Its been sometime since my last update, there has been a bunch of jobs done. The oil pan needed to be changed due to the fact that it had a run in with a floor jack. I sourced a new pan, cleaned it up painted it black and got the car up on jack stands to remove the damaged pan. According to the factory service manual, the procedure is to drain the pan, undo the bolts, rotate the crank so that the pan will clear the counterweights and slid the pan forward and down. Problem was this did not work, so the engine mounts were undone at the chassis end and engine raised about an inch and half. Still could not get the pan to clear, so I undid the swaybar and slid it forward, then I was able to remove the pan. I knew that the crank in the motor could not have been a 390/406 crank and must have been a longer stroke than standard. Got the leadlight out and crawled right under the car and checked for some stamped number on the second counterweight from the back of back of the car. There was a 1U stamped, which is a 428 crank, the stroke on these 3.98 instead of 3.78 for a 390/406. The crank had been internally balanced with Mallory metal; the conrods were balanced and are 428CJs. The bores still had hone marks in the swept area and with a rough measure came out 4.13. Some time prior to 1988 my car had a short block fitted; it still has the original HiPO 390 heads. The new oil pan and oil filter were installed, filled it with 15w40 Fuchs oil and attention turned to replacing the shot swaybar endlink bushes as well as the main swaybar bushes. These were a breeze to do, bolted the swaybar back in place and attention was now focused to the rear of the car, mainly to do the shackle and spring pad rubbers as they were in pretty bad shape and would not pass a roadworthy inspection for when the car gets registered. Here are the old swaybar endlink bushes compared with the new ones, Took awhile to figure out how the additional spring was fitted, once that got sorted it was time get the rear of the on stands and the rear axle supported. If it was not for having access to an air wrench the job of undoing the nuts that anchor the helper spring would have turned into an endurance marathon. Got the passenger side done pretty quickly, still have the drivers side to do. The old shackle rubbers compared to the new ones. The spring pads needed to be replaced. Here is a shot of the helper spring attachments with the spring removed. When I bought the car, I thought it was just going to fix up a couple of issues that it had (brakes). With the car having sat for so long and the all the rubbers so badly deteriorated, I had no choice as the car would never pass a roadworthy inspection. I will be replacing some of the front suspension rubbers as well as putting in new engine mounts, I don't want any nasty surprises like putting a fan through the radiator. Am pleased with the results so far and it has whetted my appetite do another FE powered project, either a mid 50s Ford or a hot rod.
Wowzer man, really some excellent work here, I am so impressed with all the stuff you have done, a lot of little things that make a big difference. So cool to have your brothers, daughter, and the loyal K-9 pal helping with the project. Love at its best. Just a beautiful turn out kids. ~sololobo~
great thread! Ive gone thru alot of the same problems on my 62 country squire. No window fuzzies or seals for a lot of the windows are made aftermarket. Keep up the good work!
All the vent seals have been done, had to use two sets to make one by cutting and joing with rubber cement. Then joins are nearly invisible. The door rubbers are done as is the trunk rubber. I re-covered the rear seat, ended up with sore thumbs, glad Gluefoot was able help as it needed an extra pair of hands to get the job done. The seat and rear section carpet are now done.
Can't figure out why hardtop/conv vent rubbers are not offered. Your idea of joining two sedan sets is clever but 2X the cost.
Yes it is twice the cost, as the Duke once said, "A man's gotta do, what a man's gotta do" Here are some more pics. The rear seat has just been covered. Needed to let sun to heat the material up a little so to make it a little more pliable. The wrinkles soon were worked out. The backrest installed. Looking sweet, still a bunch of details to be done. Getting closer to getting it done, have to get some more hog rings and will get the front seat done. In the mean time, Gluefoot is starting to prep his 64 Galaxie which will be warmed over a little and will be the subject of another thread.
Here is one of the reasons why I made the decision to "restore" the interior. The car had sat for years under a "carport" in Fontana and it copped the hot California sun. I got a little surprise when I took the cover off, the padding was also damaged by the heat and I did not have enough material to pad it up. So I have left the seat backs for another week and moved onto the base. It was pretty straight forward, the thumbs got a real workout. I did leave it out in the sun for a while and made the material workable. Got the front carpet in and the seat base. Got a little trimming to do on the carpet. I have not been able to locate a decent set of plastic seat shields the fit at the bottom of the seat base. I am going to use ones that came off XL 500. Instead of them going to be polished metal, they are going to be painted and given a custom touch, more on that later. Thanks to you that have commented so far, its all very much appreciated.
I am at a loss why they are not available, I actually used the Starliner seals, the sedan ones are a different profile. The convertible ones are like the Starliner and they are just as short. The hardtops were the most popular cars sold. The tooling must have been lost.
Love this thread, BIG Galaxie fan here. I noticed you are missing a wheel center cap. Take a look at the Tony Branda web site. They sell some neat flat caps for those wheels.
I see a lot of inspiration here for my Falcon projects. First and foremost, I'm going to steal that metalflake dash idea! Great thread. Thanks for sharing your resto with us. -Dave
It has been a long while, some OT projects took over and it was time to get the old girl done. One thing that really bedevilled me was the carbs, they had been seriously abused and really needed to be completely rebuilt. I gave the job to Michael Bogut, (NBA's Andrew Bogut's dad) and he did a remarkable job. Replaced all the hardware and some serious machining to ensure all the surfaces were trued. I had issues where the accelerator pump mounting on a couple of the carbs, as they were the source of some leakage even with new gaskets. Just prior to Christmas Macs released some new door cards they were right for my car and they will be going on in the next week or so. It is now near the end of the road and am looking for a more HAMB friendly project!
I had a friend, years ago, that street raced a '62 Galaxie 406, he got from his Father, who bought it new. When the 406 went, he put in a 390 with a cam and used the 406 tri-power. The car was fast and launch awesome, but the weight broke parts. The posi blew, so he put in a detroit locker. The locker blew so he switched to a mini spool. After that, he started breaking axles. He also blew the top loader. He quit racing after all that. The car is black on black with Cragars.
Very nice clean car , and the work documentation is fantastic. This is without a doubt my favorite thread on the hamb! Makes me miss my 64 galaxie 500, it was blue, big block too.
I love the Galaxie build posts, insperation for my 62 G code build! I hope mine turns out near as good as yours.
The Jalopy Journal
