Ownership Verified: 1967 Ford Fairlane 500

The grille has been damaged since the day I bought it, and while I was replacing the engine, some of the bars in the middle broke out. The aluminum had fractured on one end of the broken section some time ago, and the heatcycles combined with the constant beating from the wind means that the moment I touched it, a big chunk fell out. :cry: Needless to say, when that happened, I accelerated my efforts and plans to find a replacement for a reasonable price. They don't re-manufacture the grille at all for these cars, so I'm stuck with finding an original in decent shape.


Todays post brings us up to September 9th
Back on the 9th, I was in Cedar city again, having reinstalled the original early style harmonic balancer, and so I decided to go on a bit of a drive over UT 153 in the Tushar mountains, though I've always called them the Marysvale mountains. The waypoints on the map above roughly correspond to where I stopped.
UT 153 is paved from the town of Beaver on I-15 up to Puffer lake (also where the ski resorts are) and then it is dirt until a few miles outside of the town of Junction.

I left Cedar city at 7:00 am, so that I could experience the mountains in the early morning hours, which I think are the prettiest.

My first stop of the day was at nearly 8:00 am, partway up the canyon just after the road started to seriously climb. UT 153 hits over 10,500 ft IIRC.







After a while, the road leveled out for a bit before the final climb, and the view in the valley was gob-smacking, so I went a short ways up a 2 track and took the opportunity for a photoshoot:

















Right after the turnoff to Puffin Lake (on the left) the pavement ended.







And there were about 10 miles of cruising along the top of the world. (at 40+ mph :mrgreen:)













Right at the hairpin to start the descent down into Junction was another good photo op, and the perfect spot for a 360? panorama.









Then it was back to Cedar.

The car performed well despite the vibrations, but it was really getting on my nerves that I was so close to having the right parts to fix it, and right at the end I managed to convince myself it was the damper, so when I got back to Cedar, I ordered the right flywheel, as well as some relays for my headlights, and made plans with a friend of mine to go up to Spanish Fork for a weekend and fix it right.
 
No 56K - Fixing the Flywheel Imbalance

No 56K - Fixing the Flywheel Imbalance

I made plans with a good friend of mine to head up to my parents place after work on Friday September 19 to finally fix the shaky engine once and for all. The parts were ordered, checklists were made, and the garage prepared. My parents were out of town that weekend on a trip back east, so we had the place to ourselves.

We rolled into Spanish at 10:00 at night, and immediately removed the hood, shocktower brace, and grille (didn't want to damage the grille anymore afterall, right?)

7:30 AM saturday morning, it was time to begin draining fluids.




First major components out were the Distributor, Alternator, Radiator (and hoses), all the wiring, and of course, the Air cleaner.







Then the Intake manifold (with carb still on it) and valve covers were removed, as well as the driveshaft and exhaust rear of the headers.







The headers were finally pulled, and the hoist was hooked up.







finally, once we got back from lunch at 1:00 pm, it was time to pull the engine.










With the engine in the other bay hanging off the hoist, we removed the clutch slave, transmission/bellhousing assy, and the oil pan, then it was time for the moment of truth.

This entire endevour was caused by not knowing exactly which crankshaft was in the car, so since I had it so far apart, I had to check.







The large 2M A cast into the crank is the important bit. That identifier tells me that this is, beyond any shadow of doubt, a 28oz crankshaft. After the debacle in August though, I was expecting this, so I had the correct 28oz flywheel on hand.
This is looking at the engine-side of the two flywheels, the darker one of the right is the 50oz flywheel that's been in the car since Dec 2012, and the shiny new one on the left is the 28oz that should have been in there. you can see the difference in the counterweights. Both flywheels are 164 tooth.







a few shots of the engine as disassembled as it got that day, just before the cleanup of the gasket mating surfaces.









once everything was cleaned up, it was time to put things back together.









At 6:30, it was time to slide the assembly back into the car






From this point, it was mostly a reversal of the disassembly process.

There was a bit of a complication when the tail pipe rear of the glassback on the passenger side simply fell off. It had rusted apart right where it joins the case of the muffler.
I was able to weld it back together, but I'm not happy with it. It'll be replaced with a new exhaust system (same style) when I get a chance, and this time I'll do the work myself.

When we got back from dinner we continued working till 11:00 at night, thus proving you can R&R an engine in an old ford in 1 day if you know what you're doing :mrgreen:



Sunday morning we put on the finishing touches, cleaned up the garage, and went for a small test drive












There was also some awesome video my friend filmed (don't mind the wheel-hop, but I suggest you watch the whole thing, its 45 seconds of awesome.)
[video=youtube;42wm-793_MQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42wm-793_MQ[/video]






Now, you might be wondering why I left the grille off, well, its because of this:







My searches on ebay bore fruit, and I found this for a very reasonable price (I think) of $200 after shipping. It's complete with all brackets, and the emblem, and its all in good "driver" quality condition.






Since it was raining in Spanish, and we were tired, and we had to get back home, I left the grille off the car. When I got back to Cedar, I installed it.











As I mentioned on Monday, this project did indeed fix the out of balance issue on the car. There's still some shakes, but I suspect it is the driveshaft. About a month ago I read somewhere on the internet that some other guy was told (I know, everything on the internet is true, right?) that the driveshaft for a OEM toploader 4 speed equipped car has a snout (on the trans side) that is a bit longer than the one for a C4 automatic trans. Since I am using my original automatic driveshaft, this means it's slightly too short, and is not fully engaging in the transmission properly. According to this second-hand internet source, this can cause vibrations.

Since my remaining vibrations are very high frequency, I can see this being the issue.

At the same time, I also have some (clearly) RPM dependant shakes left, so I suspect the engine is just not balanced beyond the factory components natural balance. (especially since I pick up some shakes north of 5500 rpm)

It's all perfectly livable though.
 
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No 56K - Burr Trail Trip Report

No 56K - Burr Trail Trip Report

No comments on the engine rebuild or the new face? hmm, I must have done a good job writing my little story to leave the entire forum gobsmacked for a day :p

Pressing on,
When October came around, I had a free Saturday on the 11th, so I decided to go on the first real roadtrip since fixing the engine.

The destination? Burr Trail, in Capitol Reef National Park.







Along the way I would travel along UT 12, which I'm sure Blind_IO and anyone else who's been on it can tell you, is one of the best, and most amazing roads in the state, both from a driving point of view, and a scenery point of view.

In particular, I would be traveling the section of the road between the Panguitch turnoff, and the town of Boulder, UT, before turning down Burr Trail. I would pass by Bryce Canyon National park, go through the town of Escalante, skirt the top rim of the Grand Staircase National Monument, before finally diving into the monument itself and right into Capitol Reef National Monument.

Round trip, it was 394 miles (634 km), and the car ran absolutely flawlessly the entire time. It was a beautiful 70? day, the sun was out, and the fall colors were out in force. I even managed a trip average of 23 mpg (10.2 L/100km)

If anyone wants bigger pictures, the complete album (with bigger, but not quite full rez images) can be found here

Like my last trip, I wanted the best part of it to be in the morning, which is my favourite time of day, thus, I left my apartment at 5:00 am. As it turns out, it only took me an hour to get to the top of the Bryce Plateau, and the sun was still an hour away. At this rate, sun-rise wouldn't have hit till I was already past Boulder, and I would have missed a very, very pretty part of the drive, so I pulled a short ways down a BLM dirt road, and napped for an hour.
At 7:00 am, I hit the road again.







Shortly afterwards, I could just make out the side profile of Powells Point. (still on top of Bryce plataeu, about a mile before the turn for Bryce City)







After dropping off the plataeu into Tropic, and climbing back up onto the Grand Staircase, the sun was just hitting Powells point (this is from the other side)







where I was parked for the above pic:







and another scenic turnoff 8 minutes up the road







Then a valley a short way up the road (this is between Tropic and Escalante)







Shortly after Escalante we get the first real look at this part of the Grand Staircase:









Then it's off to the confluence of the Escalante River and Calf Creek. from this point all the way into the town of Boulder is just awesome. You drop down into a little canyon paralleling Calf creek before climbing up onto a ridge called The Devils Backbone, where the ridge is no wider than the road at some points.

Approaching the confluence:







Just before the drop (Google processed image, but it turned out good, this is as big as it gets though)







I don't have any pics of the valley, (it was shadowed, narrow, and they were running a marathon, no stopping opportunitys) and none of the pics up on the backbone itself really give the full impression of the place.

This picture was taken as the backbone rejoins the plataeu level, showing the lovely band of fall colors on the mountains northwest of Boulder. I do wish my phone could have captured it properly though, it was very pretty.







Finally, I reached the outskirts of Boulder, and turned off onto Burr Trail. This road is paved all the way to the park borders, and passes through some nice stream valleys and a neat canyon.

This was heading into the first little valley:









Just before dropping into the cool canyon







The time of day combined with the orientation of the canyon made for some interesting contrast







And of course, a gratuitous car picture is required







This shot almost, but not quite completely fails to communicate the scale of those cliff walls. It was very cool indeed in there.







Getting close to the end of the canyon








Thus the world opened up again.







the lighting conditions were still wonderful







around 30 miles later, I was finally in Capitol Reef Natl Park, and on the (very nice really) dirt road.







Very quickly after that, I was very close to my destination







how close? Very.







I've been to this part of Burr Trail about 5 times now, and every time I try to take picture that can convey the... incredulous, awe-struck feeling you get every time you see this place.
Every time, the pictures fail. I suspect that only something like a quad-copter could actually get a perspective that can convey it properly.

If you've never been there (as I suspect most forum readers haven't) and if you're ever in the area, this is very much so worth the time to go see. The road to get there is awesome, and the cut itself never fails to impress.









There was also a neat weathered sign at the top







I did take some pictures at the bottom, and I filmed the whole thing on my shitty GoPro Hero 1. But you can't see anything in the pictures, and the video is useless. Just go there. It's worth it.

After driving up and down it a few times, I turned around, and went back home the way I came. To make a loop would have doubled my time to get home, as well as added at least a third again more fuel consumed, so I just doubled back.
There was another chance to try and capture the fall colors on Boulder Mountain at least.







At right at the intersection between Burr Trail and UT 12, there was this neat old gas-station. I saw it on the way in, and just had to get some pics on the way out.








Well, that concludes the roadtrip, again, if anyone wants, the full album of 150 1440p pictures is here


Tomorrow I'll cover the other bits and bobs of maintenance and use to bring the thread completely up to date.
 
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the lighting conditions were still wonderful

This pic is great! This one and the ones with the old gas station. Great scenery too. Are you planning on doing any body work on the car or are you going to leave the "patina" look? The new grille spruced the car up quite a bit, btw.
 
Taking that car through Capital Reef must've been a blast!

I drove through a couple years ago in my Jeep, it had rained quite heavily the prior few days and the dirt road that goes through the park was very soft. I had to kick it into 4wd a few times because my truck started wandering all over the place in the soft muddy ground.

What a drive though! It feels like you're on another planet with all the weird greens and purples that the dirt is. Definitely a highlight of my Utah trip.
 
Thanks guys, I'm glad you liked it. I love spending time in that part of Utah. Everything from the San Rafael Swell down south into Grand Staircase has some amazing terrain and colors.

FairlaneDave, I do intend on doing the body work and restoring/resto-modding the car, but I'm waiting to finish University, and get my career settled in before I take it off the road for any length of time. I'm hoping to start in earnest with the bodywork sometime around 2016.
I am going to be working on my Senior Project at SUU this coming semester, and it involves some interior work with the Instrument Cluster though. Eventually, my overarching goal for this car is to make it something that is capable of comfortably (and relatively economically) capable of crossing the country at a whim. It'll go back to the original color, and I'll fix or replace the 500 trim on the side. From the outside, it'll look somewhat stock, though I might get some HiPo 302 badges for the side to match what's under the hood, and I have been seriously considering a Shaker setup a la 1970 Boss 302 or Torino Cobrajet.
I want a car that is custom, but looks like it could have been factory inside and out to those who don't know better.
It'll function better on modern roads than the original car ever could though. That's a big part of the goal.


Well, to catch up on the last few things like I said I would two weeks ago, the weekend after Thanksgiving I worked on making the car cope with the cold Utah weather a bit better. I try not to drive the car on roads that have been recently salted in the winter, but ever since I put the aluminum radiator in this thing, I have had a hard time getting it up to temperature in the winter; it runs cold. Since it runs so cold in the winter, (often not getting the temp gauge up over even 150?F) the heater has always been... lackluster at best. Combined with the 47 year old door and window seals that are in absolutly ruinous condition, this means that driving in the winter is a very cold thing to do.

In years past, my solution has been to shove some cardboard or plastic behind the grill to block the rush of cold air through the radiator, and enable it to actually get up to temp. This year I decided on a more effective and lasting approach.

It started by removing the grille, and making some cardboard templates:







then cutting out some thin 20ga aluminized steel that I got from the local HVAC place, and bending it up:







Then making some further cuts and bracing so that it could be installed and removed without pulling the grill, painting the front side a satin black, and installing it:









With the new blockoff plates installed, the engine could surely get up to temp now even when cruising at 80 mph in 10?F weather, but I wanted to actually know how hot the engine was getting. This was an issue since my dad, while helping me attempt to install a cruise control module last august (didn't work, caused drive-shaft vibes, and was immediately removed) accidentally hooked up the wires for my water temp sender wrong by plugging the sender wire to 12v hot rather than to the terminal on the back of the cheap Harbor Freight water temp gauge. oops.

Rather than replacing the HF gauge that I hated with another one, I purchased a Autometer gauge to match my Speedometer and fuel gauge, and installed that instead, finally giving me a way to keep an eye on my water temp again after 3 months of not knowing.




Watertemp now sits right at 195?F or a needles width over at all times, as it should since the sender is in the coolant passage in the intake, right were it exits the heads.

Also, the last two HF gauges will be replaced in due time.






Finally, the last thing I did that weekend was get some new rubber for the car, since the off-brand 205/65R15 allseasons that were on the car were bald, bald, bald, and quite unsafe to drive on considering the upcoming cold months. I replaced them with a set of General AltiMAX RT43's in the same size.
Since I was replacing the rubber, I also did something that has been a long time coming. I finished the job I started 2 months after I bought the car, and finally painted all 4 rims satin black. I've been running this with two silver, and two black rims long enough.




With the fresh paint and the beauty rings off, I think it looks much more menacing :mrgreen:






Finally, with the end of the year, I figure its a good time to note my odometer reading. In march I installed my new engine, and my new speedometer gauge. Due to some quality control issues on my Stewart Warner gauges I originally chose, I ended up replacing them with Autometers at 1500 miles. My Autometers now read 6500 miles, bringing my total miles on the new engine up to 8,000, half of which have been in the last 4 months since getting back to Utah. Not bad hehe.
Total mileage on the whole car is around 175000 then.
 
Still looks awesome, those new gauges really look the business too. :D

Funnily enough I also have a scruffy car of 1960s design sat on satin black steelies with General AltiMAX tyres and no wheel trims! Sadly I don't think a 302 will fit... :lol:

13112014-1.jpg
 
So... how much does one of these go for in the condition it is right now? And one thats just at least driveable? :D I totally need one of those parked stateside for my personal enjoyment and rental-replacement :D
 
So... how much does one of these go for in the condition it is right now? And one thats just at least driveable? :D I totally need one of those parked stateside for my personal enjoyment and rental-replacement :D
Spectre found a bunch of classic sedans at acceptable prices in the DFW area when we were looking for a wagon for me. Ask him.
 
Still looks awesome, those new gauges really look the business too. :D

Funnily enough I also have a scruffy car of 1960s design sat on satin black steelies with General AltiMAX tyres and no wheel trims! Sadly I don't think a 302 will fit... :lol:

Your fellow Dolor-addicts say otherwise: http://thetriumphdolomiteclub.yuku.com/topic/1766/V8-Dolomites

In addition, if the Rover 3.5L fits (and it does) so will the Small Block Chevy and the Small Block Ford. After all, the Rover 3.5 is just the Small Block Buick built worse by communists in the Midlands.

Spectre found a bunch of classic sedans at acceptable prices in the DFW area when we were looking for a wagon for me. Ask him.

Yup. Here are just some random offerings of pre-75 cars from today's Craigslist:
http://dallas.craigslist.org/dal/cto/4822142550.html
http://dallas.craigslist.org/ftw/cto/4823036041.html <-- thomas, feel free to take this one back to Germany, we won't miss it.
http://dallas.craigslist.org/ndf/cto/4822143843.html <-- I have a sneaky suspicion I know this car. But yes, that isn't a typo.
http://dallas.craigslist.org/dal/cto/4821722804.html
http://dallas.craigslist.org/dal/cto/4798544084.html
http://dallas.craigslist.org/mdf/cto/4784108653.html
http://dallas.craigslist.org/dal/cto/4819997948.html
http://dallas.craigslist.org/ftw/cto/4792811654.html


There's reasons why people keep raiding Texas and the Southwest for vintage cars.
 
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Does your car have a coat of clear on it, because that's a nice patina, and i'd keep it like that and keep it from getting worse than repaint.
 
No, the only clear coat on it is whats left of the original paint (if it even had a clear, could have been single stage I suppose) Most of the Patina is from the previous owner sanding the car down to the reddish primer, then ignoring it. The grey is me trying to protect the bits where the paint was so thin it was starting to rust.

The patina actually looks much better in the pictures than it does in person. The grey primer is splotchy, and the red primer looks like the guy was sanding it with 25 grit. The car needs a full repaint, and it'll get one eventually. I'm hoping within 2 or 3 years I'll finally be stable enough in my work and living conditions to be able to attack that job myself. I may farm the actual painting out to someone who knows what they are doing, but I'll be doing the prep myself.

In other news, I'm working on my Senior project this semester at school, and I just got approval from my professors to work on my Instrument cluster project. In short, I'll be designing, casting, and machining a new instrument cluster, out of aluminum, for the car. I'll finally be able to loose that effective, but ugly bodge fix of a wood dash. :mrgreen:
 
Awesome to hear you get another shot at the instrument cluster, hopefully it will go better this time. ;)
 
Just a smallish update today.

Today is the casting day for my new instrument cluster, I've got my foam pattern milled out and packed in the casting sand over the last 5 weeks, (3 of which have consisted of my Professor finding reasons why we can't cast this week) but it's finally all ready, I poured about 30 min ago (I think it went very well, but I wont know for sure till I pull it out of the sand tomorrow)

I'll be doing a full post on the process and it's results when I finish the project.


I've been driving the car quite a bit lately thanks to the mild winter we've been having this side of the Rocky's, and about a month ago I noticed that the shifter was getting pretty wonky. There was a lot of play in it, and I lost almost all resistance moving between the 1-2 and 3-4 gate. I assumed that a spring that creates that resistance had broken (it is 50 years old now, and AFIK, it's never been rebuilt) so I bought a $100 rebuild kit from Hurst.

When the kit arrived, I took my protective (and shittily made) box off the top so I could get access to the top mounting bolt, and I found out what the real issue was:



See the gap on the right side? between the mounting plate and the shifter box? with the threads of the bolt going through it?
Yeeah... That gap. Its not supposed to be there.

When I started moving the handle around, I noticed that the whole body of the shifter was moving forwards and backwards too; Also not supposed to happen.

Crawled under the car, and sure enough:



Those are supposed to be lined up with a bolt through them.

I bought a new bolt long enough to go through the shifter body and extend past the (now stripped) mount plate and put a metal lock nut on the other side, Tightened up the top, and all is well with the world.



This last weekend I decided it was time for a modification. One relating to the crankcase ventilation system.

Now the way it was before the mod, I had a rather open system, venting the each valve cover to a oil catch can, and from there to the base of the air cleaner, it's a good system that stops any actual "oil" from getting into the carburetor, but my catch can fills up very very fast. It holds about a 2 pints of oil in it, and I was filling it up every 1500 miles.

I've theorized that this is, in part, because the valve covers have no baffles between the vent holes and the rocker arms. At higher RPMs, oil is misting, and due the the absolute lack of any barrier at all, the misted oil goes into the catch can and condenses in there.

My project this weekend was to make and install some baffles.

Most valve covers, at least for pushrod V8's seem to have baffles in them, but the ones I bought, which are designed more for a racing application, the baffles are conspicuously absent.


I started by making a CAD model of what I wanted, and transferring the flat pattern to some left over sheet metal.



then I bent them up, and used some high temp epoxy to permanently affix them to the inside of the valve covers. They are placed right under the vent/fill hole, and while the corners are open (allowing fresh oil to pass through) they are closed enough to prevent the majority of oil mist to pass through.




at least, that's the theory. I am doing an oil change this weekend, so I'll be able to tell if the theory holds out.

Finally, gratuitous open engine shot showing off those cheaply made, but very pretty blue rocker arms.

 
How many miles are on this engine?
 
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