Hot Rods 1963 Falcon Futura build... DONE...

Out in the garage and thought I'd take a good side shot of it..

 

And It's finally lettered....

 

Thanks man.... Mine sat untouched for awhile too.... But the Ford Plants in Louisville are having a big Shutdown in a couple weeks that I'm going to try an hit to money up some so I can finish this thing....

 

Sure looks great! Wish my Falcon's good side looked as good as either of yours look!

 

Thank you sir... It's finally starting to look like I visioned it in my head all along...

 

That's always fun when you envision a certain look, and the end car comes out close! I'm still a long way from getting mine ready for any color.

 

I know how you feel... I didn't think I'd ever get mine to where it is now....

 

Well I took last week off work and drug my Falcon to my buddies shop in Maryland to finish building my engine, and get it in....




I drove all night and got a little two hour nap before unloading it and rolling it in the shop..




I just love this picture...





Threw the Top Loader and bell housing on a dummy block to start the engine mount fab work only to find that the steering box was way to close to the exhaust ports to even think about getting a set of headers on it..




So, we did what any gearhead would do to fit a bigger engine in their car, we cut the steering box out..




Luckily my buddy is big into Early Broncos and has tons of parts for them laying around... so we grafted on a mount for a steering box off of a 66 Bronco... of coarse we had to move the steering linkage from behind the axle to in front of it, but it was well worth it because it made room for the 8 quart oil pan... here's the mount going on..




New steering all fabbed up..




Finished welded and all painted up..




Now that we knew it would actually fit we started working on the engine.. here I am porting the heads..




Cleaned them up and dropped in a brand new, old stock set of stainless Manley valves in..




All put together...




and in the car...








Mmmm, just look at that man stick in there...




and of coarse we built a cool set of fenderwell headers...







then loaded it back on the trailer for the long drive home...






Love the view at his place...




All in all it was a great week.... really got a lot done... unfortunatly I didn't get to get a picture of everything... but I'll try and get some pictures of the work we done later... there were a few set backs though... One the two old Carter AFB's I had, had water lay in them at some point and the shafts were frozen solid, and no amount of oil nor heat would break them loose..... and the old Mallory dizzy had a blown condenser... so we had to track down replacements for those... but as it sits right now.... I should be able to post up finish pictures, and a shake down run in the next few weeks....

 

Man does that look familiar! Ran into similar problems with my '63 Futura, but used a late 70's Courier box to solve my clearance issues. Also front steer, after reversing the pitman arm.

 

Man that Courier box, and an early Bronco box looks an aweful lot a like....

 

Finally got the carbs, and got them finished up.. (post cleaned picture)





and got some cool old Mallory stuff..




got it all on the engine...





and was all ready to fire it up, and ran into this problem..




As you can tell by the picture, I had very little room to get a bottom radiator hose on.... and after trying a week to find one that would fit, I gave up and cut two hoses, then coupled them together with a piece of exhaust pipe... but I pushed the hoses tight until they touched and clamped them good, so it really doesn't look bad...


After three years of working on it, I finally got to hear ir run Saturday.... now mind you this is the first start up video, and I still have quite a bit of adjusting on it to do..




My buddy came down Sunday and finished lettering it..





Then my air cleaners came in today...





So as of right now to be finished.... I have to
1... bleed the brakes
2... hook up the choke cable
3... wire up the line lock
4... make a throttle linkage
5... cut a hole in each header collector to weld a place to run exhaust from
6... fill the rear end with gear earl
7... fashion up a gas pedal
8... clutch linkage
9... mount seats
10.. mount harnesses
11.. fix a period correct head rest
12.. run exhaust
13.. license, insurance, then drive it !!!

 

I've finished everything I can do at this time, until a friend of mine frees up a spot in his shop for me to get in and use his welder... As it stands right now, I've got to fab up a couple brackets for the clutch,
mount seats, mount harnesses, fix a period correct head rest, then run the exhaust...

Here's a little better idle video..

 

Great build up, thanks for sharing it with us!
Gary.
(pic of my project attached!)

 

Evan with sentences like this --- Well even though it's pretty obvious that nobody really gives a shit about my build, I figure I'm going to go a head and finish this thread....---- A lot of us do enjoy following along on builds. You've done that old Falcon good! Now enjoy the hell out of driving it!!!

 

Cool car and engine. Nice thread.

 

Nice looking Falcon!

 

Yes sir... nice looking ride you've got there..

Sorry, just didn't seem like anybody was really following my build... Thank you, and I will just as soon as it's finished..

Thank you sir...

and thank you sir...

 

Well I finally got to drag my car up to my buddies place where we set out to make some brackets for the clutch cable, mount the seats, and weld in the turn outs for the exhaust....

Here's how I did the turn outs.. I know it's pretty restrictive, but I was trying to hide it the best I could.. kinda figured when I make the header caps, I might add a deflector on them to help the flow of the exhaust..





For the pedal end of the clutch cable we came up with this drop bracket that comes off the master cylinder mounting bolts...




and for the bell housing end we came up with this... Mind you I still need to trim it up a bit...





the cable does kinda stand out, but isn't as noticable as I was worried it was going to be..




After we got that all done I tested it several times with my hand and it worked great... until I fired it up and used my leg to push in the clutch... For some reason the throw out bearing pushed through the fingers on the Pressure plate... which at the time had me completely frustrated, and at a loss.. After talking with my dad, and telling him what happened, he thinks that maybe I pushed it to far with my leg, and that let the fingers of the pressure plate push past their stopping point in their arc of travel, letting the throwout bearing fall between them... which makes perfect sense... so when it warms up I'll have to go drop the trans and see what I can find... and if need be, make a clutch stop to keep it from happening again...


Loaded on the trailer in defeat...





The list is getting shorter though... What's left to do now...

drop trans/fix clutch
Finish headers
run exhaust
fab up header caps
fab up head rest
put door sills in
put gas pedal in
mount harnesses
figure out road draft tube breather

 

Keep it up I need the Motivation

 

Looks like a sharp turn, but should work. I brought mine off the inside of the collector, and used a 45 degree bend, angled down. Painted them flat black to help hide them.


Pretty much disappear in a side view shot:

 

Well that sucks but we need all the FE powered cars we can get.

 

I'm trying pal... I'm trying

Why the hell didn't I bring them off the inside.. duh, it's so simple.. I'm a dumbass... I did plan on painting them, the mufflers, and exhaust pipe all black to try and make them blend in with the underside of my car...

Yes sir it sure does... but I'll get it figured out... and I agree, I love FE's

 

Sorry. Wish my Falcon didn't suck.

 

LOL... I'm sure he was refering to my clutch problem, and not the Brand X engine in your Falcon...

 

LOL, I was referring to his clutch problem not other falcons. I should have put in a comma. Yours is just fine with a BB chevy and if you could tell who was subscribed to your build thread you would see my name and if you look back I'm pretty sure I have a few COMPLEMENTARY replies there also. Now don't be trying to take 3wlarry's place with vicious, mean, replies while he is out of action.

 

It's been 3 long years in the making, but here it is... the first drive around the block....

 

Sounds great. Love the wild laugh right after you got on it a bit.

 

Love it!

 

Thanks guys.. the video was longer, but I couldn't get it to load until I cut it in half for some reason....

The punch list is getting shorter.. tomorrow after I get home from work, I plan to put the headers back on and run the exhaust.... then Friday change out the valve cover gaskets, plug the stupid road draft tube hole, make a bracket for the front brake line, mount the passenger seat harness, and try and figure out why the fuel guage quit working again...... then put the tags on and go for a drive...

all that's left after that should be, buy some vinyl to finish the head rest... order and install the driver seat harness.. and tune it...