62 Falcon - $5k challenge, how will it rise from the ranger's ashes?

[SuperBuickGuy]

****must use airbags *****'

John, two words "Midwest Motorsports" - they are your friend for all things brackets, or speedway for that matter.
As for 4 links..... umm, have you ever heard of a half-elliptical spring suspension? LOTS of 4x4ers cut the leaf spring behind the axle, build a panhard bar and suspend their creations with coil-overs or bags.... really, it's super super cheap and quite effective (and I even know of one who runs without the panhard bar - but that's just stupid in my opinion except that it illustrates just how much the 1/2 spring and bracket can handle without sweat.

[Silver68RT]

in my best cartoon super hero near death imitation:

must stay focused must stay in budget

while the voices in the back of my head are jumping frantically on a mental trampoline of possibilities.

It may come down to this (damned being sensible sometimes sucks)
The budget small block (yea - "budget" $600 used aluminum heads and new rockers going on)
isn't going to make enough power to need anything more than cal-tracs to hook up.

Leafs are cheaper (especially if I build the cal-tracs with James pattern he so graciously provided)
Caltracs will make it hook
and it leaves more money and time for other parts of the car, like the full interior, floors, granada front swap, and paint job

In my best superhero springing into action voice: "What's that?! Not enough power?! Sounds like a job for BangShiftMan!!! Quick Robin, to the eBay for some Chinese turbochargers!!!"

[milner351]

http://s107.photobucket.com/albums/m310/milner351/?action=view&current=falcon144sixrunning.mp4

[Silver68RT]

That's awesome! I don't think I've ever seen manual fuel injection before.

Did you know there's another guy at APTL building an early Falcon? He's keeping the six and putting MegaSquirt fuel injection on it. I wonder if he'd want yours for spares.

[fordman]

What are you waiting for RIP THAT SIX OUT. GO GO NOW NOW!!!!!!

[milner351]

Aaron - patience my friend patience!

Doug - let the other falcon builder know I have a "running" six (I can't say for sure if it's a 144 or 170) with a 2 speed auto, and another 2 speed auto for sale, one guy on craigslist upped his offer to $200, and wants to pick it up sometime in January - if the fellow ford employee wants it - I'd rather sell it to him and "keep it in the family".

I did some more cleaning last night - the front floors can be fixed with no more than 2 square feet of sheet metal with some left over, the rear seat floor under the seat would probably polish up to a shine with a little effort - the paint looks like it was applied 10 years ago - not 50.

I'm auction sniping the black door panels on ebay, we'll see if my bid is high enough.

The rear seat dimensions are :

back rest is 53 wide and 24 tall

bottom is 55 wide across the front (slight taper to the rear) and 21 deep.

I'm going to see if there are any late model seats that may fit those dimensions well, maybe a mid 90's cougar tbird?
I need to have the front seats flip forward like they do in 2 door coupes so I can get Lee in and out of his car seat in the back.
Modern mustang seats would be uber coolio - but I'm sure they won't be cheap and the back seats would probably be too narrow.

[Bob Holmes]

I would never knowingly install a "quadra-bind" (triangulated four link) in a car when a parallel plus panhard is available.

To keep it cheap, I'd go with a torque arm, panhard bar, and coilovers. You can build most of it yourself. I've got a buddy that I'm supposed to build a torque arm for his Falcon. As soon as I get my Furd done. LOL

[milner351]

Bob -
thanks for your input. I'm concerned with fuel tank clearance with a panhard bar - but I'm sure that can be worked out.
you've forgotten more about suspensions than I know - I need to read up more on this stuff.

For now - I'm going to bow to the hotrodding gods of simplicity and budget - and put new leafs and DIY caltracs in it. I can always upgrade the car in the future in all sorts of ways (M2 front, 4 link rear, etc) At this point I know my time and money are going to be short and I need to keep it simple and reasonably quick.

[HillbillySailor2]

Would you like me to measure the back seat in my Cougar, John? It would save you a trip to the junkyard just to find out.

[Stich496]

mexican blankets .. and taco bell booble head dog in back window.. done

[1946Austin]

Yes - I can get leaf springs re arched near me - but in my experience they are pricier than getting them on line.

I can get leaf springs, new - for around $200ish, but then I'm building or buying cal tracs, and buying shocks.

Damitall - I never should have started thinking about air ride and four links.

Doing a four link conversion eliminates the leaf springs, and with adjustable coil overs I get some ride height adjustment, and some more tire clearance.

According to the Fabquest link from Doug:
"Max tire widths for non mini tubbed cars are 255mm. Rolling the inner fender lip will buy you another 10mm or so."

That's way more tire than I ever dreamed of fitting back there, the Fenton torque thrusts I want to run are 7" wide, the car is light, the power output of the 302 with the edel heads will likely be no more than 400hp.

What say you?

Four corner air bags are off the table - just too much money, and complexity than I want to deal with on this car - sure - I know it will ride better and having adjustable ride height is cool, but... I don't want to spend more on the suspension than I did on the engine.

Four corner coil overs with four link rear from ridetech is $1350 or so - still more than I want to spend on suspension.

I think I can do a four link and coil overs for the rear only for about the same price as I would pay for new:

leaf springs $231 shipped from ebay
new shocks $40 for oem replacements
cal tracs $360
(if I bought them instead of spending the time to make them - I already have rod ends)

Although it's not a 4 link; I built my ladder bar/coilover rear suspension for just over $400 using readily available pieces. JEGS ladder bars (built by Comp Engineering) $199 a pair, JEGS panhard bar and brackets, and QA1 adjutable coilovers from a Jaguar sedan at the wrecking yard for $50. A little bit of steel and the MIG, and it was done.

[milner351]

Going to look at a black interior out of a Mark8 buckets, console, rear seat, not far from home, we shall see.

New gas tank showed up on the front porch today.

Leaf springs are ordered (Austin - I hear you - I guess I'm coping out and taking the easy way this time)

[Stich496]

New gas tank showed up on the front porch today.

I wiggle my nose and no parts "show up" on my porch.. do I need red shoes

[milner351]

No red shoes here, just a lot of horse trading.... buget is nearly gone, need to sell some more stuff. Have a guy coming to look at the ranger "splash" bed tomorrow - hoping to get $400 out of it, with bedliner, tail lights, etc. Not much interest in the 144/fordomatic - probably sell it to the first guy that called for $200ish. May end up using the 4 lug drum axle for a utility trailer.

[HillbillySailor2]

Hmm. Guess you don't need me to take those measurements after all...