Dad's 62 Ford Galaxie

[Texas82GP]

Hard to believe it has been two months since the last update.

Everything is looking awesome. I love the attention to detail your Pop's put into putting everything back together so far. Looking forward to more updates! Thanks for sharing.

Thanks Victor. We appreciate the interest and the kind words.

Jared,
I'm guessing that Dexcool is formulated, or more compatible for later model cars. Perhaps, I might be wrong in that respect.

Dad's car is shaping up nicely. I see where you guys get it from...😉
It's going to be one cool cruiser.

Thanks Jack. Much appreciated.

Car's looking great Jared! I see where you and Sean get your skills from! Will be watching for future updates!

Thanks Kevin. Yeah, you and Jack are right. Sean and I owe a great deal to Dad. We owe him our interest in cars, for teaching us a great deal about working on cars and for teaching/giving us attention to detail. Thanks Dad. Thanks for the kind words Kevin.

Update coming.....

 

[Texas82GP]

So I'm way behind on this thread but we've been working on it and I do have some good pictures. I doubt I'll get the thread totally caught up tonight, but I'm going to move the thread forward. Here goes:

When I left off, we had the new flywheel, new clutch assembly and the bellhousing installed in the car. The next task before we tried to stab the transmission was to transfer the shifter from the T-10 to the Toploader. There was more to this than it sounds like. First of all, I don't know what GearVendors had in mind when they manufactured the adapter plate they sent us to bolt the Hurst Competition Plus shifter to their Toploader tailhousing. The bolt hole for the lower right (when facing the shifter from the driver's side) mounting point didn't line up. To get it to line up, the shifter would have to be rotated clockwise, with the top mounting bolt as the pivot, considerably. The shape of the tailhousing would not allow this and we didn't want the stick rocked back like that. Here is a picture of the stick mocked up on the transmission, but only bolted on at the top. This will help illustrate what I'm trying to explain...

Now take a look at their adapter plate. The bolt hole with the arrow pointing to it is the hole I had to drill and tap threads into. The hole that is a little lower and to the left is the hole they provided. There was no way to use their two holes to mount the shifter flush to the tailhousing like it is supposed to be....

In the first picture above, you can see that I have all of the linkage installed and adjusted. While the shifter is the same one that was on the T-10, the linkage is all new as the rods are all different for the Toploader than those for the T-10. In the picture above of the adapter plate, you can see a small hole I've drilled in it towards the bottom center of it. That is one of two new holes I had to drill in it and tap for our reverse light switch bracket.

Here is a look at the shifter installed with both bolts, the reverse light switch and bracket installed, all the linkage adjusted, and the stops adjusted....

And here is a shot a little closer in....

Believe it or not, I spent an entire Saturday fitting and adjusting the shifter to the Toploader and GearVendors tailhousing. Still, at the end of the day that issue had been overcome.

The way I remember it, I went back over there on Sunday and we made the first attempt to stab the Toploader. It went in pretty easy. We then tried to jack it up and get the crossmember installed and found that the flange at the end of the tailhousing where the GearVendors unit mounts to it was hard against the transmission tunnel. That flange falls right behind a floor pan brace. We had to trim a flange off of that brace and had to hammer it and the tunnel some for clearance. This is the best picture I have. The unit is stabbed on in this picture and the crossmember is installed. You can see primer above that flange where we did some hammering and can see that we have clearance to the flange in this shot. You can also see that the GearVendors unit itself is hard against the tunnel....

In this shot, you can see the unit against the tunnel a little better....

We probably had the GearVendors unit, the Toploader and the crossmember in and out dozen times that Sunday. At the end of the day we were close but not quite there on clearance. The next weekend I went over and we did the final massaging of the tunnel and then pulled everything out again so we could clean up the floor pan and paint the beat up areas. It wasn't anything fancy, just a little primer and gloss black paint from a rattle can.

The next hurdle to overcome was modifying the transmission mount and the crossmember. The GearVendors tailhousing is technically for a Mustang. Consequently the distance between the bolt holes on the transmission mounting flange is smaller than that of the Galaxie. At first I thought, no sweat. We'll just get a Mustang transmission mount. Unfortunately the Mustang uses a totally different type of mounting system than the Galaxie. The Galaxie uses a metal strap that is inside the crossmember and captures a rubber mount between the transmission and the crossmember. Here is a look....

In the picture above, we've already cut the metal U shaped strap in half, cut away the extra length, and welded it back together....

We've also cut the rubber mount in half and cut away some of the material in each half to narrow it and make it fit. We've also trimmed the openings in the crossmember to make the narrowed mount and U shaped strap fit...

Here's a look at the modified setup...

One the slicing and dicing was complete, it was time for a new coat of paint. Dad had painted the crossmember many years ago when the frame was out of the car and the rest of the frame was cleaned and painted. It was pretty dirty though from some nagging leaks, most of which have been resolved at this point. Dad cleaned the crossmember up with mineral spirits and it took most of the paint off but left the primer. Here it is getting a new coat...

Next everything went back in. It wasn't without difficulty. The bolt holes in the Galaxie tailhousing for the transmission mount are fine thread. The bolt holes in the GearVendors housing were coarse. I didn't catch it (I didn't even think of it) so you can imaging the unwanted consequences. Fixing both bolt holes with a Helicoil ate us alive for the better part of day. I'm guessing another day was spent on getting the speedometer drive squared away. I had to pull the drive out of the GearVendors unit and replace the driven gear since we've changed rear tire size on the car since the GearVendors kit was ordered five years ago. There was also some time spent running the wiring for the speed sensor and the shift solenoid through the tunnel. I also had to make a small bracket to guide the emergency brake linkage and to keep it from rubbing on the bottom of the GearVendors unit. Still, here is the unit in, with the transmission bolted down to the crossmember and with everything hooked up...

A look from the other side. You can see the new wiring coming through a new grommet in the side of the tunnel...

At that point we measured for the driveshaft and ordered it. You may notice in the pictures above that we have the passenger side exhaust reinstalled but the driver's side is still off. Another difference between the GearVendors tailhousing and the Galaxie tailhousing is the distance between the transmission output shaft and the mount flange for the transmission mount. The distance is smaller on the GearVendors tailhousing by roughly 7/8". In other words, when the transmission is bolted to the crossmember, the end of the output shaft is lower with respect to the floorboard than it was with the Galaxie tailhousing. An unfortunate consequence of this is that the driver's side exhaust downpipe is now hard against the slave cylinder for the power steering. We were never that worried about being able to modify the pipe to correct that but we wanted to wait until we had the driveshaft bolted in the car and had checked the driveline angles before we did it. We didn't want to modify the pipe only to find that the driveline angles were unacceptable and we were going to have to jack the transmission up and put a spacer (like 7/8" thick) between it and the mount. If that were the case, the pipe wouldn't need modified but tunnel surgery to make room for the GearVendors unit would be necessary.

We got the new driveshaft on Tuesday and I went over to Dad's with it Tuesday night. We installed the shaft and checked the driveline angles. I'm pleased to report they both checked fine. We have 3-1/2° in the front and 4-1/2° in the back. I didn't snap any pics of the driveshaft installed in the car but I'll get some this weekend. The next hurdle to overcome is modifying the driver's side exhaust downpipe to clear the power steering slave cylinder. To that end I ordered a 2 pound spool of 0.023" stainless steel MIG wire. I also ordered a 2-1/2" mandrel bent J-bend in 409 stainless steel as a practice piece and possibly as material. Last night, on the way home from work, I picked up one of these...

For those unfamiliar, that is Tri-Mix, which is the gas you need for MIG welding stainless steel. So, at this point I have everything I need except for the talent to weld stainless exhaust. I hope to formulate a plan to modify the downpipe on Dad's car and get some practice in this weekend. I sprang for the materials to be able to do this work myself since there will be some fabrication needed when the exhaust goes on my car and the Y-pipe on my truck needs some modification to fit properly. I'm sick of hearing it bang on the transmission crossmember. My buddy who helped me with some welding pointers and suggestions when I modified the crossmember for my car will likely come over and help me again. He's pretty excited that I geared up to weld stainless. We'll see how it goes. That's it for now gents. There is other progress to report that was made while we were waiting for the new driveshaft from Denny's but I'll put that in another update. I need to get some more pictures anyway. I should get those this weekend and get another update up next week. Until then, thanks for following along.

Best,

Jared

 

[Longroof79]

Wow Jared,
This thing fought you guys every inch of the way. But knowing you, you persevered and got it done. 👍 Good work, my friend.

 

[fleming442]

I'm curious to see how you like the GV unit on a 4 speed. It's been a passing thought/pipedream of mine for many years.

 

[Texas82GP]

It's hard to believe its been a month since the last update. I'm going to work to get the thread caught up tonight. Here goes.....

While I was working on fitting the shifter to the GearVendors tailhousing in the post above, Dad was putting the new heater core and heater control valve in the HVAC case. He had the heater core re-cored and the place that did it found him a new old stock heater control valve. This sounds like an easy project but it isn't. Here is a look at the HVAC case ready to go back in...

One weekend while we were waiting for the driveshaft, Dad and I put the HVAC case back in the car. This is not a small task but with the two of us we got it done. Here's what the dash looks like with the HVAC case out....

I'll give a payoff picture of the HVAC case install later. Dad has done a lot of work on the interior of the car in the past few months. He made a new divider between the trunk and the back seat and installed it....

He's installed a lot of sound deadener.......

Here you can see we have the HVAC case back in and the dash is all buttoned back up. You can also see Dad has the console and the front seats back in......

In the pic above, you can also see we have the shifter install buttoned up. We had to move the upper boot back about 1-1/8" with respect to where it was with the T-10. The black shift knob in the picture above has a a button on the driver's side for engaging the GearVendors. I'll get a better pic later. We also had to trim the opening in the console top plate to acommodate the shifter moving back. The coiled up cable in the picture above is the lead for plugging in Dad's iPod. We have an adapter that plugs in line on the antenna lead so it will work with the radio that Dad already had, which is a Kenwood that has a front on it that fits the dash and looks right.

This past weekend Sean and Dad replaced the package shelf. The one that was in the car was a 56 year old survivor that had some character. Dad bought a plastic reproduction and it is a nice upgrade. Sean helped a lot with cutting the holes in the new shelf for the rear speakers and helped Dad put it in.....

Dad's also been working on putting seat belts in the car. Again, this sounds easier than it really is. The car came factory equipped with front belts but none in the rear. It took some careful planning on where to drill the rear seat pans to install the new belts. Also, he was sold the wrong belts for the front (too short) and it took a little time to figure it out and to source the right stuff. Here's a look at the rear belts....

and a look at the fronts....

Turning away from the interior for a little while and back to the mechanicals, here is a look at the engine side of the HVAC case. This picture is significant because it includes a correct harness and grommet for the blower motor which Dad salvaged from a parts car year ago and I repaired. It's a small thing but it's the details that count. Also, the car has the little rubber hose for the blower motor for the first time....

You can also see a rubber plug in the picture above, above the heater hoses. We came up with those plugs and were able to plug a few openings in the firewall cleanly. Again, not a big deal but its the details that matter.

One of the last major mechanical aspects of the GearVendors install was addressing the interference between the driver's side exhaust down pipe and the power steering slave cylinder. It's obvious now that this was an issue before the GearVendors install but it was made worse by the fact that the engine/transmission have rotated downward at the transmission mount to accomodate fitting the GearVendors unit in the tunnel. I menitioned this in the previous update. The GearVendors tailhousing has the transmission mount point higher on it with respect to the output shaft than the stock tailhousing. here is a look at the problem...

In the previous post, I mentioned that I bought some stainless wire for the MIG and a bottle of Tri-Mix. I had been thinking that some welding might be required to address the issue. That pipe really snakes through a small amount of real estate. This is a car that the factory never built. We don't think power steering was available with standard shift, and certainly don't think it was available with standard shift and the shorty iron headers. In the end we decided to massage the pipe rather than cut and weld. This was Dad's call and I think it was the right one. After three hours of hammering and test fitting, here is the result....

And the payoff.....The driver's side exhaust is installed....

At this point, all that was really left to finish up the GearVendors install, was to fill the GearVendors unit. I wanted to hold off on doing that because before we did that, I wanted to pull off the new driveshaft and address this problem....

Not a great picture above, but hopefully you can tell the pinion seal is leaking. This was a disappointment since we paid the 'pros' to install a Ford Racing Traction Lock differential in the center section. I pulled the pinion nut and the yoke to find it already had a repair sleeve on it. Either the sleeve was of poor quality or it was poorly installed. It didn't feel smooth. It felt more like corrugated cardboard. The surface was not smooth so there was no way the seal could hold the oil in. It was bad enough that it leaked with the car just sitting there. New seal, new repair sleeve and everything put back like it was with respect to pinion bearing preload...

Believe it or not, this took me an entire Saturday. I had never done it before. I made three trips to the auto parts store. Dad was pre-occupied a good bit of the day with another commitment. Unfortunately, it wasn't a success. By the next morning, Dad reported it was leaking. I went back over this past Saturday, which was a week later, and this is what greeted me....

I came prepared to redo the pinion seal project. Apparently I didn't drive the new repair sleeve down on the yoke far enough. It was a judgement call and I misjudged....

I couldn't believe that deep groove to the right of the repair sleeve above was a wear groove from the seal but evidently it is. If at first you don't succeed....

This time I went back with a slinger in front of the front pinion bearing (there was no slinger when I took it apart, though the shop manual showed it should be there), another new seal, a new yoke, a new pinion nut, and even new U-bolts for the rear U-joint. Everything was Yukon Gear and was made in the USA which Dad and I love. I overcame the hazard of changing the pinion bearing preload that is associated with changing the yoke, changing the nut or adding the slinger by first determining the torque on the pinion nut before I took it apart this time. The last time I took it apart, I marked the pinion and the pinion nut with a paint pen and just put it back exactly like it was. This time I patiently determined exactly how much torque was on the nut by slightly backing it off and then slowly creeping up on enough torque with the torque wrench to get the nut back on its marks. Hopefully this will have us in good shape. It wasn't leaking when I went back over on Sunday. If the 'pros' had the pinion bearing preload set correctly and if they have the rest of the third member set up correctly we should be in good shape. To be continued....

 

[Texas82GP]

I went back over last Sunday to work on checking the rear brake drums for balance. There has long been a vibration in the back of the car. When we had the Traction Loc differential installed in the third member, we hoped it would go away. It didn't. We also replaced the driveshaft with a stock driveshaft from a parts car that we had balanced, checked for straightness, and had new Spicer U-joints installed in. No change. I've wondered if Dad was overtightening the U-bolts for the rear U-joint at the pinion yoke but I don't know. Dad has a reputation of overtightening everything. I have a reputation of not tightening anything enough, so I torque as many things as I can. When I put the driveshaft on, I will torque the nuts on the new U-bolts to spec.

I've long wondered if one or both of the rear drums might be out of balance. We've changed the rear tires on the car a couple of times and rotating the tires doesn't make a difference. In order to check the drums for balance, I bought an old Sears Allstate bubble balancer. Here is a look at the first drum I looked at.....

The first picture above didn't turn out well enough for you to see the bubble but you get the point. I had to put those two bolts on there to get it in balance. The big bolt was right at 1 ounce and the little one was right at 0.5 ounce. Here is a look at how I balanced it with stick on weights...

I got both drums balanced. Both took 1.25 ounces of weight (each little weight above is 0.25 ounce). I got them back on the car and then got the wheels back on it and called it a weekend. Moving forward for next weekend I plan to install the driveshaft (assuming the gear oil isn't running out of the garage and down the driveway by Saturday), fill the GearVendors unit with ATF and then move to the next project, which is resealing the intake manifold. Unfortunately the intake appears convincingly to be leaking from the back. I guess we didn't use enough RTV. It's hard to believe we muffed that with the engine sitting on the stand. Now is the time to address it though. The entire cooling system, including the block is empty. Once that is done, we'll have a running car again and will be ready to take the Toploader and GearVendors on its maiden cruise. Beyond that I want to flush the brake system and we have some front end parts to install, including new front springs. That's all for now gents. It's been a heck of an update but I'm caught up. I hope you enjoyed it. As always, thanks for following along. I'll update when progress warrants and when I can get to it. Until then...

Best,

Jared

 

[Michael Watts]

I hate to date myself .But I remember when those car were new. I have help my who at the time had a 1963 1/2 Galaxy "R" car 4 speed .When put a bored and stroked 427 engine with the original caste iron manifolds .The engine barely lifted it. But we surprised a lot of people with it ;It ran 10`s in the 1/4 mile.

 

[Rktpwrd]

Jared, thanks for the updates!

I’ve been craving me some Galaxie greatness lately, and I was very happy to see these ones. Your dad’s car is looking great. I’m excited for you guys to finally get it back to running and driving status again!

Looking forward to the update following the test drive (I know it’s still a ways off yet) but still!!

D.

 

[ed1948]

Love these cars. Recently I helped a nearby car guy install a manual choke in his 64 Galaxie convertible.

 

[Longroof79]

Jared,
As always, thank you for the updates on Dad's Galaxie. I'm really enjoying the progress. Love the interior with the console. Adding sound deadening is always a good idea....especially in these older cars.
Keep up the great work my friend. I'm anxious to hear how it drives and how the Gear Vendors overdrive works out.