Liam-B

He makes stuff for lots of cars, Ford Holden and Chrysler only though I think. http://www.rustaproblem.com.au/panels The quality is really good.

Here is a new tail gate skin panel for you. They fit well these panels he makes http://www.rustaproblem.com.au/valiant_panel

was only a matter of time before you discovered rust and bog. Its an old datsun remember! Looks fixable though

12A or 13B? should be a sweet cheap ride when up and running!

My missus used to work at turners in wellington. Got heaps of good scores! Got a S12 turbo Gazelle once for $500 in really good condition. AC even worked.

Ratsun wagon! Beats letting it go to be turned into a Chinese car. Ha, what other scores are in that junk yard?

Well, things have been slow going last couple of weekends, I had to do some work on the house instead of the Falcon but anyway making steady progress and its been quite time consuming making the front sill section. Using left a leftover section from the sill I had bought to patch the RH side, I basically reshaped a piece to match the old rusty front section, which I removed by drilling out all the spot welds and then welding back together, so I then had a mold to copy while refolding, welding the new replacement section. plug welded back in : I have got the sill sitting in nicely along the top,I drilled out all the factory spot welds around the bottom of the B & C pillars and the new sill fits snug. I then had to hang both the passenger side doors back on, man that was a mission to do by myself! Anyway, once the doors were back on the car I realised how far the panel gaps were out on that side compared to the drivers side, so spent some time realigning the doors properly. Of course, the new sill is just screwed into place at the moment before I start welding it in, I need to align it a little more around the front door area... One thing though, I am not so sure on the bottom of the sill, there is quite a gap and I need to stretch it down to make it meet the bottom where Im going to plug weld it. Is this normal with the Craig Vane XK-XP sills to sit a little high along the bottom lip? Looking forward to getting some paint on this side and moving onto the next rust step. (that would be the passenger front door, you can see its got a bit of rust coming through as well. Dam it!) Also, got my Windsor C4 auto in at work at the moment, giving it bit of a freshen up in my spare time during the day with new seals and gaskets. Nothing worse than a leaky transmission! It actually seems pretty good, oil is nice and clean and everything appears to be fine. Gave it a steam clean on friday night, that made a huge difference to appearance! Going to start painting up the 302 Windsor after that, I've already rebuild the Holley carby and starter motor for it and have a new water pump, fuel pump and dress kit to tidy it all up. Its going to look excellent.

Yeah, Im on the hamb as well, although dont look around there much anymore, its quite political when it comes to traditional or not stuff. Thats cool your grand parents used to have one the same colour, I cant actually remember seeing them around that much growing up in wellington, apart from my neighbor across the road doing up a XP wagon. I remember seeing quite a few EH holdens around though. A good mate of mine has been looking for a XP for ages and reckons there pretty hard to find now in NZ. Its funny you mention an early ute, I have been looking for a half decent XM for at least 6 months now but seems like everyone wants too much money or dont want to sell and yes I totally agree, green and slammed would be the go. but I will setlle for almost anything at the moment, even a rachero from the states, seem to be a few of them kicking around over here in Melbourne now.

Cool, couple of years ago I had a xb fairmont 302, factory air, steer, floor shift. Also had some gt parts. Bought it off a Guy who had owned it since the early 80's. Anyway, sold it and now playing with an early bird XP to satisfy my need for rusty old junk.

Nice one, love the story and galaxies are so freaking cool. I plan on going to the states one day to buy a car and ship it back like yourself. Subscribed.

Decided to bite the bullet and cut the rust/A-pillar/entire LH sill out today. Made a brace for the bottom of the A-pillar, seeing as I chopped most of it out! I will fold up some new box sections and then start re-welding it all back together tomorrow. I have definitely decided to replace the whole RH drivers side sill once I finish this side now. Also thinking about pulling the front and rear screens and sending it off for a complete new paint job, seeing as its pretty much a bare shell now :lol

Try find a CA16 DE inlet cam, it has more lift and duration than the CA18 inlet one. Cheaper than a regrind

Quick update. Been a bit busy last couple of weekends chasing parts, I managed to find a factory 2 speed heater box (wow luxury!) and a later model Falcon XY 20:1 steering box for the V8 conversion, as the XP box is a slow 27:1. Also scored a reconditioned and re-chromed dash surround which was a good deal. I am currently rebuilding the heater box at work in my spare time, it needs a paint and I have put new foam inside. Motor works great and heater core is leak free. will get some pictures up soon of that. But got the LH side front guard off today. It actually been off before and someones already welded a patch in long ago but anyway, going to have to get busy here now! I have ordered another couple of complete sill's from Craig Vane rust a problem. I am actually thinking about redoing the drivers side as I am not 100% happy with the outcome. Will see how the passengers side comes out first though!

Because any true early Ford Falcon project would not be complete with out some kind of rust removal, I Decided to put my new mig to work and made a start on the rust. It only had a few small holes in the sills that did not look to bad but you know how it is, once you start grinding the next thing you know a big hole appears! Started on the RH rear side sill first, found the bottom of the inner dog leg was also rusty, so cut that piece out as well. You can see rust never sleeps on a 50 year old car and is always on the move, creeping along the bottom of the sills! Welded a new inner patch and primed. Bought a new sill panel from Craig Vane. I ended up just cutting out pieces to repair my sills. I thought about replacing the whole sill but decided it would be easier to just replace only what I needed to. All welded in nicely now, was pleased with the Lincoln 180C Ground down ready for primer. Moved onto the front end of the sill, I got a before photo on this repair to show the small ammount of rust I thought I was going to be dealing with but not so. Cut that out till I had got rid of the whole rusty area All welded in Thought that was the worst of it but got to do the left hand side next. I noticed there was quite a bit of rust on the box section at the bottom of the left hand A pillar area which is going to be a pain to get to. This kind of sucks, I am going to have to cut the box section open I think to get in there and clean that mess up. A big Job for next weekend, should keep me busy! Wish me luck

Nice, nothing wrong with 3 on the tree, I remember my VC could do the most impressive second gear burnouts without even really trying lol. I knowledgable guy once told me that the XY or similar Falcon 3 speed manual box's were a good swap for the Valiant ones as the ratios are better spread out, I tend to agree as I always thought 2nd & 3rd were quite far apart. Thanks for the comments on the XP, been getting into the rust repairs lately, nearly there now.

Nice AP mate, had a few VAL's over the years, mainly VG's but had a VC once (basically an AP I guess!) I actually like the factory colour, looks pretty cool I reckon. Mind you my XP Falcon is two tone like yours so maybe I am biased haha. Slants can be made to go pretty hard! Is your car a torque flight auto or 3 speed manual?

Small update, This is how the interior is currently looking on the Falcon now, got the whole lot out to be reupholstered. I thought I would use this time to clean up and repaint the floors (no rust at all luckily!) and thought I would install the seat belt mounts for the inertia reel seatbelts I have for it. The factory seat belt hole in on the floor pan and is kinda under the seat, not so good for mounting a inertia reel seat belt, so had to get creative to try mount it properly on the bottom of the B pillar. Ending up cutting a slot in the sill for the mount and used a magnet to drop it into the hole where I could then pop rivet into place, then welded back over the cut out I made. Also set up my new toy, very happy with it so far, was a great investment! Lincoln 180C Also made another major purchase, bought some headers for the windsor conversion. Nearly have all the parts for the V8 conversion now

yeah, can be scary uncovering old bogged up rust holes. If I were you, just tackle one rust area at a time, don't grind everything back at the same time, can be a bit daunting from my past experience! Cool, got any pics of the engine? Is it a 3.3 litre?

Cool old prince there bro, I have never seen one of those before and I have seen a lot of unusual old cars in my time! Would be nice to get a nissan engine back in there, its got a vauxhall engine fitted at the moment you say? Hope the ball joints work out all good, I got some reconditioned years ago for a customers old Zephyr but they only lasted a year and were flogged out again, things are probably better reconditioning them these days though. MInd you its not like you have much choice finding new ones! Man, the Japanese would go mad for this car back in the home land

^ Cheers everyone for the comments, makes it worth my while posting up on here for you to all see Thought I better check a few things after all the suspension mods. Bought a digital angle finder, cool little toy! Was quite cheap as well. Best thing is it reads upside down on the LCD if you need it to. First thing I did was measure my Pinion angle against the transmission, found it was 4 degrees pointing downward, so well with in spec for a street car. (ignore the reading, my garage floor is not level...) Because my car has a 250 engine fitted, its been shimmed under the front engine mounts a little so the sump clears the drag link. I think this is why the pinion angle is so close with my transmission and normally they are out from what I have read when you lower the leaf rear end quite a lot like mine. Might just be a fluke lol Borrowed a couple of tools from work and carried out a quick DIY wheel alignment, checked the camber first, using this neat little Dunlop camber gauge. I had to use the wood adapter due to the tyre ballooning a little at the bottom, so was giving false readings. We normally use this tool on race cars that have low profile tyres fitted, so not normally a problem! Anyway, I was looking for 0.5 degrees negative camber on my car and surprisingly the RH side was in specification. The left hand side was showing 1 degree negative, so I fitted a couple more shims on the upper control arm to correct it. Checked the toe angle next, using the trusty Dunlop tracking gauges, these things are surprisingly accurate, I use them all the time at work to quickly check the toe after straightening a off centre steering wheel etc. I set the total toe in to 2.5 mm for now, I will see how that goes but I will be doing it on a proper machine later anyway. I need to check the caster of course but it will have to wait until I can take the car into work and put it on our Hunter wheel alignment machine (pretty high tech for an old Falcon lol) I was going to buy a caster gauge for home but you need the turntables etc to do it properly, so not too fussed at the moment.

try mark or danny at early bird falcon spares 03 98579073, they should ship to you in NZ

Cheers! Yeah, its coming along now Nah, no spare visor sorry but they appear on ebay all the time, or you could try early bird falcon spares in Melbourne, he has heaps of them

Ah thanks mate! Your wagon looks mean as well, coming along nicely

It drives! Thought I would get some decent pictures now its mobile. Need to get the seats reupholstered next and while thats being done, I will tackle a little bit of rust that needs to be sorted.

Update time Been busy sorting out a way to connect my stock driveshaft to my new diff. Problem was the U joint on my original driveshaft was too small to suit the pinion yoke on the 8 inch Maverick diff. I found a suitable U joint but was too wide to fit my driveshaft. My original one on the left, Correct maverick one on the right : So got busy with the new lathe at work! Turned a 8mm spacer up from an old Porsche Cayenne rear driveshaft (Just so happened to have one lying around lol) I also drilled a hole in the middle to weld the centre to the U joint cup as well. unmodified U joint cup on the right : Time to get out the mig and join them together Back into the lathe and machine both U joint cups with welded spacers down to size Weighed both U joint cups to make sure both were exactly the same weight, don't want any vibrations! Finished and installed into car. All this is just to keep the car mobile for now, I plan on fitting a V8 driveshaft when I put the 302 and C4 some time in the near future, when funds allow! I probably should have got the driveshaft cut and re-welded but hey, this cost me nothing and was easy enough to make ha ha Not much else been going on, I have got to get onto the interior next and then tackle some small rust holes