1963 Ford Falcon Futura

67's are a bit different then 65-66's- ie: wider track. I'd swap to an earlier year bar.

A few little steps for the next project.

This power steering pulley is sacrificed

And now holds an easily bolted on 36-1 crank trigger

That should do. I have had the MS1 on a 2.2 board and an EDIS6 setup for a while now so that is what I am using. I don't like the idea of the big brick coil pack and I have had a big box of ford COP units (I thought they would look good on the Fiat motor but it is so tiny they looked ridiculous) so I am gonna use those in a wasted spark setup. I need to figure out how to mount them though. I only have 4 with the mounting tab, but I do have 10 without.

Made a cardboard template and transferred it to some 16ga

Bendy, bendy, poke some holes

That'll do. Need to knock out 5 more, then come up with a mounting rail to attach to the rocker cover.

And I will need to drive the oil pump since the distributor will be binned.

The points distributor I pulled last summer

Cut down to just the bits I am interested in.

A bit of thinking needs to be done but I should have that bit together soon.

I now have all the wiring pigtails I need. The COP, injector, IAT, CLT and Aux air. Somewhere around the shop is all the leftover wiring from a painless kit I installed and if I can find that it will provide me with all free, high quality the wire I will need.

Lots more to do

Oooooo, VERY cool.

Monies and labor diverted from upgrades and into repairs

For the last week the starter has been intermittently not engaging. It culminated in having to get a bump start yesterday. When I got back to the shop I pulled the starter to get it swapped out.

Uh....

Well that throwout was noisy anyway so lets tear it apart.

Yeah. Six worn out areas of the ring gear.

My first thought was to flip it over but when I saw just how torn up the throwout and the fingers on the pressure plate were I started ordering the bits. Ring gear is under $30 and on the way from NAPA. The Clutch I wanted turned out to be a lot harder to find. From what I could find a circa '78 Fairmont with the 200 has a diaphragm pressure plate and a 9" disc WITH the proper spline for the later T5 input shaft. No one had that locally, hell no one even had it listed as available. Rockauto is winging one to me. That means waiting til tuesday for it to be delivered.

Great build, lots of inspiration and admiration.

Got to clear out a bay and get to work!

Replacing a ring gear? I didn't know that was even an option. Is that flywheel that special/expensive?

In reply to Jumper K. Balls: Holy yikes that is a swanky looking bracket you just cranked out.

Kenny_McCormic wrote: Replacing a ring gear? I didn't know that was even an option. Is that flywheel that special/expensive?

Most flywheels are two piece. To get the ring gear off you cut through / cold chisel a section out of it, then pry it some to get it popped off. Installing the new one takes a freezer for the flywheel and an oven for the ring gear. You have to work fast because it sucks if you don't get that ring gear all the way on before everything cools off / heats up.

Kenny_McCormic wrote: Replacing a ring gear? I didn't know that was even an option. Is that flywheel that special/expensive?

It is easy and cheap. Heat the gear with an acetylene torch and knock it off with a cold chisel and hammer. To install I set the new gear in the shop oven at 300 deg for 5 minutes and drop it on while it is piping hot. It will shrink to the flywheel in seconds.

And the 6 flywheel isn't common. I couldn't find a new one anywhere.

Everything went back together smoothly. The new Exedy clutch feels great. The diaphragm pressure plate requires less pedal force which is nicer on my knee. The kit came with 2 pilot bearings. One of which was the proper OD but the ID was too large.

The other was just a needle bearing that was the right ID but was way too small. I just put the old bushing in the lathe and bored it out until the bearing press fit into it

Easy enough. The bushing was beat up and sloppy. It needed some fixin'

Bad news is that it now has a pretty harsh vibration starting at 2500rpm. I was rushed and didn't take the time to have it balanced. Looks like it is coming back out soon.

So I got that goin' for me, which is nice.

I am going to relocate the battery to the trunk. Because...... well, because that's why.

Started with the firewall pass through. I didn't want a grommet with the cable through it.

Scrap of 1" delrin, a piece of 3/8 allthread, a 7/8" jam nut and a few minutes at the lathe. I only tapped 95% so the last 1/8" of the 3/8" was screwed through with a breaker bar. It won't loosen on its own.

I know you can buy these for ~$10 but I am 50 cents into this one.

I also splurged and bought myself a new AGM battery. So onto the mount.

This was quick, no plan ahead work. Just a rough idea of what I had in mind and a battery for measurements.

start with the base

Looks to fit

Burrito enthusiast and I made a bunch of these dimple dies 3 or 4 years ago and I never think to use them so I am using them just because I can

and they work well!

the other main part folded and spot welded together

And it still fits!

I need to finish welding it up, reinforce and straighten some bits and decide on the design and build the retaining strap.

I am placing the battery right behind the rear seat, under the package tray so I can't have a box with access from the top.

Those dimple dies kick ass. Nice work

Nice work

Finally got a few hours to tinker. Figured I would finish up the battery relocation. I emptied the trunk and tried fitting the box where I had intended behind the seat but it just wasn't working. That area isn't at all flat and the spare tire hold down bits were in the way. That left the area behind the wheel well. I pulled out the warped fiberboard factory filler panel

And soldiered on assuming it was the correct shape.

Knocked a plate out of 16ga and made some support brackets that would rest against the rear frame rail. That way I could reuse the screw holes that were already there for the filler. I put a 1" bend in it for some extra stiffness. At that point I kinda lost interest and just welded the box to the plate

I want to find some of the proper grey tartan trunk liner eventually but this carpet was just laying around so in it went. An uninteresting unbraced version of the cover plate went on the drivers side underneath the carpet. The battery box in on top on the passenger side.

Set the spool of battery cable in the trunk, snaked it under the carpet in the interior to where I had planned to put the pass through, looked in the trunk and the cable was 8" too short. Oh well. Wait til monday to buy more.

Jumper K. Balls said: looked in the trunk and the cable was 8" too short

I hate when that happens... lol But on the serious side, great work! Keep going...

Oh yeah! I did finish the oil pump drive a few days ago. Cut the distributor shaft down, found a 1/2" set collar, machined the base and turned a cap.

All pieces finished.

I made enough room to add oilite bushings on both ends, welded the set collar to the top, assembled and drove the pin in place to secure the whole thing. The cap was a decent press fit so I just sealed it with right stuff and drove it on.

Looks like a little aluminum mushroom. Kinda kicking myself for not making it some sort of cam angle sensor while I was at it. :shrug:

Did you get the vibration sorted?

In reply to Dusterbd13:

I had overtightened the transmission mount. Loosening it up cut about 90% of it out. It feels just like it did before now.

Pulled the heater box to drill the hole for the firewall pass through. Found out why the defroster was weak lately.

Luckily I have had a replacement in the trunk for a few months. It is amazing what less than 20 bucks will buy you. Upgrade from the original cardboard junk to molded plastic

Fits perfectly too. Blown away by the quality for something that was under $18 shipped.

Ran 12 feet of #1 welding cable under the carpet and padding next to the passenger sill, held down every 12" with rubber lined P clips. Surprised that welding cable is about 30% of the cost of 2ga battery cable at NAPA. Installed the firewall pass through and reinstalled the heater box.

I plan on relocating the solenoid next time I am under the hood and tidying up a LOT of wiring. I still need to delete the voltage regulator and there is a fair amount of clipped wires with wire nuts and tape everywhere from the last 50 years of roadside repairs. It is a mess. But not as awesome as the mess I found when I pulled the battery out. The battery was sitting on a tray made from part of a speed limit sign (why always road signs?) and under that hot mess was this beauty.

I new there was the typical rot from leaky old batteries but this gave me pause and a good laugh. Another item for the to do list.

On the positive side. I really only relocated the battery to clean up the bay a little and make some room for some future... umm... exhaust add ons, and I knew that in theory the weight transfer would be improved but holy crap I could feel the difference right away.

Would those exhaust add one be of the high speed spinning variety

Hey! I remember those from back when I had a 1968 Mercury Cougar...

Makes A big difference in the heat getting to the spots that need it...

Hey Jumper, two things: one, the want for a Falcon is now insanely strong. It's one of the few cars that SWMBO and I can agree on. Two, you might think about switching to imgur or something for your image hosting. Stupid Photobucket is full of fail.

I haven't been resizing my images lately. Big file sizes plus a lot of hotlinking overseas of my fiat stuff made me run out the month I decided not to pay for photobucket pro.

Short project for the weekend. I hope at least. I do need to drive it to work Monday afterall.

The front bench got really uncomfortable last month. Like some sort of rapid degrading. Probably due to the ridiculous amount of rain we got for 3 months straight. Today I dug out my old hog rings and pliers and hit the upholstery shop for some supplies to fix the cushions.

I am not reupholstering these right now. I have found a semi local vendor who makes excellent reproductions of the factory seat covers with proper embossed panels and all but I have to save up a few pennies for that. This is just to keep the springs out of my asscheeks.

Seat extracated

Back is saggy too

Well. I think I isolated the problem

Towels and cardboard. We are talking pro quality work here folks. The date on the shipping label is from 2003. Surprised it lasted that long. It was a box of Facom tools. So they had good taste in tools just no skill in using them.

Pulled off the hogrings, vinyl and foam

Foam patch on the cotton batting?

Burlap layer was the factory original.

Frame

I can kinda see what they were shooting for with these 3/16" rods woven through the springs but it didn't work

They just poked through the sides of the vinyl. There is only one area to be welded up.

Tomorrow I repair the frame and start reassembly.