Projects 1965 ford falcon- complete restoration! with pictures

Hi there,

My name is Riley and I am 18 years old. I am restoring a 1965 falcon 2 door sedan with full documentation! One of the many things I know I like to see, is when a build is shown through its steps and you can come back to it every week to find something new! Today I am starting My build post and I will continue to update it until It is completed. This fall I enrolled in the collision repair and refinishing program at Okanagan College in Kelowna British Columbia Canada. The program is a 9 month course teaching you the basics in automotive body repair. Last week I brought in my falcon as a project for my class. the car is super sound with only minor rust. This south Oregon car was built on October 31st 1964 with a 200ci inline six and cruise o matic 3 speed automatic. The plans for the car is to bring the body back to original looking standards with a little sleeper performance! The color will be brought back to the original tropical turquoise and will be two toned with a black roof. I know the car could come with the option of a white roof, but the black and turquoise just seemed better to me. plans for drivetrain are to transplant a 351 dressed to look like a factory 289, four speed manual transmission, and 8 inch rear end out of a 1968 mustang. The car is going back to era specific parts only! Im kind of a hard core nostalgic in that way.So now that you know the cars story you can see it! this is only the first week of a long journey it will take, so keep checking back for many updates that will come. I encourage more people to document there restorations because it gives other people incentive to work on their rides, and maybe some ideas if your good! Heres the pictures of me and my brother and dad dropping the car off after is long trailer ride.

 

Looks good from here in Nanaimo. I like your plan to keep with a mostly original look. Falcons are great cars. I've had mine for nearly 20 years, since high school.

 

Looks like a great car to start on.Check out www.TFFN.net for all thing related to the falcon.

 

Hi Riley , Have seen the 351 swap to a early Falcon and the exhaust clearance is really tight against the shock towers . You are going to have to get pretty creative with headers to make it fit as from what I have seen manifolds won't work.
You should talk to John Dallaway at Duncan Auto Parts and see if you can get a look at his 1964 Fairlane , he would give you some good pointers and ideas for your project. His car is dark green and usually sits outside the parts store during the summer .
I drove a 1964 falcon years ago and they are a great little car have a great time restoring yours . Rob.

 

New Update,

This week I started tearing into the drivers door and fitting the front fenders to the car for a perfect fit. I found out that the car had been hit in the front end prior to me owning it, thus making the front fenders not fit properly. I took the car over too the frame bay and pulled out the wrinkle up in the engine bay inners and rad support. the fenders are finally fitting well and the door is ready for filler work. I had recently primed and painted the inners of the hood and front fenders of the car to lessen the load at the body shop. as for the door, it had some cancer in the bottom corner and some damage due to the hinge mounts poking through the door skin :evil: it was also hit and the damage was pulled out using the old method of drilling holes in the skin and pulling with a pick. all the holes are welded in and the patches metal finished. my teacher owns a hot rod shop and is teaching me how to metal finish and tig weld. I havent got to the tig welding yet so these patches are in with just a standard 140 lincolin mig. I am hoping to have the filler work done by this Wednesday.



Here is the cars first day in the shop with the door stripped.


the door patch repair where the hinge poked through, the patch is a little small so i have to make it flush by adding a tack line on the edge, you never want excess filler along the edge of a panel it has a much higher risk of cracking and ruining all your hard work.




the finished door all metal finished to the extent I want to take it.






and finally the fender fitment before I left for the night. And a little mock up for my own enjoyment! in a natural drag car stance.

 

So I finally have some work ready to do another update. The drivers door and deck lid are finished and ready for primer. I started to take down the rear quarter and found some rust hiding there. its not bad but its all little pinholes, im glad I caught the cancer just in time. The quarter panel replacements are a little pricey for the quality they are ( a friend bought them and the body lines etc were all way off.) I have decided to do all my own patch work. besides, Its pretty fun to make patch panels. Im going to be butt welding them in for a flush fit. along with the obvious rust, there are some dings and dents everywhere that will have to be looked after as well, so far I have enjoyed working on this car and I really want to make a career out of restoration work. these cars are fun and cheap to play with, although the straight cut bodylines are a pain to get straight!

 

you kids today dont know how good u have it we didnt have any thing like this in the 60s just boring subjects that u needed to survive. ha ha. nice work hang in there

 

Riley,
Keep up the good work! Car looks great.
Check out some of the other Falcon and Comet posts here, and see what the other Hambers are up to.
Good luck, and I can't wait to see more.
Eric

 

thanks for the kind words! I have had this car for about 4 years and im glad to finally be doing something with it. I am preparing my next project as we speak, 1962 ranchero!

 

So I finally got my 1st rust patch completed. It is a two part patch, starting with the wheel well lip and pinch weld, then a welded on quarter panel patch. Im suprised how well it actually turned out! It sucks that I forgot my camera the day I made it, but i do have pictures of it completed!




Next I cut out the rusted metal and found some cancer on the inner fender, but not as much as expected.



The inner fender was a really simple shape, so I cut out the rust and bent up a patch to fit in.







After I welded the inner all in I test fit the patch and epoxy primered all the welds and the patch.




While I was waiting for the epoxy to dry, I started on the next patch. I measured and cut out the lip and pinch weld section, and bent it into shape




by the time i had the second patch started, the epoxy had dried and it was time to clean and pack up for the day.

 

bttt

 

Dang son! That's pretty freakin cool. I am subscribing to this one.

 

Thanks!

 

Not a damn thing wrong with those patch panels. Excellent.

 

nice work. Going to be watching this one

 

Yep that is some nice patchwork.

 

Thanks guys,

I finished off the second and third rust patches today, but forgot my camera, I will snap a couple shots of them tomorrow. hopefully I can weld them in this week or there going to sit until after Christmas. at school we get into paint, and I can't wait to jump in. The learning curve has been huge with this car!

 

Awesome Falcon! I am getting ready to start on a 62 myself! Good luck with your build, it looks like you are on the right track!

 

nice work, my first car was a 61 Falcon, wish I still had it.

 

I really like the direction you are going with this car. I just subscribed to the thread.

 

Nice patches. I will have to do a couple on my Cyclone when I get around to working on it. Thanks for posting the pics...gives me a better idea of what I might run into.

 

Great little car. I love em....

 

heres the pictures of the two latest rust patches, I wont be able to weld them in until the new year, but atleast there done!

To my surprise the easiest looking patch was the hardest one to make! i used the roller to get the starting shape, and then I had to use a little heat to form the rear of the patch to curve with the body properly, Its amazing how a simple shape turns out to be not all that simple!

I will be putting the door and trunk lid in full primer the first week of January which is going to make it feel like some real progress is being made! I have some paint that I am going to inner the door and trunk right after they are primered, I will spray it wet on wet so there is no need to sand the primer for the inners before putting down the color. It will be nice to have that out of the way and off the back of my mind. And of course ill have the camera that day

p.s. the pictures look kinda crappy haha, the shop lights were turned off since we were in the class room all day, and i got lazy and decided that the flash will suffice....not!

 

Very nice, have a 63 myself, also going with the 351W, there are a couple places making headers for this application, I won't have the clearance problem as such because the guy who had this before me has screwed alot of stuff up and I think I might have to go to the MII front suspension, the body was very twisty before I put frame connectors in but he "patched" a few places in the frame areas and judging by his other work, they may be beyond service, he also just covered up the torque boxes....

 

new update,

just this last week I finished off the first two patches and welded them in place. they are now ready for a skim of duraglass to keep moisture out and a skim of plastic filler to straighten everything out.

Here is the first patch tacked in to completely welded and ground down.





Next I did the same process with the second patch, cut the hole, repaired the inner, epoxy primed, tacked in, and welded.







next is to finish off the last patch for this quarter. than its time to fill and sand sand sand, than move on to the rear of the car and all the way around to where I started!

 

everything looks great but one suggestion, round the corners on you patch panels instead of squaring them, they dont warp and draw as much. hope this helps.

 

haha I got the same suggestion from my instructor right as i finished! the next one will have rounded corners

 

If you are still going with the 351 and want more space you can go and swap your shock towers with 1968 Mustang ones, its not as hard, based on your welding abilities, it is just a matter of drilling and welding the new replacement in place in the same original spot welds, we have done this a couple of time in my friend's falcon. You may need to change the control arms but probably you are going to rebuild your suspension anyways.

 

Wow color me impressed. I bought a good shape 64 falcon futura convertible. Right now I'm redoing a lot of the mechanical parts of the car. Loving it.

Subscribed to the thread. Keep updating!

 

Subscribed also. My 64 Comet needs the exact same spots that you're doing. Thanks for this post.