Dad's 62 Ford Galaxie

[Texas82GP]

Sunday morning I went back to Dad's. We started out with making some measurements. It looked like our clearance was going to be in the ballpark on the driver's side and was going to be a little tight on the passenger side. We were hoping for 1/4". We decided it was going to be o.k. and moved forward with putting in the pan. After all, we'd run this setup with no issues for awhile. You have to hang the pickup by one bolt so you can swing it upward until it touches the crank. Then wiggle the pan in there until the pickup will clear the baffle and drop in to the sump. Then there is the joy of getting the other bolt started and getting both tightened up with the pickup in the highest possible position. Digging the ratchet and the bolt out of the bottom of the pan is also a treat. At last, we had the pan up there and torqued to the block. I tapped on the bottom of it with my knuckle in the center and "clang clang clang". sh*t. I tap on the corners with my knuckle and it sounds nice a hollow. Tap on the middle and clang. Strangely I could tap on the center with my finger nail and it wouldn't make the clang. At this point I felt like we needed to order the Milodon pickup to match the pan (stock depth pan) and see if we could get more favorable clearances. Dad didn't really want to do that. He remarked "I wish we could see it" and the lightbulb went off. I told Dad, lets go to Harbor Freight and buy an inspection camera. We can see through the drain plug hole. We ended up going to Home Depot to save time and spend a little more on a Ryobi inspection camera. I never begrudge spending money on tools. We get back to Dad's house, and of course, the Camera is shipped with a dead battery. The battery takes 10 hours to charge. Skunked again. I pulled the mechanical oil pressure gauge off and put the electric sender back on and hooked it up. It was early afternoon by now so I just went home with plans to come back over in the morning.

I went back to Dad's Monday morning. We got right to looking at the pickup with the inspection camera. We could clearly see the scratched finish on the floor of the pan and could clearly see that there was clearance between the pan and the pickup. I couldn't get the camera under the pickup so it was a bit tight on the passenger side as we anticipated. We decided it was ok and put the drain plug back in the pan. I primed a new oil filter and installed it. I put the sway bar back on. We dropped the car down off the stands and filled it up with oil. Dad cranked it up and it was immediate disappointment. 20 lbs. of oil pressure. No change. What the hell? I was standing at the front of the engine and it sounded good. It was quiet and seemed to be running smooth. Dad revved it up to maybe 1500-1800 RPM and there wasn't much change in oil pressure. We were both really disappointed. I figured we would have to try that Milodon pickup. Slowly, the pressure started coming up. It was strange. After a minute or two, it had better than 50 lbs. of pressure at idle. I put the digital multi-meter on it and switched it to 8 cylinder to use as a tach. I hooked up the timing light. I didn't end up adjusting timing. I just tweaked the idle speed. By the time it was up to temperature and really cranking some heat out of the radiator, it had 30 lbs. of pressure at hot idle. Problem solved. At last. All of this over carelessly dropping a washer down the hole for the distributor while pulling the intake! Of course, it was pouring down rain so we couldn't take the car out to test drive again. There are too many openings and unprotected places to take it out in the rain right now. I'm not crazy about taking it out in bad weather anyway.

That's where it stands for now. Dad wants to take it back out this coming Saturday to get it up to higher speeds and test the GearVendors. Hopefully it is a success. It isn't leaking and that's a start. The floor under the car is clean so, so far, that seems to be a success. Hopefully balancing the rear drums did something to smooth out the car. I looked at the pinion seal last weekend and it has seeped a little oil. Not enough to drip. That's pretty disappointing. We'll watch it and see what it does. We may have to take the center section back to the 'pros' anyway. We'll see. After the test drive, assuming it goes well, we plan to get on the front end work (springs, shocks, bushings, balljoints, etc.).

That's it for now guys. Hope I didn't wear you out with detail. Thanks as always for following along. I hope I have a good update next week. Until then.....

Best,

Jared

 

[Texas82GP]

We didn't get anything done on the Galaxie the week before last. We had hoped to take it out for the second test drive, now that the oil pressure issue has been resolved. Unfortunately our schedules and the weather didn't align and nothing got done. We decided against a test drive this weekend because Dad has discovered the hood insulation needs a little attention and he doesn't want to drive the car until we address it. Saturday morning we dove into rebuilding the front suspension. The main reason we are doing this is to replace the springs, which are old original springs from a station wagon that dad parted out to build his car. Tearing down the driver's side went pretty smoothly. I used the jack and ratcheting strap method to let the energy out of the spring and it worked really well. By early afternoon we were here....

As soon as I had the lower control arm out, Dad went to work on removing the balljoint, the bumper and on cleaning it up....

Once I got the upper, I started doing the same on it. Check out the upper control arm bushings on this thing. They thread into the control arm and thread onto the upper shaft....

We left the spindle completely assembled with brakes, etc. It worked out well....

Those are big front brakes from the station wagon. I think they are 3-1/2" wide shoes. They only came on the wagons and the interceptors. By Saturday evening, we had everything cleaned up. We also had the bushings pressed out of the lower control arm. We used the balljoint press and it worked great. We had a small problem though. One of the captured nuts on the lower control arm for the shock was stripped. It had been that way for some time, and Dad had just used a longer bolt and put a nut on it. I took the control arm home and Saturday morning I started working on the repair. Here's a look at the captured nut...

I cut the tube off with the Dremel, then ground on the spot welds. Then I knocked the remains of it off with a hammer and chisel. Then I cleaned up the area and the nut to get ready for welding...

And a look at the nut tacked on. I did a little grinding on my tacks with the dremel to make it look a little nicer. I'm not a welder. I wish I cranked out pretty stuff but I'm not there yet....

It turned out well. It's a good repair. About the time I was finishing up with the grinding, Dad showed up. He had been home doing his yard work. we agreed we'd get together on this afterword but I got an earlier start. The garage at our house is not air conditioned like Dad's so the earlier the start the better. It just so happened that the welder was at our house. We headed back over to Dads to push in the new bushings in the lower control arm. We pushed them in with the ball joint press. We had to improvise a little but It worked great....

Here it is with both bushings installed.....

Next we taped up the new bushings, pulled plastic over the Galaxie, put plastic over the rest of the garage floor and then primed the control arms and the upper shaft....

The plastic really keeps the mess down. The vast majority of the overspray is attracted to the plastic from the static electricity. You just wad the dirty plastic up in the end and throw the vast majority of the mess in the trash. Here they are painted up...

Now we're ready to install the new balljoints and start hanging everything back on the car. When we pulled it all apart, dad noticed that the front lower control arm bolt was bent....

We were able to get Dad's parts book out and find the part number for the lower control arm bolt kit. With the part number we were able to find a couple of NOS kits on eBay. I'm hoping one of the two will show up by Friday so we won't be delayed on putting the driver's side back together.....

That's it for now friends. It was a good weekend. If that kit shows up I don't see any reason why we won't be able to get the driver's side back together. Time permitting, we'll start tearing down the passenger side. I'll update again when the progress warrants. As always, thanks for following along.

Best,

Jared

 

[Texas82GP]

It's hard to believe it's been more than three months since the last update. It's been a bit rocky but we are still at it. The Galaxie has a new name from me. Christine, like the Plymouth Fury from the movie. This car fights.

We got the front end overhaul done and it turned out well. We're really happy with how the front of the car sits now. The front was too low for our liking due to the tired old springs. here are some pics..

Here's one of the uppers almost ready to go back in. The thread in upper control arm "bushings" are pretty troublesome. The factory specification is for a ton of torque on them. Unfortunately, once you have taken them apart, they tend to spin in the control arm and want to crush it. The answer is to thread both bushings in evenly until they are 'flush' and put a tack weld on them to hold them in place. From what I read online and from Dad's memory, this is how the cars were repaired back in the day...

We had trouble with the bushings that Sean and I initially got for Dad for father's day. They didn't fit Dad's upper shafts. We ended up buying a set of new upper shafts with bushings. That ended up being a good thing since the passenger upper shaft was badly worn...

The 62's didn't have greaseable upper bushings. The 63's did. Now when you buy new upper bushings, all of them are greaseable. Here's a look at one of the lower control arms ready to go in...

Here's a look at the driver's side mostly back together....

Here's the passenger side back together...

And a couple of pics showing off the improved (to us) stance. I know you guys that like cars really low won't approve but trust me, the car needed new springs. Dad's really happy and that's what counts....

More to come...…..

 

[Texas82GP]

Another modest improvement we did after rebuilding the front end was to replace the dust caps for the front hubs. The ones that were on the car were off the station wagon and were pretty beat up. We were able to find NOS Ford caps for a reasonable price. Much better....

After finishing up the front end assembly, Sean and I went over to Dad's and used our home alignment kit (the same one we used on Sean's Camaro) to check the alignment. The Caster and Camber checked to be in spec. It had about 1/4" of toe in. We took that down to 1/16". Unfortunately, while Dad had the car running to turn the wheels (power steering assist), he had no oil pressure. This was the beginning of another oil pressure drama.

My answer was to order the oil pump pickup that matches the Milodon pan. My theory was that even though we had worked on it before and had run the current setup for a long time, the clearance just wasn't what it needed to be. The pickup that we had in there was the 63-64 427 piece but it is supposed to be used with a deeper pan. Here is a look at the two pickups side by side.....

It was a long Saturday pulling the pan yet again to replace the pickup. Towards the end of the day, Dad and Sean had to leave to go to a retirement party for an old friend of theirs. I finished up everything, got the car down off the stands, picked up the garage, put away all the tools and went home. The next day, Dad cranked up the car and sent me the following text...…"Bad news. No oil pressure." We took a few weeks off from the car at that point. I'm pretty sure I got sick (nothing big) in that time frame. When I went back over, I pulled the distributor and pulled the passenger valve cover. I spun the oil pump shaft with a 3/8" drill and witnessed oil coming out of the passenger rocker shaft. No oil pressure on the gauge. I pulled the sender and put the mechanical gauge that we bought for diagnostic purposes during the previous oil pressure scare back on it. I had oil pressure spinning the drill. I put the distributor back in and put the valve cover back on. Dad cranked it up. We had oil pressure on the mechanical gauge. When I pulled the mechanical gauge, I saw some Teflon tape in the clear tube. I thought, that must be it. I put the electric sender back on. No oil pressure.

The three gauges that we added onto the car are Borg Warner brand. My best friend bought them in the mid 90's to put in his B-body Delta 88. We never got that done and he gave them to Dad. Unfortunately, they have long since been discontinued. After digging through receipts extensively, I found the part number for the sender but it is unobtanium at this point. I ordered a sender from Summit made by Autometer that was the right range and sweep but unfortunately, it was the wrong ohm range. When you turned the key on, the gauge jumped to about 50 psi and when you started the engine, it was pegged. When I pulled the Borg Warner sender to put the Autometer sender in, I found Teflon tape sticking out of the tiny hole in it where it reads. Now we knew Teflon tape contamination was the source of this second oil pressure scare. We probably didn't need to change the oil pump pickup to the matching Milodon piece but I'm still glad we did. I've always used Teflon tape on oil pressure senders and brass fitting and never had a problem. Now I'm pretty much against it. I removed the fittings the sender screws into and thoroughly cleaned them. We ended up replacing the oil pressure gauge with a new Stewart Warner gauge from Summit. It looks the part....

Finally, we knew the engine was o.k. We were ready to go on the long awaited second test drive. If you remember, the first test drive was cut short by the first oil pressure scare, where the pickup was sucking on the bottom of the oil pan. Sean came over in the Camaro to chase us, since it has a tool kit in it. He also wanted to get some pictures of the two cars out together. We started off in Dad's neighborhood and in the adjacent neighborhood. We had nearly 80 pounds of oil pressure. It was running cool and running good. We got our nerve up and pulled out on one of the main roads. Dad got to fourth gear. He pushed the button on the shifter ball and pushed in the clutch. She seamlessly went into overdrive! We were approaching a red traffic light. Dad slowed down and the light changed to green. He downshifted into 3rd, still in overdrive (GearVendors) and rolled into the gas. That's when the fun stopped. Bad noises out of the transmission. We pulled into the center lane and got the car stopped. Then we moved across the road into a parking lot. The transmission wouldn't shift right and was making bad sounds. We managed to limp it home in first gear staying off the main roads. It really sucked.

The next weekend we pulled the transmission and took it to my house. Upon opening it up, we discovered the nylon thrust washer behind the cluster gear had melted and ended up in the gear train (explaining the bad noises and the jammed up shifter). But why? Initially I was pretty relieved. It wasn't cratered. I ended up tearing it completely down to clean and inspect everything....

It turns out I had it put together correctly but mistakenly used wheel bearing grease (that yellow/clear "next generation" stuff) as assembly lube. The grease didn't break down fast enough and parts were starving for oil. I didn't figure this out until I spoke to the guru that we buy all the parts from. It turns out the heat that melted the thrust washer spared us from a lot more carnage that we likely would have seen if I had left the old original bronze thrust washers in it. I put it together this time with just gear oil, per the guru's recommendation. I finished up putting it together on Saturday. Sunday Sean and I went over to Dad's and three of us put the car back together. Unfortunately, I got a late education on GL-4 and GL-5 80w90 gear oil. The guru recommends against the GL-5 stuff as it is said to be hard on the soft metals in the old transmissions, like the bronze blocker rings. We couldn't find any GL-4 locally so I had to order it from Summit. We're waiting on it now. Hopefully next weekend we can fill the transmission and finally enjoy the fruits of all of our hard work. I don't know. It is Christine. That's it for now gents. If I don't update for awhile you'll know it isn't going our way. Hopefully next weekend I'll have a triumphant update. Until then, thanks for following along. Happy New Year everyone!

 

[1evilregal]

even though it resulted in alot of work, I'm glad that it didn't end badly on either account... glad to see you still plugging away on the car!

 

[Clutch]

Sweet glad to see you are making progress painful as it was it could have been worse. I'm jonesing for my GP update though lol

 

[Texas82GP]

even though it resulted in alot of work, I'm glad that it didn't end badly on either account... glad to see you still plugging away on the car!

Thanks Darin. I totally agree. I'm grateful that the engine is healthy and that the transmission wasn't cratered. I'm not pulling off until the mechanical work is done. I'm not sure how much I can help getting it off to paint. Dad and Sean have it really close. Dad's been working on it though. He's done quite a bit of sanding all over the car since the pictures above.

Sweet glad to see you are making progress painful as it was it could have been worse. I'm jonesing for my GP update though lol

Thanks Eric. It has been a little painful. I thought the car would have gone to paint by now but Christine is a fighter. It will all be worth it if we can have that ride where the car has been transformed into something really enjoyable to drive.

All I can say on the GP is that it's on the back burner for now. Hopefully it will run in the spring of 2020.

 

[Turbo Zach]

Stuff like that happens all the time. At least you can walk away from it and come back to it when you are ready. Don't let it get to you. It happens to me all the time. I can already smell the rubber burning! You got 80 psi of oil pressure out of a FE engine? That is unheard of.

 

[JAMCAR223]

Still following along Jared. Keep killing all those bugs Christine keeps throwing at ya. It will be nice to see your Dad at cruise nights this Summer, in HIS car.

 

[Rktpwrd]

I feel your pain Jared, I sincerely do. I’m just glad to see that you guys are refusing to admit defeat and are persevering through it all.

A quick note on the Teflon tape debacle, whenever I have to use a sealant on something like a pressure gauge where contamination is a concern, I opt to use Loctite 567.



It has kind of a thin paste like consistency, but a little goes a long way and it works extremely effectively. I’ve used it in both industrial applications at work, as well as at home for many many years now with rarely ever a leak. Best of all, there’s no solids in it to cause a blockage.
Might be worth picking some up to have around the shop.

Keep up the great work, I’m tuned in for sure as always. Good luck on the next maiden voyage attempt!