1963 Ford Falcon Futura

Nashco wrote: Would you mind elaborating on the fastener cleaning? I borrowed a friend's Harbor Freight vibratory tumbler and left some fasteners in it for an hour each with two different media types and couldn't see a lick of difference.

More time needed than that.

I use the large on HF sells

filled with green pyramid media, also from HF

To that add about 1 cup of simple green/super clean/purple power type degreaser and 1 or 2 quarts of water. When dry the media just doesn't work.

Then just let the sucker go for 12 hours or so.I usually start it at the end of my shift at work and begin my day the next morning by stopping it and rinsing the media and parts out.

I have let it go for over two days with no ill effects. It won't wear down the threads or anything.

i need to get one of these setups. have you tried it on brackets/sensors/etc?

Can you give us a recap on what you're planning to do to the engine?

Dusterbd13 wrote: i need to get one of these setups. have you tried it on brackets/sensors/etc?

I chuck anything in there that will fit and not be damaged by the liquid. I am gonna break down the rocker shaft and put everything in there in the next day or so. I will post before/after shots.

It isn't fast but it is almost zero effort. It does the work while I am doing other things, and that I like.

RossD wrote: Can you give us a recap on what you're planning to do to the engine?

Probably 0.030 over pistons, 0.010 under rods and mains. A Classic inlines 264/264-112* cam. I will need shave the head 0.055 to deal with modern head gaskets which are thicker than the OEM one that is NLA.

Most likely the Tempo TBI if I can get enough injector into it. Looking for a Holset HX35 or similar to strap to the side.

Are you planning for the TBI + Boost?

I looked into that TBI when I was daily driving a fairmont as a way to learn and play with Megasquirt. It never happened on my car but it was an interesting idea. These old sixes take well to boost, must help make up for the horrible integral intake manifold by forcing air in.

In reply to Nitroracer:

I did TBI and boost on my Fiat because the crappy siamesed intake ports made port injection impossible. It works well. Again I had issues with injection choices. Finding a combination that could handle 120hp and still idle well was a bit of a pain but scabbing in a second did the trick.

First half of the tutorial on tumbling parts

http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/tech-tips/vibratory-tumbling-for-fun-and-profit/76055/page1/

How loud is that HF unit? Could I run it overnight in a suburban garage without angering half the neighborhood?

I remember when you put a huge counterweight on the little 5lb one when you first got the Fiat...

Got an awesome Christmas present from my kid brother. This is the mooneyes wheel I have been wanting. Apparently the hardest one to find too.

Awesome!

Yet another motor donor.

A friend discovered that it is simply impossible to sell a 6cyl Mustang. He has had this running driving 68 on CL for 6 months for cheap money and the only people who came to look at it are the ones who didn't read the ad and were pissed that it was only a 6.

I knew that the early motors had the more desirable forged rods so he offered to give me the motor if I pulled it so he could throw a spare V8 in it.

Before I yanked it out I did a compression test and it is very healthy with 185-190psi across all six. I am thinking I might just toss it in for the time being while I really build up the turbo motor.

Or I might tear the rods out and scrap the rest. I seem to change my mind every other day with this car.

The falcon went up on the lift again for some investigation into its constantly deteriorating steering and stability issues. I drained the steering box, cleaned out the gunk that was 50 year old oil and refilled it with Penrite steering box lube.

Then I reset the lash and preload again. It is much smoother but is still vague. At least the steering self centers now though.

While I had it up checking out all the bushings and tie rods I found that the passenger shock is blown. Oil everywhere. Drivers side was leaking a bit too. I rummaged around my box of "bits too good to throw away" for some thing to put it back together with. First things I found were some boge shocks from a Fiat 124 but, while stiffer in both compression and rebound than the KYBs that I had on the front at first, they didn't seem quite up to the task. At the very bottom of the box I hit jackpot. Some Bilstein race shocks that I swapped out of an Alfa race car. The driver wanted adjustable shocks so I tucked these away thinking they might come in handy some day. Today was apparently that day. These are longer than the Pro shocks by a large margin.

I converted them to coilovers by machining a circlip groove into the bodies and swapping the sleeves from the pros onto them

At this point I got so caught up with the hassle of all the little things I had to change and modify to make these work I forgot to take any more pictures. There is no upper perch on the coilover. I made an adapter ring that sits in the stock spring seat and the shaft runs through that up to the stock Falcon upper shock mount.

The shock is too long and it brought the front of the car up an inch and a half. I need to extend the lower mount down and reengineer the upper spring perch. Or just buy the newer adjustable version of the 3" stroke pro shocks

It rode pretty well. Firmer and smoother than before but due to the fact that the ride height changed a significant amount the toe is off.

I have a few decisions to make in the next week about which way I am gonna go with this.

Thats a clean little falcon

I love reading this thread. Please keep it up.

Also, when/if you turbocharge this I would be real interested to see the result.

I saw this car in person last week. Its absolutely amazing. Never thought I'd drool over a four door Falcon.

Flyin Mikey J wrote: I saw this car in person last week. Its absolutely amazing. Never thought I'd drool over a four door Falcon.

Really? Where?

I'll guess west 11th area.

Heading east on 7th at Garfield actually. I thought I recognized the car from somewhere, then remembered this thread.

I love this build.

Q on machining the grove in the shock for the circlip. How thick is the shock wall and wont this produce a significant stress riser with the change in section.

The shock wall is a lot thicker than I thought. I expected it to be exhaust tubing thin but it is more like schedule 80 pipe wall thickness.

My boss used to send shocks to Bilstein for them to machine the grooves all the time. They would charge $10 per groove. They tend to look like this stolen pic

I just decided I could do it myself. As far as stress risers go I shaped my cutting tool into a radius that matched the circlip so as a rounded groove it should be better than the square one Bilstein uses. I wasn't even thinking about stress risers though.

Ditchdigger: Your work has a machine shop?

I have a lathe I keep at my work. We are looking a mill tomorrow so fingers crossed that will be worth picking up. I still have a bit of tooling and swap meet season is on its way so that is usually a good source for endmills and other fun stuff.

Sadly I sold my nice kurt vise last year I will pick up an import for now.

I work in outside sales for Industrial Carbide. I may have to stop by your work for "business purposes".

While our name has carbide all over it, we sell and service all sorts of endmills and the like.

As for the kurt vise, I may even be able to find a nicely priced used replacement for it. I've got a connection in Roseburg for most any machine shop item you'd ever need.

At my last job I used to use industrial carbide for all our sharpening purposes. From endmills to doctor blades. Behind the Burrito boy off 11th!

Small world.

Yes, Eugene still has lots of small town about it. Seems all the car guys have many mutual aquaintences around here.