I'm looking at picking up a 1960 Ford Falcon 2 door sedan which will hopefully be my daily. The brakes are shot along with most of the other suspension parts i'm sure. I can also get the full suspension, braking and rear end from a 1977 Granada for $550 (almost as much as i'm buying the car for), It's been overhauled and has new rotors and best of all is 5 lug. Question is, i know there is a lot of info about the Falcon brake swaps but i just want to make sure before i drop that kinda money if it will definitely fit and bolt up to the stock suspension mounts. Thanks in advance for any help.
you will also have to replumb the brake lines to the front as the don't exit in the correct position .
Thanks Hitchhiker i was planning on running 14 or 15" steelies. He would include the steering, basically everything on the rails from the firewall forward including the MC.
I have the Granada spindles on my 61 Falcon, there is a lot of bump steer. I have read if you use the 1963 V8 Falcon steering linkage it works good.
That is something i haven't read throughout the hamb. Anyone have anything else to say about this? That concerns me slightly.
you have to run the 15inch wheels from a "late model" ford. as the hub register hole is too big for the stock wheels. Personally after a lot of research I gave up on the manual disk conversion and went with the big J-code mustang front drums. It's a pain in the ass to convert a older non-power ford to power assist. A lot of people might question this, But I feel the increased pedal effort of using manual disk vs. drums negates any stopping benefit. Just swapping to the bigger drums on our falcon really benefited stopping power. It's my girlfriends car, so pedal effort was a concern to me.
What years do the J-Code mustangs cover? I've looked into mustang parts but from what i understand with the 60-62 Falcons the conversions require newer model (4 bolt ball joint) arms. I'm mainly looking for the ability to have 5 lug pattern and 15" wheels. Problem i've found is the falcon/comet v8 parts are harder to come by I'm getting a lot more info from this little conversation than the other threads i've found.
Not sure what years for j-code.....I have a maverick disk conversion and a extra 5 lug conversion with a arms if you are interested.
Works like a charm!My car goes down the road fine.I was lucky enough to find one that already had the 63 V8 steering as well as the 63 8" rear end already installed.I have done the granada disk swap also.You will have to keep in mind that the 63 V8 steering parts are VERY expensive.If I had it to do all over,I would have got the TCI mustang II for my car.It cost around 2 grand,but is all new and much better steering geometry than the falcon/mustang set up.Anothe quick note,the shelby drop will also help with the bump steer problem and will give a better seat of the pants feel to the steering.Check out www.tffn.net to find out alot more about the falcon.Eddy
MustangSteves makes spacers that will allow you to run your stock tierods with the mustang or granada spindles,however the a frames will have to be swapped on the 60-63 6 cylinder cars.If you get the parts from a maverick be sure to pay attension to the year model.The 1974 only had the small 9.25" brakes like the mustangII.1975 and up had the 11" brakes.It is best to get all the parts from one car if possible to make sure everything will work together.
What i was looking into is all from the same car, running and ready to go, he is willing to cut out the suspension, brakes, steering , and rear end to round everything out. It is all from a 1977 granada.
You wont be disappointed.I am not sure on the measurement of the rearend on the granada,but I do know a maverick is a direct bolt in on the falcons.Also most of the late 70's car had rearends with gear ratios from 2.70-3.08 which will be great for the highway.My car has a 2.91 gear and will cruise at 70 mph no problem.
The Grananda front end stuff has ben done several times with varying results. The other thing you have to be aware of is that the Granada rear (about 58 1/2") is going to be a bit too wide for the Falcon. These cars are already tire width limited as it sits, so space is at a premium back there. The old hot tip used to be a Maverick rear end which is 56" hub to hub. I narrowed mine on 1 side years ago and used two short axles to come up with about 54", and still was only able to fit 195/65-15" on 7" wheels with a 3 1/2" backspace. My guess is that if you can find a second short side Granada axle, you could pull this same trick and get back to that 56" width range. On these cars with an axle that's too wide, it's bad enough fitting a pair of wheels on the back, but with their shallow wheel arches, pulling the rear wheels becomes an exercise in frustration...
That is very good to know, looks like i'll be passing on this deal and piecing the parts together. Looks like i'll be calling the yards and searching the classifieds. Thanks to all for their help and if anyone has any other info please let me know!
You cannot bolt the Granada spindles to the 60-62 Ball joints, they are too small, and you can't use the Granada A Arms on the Falcon. If your main objective is Disc Brakes, look up Scarebird - he does caliper brackets that use commonly available rotors and calipers. No bump steer problems, all works out nice. Tons of good info here ~ http://www.tffn.net/phpBB3/
Everything i read said the suspension arms are a bolt in swap? Since the brakes are shot and need lines as well as wheel cylinders and probably shoes, my main objective is simply to replace everything at once and convert it to 5 lug. I've checked out scarebird as well as the forum you linked. There's a lot of confusion on my part as some sources say things will work and others say they wont.
If you are wanting to use the Granada disc brakes on your early Falcon, you will need to get 64-66 Mustang upper and lower control arms. They have the 4 bolt ball joints and the Granada spindles bolt right up to them. If you try to use the Granada spindles and your existing control arms, the taper is different on the ball joints and you won't be able to properly tighten the castle nuts fully. Also, you will need to get the following items: Granada outer tie rod ends, 65 V-8 Falcon inner tie rod ends, a set of tie rod adjusting sleeves (you can use the ones from the Granada), a 65 V-8 Falcon pitman arm, a 65 V-8 Falcon idler arm, and a 65 Falcon V-8 centerlink. The only place that you will find a centerlink is either luck upon one in a salvage yard (good luck) or thru Falconparts.com . They have all of the 65 V-8 components that you will need. This centerlink will run you about $150 by itself. You can reuse your stock springs in front which will give you a slight lowering rake in the front. The Shelby drop is reccommended with these parts as it will help overcome the bumpsteer issues. Hope this helps.
This is the great thing about forums.I did not(and should have) mention the mustang upper and lower control arms.I apoligize for any confusion.You can however use the shims I mentioned from mustangsteves to keep from buying all the steering parts.A friend of mine has been running these on his 62 wagon for a while now with no problem.He has the stock inner and outer tierods as well as the stock pitman and idler arms.
All cars have some amount of bump steer. I believe that the Granada spindles bump steer issue is an internet myth, as I have installed dozens of Granada spindles on all kinds of early Fords with great results, including my own '63 Ranchero. They work fine.
Good info here, looks like no matter what i'd need to piece together this whole conversion. I was under the impression from another site that the whole deal will bolt up and be a full conversion. Looks like i'll be taking a different route than a donor as the braking system may be a swap but the suspension and steering are still an issue.
Sorry to dispute you Drive Em, but I just walked out to the shop and put a tape to the Granada under my '29 rpu, and it is 58 1/2 dead on. I pulled that rear from the Granada itself, so I know the source.
As far as the rearend goes, I have a 9" out of a 59 Fairlane in mine. You can use any 57-59 Ford full-size car 9". The centerline for the leafspring mounts is exactly the same width as the Falcons. The only difference is the width, it is wider than the stock unit, but it will still fit up under the car, you will just have a tough time changing tires on it.
In discussing the bump steer issue with Granada spindles, I think I have the solution. I am just coming back to Falcons after laying mine up about ten years ago, so some of my recolections might not be dead on. Back earlier this year, long time H.A.M.B.er Ricky Racer was having extreme bump steer issues after raising his '62 Ranchero to do the gasser thing. After many pages of theory and disscusion, it was traced to using the '64 or '65 centerlink on the earlier car. Now, here comes the fuzzy memory part. If I'm not mistaken, in '64 with the new body style, the frame rails got about two inches wider... as did the centerlink. putting the later center link on the early car will physically work, but moves the connection points for the tie rods out side of where they would mount normally. Bump steer begins. If I were doing the Granada spindles deal, I would do the '64 - '66 Mustang arms as previously stated, and go with the tie rod end shims that Dirty Ed mentioned keeping the stock geometry intact. As I said earlier, I might not be right on this, but I know that was the problem that Ricky came up with for this deal. Funny thing was, he had driven his Ranchero many years dropped with the same front end set up and didn't have any issues until he raised it. You might try a search on his thread.
The deal with the 65 center link is to clear the oil pan on an V8.If you try to stick a 302 in the round body falcons the oil pan will hit the center link.The two options you have are spend a ton of money converting your steering or buying a reamer and flipping your centerlink.The lower control arms are the same lenght on the stock 6 cyl falcon as the 64-66 mustang.There is no need to change the steering if you are not going with a V8.The early falcons are not a bolt on swap for everything like most chevys.You need a clear plan of what you want now and your plans down the road.If you set up to run a 6 cyl now and want to go to a V8 later then it will cost you twice as much.That is why I mentioned the TCI mustang II kit they offer for the early falcons.By the time you rebuild the stock suspension and then convert everthing over to put a V8 in the car,you could have bought the mustang II set up.Just my opinion I could be wrong.Eddy
You can use the entire manual steering from a V8 65-66 Mustang (5 lug spindles, Upper & lower control arms, pitman, idler arms, etc)..CHEAP Cut 1.5" out of the center of the Mustang drag link. I've done this several times.
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