Jumper, I'm not a fan of 4-door cars, but I really like your Falcon. Makes me reconsider all of those 4-door I've been passing on all these years...
Jumper, I'm not a fan of 4-door cars, but I really like your Falcon. Makes me reconsider all of those 4-door I've been passing on all these years...
Jumper K. Balls wrote:pirate wrote: I am serious but curious minds want to know if anyone here has ever started a Falcon project and finished and what was the results. Is there some years better then others as far as availibility of aftermarket parts.I built a 63 Falcon.
Didn't you end up selling that car? I love it and considered it, but recall it being on the west coast (and I'm in FL). 
I still have it. Had a few tire kickers and lowballers who verified my fears "It's cool but it is just a 4 door, six cylinder manual trans car, I will give you 2000" and a few folks who really liked it but couldn't drive a stick.
I am thinking I will redo the headliner this spring and spend another summer in it.
I've always like the looks of the '64 better. Either way though I approve of this project.
Kreb wrote:Jumper K. Balls wrote:FWIW, Hemmings says that the difference is only 1.5 inches, Still enough to bugger your geometry, but 5 inches didn't sound right.mblommel wrote:Remember that the 60-65 falcon is something like 5 inches narrower than the mustang,racerdave600 wrote: Is there a rack and pinion kit for these?They are out there for Mustangs so I would assume they work on a Falcon too.
Maybe 5 inches narrower than a '67?-up Mustang, which is Fairlane based.
We're doing a bunch of "stuff" to a '70 Torino at work and everything width-based is the same as Mustang. Example: Moser "doesn't make" axles for a Torino. Pulled the old axles, got out a tape measure, ordered axles for a small-bearing 9" Mustang ('69?) and they were correct length and bearing offset.
Having been climbing in, under, around, and through this car as if it were Ford-badged monkey bars, I am not sure a rack would be very easy to do. The inner tie rod pivots would have to be so close in that the steering shaft would have to be under the engine if you wanted bumpsteer to be okay.
Now, one thing you could do is cut out all of the mess ahead of the firewall and put in a simple tube frame and Mustang II front suspension. That way you get a front-steer rack, and room for headers and exhaust ports that don't need to be kinked straight down. Most of the reason Ford exhaust ports always sucked is because of those dang shock towers in the way.
FWIW, I was talking about 1st generation.I lost interest in early pony cars as they fattened up.
Resurrecting an old thread here! I've been autocrossing this '63 Falcon for a little over two years.
Nice!
Check out this Falcon! I saw this one or it's sister just a few weeks ago at a SVRA event.
Knurled said:We're doing a bunch of "stuff" to a '70 Torino at work and everything width-based is the same as Mustang. Example: Moser "doesn't make" axles for a Torino. Pulled the old axles, got out a tape measure, ordered axles for a small-bearing 9" Mustang ('69?) and they were correct length and bearing offset.
Having been climbing in, under, around, and through this car as if it were Ford-badged monkey bars, I am not sure a rack would be very easy to do. The inner tie rod pivots would have to be so close in that the steering shaft would have to be under the engine if you wanted bumpsteer to be okay.
Old thread, but last month I did a rack conversion on this car. A company in Australia makes the bits. We got shipped a rack setup straight from Down Under. The rack looks like a mirror image Cavalier/Beretta center-takeoff unit, so it's probably from some Holden version of the J-body. Kit came with a really nice "center link" that mounted to the rack's center takeoff as well as a precision mounted linear bearing to support the far end, since the rack is very decidedly mounted left-justified. All of which I had to extensively modify to clear the headers because of course I was working on a big block car and they didn't get big blocks in Oz, just 351Cs.
The end result is admittedly very nice. But man, has there been a lot of screwing around to make it work. And it was surreal to be shipped US-made parts from an Australian manufacturer for a US-market car.
I took a lot of photos, I can post some if there is interest. We got a chance to drive the car around today, it is actually really nice. Not like some other rack conversions I could talk about, but won't.
Knurled. said:I took a lot of photos, I can post some if there is interest.
Yes, please.
If this isn't cause enough for pursuing this format..................
Ransom said:Knurled. said:I took a lot of photos, I can post some if there is interest.Yes, please.
First, you remove everything and install some nifty brackets that bolt up to the old steering box and idler arm mounts. They also have vertical bolts to mount to reinforcement plates that bolt through some pinch welds, but on this particular car those pinches had been cut away, and a box reinforcement plate precluded the left side mount from lining up anyway, so these got welded in after all fitment was verified.
Next, we un-cocoon the rack assembly, so we can find that one of the line fittings was damaged on its hemicircumnavigation from Oz to northeast US.
Remember when I said it looked like a mirror image J-body rack? The Nolathane bushings are for a Holden Camira, which was the Australian version of the J-body. J-bodies are front-steer, so you use a RHD rack for a LHD rear-steer car. Presumably they import Cavalier racks to make RHD kits.
I fought trying to get the rack assembly in past the header tubes (frickin three piece headers because bigblock) for just long enough to verify that I had to remove the "center link". Put the rack in the car piece by piece and found my clearance issues...
Yeah, that won't fly.
Linear bearing won't even clear the passenger side tubes.
I ended up gritting my teeth and ruining whatever Ackerman geometry was built in, and spaced the "center link" forward 3/8", which allowed/forced me to rotate the linear bearing's shaft up enough to clear the header. On the left side, we had to get fabby. Chain cutter and some application of oxyacetylene got us this:
A short chunk of stainless and a few minutes with the pipe expander, and I had a slip-fit to fill the gap.
I did not get any pictures of modifying the steering column, but that was all straightforward. You would NOT be able to retain column shift if you have it. The supplied intermediate shaft was far too long, so I made a new one with some 17mm double-D stock we had kicking around. The U joint angles ended up being about 35 degrees each, not ideal at all but well within their spec of "under 42.5 degrees". If I were a complete weenie, I'd cut and rotate the intermediate shaft so the joints were in phase relative to their axes of articulation, but practically speaking it drives just fine.
The power steering lines are just some hoses we had NAPA make up. The March pulleys on the engine use a Saginaw pump, and the rack fittings are AN6, so we just had them give us some hose and fittings, I cut them to length and marked them for rotation angle, and sent them back to be crimped in place.
The hoses are run through DEI heat sleeve, and the headers are wrapped where they run near the steering. There's no good way to do a heat shield since you have to account for everything moving.
The beast getting its valves re-run after breakin. Yes you have to remove the master cylinder and brake booster to get the left valve cover off. This chassis was not designed with big blocks in mind. ~565ci, Kaase heads, a Dominator carb, and a nice solid roller cam ensure "sufficient" power.
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