Last of the V8 Interceptors.. my XB Falcon Coupe

Ok... so I've been out of the shed for a while, been back in Ireland for a all of September & then was OS for work for a week too & then in between thanks to the flooding & biblical rain here in Melbourne I've been doing a lot of fixing & tidy ups in the garden & so there have been no updates, but now it's time to start back into this.

I was playing a game of Muscle car Tetris as I'm know to from time to time as nothing was where I wanted it & I needed the hoist to work on something else.... I've made the decision to order a 2nd hoist this week as I'm lucky enough to be in a situation where one just isn't cutting it any more.

Anyway during this game I rolled the XB off the hoist & noticed that the exhaust headers belted off the hoist as she rolled off, never done that before but this is the first time moving her off with the transmission installed & it is a big heavy 4 speed AOD box. 

When it came time to push her back onto the hoist I couldn't get her back on backwards as she had been as the open flange end of the exhaust is no over an inch too low (never bothered measuring it) & would just smack into the hoist front cross beam so the XB had to go on forwards as that have a better ramp over angle 

Now my issue is a simple one in some ways but awkward in others... the Laws here state that the lowest point of the underside of the car must be 100mm off the ground, my headers are nowhere near that right now....

They are 66mm off the deck on the passenger side & 74mm off the deck on the drivers side.... 

Was at a mates place yesterday helping him strip down & rebuild the front of his car after Skippy smacked the crap out of it.

I was looking in his shed at my spare bits I'd left there, looks to be two full bonnets, thought I only had one there & that green/black one is a full GT bonnet so happy days... also have 3 x doors, looks like 2 x passenger & 1 drivers side door & they also look not as bad as I thought they where. Must make a trip back soon to collect them.

Also my XB's original matching numbers V8 block is here too, must bring that home & clean it up.

One of the big jobs I've been putting off is the wiring, here is what I have... the dash loom

The main loom that mounts to the fuse box on the firewall & lives out in the engine bay as well as under the dash, the two black boxes you see here are part of an old alarm system that was wired in that had a dead man switch & a proximity fob that I assume was added sometime in the 90's so they have to go.

You can see the big round gromet here, everything to the left of that is on the engine bay side

I also have the taillight loom

I've ripped out the headlight relay loom that I put in back when I bought the car & I fitted better headlights, that needs to be redone better

Also a lot of stereo wiring that clearly is a mess 

I have 3 options here:

1. I pull all the tape off & make myself a peg board & try & repair/rewire this loom my self

2. Buy a generic car wiring kit from someone like painless wiring & make a new loom using the XB specific connectors as needed

3. Pay a professional who does this day in day out & knows what they are doing to make me a new loom using mine as a starting point.

There are pro's & con's to each of the above but I'm leaning towards option 3 now it has to be said.

Next job now will be to sort the exhaust/car ride height issue & finish off my steering install... the gearbox definitely needs to come out again & the engine may need to.... this is why I've been putting these things off. But I want to focus on them now soo that I can then finally put the bonnet back on. 

Due to work & life getting in the way, I've been ignoring this old girl for a while... I want to get back into it, so lets start with something simple shall we. I've been putting off drilling holes in her, but time to harden up as they say.

I marked out the chrome trim ring for the fuel cap surround to identify where the holes needed to be drilled & yes I did do the math on the hole locations several times before I got the drill bit anywhere near the paint.

It really finishes off that part of the car 

If you read this thread from the beginning, firstly I'm sorry... secondly you may remember that I had back in the late 90's early 00's wanted a Mad Max replica, well whilst I dropped that I idea I still wanted something of a nod to Mad Max on the car. Back then my mate was making replica Maxrob steering wheels as per the one in the Interceptor, these where rare back when the movie was made & finding an actual good condition original was near on impossible, well he surprised me the other day as he thought he'd sold all of the wheels he'd made but he found an unfinished unsold one.. so I'm very excited now to get this one finished with the correct rim & centre & then I'll have my little bit of interceptor on the car   

I've also gotten a mini hi-torque starter for the car as there is no way a standard one will fit with the fat exhaust headers 

My next order of business is to work out what sort of stall I want for the torque converter for the transmission & get that ordered 

With the F1 GP being on on the weekend I was never going to get much done in the shed, but I wanted to get at least one job done. When attaching the rear honeycomb trim to the car a while back I'd used the adhesive that my painter recommended but it never really worked & the heat from the sun made it constantly peel up at the ends. 

I decided to up the game & go with this stuff, they use this to actually bond whole panels together on buses & truck trailers so I'm hopeful that this will do the job.

After smearing this behind the trim I then clamped it down & left it for a few days to fully cure

Seems to have done the trick... but only time & a few hot days in the shed will tell

With this coming weekend being a 4 day weekend I hope to get out into the shed & get a bit more done.

There are very few highly recommended chromers here in Melbourne & the one I wanted to use still has over a 12 month waitlist for getting Bumpers done & mine needs straightening too, not just new chrome... so it was going to be expensive too. I've now decided to go with a new re-pop rear bumper... I had wanted to keep the original & who knows maybe one day I'll get it done & put it on as the re-pop is ok, but it's not a perfect fit.

Original vs New

My original has some bad scratches that go right thru the chrome & it's flaking off in several places

It also has a pretty bad dent, it might not look like much in the first photo, but you can see the bend in the support bar that is bolted to the inside of the bumper in the second photo

I pulled the original brackets off, cleaned them up & gave them a coat of black paint even thought you can't really see them when the bumper is back on the car

As I was working on the back of the car I decided to see what needed to be done to fit the long range drop tank I bought for the car about 15 years ago, I knew that it wouldn't fit with the new multi-link rear end so figured it was finally time to stop putting off cutting up a perfectly good tank.

First I swapped the direction of all the nuts & bolts on the suspension to make as much clearance as I can for the tank.

With that done I sat the tank in to see just how much of the tank has to go to make it fit

Looks like I need to cut the back off at about 4 inches in at the bottom almost in a 45 deg line

I'd been putting this off for a while, but nothing to do now other than fire up the grinder. Due to the internal baffle panels I needed to cut this out in 3 sections 

There are some other mods I plan to make to this tank, but this will just need a flat plate welded back on to close this end of the tank back in... now lets try that for fitment. 

Right time to tackle the transmission cross member, first step pull the original one off & get the transmission at the height/angle I want it at.

With the position I want set it's a lot closer to touching the floor but isn't.. I've marked the closest spot, it's about 2-3mm clearance so when the trans is out I'll massage the floor with a knockometer  

With that done, I used some foam to set the position of the two arches that go over the exhaust.

Then cut up a straight section & drilled some bolt holes in it so it could be the section that the trans mount mounts too 

Then cut the two end pieces that will be what mounts the cross member to the chassis... 

This is all just tacked together for now as I've run out of time but you can see where I'm going with this... I'll look to weld it all up & then also weld on some support gussets before painting it & calling it done.

Didn't have a lot of time to get anything done this weekend as I had other jobs that kept me out of the shed, but I wanted to get a couple of simple little things done. I'd ordered a heap of new hardware to replace the old bolts, nuts & screws that would be on show... a lot of the car was held together with different size hardware in the what ever fits mindset.

​​​​​​​First to be replaced was the screws that held the door catch in, I only had 5 of the 6 & they are a very specific shape & the old one are discoloured & wallered out 

I also wanted to install the inner linkages so that the handles & the locks all now work, happily they remake all the little plastic & metal locking clips 

Next whilst still a small job in the grand scheme of things, was a big job as it would mean drilling 6 x 4mm holes in each beautifully painted rear Qtr's that needed to be spot on in their location... this would be to fit the rear side scoops 

CAD template that marked the scoop shape & the location of the holes was made, the beauty of this template is that I can just flip it over & it'll be perfect for the other side

Then I taped up the paint to protect it & make my marking out easier obviously & working of the factory measurement I located the template & traced through the locations for the holes

No going back now that I've drilled the holes I guess 

Ok, quick pic to prove that I did in fact fit both scoops to the car 

Another small but important job sorted this Sat, I only had 2hrs to spend so I needed to pick a small job that I could finish in that time so I pulled out the old roof sound proofing... it was ratty & falling down, truth be know it's probably asbestos based anyway knowing how few **** where given to that sort of thing in the 70's.

I got it all off, but some of the old glue was well bonded on & I wasn't willing to put any heat in to the roof sanding it off

The new dynamat stuff is real thick & again super easy to work with 

Not an exciting job I know, but every job on the to-do list has to get done if I'm ever going to finish the car.

Speaking of getting things done to finish the car.... as part of operation 2 steps back I've changed my direction with the brake set up now & this will slow things down as I wait on new parts to be delivered. I was always going to have issues with a lack of vacuum from the engine due to the cam profile to feel the brake booster, I was going to mount a vacuum tank in the engine bay & either have it fed from the engine allowing the vacuum to be built up & stored or I do have a small Hella electric vacuum pump from a Prius I think that I was going to run. 

Now if you read my other threads you'll know that I have a Hydraboost set up that I'm going to fit to the GTO soon (actually have one in a box for the Challenger too), I won't explain what that is here as it's already done in the GTO thread... the issue with these systems is that they are LONG & the gap between the firewall & the shock tower of an XB is not big enough... see below.

I got chatting with another Coupe owner on a FB user group the other night & turns out that a few years ago someone who had an XB imported into the USA gave their car to hydratech, the company who make these & got one built as a special order... turns out they have the pattern but it's not listed on their website for some reason, so you have to be in the know as it where & then contact them... so I have & they make a special mounting plate & a half length hydroboost body that bolts up to the stock XB master cylinder. Long story short the brake setup in the Pic above has to come back out. Sadly there is a 90 day lead time as it's a special build order, but they said they will do their best to get one to me ASAP... happy days, even if it is another delay. 

Also the fact that it's also been made specifically to fit a red car gives me extra confidence 

Right, so I've just been aimlessly working on small jobs here as & when I think of them but now I'm going to try & have a bit of a plan to get a chunk of work done. I went through my Chrome pile & I separated out the Dodge stuff from my XB stuff. 

The Dodge pile looks likes this

The XB pile looks like this as I have multiple sets of front & rear window chrome trim

Looking through the chrome I think I'm in a really good place, it looks like most of it will polish up fine with just doing it in the shed. Except the two long thin strips of rain gutter trim at the top of that pic, they are too bad to be used but luckily they have recently started remaking those sections of trim so I'll get a set of them ordered soon. The other bits that need proper work are those thick corner bits I had in the post above, again they remake these & I already have a new set now as per below. 

Part one of my plan now is to clean all the chrome & fit it up. Also I've ordered a new headliner as the one I had is well stuffed.

I've also got brand new interior lights to go in as the old one cracked & crumbled as they where removed

The plan being with the headliner in that I can fit the rear glass & the top rubber channel that will allow me to fit the side glass too, that with the chrome cleaned, polished & fitted would mean that the exterior of the car would be finished from the A-pillars back.

Speaking of the glass, I have two full sets but again my slow pace in restoring this car has paid off as they now remake the glass for XB's... so I know that some of my side glass is badly scratched, but I'll clean it & check it out... if I can make a full good set then great, if not then I'll get new glass simply because I can't put old scratched glass back in now. On the topic of glass, I've also gotten the window winder mechanisms out of storage & I'll clean them up when doing the chrome & install them in the doors.

Speaking of doors, I dragged out my door cards & whilst they are ok, again they just aren't good enough to go into the car... so I'm waiting to hear back from a trimming company here who I'm told make the best replacements. The only bits of mine that I need to reuse are the curved steel tops as they don't make them yet. 

I feel more motivated now that I have a plan or a to-do list as it where, I now want to get to a point of having the doors finished with glass & trims installed & the headliner & the rear screen in (time dependant of course for the bits I need to order). It would be great to have this done for when the wiring loom finally comes back as that's holding up the dash install & the wiring up of the engine bay obviously.

My new headliner arrived, I think I have to fit the wiring for the centre doom light & the two rear C pillar lights before this can be put in.

The new door chrome top clips are in too & they do look different to the ones I had tried that didn't work.. what also gives me hope is that there is also a threaded bolt in the kit that is used to bolt the trim thru the small hole in the top of the door.

I've also gotten the new fuel tank sender, this unit will drop on from the top but most importantly it operates at the same OHM readings as the factory unit did so the factory fuel gauge should work fine. 

Got a call from the guy who'll be remaking my wiring loom at the start of the month so that I could run him through what I wanted him to do & what extra's needed to be integrated into the loom.

The mini loom for the ICE ignition system will be integrated 

​​​​​​​The loom for the in tank fuel pump 

The electric fan controller 

The electric water pump wiring 

Finally the wiring for the aftermarket radio 

Right.... so the Brake parts I'd custom ordered from the US back in April 2023 which had a 10-12 week delivery time finally turned up at my door today. This is the hydroboost brake booster set up that I had custom made for the firewall of an Australian Falcon.. 

Now I have a few little jobs to finish on the GT-Four so I can get her off the main hoist & then I can drag the Challenger out from under the hoist the XB is on & get her up on the main hoist & then I can lower the XB down & start working on her again too.... why am I such a muppet with so many projects all running at the same time.