Richy's 1970 XW Ford Falcon Restoration - Pt 9 | Mustang Auto Parts Australia

Richy's 1970 XW Ford Falcon Restoration - Pt 9 Rust Repairs

The XW is almost ready to come back from paint and panel! It has been treated to a heap of new sheet metal and has a new lease on life. It’s a bit daunting to see the extent of the work, especially with the shell missing major components like sills and crossmembers; nevertheless, the show must go on!

Replacement sheet metal panels are always a hot topic amongst the classic Ford community, and we wanted to delve deep and evaluate the quality firsthand. So, we decided to keep the LHS of the vehicle original steel (except for small door corner patches) and the RHS all-new reproduction steel. We’ve used a new reproduction bonnet and a stack of other smaller reproduction panels where possible. Listed at the end of this post are all the parts we used for this part of the build.

A key learning from our experience with the panels is that the reproduction bonnet matches the reproduction guard better than it does to the original guard. Just an extra hour of panel beating was required to adjust the curve of the front edge to match the original guard. While the door skin on the reproduction door is not welded to the frame, this works in our favour as we could get the door line perfect before adding spot welds to lock it off. Overall, we were very happy with the quality and fitment of the panels, and most definitely discredited some myths!

(Pictured above) No wonder they rust! (engine cross-member)

(Pictured above) Radiator cross-members are always rusty!

(Pictured above) fresh steel ready for another 50 years

(Pictured above) Original LHR door only requiring small patches

(Pictured above) Doglegs were surprisingly good but the ends of the wheelhouse not so solid

(Pictured above) More dirt hiding in the rear torque box. Gross!

(Pictured above) New RHR door skin

(Pictured above) The repo sills fit perfect!

(Pictured above) All new panels on the RHS

(Pictured above) Solid!

(Pictured above) Looking like a car again

(Pictured above) New steel

(Pictured above) Rear lower quarters getting a fresh inner and outer as well wheel house corner

(Pictured above) Epoxy prime EVERYTHING!

(Pictured above) New boot channel

(Pictured above) New tail light panel fits well

(Pictured above) We can attach the bumper now

(Pictured above) "yeah mate, looks mint!"

(Pictured above) Mmm door gaps

(Pictured above) Happy or sad? Not sure

We came unstuck in a few areas of the rust repairs, with the most difficult part being the plenum repair and rear torque box repair. We searched high and low but had trouble finding a donor car with better plenums than the XW. We eventually had no choice but to hand-manufacture the rust repair panels so that we could progress further with the build. We did strike some luck with the rear torque box; a good friend had an acceptable donor hiding in a paddock.