1963 Ford Falcon Futura

Ditchdigger wrote: So anyway. That is how you turn a 45 minute job into a 4 hour ordeal.

if i ever run out of my own ways to turn a 45 minute job into a 4 hour ordeal, i will try to remember this one. ;-)

Just caught the bumper sticker catching up on the thread. A little bit of Mt Dew came out of my nose because I've recently had to explain to my 12 year old daughter who the host of "10 Things You Didn't About..." is.

I even risked it and pulled up some Black Flag vids on you tube. Of course that led to some Dead Kennedys and The Cramps.

She gave me that look only a 12 year old daughter can give her father that is trying to prove he used to be cool.

She recently announced she wants a Chevy II Nova for her first car. "That gives you 4 years to get it done", she said with a smirk. That tells me two things. I'm doing something right, and the little snot knows her father too well.

Her little finger is beet red from having something (or someone) wrapped around it. As it should be.

Bumper sticker is great. I noticed that one too

Last weeks oil pan escapades left me with some pretty bad leaks so I tore in to fix those this afternoon

Other than being dripped on by hot oil it went as expected

Lots of "great stuff" on all surfaces in hopes that it won't leak again.

While I was under there and since the sway bar was dropped to allow access to the pan I went ahead and threw in some urethane bushings on the joints.

The 52 year old rubber bushings were about as perished as they could be and still be in place. Perhaps that will tighten it up a hair.

The car hit the ground and I filled it with oil and hit the key. Oil pressure light didn't go out. Hmmm.... turn off the car and step around to the bay to see what was wrong. splash. Aww damn!

I have never left an oil filter off before. First time for everything. 5 quarts of Liqui-Moly 10w-60 race oil all over everything.

Cleaned up the mess with stall dry, swapped out the plugs (gapped the new ones to 0.050" for the new ignition system)threw some new wires on 'em, washed the beast and headed home.

Side note. Fuel economy has improved markedly in the last week with the new ignition system, so I got that going for me!

Just came across this thread last night, very cool. Thanks for posting all the progress. I have a '63 also and we should get together and discuss some falcon stuff. I talk to Bob and Josh at the sports car shop all the time and they talk about your car. I've got some mild upgrades to my 144ci engine, like a Weber DGEV progressive 2bbl, Performance Distributors D.U.I. ignition and Clifford ratio rockers. I have some Clifford parts that will bolt on to your 200 like a Clifford intake adapter and a Weber 38/38 carburetor.

Silly minor update. I was rolling around after dark and was totally unconvinced that my headlights were actually on. Tired old sealed beams were quite dim.

So called up craigslist to see what they had in stock and wound up with some sweet 80's hella h4's out of a w123.

Much better but still needs to be relayed. Less than 11 volts getting to the plug

I saw you drive the Falcon down Seneca yesterday, it looks real good. I wasn't in mine so you wouldn't have seen me. I want to do a disk brake conversion on mine, but I want to keep the factory 13's because I like 'em. Maybe you have some suggestions on how to do it. I know the Fairmont disks work but not with the 13's. I will be down at the Sports car shop this evening if your around, come on down, I'll have my Falcon.

You'll love a relay set up on those. I have H1/H4 quad 4"x6" Hella's on my 82 Volvo. 4 relays, 10 gauge hots and grounds -- with two digits after the decimal on my DVM, at idle I'm showing 14.35V at the alternator output stud and 14.35V at the hot terminal of the bulb. With an upgraded 55w Sylvania bulb in the hi/low and 100W bulbs in the high only you can fry eggs at 25 feet. http://imgur.com/a/ZELB7#0

Making my Ford sound like a Ferrari!

Going through a pile of garbage in our storage shop I found a box labeled Ferrari 308 and in it was a set of FIAMM air horns that were replaced during a restoration as they were deemed to beat up looking. I got the air pump working by turning the armature and lubing the vanes. I cleaned and painted the plastic horns with Testors candy apple red and a silver base to make them look like the metal horns used on 60's cars.

They are loud and stupid. Absoludicrous. I use my horn like twice a year so it is a really silly project but it was free and made me giggle while I was waiting for some tires to be mounted up.

They do have that unmistakable Ferrari sound though.

Ditchdigger wrote: Absoludicrous.

This is my new favorite word.

Something new

Stepping up to 17's allows more backspace so I can fit a bit wider tire. Went from 185 to 215 up front.

Seriously!? A set of new rad wheels and only one picture? I had to register to request some more please lol.

Just finished reading through your adventure, you handled it nicely :)

Its first trip not under its own power.

I left my lights on during my lunch break today. The car fired up but the alternator belt was squealing. It is a monster 160amp or something unit I picked up at a swap meet. Way too much for the little V-belt I am running on it. It does this every once in a while if the battery is low. It kept squealing for 10 minutes and as I was accelerating I heard a pop and a clang of something metal bouncing off the inside of the hood and then nothing for a good 8 seconds. I kept checking the rear view and saw nothing and all of the sudden I see the pulley shoot out of the front of the car at an impressive rate of speed. I was doing 40 and it was running away from me pretty briskly. I realized what was going on pretty quickly and shut the car down. I still have no clue what the pulley did for that 8 seconds in the engine bay before hitting the ground running like that.

When I swapped the serp pulley out for a v belt I made an aluminum spacer to get the alignment right. That spacer failed and let the thing rattle around long enough to wear out the center enough that it fit over the retaining nut. It didn't sound bad I dug up another pulley and machined a new spacer out of steel. Drove it together with the impact and called it good.

It is quieter than before. It is weird to become aware of something by its absence. No one would have ever guessed there was a noise but now that it is gone I am like "how did I never notice that?"

That sucks about the break down.

But, I'm also interested in the wheels - Crown Vic with spacers or maybe some Dodge steelies?

17X7 Charger/Magnum Steelies with beauty ring, Ranger/aerostar/broncoII hubcaps and clips with chrome bullets from a leadsled/Kustom supplier covering the all too trucklike fake hub lock pattern in the center.

I wanted a modern take on the vintage look. Not sold on the bullets, but they come right off.

Ideally I want to go with a fusion of a mild Bellflower look and a mild pro touring look.

Just got back from a trip to the Albany swap meet. I decided to do a little math. I stopped and topped up the tank on the way out of town. Drove a round trip of 122.6 miles according to my phones GPS doing 70-75mph. Hit the same gas pump on the way back and topped it off again. 4.6 Gallons used so 26.6MPG. Is it just me or is that not bad at all for a 51 year old sedan?

Some thoughts after the trip. I have a driveshaft vibration (never balanced it after shortening it). That thing really hums above 70. Between that and no real door seals to speak of it is NOISY. My ears are ringing. I still have some bump steer issues to deal with and I would like to dial in a bit more caster. Other than that it is solid.

I replaced the plugged up heater core last week and threw in a 195 thermostat. It can cook me out in town but on the freeway it still blows lukewarm. Gotta figure that one out.

Thoughts of a V8 swap are starting to get strong. I can get a 130K mile guaranteed 5.0 from an Explorer from the wrecking yard up the street for $400 with a sheet showing compression and leakdown numbers. I have a 5.0 bellhousing for the T5, a spare MS1 on a 2.2 board and relay board and the proper mustang motor mounts all sitting on a shelf. What else am I forgetting?

Flywheel and clutch kit

exhaust

EFI fuel pump

Starter

what am I not thinking about? If I could do this under $800 I would do it.

Isn't the V8 front suspension and steering a lot beefier than the I6 front end? Or is that already taken care of?

In reply to Ditchdigger: Clutch bell crank? I can,t remember if you went hydraulic or not. Will a V8 swap affect driveshaft length? That's all I got. Your radiator should work, rear end is strong, you can move the fuel line to the right place, brakes are handled. Do eet.

In reply to Ditchdigger:

Radiator & cooling fans. Good time to go electric, right?

Oil pan might be an issue or might not.

Lots of little things add up in that swap. You'll need the correct oil pan, but it won't allow for the side mount dip stick. You can use an older timing cover to allow for a front mount dip stick, but you'll have to plug the mech fuel pump hole if going EFI. It also doesn't have the mech fuel pump cam lobe up front The explorer motors redline at 4500, so if you want to change the cam for more breathing you'll need to swap springs too. The exp motor is also DIS, with it's own timing cover that has the knock sensor mount, so you'll need to figure out how to mount the dip stick since you can't swap timing covers on those. Then there's the accessories up front. Not sure if you can use the exp accessories or not. Also, the GT40P heads have the plugs sticking out at an odd angle, so a lot of headers won't work without modification. My roommate has a 66 Mustang with a 98 explorer motor and trans we pulled at the junkyard. They're rebuilt, with a nice lumpy cam and a dyno tune. My 68 Mustang has an engine and trans from an 86 Mustang. I used the Mustang Steve clutch cable kit, but I converted from auto. There's an adaptor you can use with a 4 speed bellhousing to retain the Z bar. Lemme know if you have any questions or need any pictures. I've clearly researched all of this to death.

OK doing a little research on ebay/napaprolink/car-part.com

Flywheel ~$50

front sump oil pan ~$50

Oil pump pickup ~$15

EDIS 8 ~$70 (stuck with a 2.2 board so COP is out)

Clutch actuation either by copying the mustang steve cable or the modern driveline hydraulic system ~$100

Clutch kit ~$150

So I am already poking over $830 without a few other things. I might just start collecting bits and see what happens

I vote rig up efi on the straight 6. Then add a small turbo later. Much cooler

More wasted time!

A local guy was parting out a 67 Cougar and it had a nice 1.125" front sway bar. A lot of vendors give the same part numbers for 60-67 falcons and mustangs and it was a good deal so I took the risk.

Cleaned it up and tried it out.

A bit different but kinda close

It is a bit wider. The angle of the end links could be fixed.

But the problem is

When I put the car down the lower strut hit the huge bar and I had no suspension movement If the car was at stock height I don't think it would be an issue. I doubt any large diameter bar would fit in the tiny gap.

I am thinking about my options. Relocating the strut? Finding an even wider sway bar that will fit to the outside? Replace the lower arm and strut with an A-arm? Put a bend in the strut for clearance?

Boo.

While it was on the lift I greased every zerk and finally wired up the backup LED's to the switch on the trans.

Anyone need a big Mustang front bar?

How far back would the sway bar have to move to make everything clear?