Structure II

Now, let’s take a look at what hid behind those huge rear wings on the hardtop.

Pretty impressive.

Note the diagonal braces behind where the rear seat should be.

As shown again here.

The non painted feature in the centre of the boot is the petrol tank, and the recess is for the spare wheel.

Note the fuel filler pipe running from the cap in the passenger side rear wing.

And the wheel would have a hard cover. Note the prominent tail-light housings on the XA hardtop due to the angled and recessed lenses.

Normally the tank and wheel were covered by a mat.

But what happened if you specified the 27 or 36 gallon longe range tank ?

You lost a whole lot of boot space.

And what does the 4dr sedan look like ?

Underneath

Here is the underside of a hardtop. Note the handbrake cable and the four speed Top Loader shifter assembly hanging from its boot. The gearbox crossmember is missing.

The floor pan from inside.

The axle and rear suspension showing the rear leaf springs and the inboard mounted shock absorbers. Note that the handbrake cables run down the inside of the ‘chassis’ leg, but the hydraulic pipe to the rear brakes runs down the transmission tunnel.

The inboard mounting of the shock absorbers resulted in an unusual placement of the upper mount.

Accessed through two covered oval holes in the axle hump immediately behind the back seat braces.

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The infamous Tramp Rods

This is a rear drum braked RPO. Note the large black bracket just inboard of the drum. Bolted to the bracket, and leading forward is the ‘bent’ tramp rod and it bolts through the ‘chassis’ rail. The tramp rod was fitted to GT’s and Landau’s as an extra means of locating the axle, to stop it ‘tramping’ or bouncing up and down under violent acceleration. There were two types of attachment of the rod to the chassis. This is the later style as used on late XA GT’s and all XB GT’s and Landau’s. Early XA GT’s had another U-shaped bracket bolted to the ‘chassis’ rail, and the rod itself was straighter. Note that in the Falcon workshop manual, these rods are known as ‘radius’ rods.

What is not too obvious from these photos is that the rods ‘stepped’ inwards from the axle to the chassis and were kinked in plan view as well as elevation to suit.

As shown here in the blow up of the above axle photo. The rod is behind the curved handbrake cable and it can be seen that the axle mount is set further outboard than the ‘chassis’ mount so the rod kinks inwards to mate up with the ‘chassis’. Note the oiled nut and bolt shaft of the rod ‘chassis’ mount.

Again the bar is shown here, including the means of attaching the axle end of the rod using a ‘stirrup’ which is mounted on a plate sandwiched under the axle-spring U-bolts.

The later tramp rod assembly, as photographed above.

Here are the parts for the later tramp bars.

The early tramp rod assembly, also seen below with the ‘chassis’ bracket.

Many thanks to the Falcon GT Club of Australia for the restored car images, Kerry who owns the red, green and yellow hardtops featured above, Terry James for the black XA and Matt for the John Goss Special.

Axle and springhelpers

While we are underneath at the axle, here is the Borg Warner axle as fitted to a 302C powered XB Fairmont hardtop.

Here is the axle tag enlarged and flipped over.

This car also has Ford’s rear spring assitors fitted.

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