51 Moredoor

Yeah, those gauges were on there when I got the car. They're nice but I would not have picked them. It's a little weird having a temp gauge that reads Celcius and an oil gauge that reads Bar.

One of the things I found out this summer was that I did not like the sound of the V6 through the glass pack mufflers. At idle it sounded OK but at highway speed it had a really annoying, unpleasant high pitched drone. With the pipes exiting in front of the rear wheels it felt like it was right in your ear and the radio was useless. After a little research I decided to go back with something a little more similar to the stock SHO exhaust and use a Y pipe to run the 2 1/4" header pipes into a 2 1/2" Y, use a free flowing muffler like a Magnaflow or Flowmaster, and take the pipe all the way out the back of the car. It has to be a single out the rear as the fuel tank is offset to one side and the spare tire well hangs down on the other; just giving enough room for a single pipe in the stock location. But for a 181 ci engine, I think this will be more that enough.

I dug out all my leftover pipe bends today, pulled the dual exhaust off, and built the Y pipe. It came out pretty good; I'll get a muffler this week and finish it up.

Merry Christmas! We did our family get together last Sunday so my wife and I are just hanging out today. I finished my exhaust and took it for a ride; it sounds sooo much better. It doesn't sound so much like a rice rocket without a muffler now. You can actually hear the radio and carry on a conversation but has just enough rumble to sound respectable. As respectable as a V6 can be, that is.; Power feels the same; dont think I lost anything going to a single pipe.

Came out sweet Falcon ,, now I have to catch up on the 48 ..


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Nice work on the exhaust. I really like your work on the Y, very nice! I hope you and your family had a Merry Christmas too!

We did, thanks! I spent the day today reviving the old vacuum wipers. No pics, camera was dead and no AA batteries in the house. Both arms,vacuum motor, and the control cable were stuck and had decades of goo and rust. Luckily, after taking everything apart, lots of cleaning and lubricating, it worked like a champ when I put it back together. I thought about going to electric wipers but since it all still works, I'm leaving the vacuum ones.

That's great you were able to get them working again!

Thanks, Ryan. It's neat to have a few of the old vintage mechanisms still working on the car. Here's a short video I made: http://youtu.be/ddhPszMno0k

Very cool falcon like the exhaust sounds good and look right

That does sound nice! The car sure looks a lot different than a year ago! Great work!

More great work there Pat. Nice sound and not to loud..

Thanks! My kids got me an AutoLoc motorized cowl vent kit from Summit for Christmas so I spent the weekend getting it mounted and working right. These things are a pain; the motor is really low torque so any minor binding and it stops. I had it on and off about a dozen times before I got the linkage right. I mounted the little motor controller behind the dash center panel. Also, I saved this JBL sub-woofer from the Taurus. I put a fresh speaker in it today and it will be going in this week.

Lots done the last few days; got my speedometer working, and put in a better stereo with the sub from the Taurus. Sounds much better. Also built a toe gauge and got the toe and caster adjusted right. Working on putting a front sway bar from a Jeep Cherokee on now.

Nice progress Falcon.

Got my sway bar brackets made and installed today. Just a few more things to do; I've got new leaf spring bushings to install, the trim needs to be put on the car, and I'm getting new tires and possibly some kind of hub caps. Still thinking that over; I don't want aftermarket wheels but some vintage hub caps might look good.Then we're good to go for some summer road trips!