Features Bought myself a '53 Ford

You have that car looking like a "favorite pair of well worn shoes". Nice.

 

Got me a brand new carb.
The old Holley that's installed right now is pretty bad.

Been reading a lot about carbs and distributors and some say nothing else than a stock Holley will work with the Loadamatic dizzy.
I spoke with a long time flathead guy here in Sweden and he has been running Strombergs (with vacuum port) together with Loadamatics and says it works just fine so I decided to trust him on that and bought one from him since he is a licensed dealer for Stromberg.

Pretty excited to get it installed now.

 

Does that carburetor have the proper Load-a-Matic port on the back? I believe that back in the day, such a unit was available.

 

No, it only has the vacuum port seen in the picture.

But like I said, some say it won't work and some say it will.

 

Boy, I looked and don't see a vacuum port on the carburetor in your picture.

If you're not going to change the distributor, it'll work (you can get it running), but it won't work well.

 

Got the carb installed a couple of weeks ago and it seems happy hooked up to the stock distributor, both when standing still reving the engine and driving on the street.

And feels very good that it now fires right up even if it sits for a couple of days, so no need to get under the hood to prime the carb everytime I want to start the engine.

 

Probably the last drive for the year, currently 28 degrees F here.

 

Mikko_ you really do have that 53 looking nice. Just makes you want to get in and take a ride. Glad it's running good too. It' 28 f here in Ohio USA too.

 

Thank you, I'm happy with it.

Only thing that has started to bother me a bit is the Fordomatic trans.
It works fine but I sure wish it had a manual trans instead.

 

have you checked the classic car data base?

 

Congratulation on your 53 I picked up a 54 that I've working on

 

Man. You have that car looking great. Are you having transmission issues or just wish it had a standard?

 

Thanks.

No issues with the transmission, just wishing it was a manual.
But sourcing all the parts to do a manual conversion would be a pain, not to mention all the work involved so it will most likely stay automatic.

 

I've always liked the looks of '53 Fords (better than '52 or '54, IMO). Seeing the pictures of yours reminds me that they are really handsome cars.

 

Long time since I posted anything here, mostly because me and my girlfriend bought a bigger apartment for us and our cat so I've been busy doing some restoration work like a whole new kitchen so no time to work on old cars.

Now that things have calmed down a bit I decided it was time to order a new wiring harness for the car.
I went with a 6V Rebel Wire harness, goal is to get it installed before spring/summer is here.

Any good advice out there when re-wiring a car?
Or is it just a matter of ripping out the old and installing the new?

 

Anywhere that you can tie into the old harness and pull it through to the termination point will help such as the trunk for the tail light fuel gauge wiring. Remove your dash altogether. Lay it face down on a bench then start replacing one wire at a time. Wire in a couple of 6 pin connectors to both ends of the harness. Now when you bolt the dash in it will be plug and play. No standing on your head to try and re-wire the under dash.

 

Thanks for the advice.
I'm both scared and excited of the re-wiring

 

Paint the back of the dash white when it comes out. Will help later on when you are doing the under dash yoga and chasing wires. Also, separate the harness into sections (under hood, under dash/cabin, and trunk) and then just take your time. It really is very straightforward

 

Just a little something to show the color, Alpine Blue and Wimbledon white, when it's fresh !! With all that's done to my racer, people look at it and ask how I picked that great color. Simple, it's the original color...

 

First drive of the year today.

 

The car looks great Mikko; you have done a great job so far.

 

No snow?

 

Thanks, it's getting better.

We have snow one day and the next it melts away, then we get snow again and then it melts away and so on.

Winters in this part of Sweden pretty much sucks, it would be better to have snow the whole winter instead of this back and forth-weather.

 

Did you re-wire already? How did it go for you? Spring is around the corner here. I envy your "NO SNOW"!

 

Don't worry about the Fordamatic as long as it's working good. It may actually be an advantage if you ever decide to sell the car. I can remember a time when a Powerglide was a serious detriment if you had a C2 Corvette, these days, people are clamoring for them. I actually helped a high school friend change his '53 Ford to a stick in the summer of 1959. He had a complete driving parts car to work with, so, as I remember, it was pretty easy. That's probably not an alternative for you, but I seem to remember there were a lot of insignificant parts we never would have thought of without it.

 

Still waiting for the new wiring harness to arrive so old wiring is still in place.

 

Things changed quite a bit here yesterday, got an offer for the car that I couldn't refuse so I'll have to start looking around for something else now.

 

Looking for something sounds like a new adventure...keep us in the loop @Mikko_...I'm sure the next owner will appreciate the work you done to it from the time you started this Thread...

 

It's funny how the rust pattern is so similar to the one on @Mikko_' example...