Wagon Build - Phase 2

[Luva65wagon]

Just wanted to post a quick update on the wagon build. I apologize for the delay in posting.

The new motor is in as of today.

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Last week I changed out the worn leaf springs and swapped the 7.25" rear for an 8" 2.79 to go with the Automatic swap. Should be a nice freeway cruiser.

That's when we discovered the dreaded 'leaf spring too short" syndrome. Lot's of chatter about that on the Internet and we confirmed this settles out after the car is weighted. But on a wagon, and a Ranchero, I concluded there is a potential for the leaf shackle to do a reverse flip, which would not be good.

On a car this isn't a problem, but on a wagon or Ranchero the leaf spring shackle is on a step-down platform which can let the leaf go either direction. We discovered a bent rear shackle hanger I believe was caused by this factory phenomenon.

We could not even jack up the car without them wanting to go that direction

So I made bump-stops. Hopefully they never come into play, as is the case with most bump-stops.

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One great discovery was when we tried the driveline he got out of the Maverick that donated the 8" rear end - and it fit perfect! No drive shaft build needed. That deserved a toast!

This is the custom small 6 cylinder air cleaner to 5" air-horn plate I needed to make to adapt the Weber carburetor. We had another Weber adapter to use the small original hole, but it made the air cleaner sit way to high (image on right). It came out perfect.

I think the K&N plate we used was a leftover from a previous club swap meet, so thanks whoever left it with me. HA! I found a old rusty chromy base at a garage sale for a buck and used my new plasma cutter to cut the original base out and then welded it to the chrome base. It even fit the air filter. Mind officially bottled.

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Now that the motor is in place I can look into the various other issues like custom wire harness (not a kit), Duraspark II upgrade, upgrading the wiper assembly to intermittent from an F100 (easy swap) and getting brakes and steering upgraded. Oh and I had a new back window glass for it, and Jeff ordered a new windshield to do While We're At It ( AKA "WIAI?" ).

It'll be done in no time.

[SmithKid]

Disappointed to have missed all the fun.

[Luva65wagon]

Disappointed to have missed all the fun.

It wasn't much fun without you being there Gene. So you didn't really miss anything.

[Luva65wagon]

Nope. Between vactations, COVID (yep, I got it), lots of rewiring and probably some other things I'm forgetting, it's close, but no cigar. But here's a few pictures.

First set is of the motor in various states of doneness. Medium rare, I think.

The speedometer got the signature break-out of the turn-signal feeds to have left and right turn signal indicators. Of course, it never fails, something was not going to go right with that. The shaft broke, or was about to break, on the speedo gear. I'm usually very careful with these things and it was attached one second, and not the next. Thankfully I only needed to contact my speedometer guy (me as well) and had a very nice unit. And the clear plastic and chrome bit was in not so good of shape, worthy of all this effort, so I stole one from my Sprint wall dash. And, cleaning the GEN and OIL cel wiped the GEN right off. SO... since we updated to the internally regulated Lightning Whirler, it got a lightning symbol custom painted on.

And, of course, I had this spare wire on the new 2-speed intermittent wiper system I installed, so Jeff was forced to get the washer bag and pump to use that wire. Only made sense to.

[Jeff W]

Thrilled to get a new windshield in today!

thank you Kenny and Roger.

[Luva65wagon]

Hey all of you who still exist here... LOL... We did finish up this wagon a week ago tomorrow. I will be posting a little more detail on it just to close out this thread... for phase 2. Jeff already has a small list for phase 3, but for now my Ranchero is now in the garage for its phase 438.7. I'll post more on that when that phase begins. Right now I'm onto the things a big build like this puts on the back burner. But hope to shift over to that in a week or two.