What?!? Another Custom '57 Ranchero build thread???? You bet. Been meaning to do a thread for about 10 years, so there's a whole decade of trial and error to follow a long with. Disclaimer : Before I am able to jump in to the good stuff, you'll have to bear with me as lay down the ground and timeline on the car. Where's it been and what's been done, what's happening now and eventually where it's heading in real time. If anything, hopefully its an entertaining.
Here's where my journey with this car starts, December 2010 in Anaheim, CA. I bought this car off a Long Beach Cavailer member Tim Musico (The Ranchero was known as the "Edselero" at the time), it still had a pretty fresh paint job on it and was everything I was looking for...was a perfect custom car for me, that would allow for room to make it my own over time, it needed only a few things to make it a true daily driver for me etc etc.... Loved it at first sight!
Rear View outside where we lived in Ventura, CA (early 2011) Worth noting: Doors were shaved, car had air bags in the rear, modified '58 Edsel Passenger car rear bumper, and the taillight bezels were painted to match the body.
What is the purpose of the thumbnail anyway? Can it go away? Love those early Rancheros. If there was ever a pickup that said 'Customize Me', that's them.
After driving it regularly I started makinig a hit list of what needed to be addressed to have a reliable and safe daily driver. As seen here in this pic, I'm finishing installing the e-brakes on the car after work. The '57 dash is still in place (however not for much longer though). The steering box was worn (as old steering boxes seem to get) and ify while driving over 55 (almost lost control of the car in traffic when driving it home and it gradually got worse as the weeks of driving ensued). There wasn't parking brake either, needless to say that had to be taken care of as well. I had a flat tire on the driver's rear side, this proved to a huge problem I'll talk about later, but led to a discovery of realizing that the rear axle was from a late 60's/early 70's Ford and being a wider axle with a different bolt pattern. Not a huge issue, but made for some creative tire changing as there was no room to get the tire on and off through that rear wheel opening. My assumption for the rear axle swap for a wider wheel base was to accomodate the air bag mounted on the outside of the frame. The air bag also left zero room for getting the tire on and off. lol- Like I said creative tire changing. I wasn't allowed to work on the car in my apartment complex, but was able to work on it after work outside in the parking lot every night and use their tools which was great. I found a salavge yard up in Palmdale CA that had a few Ranchero's that I could get the parts from. Was able to get all the missing trim pieces for the interior, windshield stainless moldings, interior garnish moldings, visors, header bows, seat skirts (you can see the green the green seat skirt in this picture) interior sail panels for the pillar, two steering boxes and a complete e-brake system (bracket, lever, cable yoke etc). The owner of the yard, asked if this car came out of East LA or Orange County? I said yeah, the OC, he then mentioned that at the at least the last 2 owners of this car had all been picking through his yard on the same Ranchero's... so that was pretty cool. The car had some more history to waiting to be discovered which was another awesome win.
This pic was probably around March 2011 and the start of me getting some personal touches to it to make it more mine. I carefully removed all the paint and filler off the chrome bezels to expose them. I was lucky and able to score some reverse lights and lenses for these taillights too (which is like finding hens teeth now). Also barley seen in this view is the '58 Edsel dash.
The second bit of personalizing I did after the taillights was to remove the silver metal flake 1957 Ford Dash. The Ford dash wasn’t the style I was aiming for and none of the gauges were functioning anyway. With the dash removed and sold I drove around for a few weeks with the steering column c-clamped to the brace bracket while I hunted for a 1958 Edsel Dash to replace the void. I also replaced the homemade floor shifter with a Lokar unit (see pic), as the homemade one had a habit of popping out of gear into park or neutral while driving as mentioned previously. This was all temporary while I hunted for the parts to reconvert it back to a column shift. Also the first Edsel dash I got was also an introduction to the Edsel brand (it took me 3 dashes to make one complete one).... my only real knowledge I had at this point of Edsel cars, was this Ranchero had a '58 front clip, older people liked to make jokes and references about them, Ron Howard drove one in American Grafitti and they were made from 1958-1960 and considered a failure for Ford. Anyway, the first dash I got came out of NorCal, turned out to be from a Senior Series, it was wider and with a different windshield plan view. Never knew that there were two body platforms for Edsel's in 1958, a Junior Series and a Senior Series. The Junior Series is Ford based, the Senior Series is Mercury based. The differences are subtle but they are different. Great education and a new found love of Edsel's the deeper I dove into this.
I think it just saves space in the post and can accommodate more photos in the process. What I don’t understand is the complaints about using thumbnails pics as you merely click on them and they instantly switch to full size and you can use the scroll arrow to view the additional pics (if any). It doesn’t seem to be an onerous task to touch the photo to upsize it. The exception to that seems to have to do with the poster’s photo format. Some older photos do not change size in that manner, but they are not that common. Ray
My father in law was a huge Edsel fan and we would drive to Edsel rallies in Western Canada and Western parts of the USA in the 80s and 90s ( in a Edsel). One convention I remember in Disneyland around 84 and one in Whitefish Montana around 86 . I recall seeing a few Edsel/Ranchero conversions and thought they were really cool.
When you look at the Citation line of Edsel - at first it looks like that there isn’t much difference between the lower scale Edsels - but in fact very little if any parts transfer over between the two lines.
Love it! I've always liked Edsel clipped Ranchero's. I'll be following along. Decades ago, I once saw a local one in primer but never saw it again.
Just odds and ends can be swapped and interchanged, but yes, they are definitely unique to themselves. Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
This truly has been my favorite old cars that I’ve owned and have held onto. I like that it’s unique and different too. Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
So far to date, I have located 28 conversions of the 58 Edsel Rancheros globally. Which is pretty cool because no two are same. Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Thanks! Local now -lol! When I moved out here I started reworking the whole body (I sprayed it a deep maroon back in 2013 and added the white cove and trim at that time) but there were things I wasn’t settled on (I’ll get to those on the post in a bit). There were things I wanted to change and knew stuff that wasn’t right so the opportunity of being here in the winter allowed me a chance to start tackling it. The white is just primer for now, I can keep working on it and just hit and keep it looking presentable while I drive it. Eventually I’ll spray it again. You’ll see me driving around! Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app