1963 Ford Falcon Futura

Awesome! I love Falcons. I like where this is going.

Here's some inspiration:

This ragtop ran in open road races, with a 130-140MPH target speed. Yeah, the top kind of "balloons" at speed. Nice, full interior, too.

Rear end acquired!

It is an 8.8 from a 91 Explorer. 3.27 gears and was modded to fit in a Ranger. It was cheap so I nabbed it. Just a few more bits left to pick up and I can spend a long weekend swapping everything over.

Awesome!!

I like where this is going. Any idea on the ease of converting the rear to the later disk brakes?

Many of those 8.8 rears from exploders came with disc brakes. I modified a set to work on a 9" and only paid $40 for brackets, calipers, cables and rotors. It's a cheap upgrade.

Badart wrote: Many of those 8.8 rears from exploders came with disc brakes. I modified a set to work on a 9" and only paid $40 for brackets, calipers, cables and rotors. It's a cheap upgrade.

I looked into an 8.8" swap for my 68' Fairlane, the 95+ rounded explorers have a wider axle with disc brakes. The first generation explorers have narrower axles with drums. I ran across a 9" for my car but it still took some work to fit as well.

Other than parts collecting not much is being done yet. I actually parked the car last saturday. After driving it all that morning and afternoon it suddenly pulled hard to the right.....like took a herculean amount of effort to keep it in my lane. I made it back to the shop and got it on the lift and could find nothing wrong. Upper and lower ball joints still tight and good. pitman and idler arm all dandy, tie rods and center link looked OK but new units were already on the way. The right brake might have felt a bit warmer than the left but I didn't think to check until 20 minutes or more after I shut it down.

I did take some time to prep the front end bits for installation.

Note the 1.25" spacers on the hubs to fit the new wheels.

I took the easy way out and purchased ball joint adapters from Mustang Steve.

That should simplify things whenever I get around to swapping it all over.

Rebuilt calipers, new pads and 78 pinto front brake hoses will be waiting for me at NAPA in the morning.

I think this leaves me needing 2 tires. I had 205/55-16's mounted on two wheels. They should be perfect for the front but if I can fit something wider and slightly taller in the rear then I will.

December is a mess. I hope to have the suspension swapped over early January....I hope?

This is a bit off topic but is there a way to do a front disk swap and keep the stock 4 lug pattern?

mrhappy wrote: This is a bit off topic but is there a way to do a front disk swap and keep the stock 4 lug pattern?

http://www.scarebird.com/index.php?id=37

Allow me to unburden myself of a stupid joke fromthe 60's. It's not funny but I feel you need to know of it.

Two guys talking:

"I just bought a new economy car."

'Did you get a Falcon?"

"No, I got a good deal."

Carry on.No need to thank me.

New bearings, reman calipers, pads, pinto brake lines, spacers, tie rods and adapters. Combine the initial purchase price and I am north of $400 into this pile. I probably just should have bought the kit from scarebird and stayed four lug.

It also turns out that I need to narrow the 8.8 rear. I mounted some 205/55's to the wheels, bolted them onto the axle and measured. It is about 1.5" too wide. Now I need to find a short side explorer axle to get this task done.

Any ideas for a grassroots source for the axle? The pick-n-pull only wants to sell the whole rear end. I am thinking about going into the yard and pulling just the shaft and then saying "sorry, didn't know that"

you could always get one of us to do it for you. the pull a-part in my area sells just axles.

and i need to go to the ford section next time im down there anyway, to get an 8.8 for the mopar.

....or tell 'em the axle was already out of the housing - laying on the ground. See 'em all the time at our pick/pull.

Can you run higher offset wheels in the back? 5x114.3 is awful common.

Lets see. Where was ?. The holidays hit and I was out of town three weekends in a row. I did acquire an axle via eBay for $35 shipped and it just sat in my living room for a while. Last weekend I tore the rear end apart.

Well that answers that. It is an open diff. :shrug: not like it matters at this point. It is the most evil handling car I have ever owned and I can't imagine driving it in any way that would be benefited by a LSD. At least not yet.

I drilled out the plugs in order to pull the axle tube.

and then put my four ton porta power in place and started trying to force the tube out.

I pushed until the ram leaked and nothing budged. I heated the housing up with a rosebud til it glowed and still nothing. I reheated, applied the porta power and started whacking it with a 5lb sledge and was still defeated.

Today I went back at it. I put a 4 ton bottle jack inside the pumpkin and pressed from the inside and had the porta power on the outside. Both maxed out and nothing moving.

So I got pissed and hit it with a hammer and when I did it moved. At that point I was able to push it out with the bottle jack.

I cut the requisite 3" off the end. In the morning I plan on chucking it into the lathe to square up the end, and bevel and polish the part I now have to press back in.

I bought a new 90 Ranger master cylinder to install. It is supposed to be a drop in replacement and work well with a disc/drum setup.

I think that is about it for parts gathering. After the rear end is back together it should be just a matter of a long weekend to swap everything in and have it aligned.

it's good to see this project moving forward. i heart the vintage stuff!

The tube was fit into my little lathe with a minimum of fuss and I squared up and beveled the end. I then spent 2 hours with the plasma cutter and angle grinder removing everything I didn't need.....which was a lot.

Now to figure out how to press it back together. It is about 14" too tall to fit into the 20 ton press at work.

Ideas?

put a car on a 4 post lift. raise lift. place axle under lift. lower lift to 1/16 above axle. square axle up to lift/ground in as many planes as you can. may have to cobble something out of 2x4's if you dont have a ballsy helper. lower lift with car on itonto axle assembly, using the weight of the car and lift as a press.

dont ask me why i know this.

also dont ask wether i was the guy on the lift, or the ballsy one.

it works, though.

ditchdigger wrote: Now to figure out how to press it back together. It is about 14" too tall to fit into the 20 ton press at work. Ideas?

I'd been wondering how that was going to work from the start. Of course, I was also wondering how you'd press it apart, and that part you had sorted, so I figured I was just clueless again...

Got enough scrap to built a cage around the axle with bottle jack stacked on the end? Like a fairly substantial little plate at each end, and some strap welded across the spans?

I'm trying to figure out whether this is more or less scary that setting a car on top of it with the lift

Thanks for posting the 8.8 work. I have one in my garage that I've been debating on narrowing to fit my Willys. Any idea how to align everything when you press it back together?

The axle tube gets pressed in 3 inches so it should self align. I plan on measuring it after the fact though.

After seeing how other folks go about the task of pressing it back in I might be overthinking things.

Now today I didn't get anything done because an early 80's 200ci 6 popped up on craigslist. For less than the cost of a dirty oil pan and valve cover on ebay I brought the whole mess home. A nice 7 main bearing motor to build up and swap in at my leisure.

I daily drove my 64 Chevy II sedan with a 6 cyl and a powerglide for a year a couple years back, rain or shine. Very similar to this and they are still very practical and got over 20 mpg to boot.

I'll bet you're keeping an eye out for a fuel injected 300 CI I6 as well. Nice build btw! I'm watching closely.

I did it!!

I tried a few hillbilly methods like the picture above but it turns out most bottle jacks don't work on their sides so I decided to make our press taller

two feet did the trick

And it slipped together with zero fuss. I welded up the plugs and got it back together.

Now to measure the pinion angle on the existing rear end and weld the new spring pads in place. If there is an open bay in the shop next weekend things might just get installed.