Project Poor Touring

[1trickpony]

All the pieces and parts are starting to pile up so I figured I would start a "progress" thread". The mustang is starting to get cramped when we go places as my son gets older so I was looking for something a little bigger and one of my dads friends made me an offer on a 66 galaxie I couldn't walk away from. I knew it had been sitting disassembled for about 10 years and it would take some work to get back on the road but for the price I couldn't turn it down.
Overall it is a basket case but pretty solid. The floors are solid, rockers are solid, quarters will need some attention at some time, but really just need to fix the frame and inner fender well to get back on the road. Or so I thought.




We Got it home and washed it up and it looked a little better than sitting in the barn.


The frame had the typical rust in the kick outs so the plan was to pull the body off the frame and repair the frame this winter, sand blast, prime paint and put the body back on by spring. Well that didn't happen. We pulled the body off the frame around christmas time and the frame decide it wanted to be an accordian. So I tried figuring out what plan b was, and that included everything from back halving the car to cutting up a late model crown vic. But I found a guy down in Kansas City that parts out galaxies and he happens to have a good frame for sale. So we are going down at the end of the month to pick up the rust free frame and continue on with the plan.

[1trickpony]

The plan:
Well I havent really got a "plan".
What I do have.....
95 5.0 efi motor with only 50,000 miles on it
AOD trans
Wire harness.
So I think I can put all of this in this car and make a nice cruiser for now and just keep working on the car . I would like to do all the body work on the this car and make it a nice car that shows well.
I want to be able to jump in this car and be able to go see my sister out in denver. and get 20 mpg. (It think I can get that efi, AOD)
I will probably end up air bagging this car. I know that might not be big on this board but I think this big girl would benefit from it. And I think its one of the easier suspensions to do.
This is something the finished product might look like.


And It will probably ride on some junkyard Crown Victoria steelies with cut coils for a while until I decide what direction I want to go like this.

[hauen]

I know that might not be big on this board

I don't judge.

I wonder how tough it would be to put one of those on Crown Vic frame?

Regardless, looking forward to watching the progress unfold.

[1trickpony]

I wonder how tough it would be to put one of those on Crown Vic frame?

Its been done. They are off buy a couple of inches length,width wise but it is doable. We just figured that if we had to cut/weld,we could cut/weld the original. Then I found this rust free frame for $500 and I thought for the time and material we would have in repairing a frame we might as well just find one.
The plan is get the frame sand blasted over at the farm (we have a huge tank sand blaster and we used it on dads 47 frame) and get the frame either por-15 or undercoated. Leaning towards Por-15, really like that stuff.

[G-Motive]

It looks like someone took a blue car & turned it into a turd, I'd probably want to drop in a 460 and I'm liking the black car you posted.

[CTX-SLPR]

Its been done. They are off buy a couple of inches length,width wise but it is doable. We just figured that if we had to cut/weld,we could cut/weld the original. Then I found this rust free frame for $500 and I thought for the time and material we would have in repairing a frame we might as well just find one.
The plan is get the frame sand blasted over at the farm (we have a huge tank sand blaster and we used it on dads 47 frame) and get the frame either por-15 or undercoated. Leaning towards Por-15, really like that stuff.

Depending on where the original accordianed, it might be work it to retro fit the front and rear attachment points/crossmembers from the Panther onto the original frame.

However it is hard to argue with minimal work for probably similar cash outlay on that frame.

[Huskinhano]

One of my favorite cars. Not sure if I would do a 5.0, I'd go 351W for a little more grunt to get it moving. Wasn't that front suspension the basic front suspension used on NASCAR for years? Ford offered a pretty nice disc brake set up on them from the factory.Huge 12" x 1.25" rotors and equally huge 4 piston KH calipers that will stop that car like throwing out the Queen Mary anchor.

[milner351]

I concur with the 351W - get one from a truck, 94 or newer to get roller cam, if possible get the whole shebang from the truck, wiring, computer, transmission, etc.
heck even the 8.8 rear from that era truck might be close enough to work in this chassis (you'd have to swap axles to get the "car" bolt pattern unless you're OK running "truck" wheels)

[1trickpony]

Well I actually thought about doing something different in the engine bay to help motorvate this whale but part of it is the "poor" part and I also have the low mile take out I had given to me. I have some thing on the back burner for maybe a part duex but for now i think it will work.