My XB Coupe RestoMod

[Bearman]

Looking good Dave, all good things take time.

The Hardtop Anniversary next year will be at Bathurst. No dates announced yet but you don't want to miss this. May pay to get a wriggle on!!

Look forward to seeing this when it's done.

Cheers.

[DaveD_XB]

I know... & that is the plan Bearman... Bathurst or Bust!!!

[Tex Scrotum]

Love both the cars, two of my favourites.

Love the wheels.

I also love it when someone has a win with a Hardtop when it comes to a lack of rust!

As for the C4 pan not having a drain plug, things still haven't changed at Ford!
My wife's XR6T ZF transmission doesn't have a drain plug either.....a big thankyou to Ford for that one!

Cheers!

[DaveD_XB]

Well its only a half win.... the **** end of this car needs some serious work...

[DaveD_XB]

I dragged the old girl out into the open & sprayed down all the suspension & underside with degreaser to clean off the years of crud before I started to unbolt everything



After cleaning the car off, I had a bit of a look for rust at the front end & she’s actually really good… there is a bit on the passenger side behind the guard



But the actual lower sill looks great



On the drivers side there seems to be no rust at all really…



But the sill has been repaired before… so I’ll have to have a closer look at that later



I also found a rather interesting when cleaning the rear suspension…



Hmmm, seems a rather important bolt had parted company some time ago… judging by the wear in the chassis it was dangling half out for a while… bugger

[DaveD_XB]

Now the more observant of you may have noticed a big ugly dent on the driver’s side rear guard just above the wheel… I did this dent what must be 14 years ago now & it’s been ****ting me every day since then finally today was the day that I attempted to fix that dent..



First up, I sanded off the paint back to bare metal & marked out the body line as it should be along that panel



Then I got to play with a new toy… this ray gun looking tool takes what looks like a flat head nail or a rivet in the end



You push it up against the metal in the deepest part of your dent & pull the trigger, it then quickly welds the rivet tip to the metal, you continue that along the length of your dent





Then you take your slide-bar puller



& attach it to each rivet in turn & then you very gently slide the hammer back until you pull the dent out



Then you cut off the shaft of the rivet with a side cutters & grind down the tip till it’s flush with the metal



It’ll need another pass to get it right, but for a first pass & first time using this tool I’m very happy with the results

[DaveD_XB]

Then as part of operation “This is why I can’t have nice things” I then attacked the back of the car with an angle grinder again…



But don’t worry.. this panel was rooted anyway, it’s been damaged in a past rear ender & then badly repaired, so rather than try & fix this one I’m just going to replace it



Now looking at the original boot floor where it goes over the diff, there seems to be a raised line in the floor



My new boot floor replacement panel doesn’t have that raised line…



So I had a bit of a play with the bench vise bead roller



I probably won’t get it perfect, but it’ll be close & whilst I know that close only counts in horseshoes & hand grenades.. in this case I’ll extend that to far inner reaches of boot floor too

[DaveD_XB]

Then since I had the angle grinder out anyway, it only made sense to hack away at the boot floor now





Then it was time to start test fitting the new panels, they’re not bad… I reckon this will come up alright in the end…







Not just the top floor is being replaced here but the vertical side that goes down to join the bottom of the rear Qtr too

[DaveD_XB]

Last job of the day then was to pull the front suspension end off, you don’t need to be a rocket doctor here which clearly suits me…



Shocks & springs off



Then brakes, hubs, upper & lowers arms came off





Then all packed away in a box to be stored like in raiders of the lost ark as none of it is going back on…. The only original parts going back on will be the sway bar & that I think needs some new Polly mounts

[halo9]

Love reading these. Keep up the good work Dave. Will follow this to see how it turns out.

[John Fog]

Hi Dave
I have just read through your whole thread. AWESOME.
Would love to get in contact and pick your brains, I am in a world of pain with a XC GS coupe I picked up as a project.:

John

[XBeast500]

G'day Dave. I'm doing the same project with a 4 door at the moment. Small patches of rust in different spots but I was never expecting to go as far as it has. All I wanted to do was install the RRS suspension on the car which is where I found the first bit of rust up under the front window now all that's left on the car is the headliner and interior light! Both our projects are going to be great when there done. Hopefully I'll see you driving around Melbourne! Lovin your thread! Well done.

[DaveD_XB]

Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve updated this thread.. I ended up spending a little over two months out of the country there in April & May & then when I got back there was a lot to catch up on… long story short I’m a long way off where I had expected to be by now… but for those of you following along at home this is where I’m at now.

I pulled the last of the suspension off, so the sway bar & strut rods. Then it was time to remove the old steering box, the plan for this car as you may remember from many many posts ago now is to fit a modern rack & pinion rack to the car to replace the old steering box.



I was going to disconnect all the pieces, like tie rod ends & idler arms etc, but then I figured why bother busting them all apart when it’ll be just as easy to take everything off in one lump & store it with the rest of the bits… so that meant it was just two bolts holding on the idler arm



& the once the rag joint was undone to disconnect the steering column from the steering box it’s only 3 bolts to get the steering box off the chassis rail



It’s clear to see that it was never removed when a past owner decided to change the engine bay colour years ago



As I was pulling the wiring out of the engine bay to get it out of the way looks like it ran a little too close to the exhaust in the past, I’m surprised it still ran…. No wonder it always has electrical issues…





The bay is fully empty now

[DaveD_XB]

Then it was back to the **** end of the car, to continue cutting the old boot floor out.. this time the driver’s side. It’s clear from looking at this side of the car that whatever crash she was involved in years ago was definitely more on this side







That’s when I could see the crease in the rear chassis rail



You can see where they’ve heated the rail up from the outside & then pulled & hammered at it to try & get it straight… they failed BTW..



Also there is a really bad kink at the end of the rail..





You can see how the new straight floor sits on the rail to see just how far out it is





Now I had really thought that rust would be the big drama with this car when I started this, but she’s really good compared to lot of other Falcons I’ve seen, my issue is really going to be fixing this dodgy repair & then reworking all the rear panels to line up properly again… I have a few ideas for fixing this rail, I’m not 100% if they work just yet… but stay tuned for my cunning plan.

[DaveD_XB]

I decided on the weekend to drag my “spare” XB out of storage & bring it over to the skunk works so that I can use it for taking measurement from a good rear end that hasn’t been crashed (as far as I can tell anyway) Also now that I can see it every day it’ll inspire me to do something with this one too…. Not 100% sure what I’ll do, I’m thinking stripped out race car right now or maybe make that Mad Max replica that I’d bought them for in the first place… not sure but I am sure I’ll waste a lot of time staring at it & daydreaming over the next few months as I finish the first XB & the Dodge.



It’s getting tight for storage space now… think I’ll have to make a mezz floor in the back corner & get a lot of the parts up & out of the way… of course I could also just fit the blood parts to the cars & make space that way too I guess







So this is the first time that all my toys have ever been in the same place

[xax2]

Just found this thread for the first time and read from start to finish.....AWESOME (as someone already said)!!! Thanks for the brilliant detail and explanation of the work. As with many projects, there is usually a challenge you weren't expecting and obviously you've found a 'sting in the tail' of the car. Great to see you tackling it properly.
I'm keen to see the suspension work as it goes in, and will now follow this thread with interest.
Hopefully the HTA in Bathurst late next year is still a possibility.
Cheers

[DaveD_XB]

There was change of pace in the Skunk Works today, I put down the grinders & hammers & left the welder unplugged & I decided to try my hand to simply bolting new stuff onto a car… a sight so rare that my long suffering other half popped into the shed & offered to take a pic of me putting **** back on a car for once lest no one believed me. I decided to trial fit the shiny new front suspension, steering & brakes that I have for the Coupe to see if this stuff really does just “bolt up” with “no special tools” & “no modifications” as the sales brochure had lead me to believe.. now for those of you who just have to know & can’t wait till the end of this update post…. Yeah, they pretty much did what it said on the box.

First up was my power Rack & Pinion steering conversion, the brochure tells me that getting rid of the old worm drive box & replacing it with this puppy will have my car steering like a 2010 Falcon XR8, sounds promising… although you’ll be a while awaiting my road test results.. but I have to say it looks an impressive piece of kit



Pollywhatsit bushes all round



And most importantly Bolt on brackets, there are a few options to upgrade this old girl, but I was after one that bolted into the factory mounting holes & could be undone to return the old girl to stock should I ever want too. The passenger side bracket install is pretty simple, uses the two existing bolt holes from the idler arm



The driver’s side on the other hand does foul a tiny bit of the support gusset







& you do need to grind off about half an inch of said gusset to get this to fit





Both brackets sit a little shy of being fully flush with the underside of the chassis rail, but that’s because I haven’t drilled the two holes yet that you bolt them up to the chassis rail lip with, I’m in two minds right now as to do some seam welding on these brackets too or just leave the bolts as the only means of attachment.

[DaveD_XB]

Bolting the steering rack itself up was super simple, two u-brackets mount it to the two brackets I’d just attached to the car



The only issue I had was that the steering arm was fouling on the chassis member in the engine bay… not that that is an issue with the steering rack as you can see, my member (now now, mind out of the gutter) has seen better days



After some time beating my member (really) I got it to a point where there was no rubbing at all (it’s like I can’t stop)



It’s a very neat install & really only took about 30 minutes & that’s because I was stuffing about & taking pics, could be done in 15



Last thing was the U-joints



Now this is a modern style connector & it doesn’t mate directly up to the steering rag joint that I have, so I’ll need to modify my steering column to suit (all the parts & instructions are supplied)

[DaveD_XB]

Next up for a test fitment where the shiny new adjustable coilovers that I have, again everything is from RRS so my assumption is that all of this kit should play nice together.



Now these do require a tiny modification to the top of the shock towers, here you can see the existing holes that hold the top of the shock mount



Well these existing holes aren’t used, so a 5/16 hole need be drilled in the end of the slot so like so





Then you can bolt the coilover in, now the kit comes with a plain steel top collar to spread the load of the bolts across the whole mount, but I won’t be using them as I have also bought the strut brace kit & because I’m a flashy git I also went of the bling tops to cover them





Installing the coilover is as simple as a 3 bolt installation of anything can be really



Then it was time to see how much effort it takes to install the strut brace, it’s a fiddly for a one man job as it’s under tension the whole time, you can’t adjust the tension once its installed

[DaveD_XB]

You’ll notice in the pic above that there is a new bracket on the firewall cowl too, this is a triangulated brace kit, this cowl bracket is supposed to be bolted on, but I’m in two minds as to bolt it on or if I should weld it on using the predrilled holes for plugwelds… I’ll have to think about that





The two braces that go to the firewall can be adjusted for tension after they are installed so there is a lot less swearwords required to install them I found





When I test fit the new engine soon, it’ll be interesting to see what if any impact that front bar will have on my air cleaner options. Next job was to install the new knuckles as they call them, these are a beefy piece of kit indeed, they seem very well made



These slide into the opening on the front of the coilover, or at least that’s what they are supposed to do… mine didn’t, nothing major, but they were 1mm too thick so out with the fapping disk on the grinder & I polished them down, you ca see where they are shiny now where I had to take a tiny bit of metal off, I did it in stages so it’s almost an interference fit now with no gap or slop at all





Last bit for the night was my new brakes, again all RRS kit… I went with 330mm disks & the big six piston calipers, hence the 17” wheels I have… it seems such a shame to install the calipers, they look too good to be hidden away, they’d look great on display





I’m using my old lower control arm right now, but I will be replacing them with a new set of one piece billet control arms as soon as they are ready & shipped to me.

[Tex Scrotum]

G'day, the RRS stuff looks good, thanks for sharing!

I have a bit of a favour to ask if you don't mind

Could you possibly weigh the steering rack and also the strut and knuckle (don't worry about the disc and caliper)???

I'm a bit of a weight "nazi" and would really like to compare my stock suspension with the RRS gear which I have been told is lighter, but I have no numbers.

So if you've got a set of bathroom scales handy I would really appreciate it, pm me if you like and also there's no rush.

I'm considering going this way with the RRS gear but there has to be a significant weight saving.

Cheers

[DaveD_XB]

Hey Tex (if that is your real name……)

That’s a great question, to be honest the weight loss wasn’t really a big factor for me but I did take what they said on their website for it all being lighter as being true… so in the interest of science & answering your question I took all the new parts off the car again (you owe me a beer) & weighed them & then I weighed the matching original XB bits to see what the difference was. Here are my findings

The RRS power rack (they make a lighter manual one too) complete end to end with tie-rods is 11.4kg.

My stock XB power steering box is 11.9kg, then when you take the end to end links & tie-rods, idler arm etc they are 6.4kg… so all up the steering is 18.3kg, so a weight saving of 6.9kg.

The RRS Coilover weights 7.9Kg.

The stock parts that that replaces are the upper arm 6.4kg, the spring 5.6kg & the shock 1.5kg for a total of 13.2kg, so a weight saving of 5.3kg

The RRS knuckle is 7.2kg.

The stock XB spindle is 5.0kg, so the RRS piece is 2.2kg heavier.

I ignored your comment about not weighing the caliper & disks…

So the RRS Disk is 9.5kgs.

The stock smaller XB one is also 9.5kg, so no change there other than the fact that the new RRS unit is larger.

The RRS six piston caliper is 4.9kgs.

The stock XB unit is 6.3kg, so 1.4kgs heavier & a lot smaller too.

So if we take the steering out of the equation, the total weight of the suspension per side less the wheel & tire is:

29.5Kg’s for the fancy RRS stuff & the stock XB stuff is 32.2kg’s so 2.7kg’s lighter per side… & all up the total weight reduction for both sides & the steering setup is 12.3Kgs

[DaveD_XB]

The more observant of you will have noticed that I hadn’t actually completed the suspension & steering install, that was done this morning so on went the new tie-rod ends





The new strut rods



Then it was a complete front end ready for me to check out in full range of movements for any fouling or unwanted contact





I’m very happy to report that none was found, I then put on a wheel & did the checks again & again it’s all looking real good



I’m also happy with the amount of disk & caliper that are showing through the wheel, I think it’ll look nice when I’m done…. Happy with that.



Now with big breaks like this up front there is of course no way I’m keeping these at the rear



I have the RRS rear disk conversion to go on, the calipers mini six piston jobs, so there are about the same size as the 4 pot ones I have on the back of the Dodge but are actually 6 pot..

[DaveD_XB]

First job was to remove the old drums, there is so much meat still on these shoes I wonder if the adjusters where actually working & if I was even using the rears towards the end



With the internals removed it’s a very simple job of just undoing the 4 nuts through the access hole & then pulling the axle out





With the axle out you then remove the drum backing plate



Then you try to slide on the fancy new backing plate complete with new integrated handbrake shoe mechanism



Then you slowly start to realize that no matter which way you wiggle it, or what angle you start from it’s just not going to fit….



Ok, so top tip… seems with the Ford had two different ends for their 9” diff’s….. what are known as the Small Ford & the amazingly cleverly named Big Ford



So the bracket I have is the larger Big Ford type



But the 9” diff I have is the Small Ford type



Bugger… so I’ll have to contact RRS & get the backing plates swapped over to suit my diff size now

[DaveD_XB]

The last thing that I decided to do today was to start thinking about the engine install & how I was going to connect up the accessories, so the RRS rack comes with a really trick little race pump & fluid reservoir



Now when I say little, its tiny…



So now I have to figure out how to fit that to my engine, which is fitted with a fancy electric water pump which means that the standard brackets that bolt to the cast iron or cast aluminum pump housings won’t work



If anyone has any ideas I’m open to them… for now I’m thinking that I’ll unbolt the pump & remove this blanking plate (the one I’m touching in the pic below) & have a new one made up that extends out either side to hold both the Alt & the power steering pump



Then I’ll just bolt from the brackets back to the two threaded holes in the aluminum heads for stability



Next job will be to test fit the engine & the massive headers to make sure that they fit & don’t foul the steering rack & to make a decision on cutting the shock towers or not… stay tuned (or don’t, I probably wouldn’t)

[Tex Scrotum]

Originally Posted by DaveD_XB

Hey Tex (if that is your real name……)



That’s a great question, to be honest the weight loss wasn’t really a big factor for me but I did take what they said on their website for it all being lighter as being true… so in the interest of science & answering your question I took all the new parts off the car again (you owe me a beer) & weighed them & then I weighed the matching original XB bits to see what the difference was. Here are my findings



The RRS power rack (they make a lighter manual one too) complete end to end with tie-rods is 11.4kg.



My stock XB power steering box is 11.9kg, then when you take the end to end links & tie-rods, idler arm etc they are 6.4kg… so all up the steering is 18.3kg, so a weight saving of 6.9kg.



The RRS Coilover weights 7.9Kg.



The stock parts that that replaces are the upper arm 6.4kg, the spring 5.6kg & the shock 1.5kg for a total of 13.2kg, so a weight saving of 5.3kg



The RRS knuckle is 7.2kg.



The stock XB spindle is 5.0kg, so the RRS piece is 2.2kg heavier.



I ignored your comment about not weighing the caliper & disks…



So the RRS Disk is 9.5kgs.



The stock smaller XB one is also 9.5kg, so no change there other than the fact that the new RRS unit is larger.



The RRS six piston caliper is 4.9kgs.



The stock XB unit is 6.3kg, so 1.4kgs heavier & a lot smaller too.



So if we take the steering out of the equation, the total weight of the suspension per side less the wheel & tire is:



29.5Kg’s for the fancy RRS stuff & the stock XB stuff is 32.2kg’s so 2.7kg’s lighter per side… & all up the total weight reduction for both sides & the steering setup is 12.3Kgs

Mate that's fantastic, better than I had hoped for

Sorry, I thought you were only trial fitting the suspension and assumed you had taken it back off.
I owe you more like a case of beer because you saved me the trouble of having to dig out all of my suspension and weighing it, cheers for that!

So thanks again, I really appreciate it and thanks for doing the write up on the RRS install.

Cheers Evan

[DaveD_XB]

No worries mate, happy to help.

I am only trail fitting, but just not finished the trail, I'm going to fit the new motor & extractors & get a tire mounted to the wheel so I can hang a guard & make sure everything is spot on before I take it all off again

[minorthreat]

Gday there,
Hadn't checked out the coupe club build threads in a while, glad to see a whole lot of pictures to gawk over.

Quick question, will you be replacing the engine cross member? or will you be able to get away with just replacing the bottom of it? the photos make iit looks quite bent, and the fact that it shouldn't be that close to the rack

Cheers

[DaveD_XB]

Originally Posted by minorthreat

Gday there,
Hadn't checked out the coupe club build threads in a while, glad to see a whole lot of pictures to gawk over.

Quick question, will you be replacing the engine cross member? or will you be able to get away with just replacing the bottom of it? the photos make iit looks quite bent, and the fact that it shouldn't be that close to the rack

Cheers

Eh? Are you trying to suggest that there is a piece of my Coupe that isn't a perfect pristine example of what a concourse Coupe should be??

Truth is not sure right now, I have a rotisserie on order & when it gets here I'll be spinning the old girl on her side & I'll set about repairing the whole cross member to get it right (I see now that I can get a new bottom section on eBay if I need one) once I have it "factory" right, then I'll if its still too close to the rack, if it is then I'll modify it to suit...

[minorthreat]

I didn't mean any offence, if so I apologise. I wasn't referring to concourse or factory correct in that sense.

Just was wondering if that maybe the reason the rack mounts don't sit flat under the chassis rails. If the crossmember was bowed down.
If you can imagine the lines are the chassis rails and the arrow is the crossmember /v\ that would explain why the outer edges are not sitting flat.
Or is it just the RRS mounts arn't a perfect 90 bend

Cheers