Customs 1959 ford custom 300 highway gears

I have a 1959 ford custom 300 with the 223 L6 and manual 3 speed. It seems to really start to scream on the highway about 60mph. I am looking for some advice as to what I can to to make it run highway speeds more comfortable. I don't currently have the money to swap out the transmission to the one with overdrive. Can I change the gears in the rear end to help this. And if so what would anyone recommend.

So far the only upgrades that I have done have been to the ignition system. New Flamethrower 2 coil, electronic ignition, plugs and wires. And had the carb rebuilt.

 

Taller tires will help.

 

First, you need to see what gears you've got. IIRC, you jack up the car, mark the driveshaft, hold one wheel, and turn the other 2 turns while counting the driveshaft revolutions. Take's a buddy and a wheel block. With that and your tire height a conversion chart will tell you the rpm's at 60.

Second, I think the T-86 O/D trans will work behind the six. They aren't that much money, and don't take abuse well. But they went millions of miles even behind 292's in normal driving. Might be smarter to stay off the highways till the money's saved up.

 

I agree taller tires will help some. Not a hole bunch. You need to figure what rear end you have. And swapping rear end should help. But hopefully the motor will hold up with a taller rear end. They made these old trucks with these type of gears for those motors for the torque it need to not lug the motor.

 

Before you go a step fuller throw a tach on it. really scream may be nothing at all if you are not used to driving in one of these noisy old beasts. They were made to run 60+ all day long.

Then it is a matter of choosing what you need to accomplish your goal. If you are not concerned with around town grunt then with a 28" tall tire you want a 3.08-3.26 gear that should be pretty easy to find used or new for the car. I would not go taller than a 3.08 trust me it is not what you want to do.

But before you ever get that far throw a tach on it and see what screaming really is.

 

Without you checking all the Ford manuals I could find say you have a 3.70 or possibly a 3.55 rear gear ratio. Speed limits in 1959 were lower and freeways and interstates were still under construction so all of this makes sense. V8's usually had a higher gear ratio ( numerically lower) because the had more HP. IMO a 3.00 gear would make your car a dog and overwork the clutch more than do now. If you add an overdrive, most of them had 4.11's making for very ez in town driving and a good cruising RPM on the road with normal 3rd gear as a passing gear. Good luck.

 

The current speed limits are higher than they were 10 years ago but they are aligned well with that they were in '59. There may be 5 to 10 MPH difference. Many states still had open speed law in '59.

he needs to check and see where he is before he starts changing things.

 

The original tires where just about 27" tall. If you now have radials on the factory 14" rims they are probably closer to 26" tall. The original axle gear was most likely 3.56:1. So from the factory 60 mph would be about 2650 rpm, or so. 70 mph about 3100 rpm. The 223 in your car was listed as 145 hp @ 4000 rpm. If all is still pretty much original and in good shape then I would think you shouldn't have to much trouble rolling down the interstate.
-Dave

 

My brothers, 59,identical specs, has the 3.70 gears. If you are running the 14 inch rims, you might get away with a 3.23 set, or you could shove a 225/75/15 tire in the rear on the right rim. We had a 15x7 rim in back, but it was tight.

 

Kansas use to have a highway speed limit law that said "Reasonable and Prudent" for the conditions at hand. Don't know when that changed.
-Dave

 

I use to drive a 49 ford coupe with 3.00 gears in a maverick rear end and a non-overdrive tranny. While the engine was a 350 chev, it loved the 3.00's. Great cruising gears for the hiway and I had 26" tires on it.
If you went to a gear higher than 3.00s, you'd need to slip the clutch to get moving. Starting on a hill would spell disaster for your clutch. Might want to re-check your rear gear ratio. A set of 3.00s with 27-28 inch tires should go down the hiway very well without buzzing the engine.

 

Decode your VIN tag. The '59 Custom 300 with the 223 and OD has a 3.56 rear from the factory. The regular 3-speed may have a 3.70, but anything is possible with a car that's been around for 57 years.

 

Back in the 50s and 60s Kansas was 70 day 60 night.

 

People who grew up with the drive 55 and stay alive speed law don't know that highway speed limits were in the 60-80 mph range prior to that. Wyoming was still 80 MPH during the 55 and stay alive era by the way.

@town sedan the reasonable and prudent is what is known as open speed law. I don't know when they dropped it, Oregon and Neveda still have open speed law as far as I know.

 

You can over-gear a motor/clutch... I had an OT FE-powered pickup with a three-speed manual and 2.87 rear gears. Got great mileage... but I loaded it with firewood one time down in a depression and had to get pulled out as the clutch simply couldn't apply the power. I suspect your '59 has 3.7 or 3.89 rear gears as these would be typical. Taller gears will make it a dog around town, and if you live someplace that has hilly terrain, you may kill the clutch.

 

We can try and figure gears and such till we are blue in the face, if we don't have a base line we are just fooling ourselves. I'll bet the old heap isn't screaming at all it is just noisier than the daily.

 

With some work a 300 distributor can be made to work a great improvement over the Load-O Matic.

 

Yep, those old sixes would sound pretty busy at highway speeds if you didn't have a OD trans. I do know they won't pull a real tall gear; I had a '56 Ford wagon with a 6/OD and 4.10 rear gears, and any kind of decent hill around here would require that you drop it out of OD and if the hill was very long or a bit steep you'd still lose speed... LOL.

 

Yea. I think that sometimes we get in one of these old noisy heaps and think that they are really going for it when they really aren't. I pulled a six out of a '57 wagon and replaced it with a 272. It was down into second going over the Burn on the way to Tillamook. They were good motors but someone had stuck a tall gear in the old wagon, with the stock gear it would have run 60-70 all day long and still pulled the grade over the cascades.

 

ford made it easy to figure out what the gear ratio was on the 1959 cars, they put it on the tag on the driver door hinge pillar.

2-- 3.56
3-- 3.70
4-- 3.89

there are a few more, these are most likely

 

Door pillar says tag says 2. So I guess it's a 3.56 gear currently

 

A 3.56 was a common ratio, and probably about as tall a gear as you want with a six unless you live somewhere where it's really flat, then I might try a 3.25. Certainly no more than that, or it will really kill your low-speed power and hill-climbing...

A swap to a bit larger tire on a 15" rim will help just as much, and probably for less money.

 

Old cars before the 70s usually sound like they are really revving but 60 won't hurt a good motor. Over 65 will cut your gas mileage in half.

In the early 70s car makers started putting very high (low numerical) gears in their cars to eke out a little more gas mileage.

Ford started using the 9" rear in 1957. So you may be able to buy new gears very easily.

Keep in mind that hiway gears will kill whatever acceleration and hill climbing ability you have.

If it was mine I would leave it alone, maybe put bigger tires on.

 

I'd check the ratio I actually have, and install a tach.

 

With stock size tires and those gears, 65 mph is about 3000 rpm. Pretty much what it was designed for.

Overdrive is nice....see if you can find one...you might get lucky.

 

3.00 in my Ford rear, equates to 2000rpm at 50mph, my calculations. I still keep going for another gear in my auto box when I'm manually shifting up, feels and sounds busy, even though it isn't. Open cars tend to do that.

 

The younger owners here don't realize that 'busy' motors were common with these cars; pretty much everything for the last 30 years has featured some sort of overdrive. I recall the 235-powered '50 Chev pickup I once owned that could do 60 mph max (on the flat only; any hill would reduce top speed) but that required the gas mashed all the way down and held. Even at 50 it was 'busy'... the 'comfortable' top speed was about 40. Ratios 'taller' than about 3.25 were pretty much non-existent as none of the motors could pull gears that tall. 3.5 and 3.7 gears were common, even for the V8 cars of the day. If a B-W OD was fitted, the ratio dropped to 3.9 or lower.

 

btw the gear ratio options in the 59 Edsel were


VIN Code 1: 3.10 : 1
VIN Code 2: 3.56 : 1
VIN Code 3: 3.70 : 1
VIN Code 4: 3.89 : 1
VIN Code 5: 2.91 : 1
VIN Code 6: 2.69 : 1

so maybe they did have some serious highway gears available, eh? but they were used with the more powerful engines, and usually with automatic transmissions which had a torque converter to get you moving.

 

A gearbox swap can sometimes be cheaper than a diff swap or tyre swap [ if you choose the correct transmission]

How about considering a 3 + 1 4-speed , these gearboxes are usually undesirable
The first 3 gears will have the same traits as your original 3 speed especially since you don't need a diff ratio swap but you will have the added bonus of the overdrive 4th.

Consider a TOD (top shift overdrive) found in F150 Pickups
The top shift lever should clear the bench seat and the bell housing bolt pattern is the same as a Ford Toploader.

Obviously a BW T5 would be desirable but more expensive.[and more complicated to adapt]

 

I put a tach on it. Looks like 2600 at 60 mph