soon-soon-pushed it aside to make money today so that part still works-bring it to the shop and we get busy on paying work!
Lol, one can get obsessed with making more and more alteration on Ford, its looking great and i suggest that you start driving it now. Its looking awesome.
believe me there is no improvement obsession here-it just needs the usual-money! exhaust system is the one major hold up, once I get it started and make sure there are no leaks. OTOH, I won't need exhaust if I take it to Famoso for a little 1/4 mile test n tune first!
actually drove it around the shop buildings yesterday!! still a jillion things to do, but it runs and drives! CLICK ON THE PIC to hear the vidoe of it running!
I'm still here-kinda-sometime...Fairlane is registered/insured/has traveled 40ish miles on its own. Suspension challenges on both ends of the car continue to plague me. The correct front springs pointed the headlights at the sky so I cut 2 coils from them (16 months ago) and of course after awhile they sagged to where the tires rubbed the inside of the front fenders again. ou: Tried another new set without cutting them and it now looks like a straight axle gasser from the early 60s again-sh!t.:af: on reflection, the aluminum top end on the 428 and the aluminum radiator removed abt 250 lbs from the nose-but-it shouldn't be this high/stiff. Got a set of springs for same car with a 289/no ac and while the same length, the wire is 1/3 smaller in diameter so that should allow it to settle better. might try them this week.... In the rear, it appears the po welded the crossmember for the forward ladder bar links in the wrong place. with the bars nicely in line the right rear tire is pulled over so the inner sidewall rubs the wheelhouse. adjust the (trackbar?) so the tires are centered in the wheels houses and the ladder bars are seriously kinked to one side. tried a variety of differnt wheels/tires, but the issue is where the bars are located on the housing/crossmember. Taking it to a local chassis shop soon dollar::dollar::dollar for them to sort out, I suck at welding and so don't even own one. it appears to be an early 90s alston back half kit so I believe the housing is probably correct and the crossmember is wrong.
Whew-what started as a flurry of hurry up and get it roadworthy for the anti-tour kickoff at Wilwood brake 10 miles from my shop turned into a month of work. At 6 pm on the Thursday evening before the cc at kickoff on the last trip around the block, the FE dropped a cylinder. A failed/flattened/falling apart valve adjustor on #6 intake was the culprit. The valve train had been getting noisier, but I was barely starting and moving the car around and was gonna get to it soon! Which became now, when I needed it to run a simple 20 miles? Collecting the shrapnel involved removing the intake manifold (twice, just for practice) and all of the identifiable pieces were accounted for. While the valve covers were off (Twice) I got out my set of period correct M/T covers with breathers and fit them up. This required a trip across the street to Jack the machinist for milling a couple fins down in the master cylinder area for clearance, which worked out nicely. While waiting for Smith bros adjustors and arp locknuts to arrive, as the car was becoming a permanent shop fixture, I dug into other stuff waiting to be done. Earl Hayes, from over on the FE Forums, who has recreated the 67 Fairlane The Going Thing http://www.thegoingthing.com/ had a new reproduction fuel tank complete with sump and return line fitting welded in, as well a fuel tank sender for sale. ET rules were forcing him into a fuel cell, after he carefully outfitted this tank for the car. I snapped it right up and replaced the fuel cell in the trunk with this tank, which was nearly a bolt in-only had to remove the brace welded in to support the cell by the po. Thats one of my helpers, Steven, grinding away the weld, standing inside the trunk. I was delighted to not only find the fuel pump wire in the left rear wheel house inside the trunk still dangling there intact, but once hooked to the sender, worked perfectly as well. What a score, and thanks Earl! Once the engine was reassembled and at least starting and idling around a while, we dug into the inside of the car and completely sealed up the floors with Fat Mat, then threw in a scroungy piece of grey carpet from a chevy truck we had laying around. That brought me full circle back to the engine-which would not idle with less than 50 degrees of timing and was rich-rich-rich. It would not crank, of course, with that much timing, but I have had ongoing issues with the pertronix setup, the first one failing completely between the dyno and installation in the car and now I had voltage issues from the NAPA solenoid installed in December. A new solenoid and an MSD 6al got me starting and timing down to the 35 degrees total, while a round of power valves and leaner jets got the car idling at 1100 with 11 inches of vacuum. Still stinks rich as hell, I am thinking a Holley 3310 on at least a trial basis is in my future. This is a holley 830 HP series double pumper and I am not sure street manners are their strong point. Of course there is still a lot of wiring to be tidied up, lots of sorting out to do, but major progress brought about by simple mechanical failure, once againseems like the story of my life sometimes.
Scott I found a Fairlane GTA 390 convertible a while back that appears to be original and rust free. Its taking all my strength to not knock on the door especially after the owner said he wants to sell it
RUST FREE is the deal with these things-I grew up in the rust belt and in 1970 most of the 67 fairlanes were already well on thier way to the wrecking yard. Seems they just disolved in the salt. My car spent its entire life in Riverside, Ca. a very dry desert like area. That GTA 390 convt. is kinda valuable in the ford world, but bringing one back is just as expensive as any Buick.
welllll another 10 months has slid by with lots of aggravating little things but mostly life interruptus. A swap from the original distributor with Pertronix to a Ford Dura Spark with an MSD 6 box cleaned up a lot of idle and running issues. Next came a basic 3310 Holley and that made the car completely driveable-idles in gear, carburetes nicely, runs great. Next was a new set of ridetech coilovers on the rear and a proper alignment and this car runs down the freeway great-FINALLY!
Interior goodness finally-door panels and the ugly eggshell white paint on the tops/bottoms and edges of the doors got a carbon vinyl wrap. wrapped the glovebox door too-looks so good may do all the dash black painted surface eventually
Wow, I just stumbled across an old thread that told the sad story of this car being totaled in an accident a year ago September.:ball: Sorry to hear that Scott, especially after all the work you put into it. Damn.
