Thread: Memories of my first car, an XM Falcon panel van.

Originally Posted by sacc51

By today's standards yesterday's vehicles were rubbish.

So true, absolute crap TBH. I recall sitting in a brand new Nissan Cedric and marvel at the stuff that was in it including the radio that could be controlled from the back seat! At the time any other car did not even have a radio. If it was not for the Japanese building cars with modern amenities I wonder how long it would have taken the automotive industry to build a better car. I couldn't drive my Cortina from Melbourne to Sydney with an guarantee that the generator would not seize or fall off and I used to carry a spare that Ford in the goodness of their heart gave me. Mind you I was getting stuck into it doing the trip in 8 hour flat with one fuel stop at least once a month.

I remember the old 4 cylinder Cortinas 240/440 having a problem with flywheel ring gear stripping. It was a well known problem but Ford never addressed it. Had the Japanese not entered our market, we'd still be driving around in XM Falcon clones I think.

One only has to look at the Holden and Ford shutdown, despite having Japanese role models to guide them they still ignored the market and continued to make cars the public were staying away from in droves, sales only picked up after they announced their forthcoming closures. Shame really.

My XM, whilst not being a power house or having accessories we take for granted these days, was an extremely reliable vehicle and very cheap to run. Never did this vehicle let me down, not once, despite me sticking my head under the bonnet during my mechanical 'learning years'. I learned an awful lot from that car, replacing starter motors, generators, short motors, valve grinding and so on. Most of these things didn't require replacing, I just wanted to replace parts as I enjoyed working on cars so much. My XM had a 144 CI motor, nothing wrong with it, but I wanted the 170 as I thought it would be more powerful. I started to realise my folly up after I took the short motor home and started stripping the original motor down. The 144/170 heads were identical, as were the carbies, not a good omen. Once in, it performed no better than the 144.

There was a fellow in Bayswater who was advertising his semi fuel injection system, I saved up and had it fitted to my XM - zip, zero, nothing, it was still the original gutless motor. The semi fuel injection system consisted of a spacer between the carb and manifold, the hole in the middle was about 1/8" narrower than the carb venturi with a recess machined into it, six copper tubes were attached to the spacer and snaked their way to the manifold as close to the head as possible. The system worked thus: As fuel was drawn down past the spacer some of that fuel was diverted to the copper tubes via the machined groove in the spacer, the fuel was then delivered to the manifold very close to the back of the valves. Advertising of the day claimed it improved torque and low down response. I never saw any of that, it was just $150 wasted as far as I was concerned. There must have been something in it though, an apprentice mechanic I knew at the time said it was part of his course on classroom days.

The fellow who invented it was extremely nice, helpful and knowledgeable, I think I got more from him than his system. It was only around an hours job fitting this system, I spent the whole day in his factory talking and listening to him and watching him work, I think he enjoyed the 'all ears' audience and stretched the job out - very nice man he was, everything you wished your father was.

I think I'll will stick with my ASX diesel!

Now, who remembers the under dash ventilation system in the early Falcons? What a gem of technical wizardry that was: A 6" down pipe with a door about 4-6" square that had to be opened by hand to allow fresh air in. But, the old cars did have the best thing since sliced bread as standard - quarter windows!

Now, I hope you lot got a giggle from my story, I think I may write another on my very first forray into mechanics, a 1963 A65 650 BSA Thunderbolt I bought for $200 about a month before I got my licence. That should have you rolling on the floor! I'm extremely lucky I lived through that thing; well, I should say, that thing and me!

We had an XL Falcon (144ci same as XM) with those draft boxes SACC51 mentioned. When we got the XP the boxes didn't seem to work, we had them open on a really hot day, windows open as well, zip from the boxes. The car I might add had spent the previous couple of years in a hayshed and unknown to us the boxes had accumulated a fair bit of dry hay in them. The cabin began to fill with hay, then a ball of the stuff shot out shooting me in the chin followed by a larger lump bag on the face. Perfect after that, those and the quarter vents were very effective for cooling and demisting. Last quarter vents I had were on a 1969 Valiant, one of the few changes I actually miss

Quarter windows were great. Even better was to drive along with hat in hand out the main window, channeling outside air into the cabin on those really hot days.
Geez it was hot in my HG Holden in Darwin in the 1970's. It was so hot that one day a passenger reckoned something was wrong.
They had a closer look at the heater. The lever on the heater/demister dash control was off, but on looking under the dash they found the heater was actually on.
Been driving around for months (at least) like this. Forced it closed and the cabin cooled down considerably.
I used to check it quite regularly on hot days after that!