Hey there,

I've spent some time doing some upgrades to my new '65 Sprint, which have turned out really well.

1. New front seat belts, as the passenger side buckle had been damaged by being caught in the door at some stage. Personally, I'm more than happy to keep my better half close to me, but evidently she was a tad worried about escaping in the event of an accident or fire. Fair enough, I suppose...
   

2. Put on a set of Bangin' Headlights. As you'll all remember, I absolutely love these products. Plug and play (for real!), Aus made (great company to deal with), great price, amazing light output, glass lenses, look exactly like the originals, and are Aus complied (e-marked).
   

3. Built a coolant overflow system for the car
   

4. Installed a fuel cap lock, as the oem cap is pretty special (and I suspect regularly stolen as it is just a twist on)
   

5. Replaced the standard plastic fuel filter with a serviceable 30 micron fuel filter.
   

6. Fitted a Pertronix module to the car (after how much it improved the Bonneville, I almost consider it a necessity rather than a nice to have). I ended up doing a full install, so the improvements included a new 100A 1 wire alternator, Pertronix Ignitor 11, a 45,000v Flame Thrower coil, new plugs, and a set of Eagle 9mm leads, and a drop base open air cleaner.
   

7. I also ran new fused wiring through a relay, to minimise the load on the oem ignition (I didn't do this with the Bonneville).
   

8. Oh, and I repainted the oem rocker covers and painted the new air cleaner lid to match.
   

9. Had a couple of new mufflers installed, and some decent chrome tips (sounds much deeper now)
   

10. Finally, tidied up a lot of the wiring in the engine bay to neaten things up.
    
    Wow - what a difference. It feels soooo much quicker off the mark, pulls a lot harder and idles so much smoother. It seems even the auto shifting has improved a little?
    Spec changes are:- plug gap .044" (up from .032"), timing 14 deg BTDC (was 8 deg BTDC), 36 degrees all in at 2800rpm.
    The cart only weighs about 1300kg, so you can imagine...
    

    Photos of the work attached, of course. I've also included a pic of what it looked like before I started, for reference. Plus a few more photos of the car for you to admire, simply because it's so cool.

Nice work Paul 🙏

I only just found this in something called Other Autos. Didn't even know we had that section.

I love these old Falcs. Back in '66 when the XR debuted, it was so far ahead of the crappy HR that Holden had. Everyone seems to like HRs but I always thought they were underdone. The Falcon had plenty of Mustang styling and was bigger and more powerful. Holden eventually caught up with the HK.

Why Ford, GM & Chrysler didn't just retool their cars in right hand drive and send them here instead of a bespoke local design I know not. Then we could have had access to all sorts of things instead of local watered down versions.

Anyway - lovely car and in the right colour too. Those little Windsors can pack a punch if you build them right, but as you point out with so little weight you don't need a firebreather.

1 hour ago, Fitzy said:

I only just found this in something called Other Autos. Didn't even know we had that section.

I love these old Falcs. Back in '66 when the XR debuted, it was so far ahead of the crappy HR that Holden had. Everyone seems to like HRs but I always thought they were underdone. The Falcon had plenty of Mustang styling and was bigger and more powerful. Holden eventually caught up with the HK.

Why Ford, GM & Chrysler didn't just retool their cars in right hand drive and send them here instead of a bespoke local design I know not. Then we could have had access to all sorts of things instead of local watered down versions.

Anyway - lovely car and in the right colour too. Those little Windsors can pack a punch if you build them right, but as you point out with so little weight you don't need a firebreather.

Have you been having a nanna nap old fella !! Pauls had the coon for ages !!

Had some success today...I've been playing around with the Sprint, and identified a few issues.

1. While trying to optimise carb settings (oem Autolite 2100), I found the stovepipe system that heats the auto choke blocked, hence the choke plate wasn't opening fully. Couldn't get any balance where I could have any cold start choke and it would open completely. So...I've set it fully open and am hoping the car will be ok without a choke.
After 3x cold starts it seems if I get the cold start right and manage the throttle ok, it will happily idle after about 15 seconds.

2. I also discovered the vacuum advance unit on the distributor oem Autolite) was completely stuffed. So I've replaced this and upon road testing the ca teens to pull stronger from cruise speed, and the C4 now kicks back immediately, which it wasn't doing before.
I'll recheck the timing tomorrow, just to make sure it's all still right. I look forward to a drop in fuel consumption, because it's currently at 18l/100km!

3. Also replaced my engine temp sensor (for anyone interested, a Tridon TTS023 is a direct replacement (mine is an early series 289 - I think the later ones are different?). Add in a new set of coolant hoses, and I've had success all round.

While I was under the car, I managed to reroute some wiring and also the power steering hard and soft lines, because they were hanging waaaay too low.

And do you know what was the best part of all this (other than the great results of course)?
The parts I needed were A. available in Australia, B. cheap, and C. all landed at my doorstep within 48 hours.
Oh, and did I mention cheap? And available? Oh yeah, I already did and the temp sender unit was hanging on the bloody wall at Autobarn, and cost me...wait for it...$21.00. And have I mentioned available? And cheap?

A. B. and C. NEVER happened for me with the Bonneville. Ever!

Happy Days 😃