 4 speed. Wheels/ Tyres; The current 4 stud set-up may remain unless I find a cheap 5 stud set-up. With the four stud set-up the 13's that are on the car at the moment will be replaced with 14's. The rims will remain black with the factory centre caps, and tyres will be wide-whites with 2.5 or 3" lowering blocks dropping the rear nicely. The XK grille in the above photo was just something I picked up cheap from a swapmeet & I was seeing how it looked. I'll be going with the XL grille I have for it though when it's finished. Me fitting the XK grille. That's really all for now, I'll try to keep this thread up to date for those interested, I know setting a time limit is never a good idea but I have high intentions of finishing this as a car for myself and my son (who will be 3 y.o by my finish date) to go cruising in and so I hope to have it done by Christmas 2015 at the latest. How it currently sits. I've since stripped all of the front panels off and most of the engine bay out,I just have to unbolt the motor from the box, unbolt the mounts and get a hand from the old man to rip it out. Once thats been done, I'll start filling all of the holes in the engine bay that don't need to be there and just generally clean up that area of the car to begin with.
Looks good to me and Welcome from Texas I Love these old Wagons there is just so much you can do with them.Good luck on your Build can't wait to see more pics
Cool ideas, definitely cool car! In my experience wagons had the same large spline axles as commercial, might be able to swap the bearings and have five stud that way, just redrill the drums and find a $50-100 mid 60's mustang drum front end on eBay from someones disk upgrade and your away! Easier to get 14" 5 stud wheels too. Posted from the TJJ App for iPhone & iPad
As I own a XL Convert I will be watching with interest. Good choice going with the XL grille. It is the best looking grille of the lot in my opinion. Subscribed.
Mike51Merc - Basically, yeah. More or less just back and forth on ideas. Thanks for that HOTFR8. Mocked this up to give an idea of how it will look when finished, I didn't have a pencil in the right gold, so opted for a light goldish brown. The scallops on the bonnet will be similiar to those in the attached picture of the blue Falcon below but extend onto the tops of the guards and into the sides as seen in the drawing. The second attachment is the colour of gold I'll be using as I already have 4 litres of it sitting idle (apologies for the extremely O/T car).
Nice wagon, should be sweet when it's finished. 5 stud conversion is easy I've done my XP recently. Redrill your rear axles, pretty cheap to do. I've also lowered my car properly with out lowering blocks, much better to reset the rear springs.
I will be watching this. Just bought this wagon for my wife. Has some rear end damage that I am currently fixing. Full respray in better colour. Has discs on front, looks like ute axles for five stub with redrilled drums. Posted from the TJJ App for iPhone & iPad
Thanks for the kind words guys. Liam-B - I was thinking of using 3" lowering blocks in the rear and using King Springs in the front. I am a little concerned about the general ride of the car with the 3" rear blocks though as it'll be daily driven. Blackroad - Looks like you have a pretty decent car to work with, I had an XP wagon years ago (first car, before I had my license). Took about 2 months to convince the old bloke (he'd had it since new) to sell it to me. In the end I was put off it though by the amount of rust it had in it and ended up getting rid of it for next to nothing. Still regret that. KolkataKustoms - Thanks bud, the visor I have for the car (although you can't see it from the angle in the photo) also has the lifted centre section, which mimics the factory lifted section on the centre of the bonnet. HOTFR8 - Good ol' Castlemaine Rock ha.
You will have to cut and raise the tunnel if you plan on slamming it that low. 2.75" is about the absolute limit without modding the tunnel. Even then the driveshaft could still rub on the tunnel with a full load. The other problem with lowering blocks that low is it becomes a major pain to try remove the rear wheels without them hitting the rear wheel arch, especially anything over 195/70/14. If you have reset leaf springs you get lots of spring travel to get the wheels out all ok. Only cost me $225 to get the rear springs reset. Also, If you use 3" springs in the front, they will not be captive and will fall out of place every time you jack the car up. Another pain in the ass! I've got 2.75" kings in the front of mine and they are 'just captive' with the rubber insulators fitted. Something to think about
With a previous car I had issues with non-captive springs, it was a real pain in the ass. My former mechanic whinged about it ha. A mate of mine used to have an EH ute and I know he got his leaf springs reset at a place in Braeside, might ask him for some more details and look into that instead. For now I should probably concerntrate on the body itself. Yesterday I decided to pull out the rear seat as I know the front and rear floorpans on the driver's side needed replacing but I wasn't too concerned as the passenger's side is near perfect. Upon removing the rear seat I've noticed that the rust on the driver's side floor extends to the diff tunnel. Fortunately that's the extent of the rust in the car. It has had rust in the doors previously but that's all been cut out and had new pieces welded in at some stage. Although it was a bit disheartening seeing how bad the floor actually was, I guess I'm pretty lucky that that is the only rust in the car (going on experiences I've had with previous cars) and considering when I bought the wagon it was already in primer, and we all know what that usually means...
Sounds like the rust is not too bad, just do one section at a time, its not so daunting then. Its typical for the floors to rot out! Ram springs in Thomas town did my rear leaves.
hey Liam , simple as redrilling existing 4 stud axle to 5 stud ? got a pic by chance liken your build thread too Matt ! , will be trading my xp wag for an earlier bird when times right
I'll probably end up running with the four stud set-up for now, about to pull all the components out, clean them up and respray them in the coming week or so. Thanks AussieXK, keep it and have the best of both hah. Too late now but I wish I'd kept my old XP wagon for that reason. I have a 250ci lined up, I just have to get the cash together to buy it. It's from a family friend so he'll hold it for me until I can sort out to grab it off him.
Some minor progress (if you can call it that) updates... This is how it's sitting at the moment. The photo of the bay below was taken the day after I got it home. I've since stripped the engine down to what you see below, it just needs to be unbolted from the trans' and the mounts and it's ready to come out. I'll have to wait until I can get it around to my Dad's place as he has a winch attached to the garage beam which will make hoisting it out easy. The 170 I'll most likely rebuild, and put it in something small down the track. I had a spare rear door laying around, and so I cut a piece out of it to weld in and repair this section in the drivers door. This is the lower rear corner of the drivers door, it's dinted and has weird cuts in it that were bogged up? Doesn't look like it was caused by rust (although it has rusted and split along the bottom seam). I'll have to cut and weld in a new piece for this too. This is the inside of the inner tailgate skin (it's upside down). It's not too bad, somebody at some point has attempted to weld it back together (badly). And what's left of the window channel from inside the tailgate... I marked out all the areas of floor that need replacing, luckily it's only the drivers side that's rusted. I'll be getting new floor pans from 'Old Skool Falcon' shortly and just make sections out of sheetmetal for what the floor pans won't cover. And finally, yesterday I found this little surprise, not a hard fix but still a pain in the arse. There's some small cracking on the right side too above the tailight area, so I'm going to take that back to metal maybe tomorrow and see what's hiding under there, feels straight from the inside so hopefully it isn't as bad..
That is a brake booster, although the bracket looks a little homemade. I'm guessing it has updated brakes? I'm not sure what they'd be off though. I'll probably mount the booster elsewhere later on, it's too bulky and awkward looking where it is currently.
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