My 64 Ford Custom Project

Now that I've had a little fun with my "Trailer Queen" Thought I'd fill everybody in on what I'm doing with it.

I picked the car up a while back, it's a 64 Ford Custom (plain jane, very bottom of the line 6 cyl 3 spd 2 dr post). It had been sitting in a wrecking yard for several years after it went into a ditch one night. It got hit hard enough to ruin the hood, driver fender, bumper and grill. I hadn't really paid too much attention to it, figuring it likely had frame damage.

When i started huntiung for a body to put a bored and stroked 352 (401CI) in I took a close look at it. The only thing that was hurt turned out to be the parts I already listed, no frame damage, no damage to the drivers door, and only a couple of very minor dings in one of the quarters. The only rust is a small (about 2" X 6" hole) hole in a low spot in the trunk. I made a deal for the car, good fender, hood and bumper.

I've been collecting parts for about a year now so I have about all I need to put it together. The engine, a C6 from a 68 428 T Bird (the car has a factory 9" with 350 gears). I also have all new weather stripping, heater core and the parts to do a disc brake conversion (79 T -Bird parts are a bolt on).

The engine (the main reason I bought the car) is an early 60's 352 that was sonic checked, bored .110 and a 390 crank and rods added, the rotating assembly was balanced and uses 390 heads fron a 63 T-Bird with new valves and hardened seats. It is topped with a 63 T Bird Tri-Power thats been coverted to Rochester carbs and Factory cast iron shorty headers. The distributor is a mallory dual point, but that will likely be changed to a uni-lite.


I'm going 60s era sleeper/streetracer with it, black (SHINEY) on the outside, with a red bench seat interior, steel wheels with dog dish caps. The changes to the interior will be limited to a Mr Gaskget Floor shifter (the one that looks like an old 4 spd floor shift), a tach on the steering column and a guage tri mounted to the bottom of the dash.

Just you basic old full size Ford. Too bad Boyds so busy, I guess I'll have to just do it myself :LOL: :LOL: :LOL:

Mike, put a Petronix in the dual point. It's a lot cheaper and should work just as well. I've got that setup in my '66 Mustang and my '73 F100 and I've been very happy with them. I also use their coils. :)

Thanks for letting us know, Mike. I've been wondering for awhile where the Tri--power motor you gave us a picture of was going!!! Should really be a fun project and a good runner when it's done. Keep us updated.

Mike. This brought a smile across my mug as I read of your plans and expectations for this venture. Always had a fondness for the hidden element of a ride that comes across "clean."
As Dave stated, please keep us updated. Pics. would be welcome if and when you can.
Our son lives in Clarkdale and a vision "in mind", during future visits will certainly ocurr. Best of luck.

Thanx for the pictures . I've always had a soft spot for '64 Fomoco's, my first decent car was a Marauder with the 315 horse 390. Beautiful car, lousy gas mileage, but who cared?

Spent yesterday putting some sheetmetal on it, looks a little more like a car now. :3dSMILE:

My main priority for completion is still the 57 Plymouth, but while it's in the body shop for a couple (few?) months, I figured I could get some stuff done on this.

Hmm.......Can hear it now. :)

I bought one just like it back in 91 off of the original owners grandson for a hundred dollars,I dont know how the crank on the six got busted but I put in a 351-W and drove it for a few years untill I need some money to finish my 37 chevy p/u. I would like to have another as I now have two 460s and two 352s laying around,the only options on my 64 custom were a radio and back up lights. Jeff

You must have had the high buck model, mine doesn't have the BU lights.:LOL: :LOL:

Oh, I love it when I hear "I spent YESTERDAY putting some sheet metal on it"....UGH! :rolleyes: lol.... Geez at this stage in my hot rodding hobby/adventure it's more... I spent YESTERDAY trying to get the hood open LOL!

Seriously Mike, it sounds really neat and you're right, it does look more like a car now hehehe... ;)

In spite of spending most of last year building the Plymouth I did manage to get a little bit done on the 64 Ford so I thought I'd post an update or two on it's current status.

I did manage to find a transmission for the car it's a C6 from a 428 T Bird. I got to drive the car before it was parted and the tranny worked good so it got new seals and a filter kit and bolted to the engine.

Even though the car was a 6 cyl, the frame mounts are the same whether it was a 6, small block of FE, so all that was required were the right motor mounts to get it bolted in.

The transmission was a little different story as the C6 mounts further back than the standard transmissions or the old Cruse-o-matics. A couple of simple angle iron extensions to the crossmember mounts and a 70s Ford truck tranny mount and that was taken care of.

Looking good, Mike!!! That big old FE looks right at home in there.!!! Did ya take the 6 popper out and give it a good Christian burial?????

For a shifter I decided what would look correct in the car would be one of the old style 4 speed look floor shifters. I've used these a few times in the past on different projects and they really aren't too bad for a cheap shifter. But any time you see something that's advertised as "Universal Bolt on" and "easy installation" keep in mind they are generally lying. It took me the better part of an afternoon getting the linkage where I was happy with it.

One thing about these shifters is that they only have one detent (park). For peace of mind I took my die grinder and modified it by adding another detent that blocks the shifter from accidentally being pushed into reverse without first pushing down on the handle. It's a nice feature when manually shifting one of these.

"....Did ya take the 6 popper out and give it a good Christian burial?????..."


I believe so Dave, the last time I saw the poor locked up old 6 it was in the truck of a car sitting in the crush pile (it will come back as rebar).:LOL:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mike P

"....Did ya take the 6 popper out and give it a good Christian burial?????..."


I believe so Dave, the last time I saw the poor locked up old 6 it was in the truck of a car sitting in the crush pile (it will come back as rebar).:LOL:

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Heck, it'll probably come back as parts in a new Lexus!!!!!

Mike- Nice work- I love a nice sleeper- and that car looks good in a 2 DR style! Too cool man...

One of the other things I took care of when the 64 was in the shop last was removing the nub off the steering column. It's one of those things that I really hate seeing on any car that's been converted to a floor shifter.

I'm trying to have the 64 done for about 1/5 the cost I have in the Plymouth so doing a swap to an original floor shift column was out of the question besides the removal process is a lot easier than doing a column swap.

I cut the nub off with a cut off wheel, filled the hole with body filler, sanded and primed and that was it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mike P

But any time you see something that's advertised as "Universal Bolt on" and "easy installation" keep in mind they are generally lying.

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:LOL:

Kinda like believing that putting a whirly giggy thingy (technical terminology) under your carb will save you 10% on fuel consumption while raising your horsepower! Woo hoooooo!!! :whacked:


Looks like you're moving right along there.

That's going to be real nice. Back in the day I had a Vintage Burg. 500XL
427 4 spd. Still one of my favorites. I always am confused when the car programs on TV talk about muscle cars GTO'S GS'S CHEVELLES .ETC and
how fast they were. I guess they never saw a 427, 409 or 426 wedge run.
They were true muscle cars. I've had more that one 10 sec FE 15 yrs ago,
have fun with yours, RON

Had an unexpected day off today, so after it warmed up a bit I decided to get the front end of the FE put together. A friend donated a set of pulleys to the project, so I picked up a water pump, fuel pump alternator and dug around and found a set of low mount alternator brackets. Everything went real smooth until I started to install the alternator. I'm using an early (pre-62) 352 block which didn't have the hole for the alternator pivot bolt. Fortunately there is enough of a boss there to drill and tap the hole so that was a simple fix.

I should get around to ordering the radiator and Pretonix kit for the distributor later this month so it's getting a little closer to running. The new headers for the HEMI for the 37 Dodge came in today, so I'll likely get that finished up and on the test stand before I get back to the Ford

Mike,

Looking good. A lot of these cars that were "Plain Janes" back in the day, make great rods, cruisers and customs today.

The late president gave you a day off also?

Hey Mike P,
This is going to be a sweet ride! I had a 64 Galaxie 2 door hardtop as my daily driver until 1 year ago when a hapless young girl ran a red light and T-boned me at an intersection.....bent the frame, insurance co didn't want to fix it. If I bought it back it would have a "salvage title" so worked a decent deal with the insurance people and let it go. It was tough though because my grandmother bought the car from the original owners in '67. She gave it to my dad when she could no longer drive and I inherited the car when my dad died in '98. I restored the car and brought it southern Cal.

A few months before it met it's demise, I converted to Granada discs (the Granada spindles drop the front about 2") and rack & pinion steering with an Ididit tilt column. A guy in Colorado Wurth-It Design, had created a rack & pinion conversion kit for these old Fords using the center-mount rack from the GM "J" cars. It was completely bolt on and worked really great. I think he's shut the business down for now due to health issues but it wouldn't be a hard thing to re-create for yourself if you're ever so inclined. Really changes the way these old things drive. Mine was a bone stock 289, Cruise-o-matic. It was a little under powered but a nice cruiser.

Anyway, looking at yours brought back fond memories. Good luck with it. I look forward to tracking your progress.

Here's a pic of mine prior to it's demise:

Looks REAL GOOD Mike! I like it that you didn't just put in the floor shifter... but went back and cleaned up the old evidence... first class... that's going to be a real nice car when you're done :)

Thanks Randy and Jeri the 64s in a hold pattern right now, I'm still waiting on a radiator to come in for it so I can finally fire it up and hear what it sounds like. The current goal is to get it running before I take off for Tulsa in June.

Wow Randy that's same exact model I took my driving test in. 289, etc. I loved the old beast and if my dad hadn't been stupid abusing it , I would still love to own it. The 289 did smoke the tires and with 3.00 rear gears it would recieve a lot of visits on the side of the highway from the storm troopers. I like seeing a work like this in progress. Nobody dares to try them. Except for some of the CHR faithful.

I've been eyeing this sweetheart for the past 6 months.
I just have too many irons in the fire as it is (like that's stopped me before).
406 tri-power
4 spd.
http://www.showdownmusclecars.com/ve...1149259865.jpg
Alas somebody had mercy on my soul and took me out of the running.
It was listed at $27,000 plus change.

Well...... didn't make it run prior to Tulsa and the radiator is still on backorder (I'll be checking with another supplier later this week).

Before we left on vacation I was having problems stabbing the distributor, so I set it aside till this weekend. When I was looking I found that the oil pump drive shaft was sitting HARD against the back side of the hole the distributor goes in.

The only way I was going to find out exactly what was going on was drop the pan. For those who haven't dropped a pan in car on an early 60's Ford, it's a lot of fun. After you get all the pan bolts out and the motor raised, you have maybe 2" to get a wrench in there and drop the oil pump (you let it fall into the pan) THEN you can get the pan off. It's even more fun putting it back together especially if you have added a windage tray like I did.

Well with the pan off I found out the crank counterweight was hitting the oil pump drive shaft......the extra thick heavy duty one I had installed. The shaft was bent causing the binding. Had I used the stock shaft like I will be putting back in there would not have been an interference issue. When you think about it there is really no advantage to running the thicker one anyway...it still necks down to the same original size on both ends.

Oh well, wish I had found it prior to putting it in the car, but at least I caught before I fired it.

THere's nothing like a self-inflicted foot wound to keep you humble. :CRY: :LOL:

Ain't it da truth! Glad you found it before anything other than time was lost.

Pat

Mike, I can't believe that a guy I thought was MoPar through and through is building a Ford!..........Are they digging one up somewhere? LOL! :-)

"....Mike, I can't believe that a guy I thought was MoPar through and through is building a Ford!..........Are they digging one up somewhere?......."

Hell I aint proud, I've even been known to build the occasional Chevy :LOL:

Mike, I love the idea of the Custom. Nice looking plain jane Ford. But a Chevy??? Geez, am I gonna have to disown ya?:LOL: :LOL: :LOL: :LOL:

Well I keep pluging along on the 64., the big goal is to get it to move under it's own power so I can stop pushing the heavy thing around.

Last weekend I got the tranny cooler lines built and installed and and after looking at where the headers dump, built a couple of extensions to deflect the exhaust off the starter and oil pan.

Neighbors really ought to love the cam break in. :rolleyes:

After waiting for 2 months on a back ordered radiator, I cancelled the order and bought one off E Bay. I got a 30 X 19 which is the biggest that will fit without major surgery. It came in the middle of last week and I thought there might be a chance of actually hearing the car run this weekend.

Unfortunately when I went to pick up parts this weekend, the lower radiator hose I need has to be ordered, so it won't be in till Monday. Without the hose, my sense of urgency went way down, so most of the weekend was spent just mounting the radiator and taking naps. :o

I built a lower bracket from a piece of aluminum channel I had laying around that happened to exactly fit into the bottom channel of the radiator.

The top bracket was another piece of the channel bolted to an original 64 upper radiator hold-down. I only spent about an hour building the brackets and bolting the radiator in, but half a day figuring it out.

I had an old Ford fan shroud laying around and a bit of trimming and fabricating and my fingers stand a bit better chance of staying on my had when I time it. I put a 7 blade Ford flex pan on it (I like them because they have quite a bit more pitch to them than the aftermarket units), but can and probably will dig up one that's an inch bigger than what I used.

I sprayed a light mist of black paint over thefront and ends of radiator so it doesnt stand out so much.

So at the end of the weekend, the radiator, fan and shroud are mounted along with the transmission cooler. We'll see if I can make it go next weekend.

Well, 12 years after the machine work was done and 7 years after the engine was assembled I finally head the 401 fire today for the first time.

It all went pretty well, I primed the fuel system with an electric pump prior to trying to fire it (and found out I had picked up a piece of crap in the needle and seat that required the removal of the carb top on the center carb). After that it cranked about five times and fired right off. The cam breakin- went really well with the engine carrying 60 PSI at 2500 and 25 PSI at a hot idle. It stayed at a constant 180 degrees the whole breaking period.

This is the first car I have used a Pertronix ignition conversion or an aluminum radiator on, and I've got to admit I'm pretty happy with both. I was really amazed at how simple the Pertronix conversion was and I really won't miss setting up the dual point distributor any more ( I guess I'm getting old :HMMM: ).

I'll probably tweak on it a little bit during the week then put the car aside for a while I get started on the new shop truck. When it comes back in to the shop the next project will be re-doing the front suspension and brakes.

Good to hear things went well, Mike. That engine is gorgeous, BTW!!!! I still think the FE's are one of the best looking engines built this side of a V-12 Ferrari!!!!!

I'm really enjoying building this one (when I don'f feel that I have other priority projects....which seems to be most of the time).

The tri-power, cast iron headers and Mallory dual point distributor body take me back to the days when I was just starting out and wishing a lot.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mike P

I'm really enjoying building this one (when I don'f feel that I have other priority projects....which seems to be most of the time).

The tri-power, cast iron headers and Mallory dual point distributor body take me back to the days when I was just starting out and wishing a lot.

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Stashed away in a corner, I have a nice collection of FE parts just waiting for the right car to come along.... Somedays I'm thinking a Thunderbolt clone, other times a CJ Torino clone....I really do like your Seeeeedan, thought I had a 300 Custom lined up, but I guess I let it get away.... I dunno, I should just quit looking and build what I have!!!!! I swear, when Merc 2 leaves for the upholstery shop I am going to finish my pickup and get the rear suspension done in the Camaro before ANYTHING ELSE comes in the door!!!!! I will be back on the Ranchero this winter......unless my "new car" takes it's spot on the priority list!!!!!!:LOL: :LOL: :LOL: Or, I decide to head South for the winter!!!!**) **) :HMMM: :whacked:

You almost make me want to work on my own toys again! After seeing your Plymouth, I have no doubt this Ford will be beautiful.........but it needs to have a teardrop hood to showcase that FE motor! :-)~