Dad's 62 Ford Galaxie

[Texas82GP]

Another blast from the past picture......

That's Dad's little brother, standing next to Dad's 61 Starliner. This was in 1968. Its another picture Dad's little sister took. She recently found it in an old photo album. The Rangoon Red on the car is a paint job Dad had put on it. The car was a roller when he bought it and he put a low mile 390 in it that he bought used. The car didn't even have a transmission when it got painted. Later he got it running with a T10 4-speed. He went to the trouble to buy the parts at the dealer and convert the 3 speed manual steering column into a floor shift manual column. Cool car. I hope more pictures of it surface. In the background is Grandma's Rambler. It was her first car. She walked to work for years and years before she could buy that car new. History.

 

[Texas82GP]

Dad's been plugging away at putting the power windows in the car. He's pretty much putting them in by the book. He's decided to do it in stages to keep from laying up the car for too long. He decided to start with running the harness from the switches in the console to under the dash. Part of that harness runs through the firewall to pick up power to feed the system. Since he was pulling the console, he decided to put the factory correct floor pan "hump" for the shifter in. We previously just had a large hurst boot on the floor but it made working on the shifter pretty tough. Here's a few pics of the shifter hump project....

Now the shifter is in there the way the factory would have done it. Next he mounted the relay that feeds the power window system. It get's activated with switched hot from the key....

Next, he needed a new hole in the firewall for the harness come through. This is to the right of the relay, where that dimple is....

And the harness coming through and hooked up to the relay....

The relay gets hot right off the battery side of the starter solenoid, through a relay (correction: circuit breaker). Dad had to come up with the relay and the mounting strap. Pretty much factory correct....

Here's the console going back in....

That's the controller for the GearVendors overdrive that lives under the console liner. That harness poking out in the near ground of the photo, on the driver's side is for the rear power window harness. Note the factory correct lower shift boot on the shifter.

Here's the console back together.....

And a look at the window switch panel in the recently acquired, factor correct four-speed console top plate...

That's his iPod cable laying across the top of the console. The way he's doing it, it's going to be hard for someone to tell the car didn't come with power windows. He's really done a nice job so far. I was over at his place last Saturday to do some looking at the wiring diagrams. It's a bit of a puzzle. He has a book that covers it, and the book is 1962. The system reportedly came out of a 1963. Believe it or not, they are a little different. The motors in the 1962 book are shown to be four wire motors. The motors he has are three wire motors. The harness appears to be a carry over 1962 piece (matches his 1962 book) but appears to have been modified at the factory for the three wire motors. There are some wires that were cut out of the harness and it appears that was done by the factory. Fortunately, he had a later, three wire motor, wiring diagram that the seller of the system furnished. I was able to piece it all together from there.

I have the four individual window harnesses at my house. I'm going to do some small repair work and I bought some knock-off Powerbraid to put on them. They have a woven cloth sheathing but most of it is in fairly sad shape. Dad's emphasis was on getting the car back together so it could be driven. I'll have the harnesses ready when he's ready to tackle the next section.

That's it for now on the Galaxie friends. I'll update when there's news.

 

[Longroof79]

It's cool that you guys were able to find all the necessary power window components. I'll bet it was a bit of an undertaking, unless of course other Ford models used the same harness, switches, etc.

 

[Texas82GP]

It's cool that you guys were able to find all the necessary power window components. I'll bet it was a bit of an undertaking, unless of course other Ford models used the same harness, switches, etc.

Thanks Jack. Dad actually bought the whole system from a guy that is local to us. He removed the entire system from a wrecked car something like 45 years ago and it was in the same box until dad bought it and started installing it. It's quite a find.

 

[rfpowerdude]

Damned nicely progressing project. Love that car...

 

[Texas82GP]

Damned nicely progressing project. Love that car...

Thank you! It's been a part of our lives since 1989. We love it too!

 

[Longroof79]

Thanks Jack. Dad actually bought the whole system from a guy that is local to us. He removed the entire system from a wrecked car something like 45 years ago and it was in the same box until dad bought it and started installing it. It's quite a find.

Jared,
The fact that he was able to source a complete system is definitely a rare find. Rather than finding the parts a piece at a time. That's great.

 

[1evilregal]

I love the attention to detail you guys have used on everything you've done on this and the other cars! awesome work!

 

[Texas82GP]

Dad's just plugging away making progress. He's been working on window adjustment. He had it about perfect but the body man adjusted the doors. What he did was amazing with respect to making the doors fit and line up so dealing with the adjustment of the windows is worth it. Here lately he's working on improving his rear door panels and wind lace. I'm looking for pictures on that. Last week, he put the GALAXIE letters on the deck lid....

That was a bit scarier than it sounds as the paint and body guys had removed the barrel clips to paint the car. Dad bought several sets of these letters over the years to come up with that really nice set.

He also got the Galaxie 500XL emblems on the quarters....

Dad had those emblems restored. Both were broken into two pieces and were missing one or more pins. He sent them to a skill man up in Minnesota or Wisconsin who put them back together, replaced the pins and rechromed them. Dad did the paint work. More and more little details!

 

[DRIVEN]

This has to be the finest example in the country.