Call me crazy - Ranchero's (again)

[Jeff W]

I’m sure she would be pleased to make you happy. My mom passed At the end of September.

What color are you going with? Ghost flames?

[Ric]

I’m sure she would be pleased to make you happy. My mom passed At the end of September.

What color are you going with? Ghost flames?
It is being done in medium / dark grey with extra metalic. Later when I get all the chrome back on I will be looking for a good penstriper to add some red highlights. the interrior is black with red accents already.

[Luva65wagon]

My thread seems to have diverged in some way... :WHATTHE:

[Luva65wagon]

It's nearly put back together. Having issues getting the brakes to bleed with the new M/C so I decided, since I have to pull the M/C again anyway, to go ahead and install a couple things some folks on Facebook suggested - proportioning valve and residual valve. Plus, went with a different M/C recommended elsewhere. They are due today from Summit. Ordered on Sunday, due today. Wow.

Also changing out the fuel pump. Seems it doesn't like to start after sitting for a couple weeks unless I prime it. So, hopefully a new (mechanical) fuel pump helps. If not, I have the bits ready to add a supplementary electric fuel pump to prime - if it comes to that. I need to study this new Demon carburetor a bit too. Might be the float is sticking.

Have to cross my fingers and hope the exhaust fits the same with the new headers (same brand, different application). The passenger side should be in the same place, but the drivers side might differ. So might have to do some cutting and welding to get that hooked back up.

[Luva65wagon]

Everything is looking great. So very sorry to hear of your mother's passing. Take care my friend. Larry

Thanks Larry. Looking forward to seeing whether you find a new car to build... and we can participate in some way.

[Luva65wagon]

Well... I spent a crazy amount of time making a fan shroud. I bought a 65 Mustang fan shroud thinking it would be somewhat close, but not even. So after some cutting and hacking, and taking a fan warning shroud off of some 1980 Ford I scored at some PickNPull years ago I made a clam-shell style shroud. Came out pretty nice.

Then off came the "new" master cylinder I could not get to function correctly - and after some query on a few Falcon sites decided to change to a different master cylinder and am adding a proportioning valve and a 10 lb residual valve for the rear. I'm hoping it helps. It's all work I would have preferred doing while the motor was out. Double flares over the fender and through the woods is not very fun. Should have the new lines made tomorrow to get the master cylinder in.

Everything else up-top is done; next comes the remaining wiring for the EPS and tach and get the seat back in (will make bleeding the brakes easier) and then the underside exhaust and clutch slave bleeding. Then V-ROOOM!

[BadBird]

Getting kind of full looking in there. Wow I love the looks and hope it runs as good as it looks. Should come to Arizona and drag race when I get another car. Larry

[SmithKid]

WOW! That shroud looks great. Seems like it'd be worth lotsa time if it does the job, and I suspect it will.

[Luva65wagon]

Getting kind of full looking in there. Wow I love the looks and hope it runs as good as it looks. Should come to Arizona and drag race when I get another car. Larry

Not sure I'd be driving it to Arizona anytime soon, but maybe Kent. It ran really well - just too may interference fits I "gained" when I swapped from the 289 to the 347. And of course it's looking full; because I didn't cut out the shock towers... like some people did.

:p

With all I've done during this Covid phase of work I have more clearance in areas I never thought I could ever have. Very odd, but not complaining since it's all gooder now. I suspect it will run as well as before, but with some gained reliability.

I did get a bit of a DOH! today when I went to bleed the brakes (before putting the interior back together; couldn't resist) and like before, when I had Gene here helping me, I couldn't get them bled. The pedal would always just sink to the floor.

So I took a seat and sulked a bit.

Then went back and looked at all the fittings and bleeders and - BAM! - it was such a dumb mistake. These new Wilwood disc calipers have bleeders on both the front and rear sides and lower and upper. 4 bleeders on each caliper and you have to do the upper bleeders on each side. I was only bleeding one half of each side. Problem solved. DOH! But glad I did the other things.

Now onto putting the interior stuff back in a wiring up the electric power steering module and wrap up tidying up under the dash.

[Luva65wagon]

Well, Ranchero go VRoom! again today. Sadly it had the same issue as before getting it to start while cold. I've had to squirt fuel into the bowl anytime it sat for a few days to get it to fire off. And then a couple more times if really cold.

I've tried a few different carburetors on this 347 to get it to wake up and finally settled on this Street Demon carburetor. Reviews were great and when I first installed it - all the reviews seemed to pan out. Then it sat for quite some time as my garage was being built and now that I've reworked it all I decided to get to the bottom of this.

After watching a couple videos on YouTube University I saw a couple people talking about the accelerator pump "hose" inside the bowl being loose, so I went over and looked down the throat of the carb and pumping the gas saw zip, nada, nothing. Fuel had to be in there - it was running just 20 minutes earlier. So off came the carb for an internal inspection. What I found was both amazing - and irritating.

Street Demon 625cfm, 100 miles old.
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Accelerator Pump Hose. Is a little loose, but couldn't say it would make zero fuel action.
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This is the accelerator pump housing.
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I saw in one video where the guy said to make sure to cut the nubbin off the end of this one-way valve part when replacing it with a new one. Looking closer...
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... I noticed the depth of the bowl (represented by the end of the calipers) was not deep enough to not compress this rubber nubbin.
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So I pushed the cap off, as instructed, and did a test. I blew at this valve to see if it was closing and then pushed on the rubber nubbin as though it was being pressed by the bottom of the bowl - and it leaked as if not there.
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If you look close you can see the umbrella part raise off the fitting when I press the nubbin into the table.
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I also noticed the nubbin was near to break off. I have a kit - so it's being replaced. But I had to come up with a solution. So I verified the bowl depth and thickness and made a relief in the bowl.
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Drill set to a stop and now there is room for the nubbin. I still have to reassemble, but I'm confident in the solution and will be reaching out to Demon this week to let them know they have an engineering problem.
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[Jeff W]

Good find and nice detail. Hope the company gives you some credit both financially and intellectually.

[Luva65wagon]

Hope the company gives you some credit both financially and intellectually.

Ha! That'll be the day.

I'm still working on it - got derailed on home projects - but it's getting closer.

[BadBird]

Looking great. And who would cut the shock towers out of a perfectly good Falcon. Shame. LOL. Side note. Scott's brother bought the 63 so I am still on the prowl for a 63 hardtop. Not much out there right now, maybe I'll get lucky? Keep up the great work. Larry

[Luva65wagon]

Don't discount a future sedan. They can be made to look really nice. Just saw this one on Facebook. Like how they used hardtop trim. Really makes the look of the car change.

[BadBird]

I am indeed looking at every round body out there on craigslist, ebay and facebook even has a site for old gassers for sale. I haven't even ruled out a 64-65. Most are just as you mentioned earlier. No rust, big bucks. Little rust, big bucks and then junk. I will find one and have really been searching drag racing sites looking for cars that are rollers. The car that Scott's brother bought will make a great car, just didn't get first dibs. :doh: Larry

[dhbfaster]

What??...Just catching up here...Larry possibly going round body?
I can only imagine how amazing that creation could be.
Ill try to keep my eye out.

[Luva65wagon]

Gene reminded me today (uh, yesterday...) I neglected to indicate whether I resolved the carburetor issue of not. I'm happy to say, after a week of sitting, it fired right up. That's never happened. Still have to give it a shake down run, but since I did the Shelby drop - and upgraded to Mustang shocks and shock tower caps - I only have a couple inches of travel and I recently read they make shorter shock to account for this. Wish I know'd earlier. Investigating that this week. Otherwise, it all back as one again.

[gtaroger]

When Shelby lowered the control arms he found that it put more stress on the ball joint. I lowered my control arms and installed a negative wedge between the ball joint and the control arm on my 67 Mustang. I never had any problems with the ball joints in the years after installing. The car showed no over steer after that .I checked NPD where I got them from and see they don't list them any more.If you can find them ,they are a great upgrade to your front end.

[pbrown]

Gene reminded me today (uh, yesterday...) I neglected to indicate whether I resolved the carburetor issue of not. I'm happy to say, after a week of sitting, it fired right up. That's never happened. Still have to give it a shake down run, but since I did the Shelby drop - and upgraded to Mustang shocks and shock tower caps - I only have a couple inches of travel and I recently read they make shorter shock to account for this. Wish I know'd earlier. Investigating that this week. Otherwise, it all back as one again.

Let us know what you find on shorter shocks. I'm in the same boat.

[Luva65wagon]

Let us know what you find on shorter shocks. I'm in the same boat.

Have been a bit distracted, so have not looked very hard. I'll certainly indicate what I find, but lacking them I'm already planning to make some stand-off's and get some longer bolts to raise the upper shock support, since it is the Mustang style. The Falcon upper shock mount would be much harder to extend.

I did read about the wedge "potential" and that the problem was worse on some drops that went further than the 1" typical with the Falcon (what I did). I meant to look at the angles of the upper ball joint after it was on the ground and just haven't yet. I know I have the remove the rebound bumper as well, so I'll have a look before I jack it up to do that.

[Tom P]

It was like reading War and Peace so I managed to only skim through the 52 pages and might have missed something.
Some really great solutions to the many problems and some clever ideas here.

I have a 62 Ranchero that i'm working on and finding a lot of the same problems. I had to do way more cutting for the T5 than others say they did. I hate hydraulics with a passion so since my modified Maverick Hooker headers preclude use of the normal clutch linkage i'm using a cable. Easier to think about than to do. Had to cut two tubes off the headers and move them and then the length of the cable from firewall to pedal is too long and needs something 3" long to space it out and allow adjustment. Still working on that.

I also want to have a hard tonneau cover, perhaps one that folds in half. Maybe i can modify one meant for some other pickup. Not sure how that fits in the area below the back window.

Then there is the bed access panel that i'd like to make hinges and latches for to open easily to access the battery which is mounted there. Seems to be no way to keep that area dry and an opening panel will only make that more futile.
I used to have a 67 Ranchero and they have the area under the front of the bed accessible from the interior like you did.

Hinges and latches that don't space the panel up higher are something i could use ideas for. I know i've seen many Rancheros with the panel hinged but didn't take good pictures of the way that was done.

[Luva65wagon]

Well, I suppose now that it's done I could probably reduce the thread down to 50 pages by removing superfluous posts from it. LOL.

The battery being back there would also preclude you from wanting to open the area to the cabin - though I know old Volkwagons had their battery under the back seat and off-gassing battery juices didn't kill off those owners... or did they? Anyway, the Ford design was an afterthought from using the wagon floor pan. They left it open and punched holes in the floor to let water drain, but it doesn't take much to make holes in floors stop draining. Surface tension with water is the main problem. The tonneau cover would help, but as you indicated the recess behind the window is a hard issue to address.

I'm not so much a fan of hydraulics either - certainly not a fan of what they want to charge for them! $500 was just out of my (logic) budget. My setup took more time, but cost $50 in parts. And I enjoyed the engineering part of it. I have Doug's headers and there was no easy way to run a cable. Other than hacking $600 headers.

Feel free to host a thread here on yours and we'll do the best we can to rack up a few pages of comments, and advice, on it too!

[Tom P]

Thank you Roger. I made the whole floorpan in my car, mostly because the one piece looked impossible to install because of the rear cab wall on top and the frame rails extending underneath it. Buying the panels individually was $600 then when i put in the Point Roberts shipping address it gave me a total over $1100 ! I cancelled the order then called Dearborn Classics (this was after they moved from Oregon to the east) and talked to a human (I think?) who told me there was an oversized package charge on each piece and the shipping on each. My comparison of ordering six pizzas and having them send six drivers and giving six tips seemed to go over her head and the total didn't change.

Floorpan pieces were not that tough to make with hand tools. The double ribs were done with two beads rolled side by side and then hammering a socket to form the ends. The big indentation for the seat belt was done by hammering over a pipe. Even the 90 degree flanges were done with the vice and angle iron, i don't have a brake.

But i didn't put enough drain holes and need to fix that, it fills up with water and clogs the two small holes easily. I think we've had our year's allotment of rain already the past couple weeks. And the car is outside. I am actually working on it out there today.
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[Luva65wagon]

LOL. Loved the pizza analogy.

Try oblong holes. Same diameter, just oblong. Will tend to allow debris to flow out and minimize the potential for clogs.

Re: Rain... I know it feels like the year has been going on forever, but it's only been 12 days.

[Tom P]

Yes, I think i'll be screaming "IS IT APRIL YET?" for quite a while. I notice there are no spring swap meets any more. Doesn't look like a Puyallup or Monroe one. Not that i'm assuming the border will be open by then anyways.

[Luva65wagon]

Wow guys. I'm really sorry for abandoning this forum. It's been a rough couple years and I've been posting more on the Facebook groups for their simplicity - though I hate its ability to maintain a build thread. Anyway. lot has been done and I plan to update this thread about it all and to finally, I feel, work with interest at moving this club one way or another!

Since my last post the Ranchero got electric power steering, disc brakes, new mounts and headers (for clearance issues), Sniper fuel injection, new wheels and tires (and modifications to the rear-wheel wells because I cut a corner building them in 2008) and some further interior work. Lots I can update here, and will, to make this build thread complete.

Again, sorry, as the club president (of sorts) I hope the issues I've had focusing on the club (many caused by world-wide calamity, my physical limitations, and a car in constant limbo) are now shelved and the club can rise like the Phoenix from the ashes. LOL

[IFly12]

Thank you for your invaluable contribution to the Falcon community. It’s much appreciated.

[Obie 250]

Great to see this message and sorry to hear you been having a rough go. I have been checking in here occasionally but really stopped posting because I thought nobody was here anymore, sorry about that, I don't do Facebook. In the spirit of trying to get things moving again I will try to do some catch up posts on my build this weekend.

Thanks Roger you really are the driving force behind this forum and glad to hear you are back.

[Luva65wagon]

Great to see this message and sorry to hear you been having a rough go. I have been checking in here occasionally but really stopped posting because I thought nobody was here anymore, sorry about that, I don't do Facebook. In the spirit of trying to get things moving again I will try to do some catch up posts on my build this weekend.

Thanks Roger you really are the driving force behind this forum and glad to hear you are back.

Thanks Doug. I've just "officially" started the reboot. So, we'll see how it goes. Maybe we'll get some movement back here on the forum for those who avoid Facebook like the plague. LOL