I got my First car back! well sort of

[gconnsr]

Dude, finding an old Fastback in the rust belt is like finding a pot of gold. That car looks like it has a ton of potential. I'd go balls out on it.

[DirtyWhiteBoy]

Great looking cruiser.....love the slots!

[milner351]

It needs floors and rockers and allot of other things, but, having both a 69 and 70 fastback in my garage was a dream I'd never thought I'd see come to reality. Now all that's missing is a 66 and a 68 LOL

[gconnsr]

It needs floors and rockers and allot of other things, but, having both a 69 and 70 fastback in my garage was a dream I'd never thought I'd see come to reality. Now all that's missing is a 66 and a 68 LOL

My first car was a 68 Mustang Fastback and they weren't that easy to find back then. I wouldn't even think twice about the floors & rockers.

[gconnsr]

I'm actually jealous because you had the 70 351c-4V. Your intake ports made mine look like tinker toys.

[gconnsr]

If you guys don't know they had to slow that motor down because it was smoking big blocks and pissing guys off that paid more money. They dropped the compression in 71. 70 was the year.

[milner351]

Clevelands are legendary - the 4v is actually better suited to high rpm racing that street duty. I have a low mileage 72 351c2v I pulled from a mercury monterey years ago, it's sitting under a pallet rack, I've now moved it three times. IT MAY find it's way into this car, but if it does it will be with some of the newer aluminum heads on the market these days - I'm not going to build anything that requires new parts for a while - in hopes this Carter like inflation will correct.

[gconnsr]

Clevelands are legendary - the 4v is actually better suited to high rpm racing that street duty. I have a low mileage 72 351c2v I pulled from a mercury monterey years ago, it's sitting under a pallet rack, I've now moved it three times. IT MAY find it's way into this car, but if it does it will be with some of the newer aluminum heads on the market these days - I'm not going to build anything that requires new parts for a while - in hopes this Carter like inflation will correct.

That sounds like a plan and I'd rather be spending my money on car parts than gas. It'll drop back down when people demand better.

[milner351]

As we all know life gets in the way. Lee is turning 13 tomorrow and stands over 5ft 9in tall and tips the scales over 225lb! His gokart needs hydraulic brakes now that it's sporting a 18HP engine I swapped in for the tired old 12HP Tecumseh.

I've made snail like progress on the blue 70 fastback:
Borgeson power steering box is in place, new steering linkage also installed, need to install power steering lines.

Rusty old no brand headers are gone replaced with some stainless tri - Y that got the "heat and bend" treatment to fit around the AOD bell housing and fit better in the car - I think they were originally bought for a first gen mustang / falcon.

AOD swap is complete, and the TCI Shifter swap is started - had to pull the pan to replace the OEM shift arm with the TCI unit - changed the fluid and filter while I was there, this is a low mileage aftermarket AOD purchased from a guy that bought a car with it - then took it out in favor of a manual conversion - I think it's a Gear star brand came complete with converter, cooler, cross member, lokar cables, the works. couldn't pass it up.

I bought floor pans, have to get them installed - and I'm debating on modifying the seat risers or just leaving them out completely to give more leg and head room.

Turns out the 302 was rebuilt at some point, behind the bell housing the block was shiny blue painted and the freeze plugs looked brand new.... still no idea on compression or any of that.... the cam is probably just a mild upgrade over stock. enough for now.

I also picked up a 9" from a bronco - should be about an inch narrower that OEM and I'll have to cut off the spring perches from the top of the tubes (set up for leaf springs to mount on top for a truck) and put new ones on under the tubes at the proper width to bolt to the factory leaf spring width. I have a set of 3.70 gears in a 9" I swapped for a friend that I'm going to put one of those posi conversions into that go in where the spider gears go in a factory "open" differential.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the Milner351 house to all of you bangshifters, I've missed this place!

[DanStokes]

Good to hear from you here, John! Sounds like the Mustang project is coming along.

[milner351]

Hey Folks - yeah I'm still allive and still have a bunch of unfinished projects.
I have pulled the seats and carpet out of this car and attacked the floor rust - starting on the driver side.
As usual with mid-western cars, it's worse than I thought - I am thankful to have NPD just a few miles away - I have new "long" floors, seat platforms, rear frame sections, torque boxes and the rear part of the forward frame rail..... UGH.

The plan is to do a similar frame tie as I did in the 62 falcon - using 1x2 tubing that fits inside the front frame rail section - and I will tie that into the front leaf spring mount / rear frame rail to tie the structure of the car together.

I also did a bit of engine work - pulling the valve covers from the 302 I was pleasantly surprised to find comp roller tip steel rockers, and guide plates, but then I started looking at the whole valve train set up with more attention to detail and noticed quickly that something was NOT right in the geometry department - SO - I pulled the fixed width guide plates out, got a set of adjustable guideplates and proceded to set them up- which was quite the tedious process - after several tries things look much better.

Using the gas axe and an 8ft section of fence pole - a friend and I got the stainless tri-Y headers to fit around the AOD trans and with a little massaging - will probably work OK with some flex couplings to the factory style H pipe which is still in decent shape.

While all of the floors are torn up - I figured it was a good time to replace the existing rusty fuel line with a new stainless line set up from NPD all the way from the tank to the mechanical pump.

I'll get some pictures up when there's some noteworthy progress on the floors - been very slow lately as Lee is now on two baseball teams and umpiring as well.

[milner351]

Yeah - I still have it - it's still on the hoist waiting more floor metal work, and life continues to happen - Cheers to a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to Bangshifters old and new - here's a healthy happy and prosperous 2024!

[DanStokes]

Yeah - I still have it - it's still on the hoist waiting more floor metal work, and life continues to happen - Cheers to a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to Bangshifters old and new - here's a healthy happy and prosperous 2024!

Something I've learned after all these years of car work - they don't get done if you don't work on them. Better luck in the coming year!