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The History of the Car

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Published on 19 January 2012

This is the text from a carclub review of the XT story! Woody's Wonder From Downunder Acting on a tip from a friend and out of necessity Woody bought the Fairmont in 1982, a year after he got married. His old HR Holden of 7 years had started to look a bit worse for wear. The XT had been sitting at the back of his friends mother’s place for some time and was also looking rather rough but had less rust than the HR The boot was full of water and the back windowsill more than a little rusty. The bonnet had lost its paint and the red primer and flaking rust was showing through but generally the body seemed reasonable. Starting up the motor there and then all sounded good and it went like a beauty. Woody slipped the owner $500 and off he went. Being more accustomed to the Holden’s two-feet-on-the-peddle braking system Woody nearly killed himself at the first corner with the super power brakes of the Ford. With 250 bucks from the sale of the old HR burning a hole in Wood’s pocket it was down to the local Tech Collage to start repairs. The back window was done for free! While a friend said he would help him with the paint. In just two weeks the car was looking like new. That paint job was to last ten years until Woody had it painted again and what a disaster, within 4 years he needed to spend $5000 on repairs and that hurt. Woody and his wife are big on touring and have been all over the place, to the extent they have gone through two six cylinder engines and are now on their first V8. Fitting and rebuilding the Windsor 302 to LPG specs was a big project for Woody, finding a gearbox all the fittings etc. Woody says he must have visited 10 different wreckers and backyards all over Perth. His daughter was 12 at the time and she helped him drop in the Small block Windsor and they had it running in a week! There you go, Give a Girl a Spanner! Woody looks back on the job, "It was a steep learning curve but it’s all in now and the car is a dream to drive," he says. In 1997 he converted the V8 to LPG with huge fuel cost savings. On a drive to his mum's and back, some 1000km trip with 4 people and their luggage on board plus a trailer, it only used 70 bucks worth of LPG. Even with the increase in fuel costs Woody wouldn’t go back to a six! There’s only been one real disaster, that was in the time the oil slinger came off and jammed in the cam chain and pieces flew back into the pistons! Another big job for Woody but with a bit of help he fixed the problems for less a Grand. While Woody was doing the repairs he took the opportunity to fit a new mild Gas CAM!! It was also nice to see there had been no unwarranted wear from the use of LPG, so the hardened valves and seats plus the top end lubrication system were doing their job. Unfortunately the same could not be said for the column shift which was showing signs of wear. The pivot on the stick was almost through the steering collar and looked like it could break at anytime. Most of the replacement steering columns at the wreckers were in much the same condition. So Woody bought a Fairlane T-Bar and Console. Within a few days and some open heart surgery with the angle grinder the T-Bar was working a treat. With the inside now clean and tidy it was time to seal the deal with real paint, so he found a Spray Painter who would do a "cheap but not nasty" 2-pack paint job. Woody was well pleased with the guy’s work, he did all the cutting back and he fixed the dings and supplied the paint all for $1200. "now the XT is looking OK - not perfect but OK" says Woody, but then he always was a perfectionist as you can see.