Last of the V8 Interceptors.. my XB Falcon Coupe

tcawley29

I love the detail

Gremlinertia

I welcome all and any photos too. Scrabble for the laptop to look over them in detail..

Mississippi.

I welcome all the small updates also

quietsailor

KEEP GOING, for the love of god man keep going :):)

Standard Toaster

Detail!
You could post pics of his used coffee cups and we'd still all want to see.

Its looking really well already to my untrained eye.

Wibbs

Daved_XB

The metal finishing work has been powering on now on the XB for a week or two… she’s looking great, there is something about shiny metal that just looks awesome.. I did joke that we should just polish the metal & clear over it now..









I’m trying to decide now what rear light option to go for… the XB should have a vertical rear light cluster, here is the frame that bolts in & I have new lenses that I can add



However when I bought the car she had the earlier XA lights that are sloped & not vertical… I think I’m leaning towards restoring these XA lights & going with them again…





I was away on a bit of a road trip (I’ll update a thread later this week to cover that) & I was sent these update pics over the weekend…. I’ll try & get around to see her tomorrow now.. but the first layer of the etch primer is now on the drivers side, the rear end & the roof… the passenger side isn’t done yet but it’s really nice to see her in one colour even if it’s only from one side

Slideways

The primer looks killer on it.. amazing transformation

Daved_XB

Went around to see the XB after work yesterday & the drivers side rear Qtr is almost at a standard that my painter is happy with…. The next step will be a high fill primer that can be blocked back to make all the lines sharp, for me the lines are looking awesome & so pronounced now… but apparently they’ll get better









He’s obsessing a lot with the boot lid fitment & the gaps here… don’t worry the majority of this filler will end up on the floor, he’s only starting the blocking/sanding process so it looks pretty caked on here

Daved_XB

Been around to see the XB to drop off some chrome trim & the door mirrors tonight, the arse end & the drivers side are pretty much finished metal & filler work now… there is still that big blob of filler on the front of the front guard to be sanded back tomorrow, but my painter tells me that this whole side & the arse end will be in final primer by the end of next week…. The fact that so much of this car is proper metal finished & needs no filler is a testament to his skill, it’s a stark contrast to the US car restoration shows where you see them put a qtr inch of filler across the whole car & then sand it back to a nice even eight inch of final filler across the whole $250k show car finish…

Daved_XB

The captive bolts inside my driver’s side mirror had broken off again when I removed it… but as luck would have it I’ve been taking so long to restore this car that you can now get the mirrors new, so I have a shiny new perfect drivers side mirror to go on





I’ve also ordered a complete front panel hardware kit, so all new nuts, bolts & screws of the correct size & type to fit..





Today the boot lid & the drivers side hanging panels came off… they are now coated in high fill primer



Under the rear window, around the boot lid & the drivers side Qtr panel & sill are now also coated in high fill



Then it was reassembly time… so door back on





Front guard back on



Then the boot lid

Daved_XB

As of now the drivers side is finished in high fill… the plan now is to spin her around & do all the same work on the passenger side & the engine bay… the next big mile stone will be the whole car in this same high fill







Even though this is rough high fill… she looks awesome from this side all being the one colour & with such perfect panel gaps….

Daved_XB

I was dropping some bits off to the painter tonight after work & the drivers side & boot area now have the guide coat on too… this is the light black overspray that goes on over the primer so you have a guide to help you when your block sanding back the paint.

I have always had a lot of interest in war history & the very first thing that popped into my head when I saw the car tonight was the Luftwaffe paint scheme for the ME109 during WWII…











One of the bits I brought around was the rear wing, mine is a genuine GT race item that is aluminium & has an adjustable rake angle.. played with the angle for a while & I think we’ve settled on this… now it’s important to remember that this wing most likely does three fifths of five eights of ****all to the downforce or handling for this car

Krombopulos Michael

Wing really sets it off right.

CianRyan

I'm sure that's a big wing but it looks tiny on that car!

quietsailor

Daved_XB wrote: »

Even though this is rough high fill… she looks awesome from this side all being the one colour & with such perfect panel gaps….

Not just the panel gaps but the lines of the car are running so well across the front, door and rear panels. That painter is a craftsman, not just a painter

Daved_XB

quietsailor wrote: »

Not just the panel gaps but the lines of the car are running so well across the front, door and rear panels. That painter is a craftsman, not just a painter

I agree 1000% he is a perfectionist, I'm so glad I was introduced to him... he is definitely the right guy to be painting my cars. I'm paying a little more for him that I could have gotten from a bigger shop, but they would have been finished by now & the job wouldn't have been half as good as this will be.

quietsailor

Daved_XB wrote: »

I agree 1000% he is a perfectionist, I'm so glad I was introduced to him... he is definitely the right guy to be painting my cars. I'm paying a little more for him that I could have gotten from a bigger shop, but they would have been finished by now & the job wouldn't have been half as good as this will be.

He is worth every penny!

Daved_XB

Spent a bit of time with the painter… we spent ages getting the boot springs right, I wasn’t taking pics as I didn’t want to be in his way.. but I’ll get some pics this week of the bits & explain what we where doing… but now we’re on to fixing the bumper gaps & the lower valance panel gaps





The bumper is sitting a few mm too high, so that’s easily fixed by just putting a washer between the bumper & the rear panel behind where the top bolt goes thru, but we might adjust the brackets instead.. we’ll see



My painter hates the gap between the bottom of the bumper & the lower valance panel… it is huge





I do have another panel the one that came off the car so we’re thinking of splicing in a section of metal to make the lower panel taller… Oh & here is the same panel & gap from my mates original unrestored XB, you can see that this is factory & not something I’ve done wrong

Daved_XB

Just got some midweek progress pics sent thru by my painter, the car is flipped around & he’s now working on the passenger side panels… I’ll try & swing past after work on Friday & see how it’s going…

quietsailor

It's funny - on your friends car the gap doesn't look that bad but on your car it does.

Daved_XB

quietsailor wrote: »

It's funny - on your friends car the gap doesn't look that bad but on your car it does.

I think that if the arse end of my car was all painted in the same colour then the gap wouldn't look as bad as it does right now... plus my car is elevated up on a scissor lift.. in reality you'll never see the gap head on unless you are laying on the ground behind the car for some odd reason.

Daved_XB

This week the passenger side rear Qtr was finished… this panel was the worst so it seems so it took a few days to get to this point, as you can see there is more filler or bog if you like on this panel than we had on the others, but it’s still very little & less than a mm thick now that it’s all sanded back…





Then it was given a coat of primer… the back in broken so to speak now in this process…









The door & the front guard won’t take long to get to this stage also… then we’re onto the bonnet & the engine bay, the passenger side front corner of the bonnet had a little too much flex in it, when we did some investigation we found that it’s been damaged in the past & not repaired just bogged & painted over so now we know we have a small repair to make here too



Sooooo…. It’s crunch time now… I need to pick a final colour for the car as my painter is confident that he’ll be painting the inside of the car & the inner jams etc next month…. I think I have the final colour picked out in my mind, but I’ll now no doubt obsess on it all weekend….

Daved_XB

Spent a chunk of time helping work on the door & learning some great tips on how to get the original lines back into the metal…



This involved using a proper professional dent puller.. unlike the big yellow stud gun that you’ve seen me use before, this machine is amazing



The design of this handle means that you can simple touch the electrode (the one with the earth wire attached) to the metal & it welds on so you can just pull the whole handle & it pulls the metal, so unlike the stud gun I have you don’t use a slide hammer to pull.



This means it’s so much more versatile & you just twist the handle to break the weld off.. this means you can do hundreds of gentle pulls in the one area without damaging the metal



The other metal knob on the handle is used as a shrinker on metal.. so if you do overwork the metal pulling you can tighten it back up with the shrinker… this machine is super simple to use & gives awesome results..

We’re also up to gap measurements now… so we’ve settled on 5.5mm now as that will come down to 4.5mm after paint… so my painter had me going over the whole car with a set of vernier calipers marking high & low spots… I think this insane but I guess it’ll all be worth it in the end

quietsailor

Daved_XB wrote: »

We’re also up to gap measurements now… so we’ve settled on 5.5mm now as that will come down to 4.5mm after paint… so my painter had me going over the whole car with a set of vernier calipers marking high & low spots… I think this insane but I guess it’ll all be worth it in the end

That painter really REALLY wants to get the car looking perfect!

Daved_XB

I popped around the other night for a beer with my painter & I watched him spend more time than a sane man should with a hammer & dolly & a metal file working on getting the fitment of the door handles perfect…





His wife thinks that this must be his favourite car of all time to work on as she sees him put more effort into this than any of Porsches or Ferrari’s he’s had come thru in the last few years.

I’ve been told that my final final colour choice has to be made by Monday now as he needs to order paint & then he wants to start painting the inside & the inner jams etc… sooooo I’ve been thinking long & hard on this for a while now & I think I’ve settled on my final colour choice… I’m going with the same Red that Allan Moffat used on his 1969 Trans Am Mustang that he raced here in Aus… (spoiler alert it’s not a Ford Red) This is also the colour that Eric Bana based his “Love the Beast” XB on.

quietsailor

Not that its any of my business but great colour choice - it really suited the car in Love the Beast

Daved_XB

Big news… well for me anyway, the passenger side is now finished… this technically means the body is finished I guess. The rear Qtr was taken back to bare metal again as he just wasn’t happy with the body line, but now it all done & it looks awesome









There is a tiny bit of block sanding to be done to ensure the gaps & edges all line up then the hanging panels can all come off & won’t go back on until they are painted. The next job is the engine bay & the bonnet & then she’s ready for paint… I’ve picked the actual paint now, meaning I have the actual paint code picked out now.. so we may even start to see colour going on the inside & in the jams etc..

biketard

Looking amazing.

Daved_XB

The final final sanding guide coat has gone on & is in fact almost off now…











I know you can’t feel the pics above but this finish is laser straight & smoother than a recently smoothed out smooth thing… it’s actually slippery under the hand



The next step I’m told is that the hanging panels can come off & then the bodyshell will be painted in the final primer layer that will be the last layer of prep before the actual colour goes on, the hanging panels will be painted off the car & will only go back on again now during the final assembly.