Dad's 62 Ford Galaxie

[Texas82GP]

This has to be the finest example in the country.

That's high praise. Thanks! It's definately one of one. To our knowledge, they didn't build them equipped the way dad has it. 62's didn't come with a toploader four speed and I don't think the factory layered stuff like a four speed and shorty cast iron headers with luxury accessories like power brakes, power steering, air conditioning, power windows, etc. The car is just so loaded with nice, rare stuff. Some of the XL trim stuff is really rare. The bumper guards are pretty rare and valuable. Outer headlight doors as nice as his are hen's teeth. They're stuck out there where that's the first thing you're going to bump into something with.

Dad's hard on the car sometimes over it's imperfections, which it has, like all of them but it's incredible how far the car has come. As my late step-father would have said, "he's got a lot of car there."

 

[Texas82GP]

More progress on the Galaxie. Dad found and bought a new old stock grill for the car. It had never been installed before dad put it on the car. It's beautiful. His grill was pretty nice in my estimation but it had some character. If you look in the center top of this picture, you can see it's bent. Dad worked on this grill a lot to straighten it but it is no match for the NOS piece. Here's the "old" grill....

And here's the NOS one....

Also, the car has the first functional power window. Dad started with the passenger quarter window. He figured out most of the swap to power but got stuck. He needed another set of hands. Sean and I spent the day over there yesterday (Saturday) and we got the guts in the quarter and got the window running.....

Once dad has the window adjusted to his satisfaction, he'll turn the car around and Sean and I will go back and help him swap the regulator for the Driver's quarter window. After both sides are done, Dad can go back in with the quarter "door" panels, which he has greatly improved and the back seat.

That's it for now friends. I'll follow up when there is news.

 

[Texas82GP]

Dad reached out late last week wanting to know what our plans were for the weekend. He said he was ready to swap the manual regulator for the power one for the left rear window in the Galaxie.

We went over Saturday and got it done.

We took a different approach with this side. We left the glass installed, and for the most part, tried to swap only the regulator rather than pull everything out and start over like we did on the right rear.

Dad did want to swap the rear track for the one he got with the power window setup since it was in better shape. I started there and it was a pretty easy swap. I ended up pulling it back out though as I needed room for my 1"x2" that I used to support the back of the window when I removed the regulator.

Dad had the window adjusted really well with the manual regulator. I carefully marked all the bolts with a silver Sharpie and worked hard to get everything back where it was. It paid off. We didn't lose the adjustment.

We've been greasing everything with a big tube (like for a grease gun) of white lithium grease. Running off a battery, they are fast and smooth.

Dad is going to work on running the harnesses from the console to both rear windows and then we'll move on to whichever of the front doors he picks. I didn't do a good job of taking pictures but here's one to show the left rear is now a power window....

Look at how big that motor is! That's it for now friends.

 

[OldGG]

Looking good nice work !

 

[RegalRegal]

More progress on the Galaxie. Dad found and bought a new old stock grill for the car. It had never been installed before dad put it on the car. It's beautiful. His grill was pretty nice in my estimation but it had some character. If you look in the center top of this picture, you can see it's bent. Dad worked on this grill a lot to straighten it but it is no match for the NOS piece. Here's the "old" grill....
View attachment 189565
And here's the NOS one....
View attachment 189566

Also, the car has the first functional power window. Dad started with the passenger quarter window. He figured out most of the swap to power but got stuck. He needed another set of hands. Sean and I spent the day over there yesterday (Saturday) and we got the guts in the quarter and got the window running.....
View attachment 189574

View attachment 189575

Once dad has the window adjusted to his satisfaction, he'll turn the car around and Sean and I will go back and help him swap the regulator for the Driver's quarter window. After both sides are done, Dad can go back in with the quarter "door" panels, which he has greatly improved and the back seat.

That's it for now friends. I'll follow up when there is news.

Beautiful project.

 

[Texas82GP]

Looking good nice work !

Beautiful project.

Thanks friends. Dad's been working on it for 31 years off and on. Of course there were times when he had money and not time and the other way around. It's come a very long way in the last 10 years.

 

[Texas82GP]

Dad's made more progress on the power window project. He's about got the wiring for the rear windows done.

He started with loosely routing the rear harnesses on the floorboard and getting the leads to the switches routed and tied down in the quarters....

He has an illustrated electrical manual that shows how the factory did it. Dad didn't get any of the clips with the setup he bought and obviously, we didn't pull the setup out of the donor car but Dad wants it to look largely like how the factory would.

He tore the garage up came up with these spare clips...

Clips on the left end cleaned up...

Painted....

And even Plasti-Dipped....

He also made a clip for inside one of the quarters...

Here, he's got the harnesses closer to where they will be tied down...

And here, he's pulled the Driver's side front seat, peeled back the rear carpet and connected the rear harnesses to the harness coming out of the console...

At this point, both windows are running up and down with both the console switch and the rear switches. Dad has the rear carpet back down and is moving on to fit the lower back seat. He said he lost a lot of slack in the rear harnesses so he wants to test fit the seat before he installs the harness clips and the protective "chase" for the right rear harness going over the driveshaft tunnel.

Great progress Dad!

 

[DRIVEN]

Attention to detail appears to be hereditary.

 

[Texas82GP]

Attention to detail appears to be hereditary.

My daddy taught me.

 

[Texas82GP]

Dad keeps plugging away on the power windows. He got the rear harnesses final routed and fastened down...

Note the protective "sleeve" for the passenger harness going over the tunnel. He's got the rear seat bottom in it, but I don't have a picture of that. We took it to breakfast last Saturday for the first time in months. It was great. The car is really smooth. It's hard to believe it is the same car that Dad started with 33 years ago.

Dad's also made some progress on the rear "door" panels. Here, he has the switch bezels fitted where the window cranks were. This is the correct location for a power window car...

You can see he also has the carpet off the bottom portion of the panel. He had these panels done in the early to mid 90's. The carpet that was used at the bottom is more like modern carpet, or even what is in our G-Body cars. It's a plusher pile. The carpet in the car is a loop style pile. He got a piece of carpet from ACC that matches what is on the floor of the car and is working on getting it cut out and fastened to the panels while they are out....

My step-mom ordered the needle and thread for her sewing machine so she can sew the vinyl binding strip to the carpet along the front edge (and bottom?). They were working on loading that in the machine last night so I expect to see some progress on that soon.

Meanwhile, Dad has moved on to the Driver's front door. Here, he has the door panel off, the mechanical regulator out and the power regulator in its place for mock up. He's got the window propped up. He's removed the aluminum protective wiring "chase" from the door that protects the wires running from the door to the cowl.....

The wiring is for the light on the door panel. Dad came over last night to borrow a step bit. He's enlarged the hole in the front of the door for the wiring harness from 1/4" to 1/2" but reckoned he needed to get out to 5/8" for the power window harness. I'm sure he worked on enlarging the hole today.

That's the latest on the power window swap. Here's a couple of pictures of Dad in the car over at his Sister's house. He goes and visits Granma every Wednesday. She's 102, I think. I'm within a year for sure. She's amazing. There are some awesome genes on Dad's side of the family.

That's it for now friends. With Dad's current pace of progress, I'm sure I'll have another update in the next week or two. Until then, thanks for following along.