Falcon Ranchero Newbe

[61RANCHERO]

This summer I bought in my town of e-bay a 61 Falcon Ranchero in storage fromthe early 90's. New fluids and tires and driving in a day. It has 95K Miles on the 144, Ford-o-matic and after market AC. It was completey serviced and new brakes then stored. The AC still worked, breakes are like new. After 2000 miles of fun I had the head rebuilt, 300 miles later is sucked a valve. I have the engine and trans out now and will make a visit to the shop that rebuilt the head for $800.00 that caused my engine to puke. I just bought a 170 and plan to rebuild the 170, the 144 was a little light on power with the AC on. The ownwer gave me the Gem Top Canopy if I promised to keep him up-dated on the restoration progress. The canopy is nice.

More later

Glenn in Oregon

[justahairFalconloopy]

for the life of me...i cant recall where i was just rerading an article on "how to trick your 6"...oh well
Welcome and congrats on the new toy:shift:

[Nathan289]

Visit Classic inlines and pick up the Six cylinder performance handbook.

Between the book and classic inlines you'll be suprised what can be done with a Ford Six..

I'm building a 250 inline six with 3 (yeah 3) Carter webber 7400s (i think) they are carbs off of 82 ford Escorts..
i'm also using Connecting rods from a 2.5L Ford Taurus 4 cylinder to long rod the 250 I-6

It sould be interesting if I ever quit spending my machine shop money on more falcons:o

Nathan

[61RANCHERO]

It is my intention to keep the Ranchero as fuel efficiant as possible. It is one of 7 classic cars we have, many of the others are V-8 High Performance Low on MPG's. Our daily drivers are both full size ford trucks V-8's at 11 MPG. I need something to drive every day that gets 20+ MPG. The Ranchero will do nicely.

I have a 1956 Ford F-100 with a I-6 223 Cu In. I went with Clifford's 4-BBL Intake, 650 Edelbrock Carb, 6 into 2 Header, 2 1/2" Dual Exhaust. The engine spent a year at the builders, flat top pistons, decked block and shaved head a total of .080 In for max compression. Port and polished gead from a 59 Car (1/2 Point Higher Comp Ratio than Truck Head), all the chambers were cc'ed, 5.0 L Valve Springs, Custom Red Line Cam (engine builders spec), 3-speed manual trans with OD and an 11" Clutch from 2-Ton Truck. We just finished modifing a Vintage NOS Mallory Dual Point Distributor to fit the engine and set it up with Crane Electronic Ignition, it has 38 Degrees of tuneable mechanical advance so we can tune it for higher RPM's. I am in the middle of a body off restoration on it, I need about a year to complete it. I put about 2000 Miles on the engine before I removed the body, it runs sweet!

Anyone know where I can get a new ring and pinion for the Ranchero? I want to gear it up a little.

Thanks

Glenn

[Luva65wagon]

Glenn,

My wagon, which is pretty much stock except for the port divider, header, and Pertronix, gets upwards of 25 avg MPG. So I would say go with something stock yet efficient for fuel economy. When and if I ever need a new engine I'll probably go to a later model 200 to gain the greater tranny potentials. Right now I run a Dagenham 4-speed I reengineered a few year ago, but would rather have a 5 speed or better. :)

Though I sold it finally after owning it for 25 years, I had a '56 F-100 Panel (there's a picture of it in the very first newsletter you can view on this site). It too had a 223 that I rebuilt pretty much bone stock other than having it balanced and doing hardened valve seats, but added a 2-bbl Holley to it. Many who rode in it thought it had a V8. Would love to see some info on yours in the chit-chat section someday.

[pbrown]

You likely have the original 7" rear end. There are not a lot of parts out there for gear sets. Most that I have seen have been 3.5:1 behind a Ford-o-Matic. I would recommend finding an 8", with a 2.79:1 ratio, from a Maverick and a C4 auto. That combination will give you the same first gear final drive ratio but the third gear will be great on the freeways. Make sense? I can show the math is needed.

[61RANCHERO]

Thanks for the info. I spent some time bending the ear of our local classic Mustang Parts House. He mentioned the Maveric 8" has 4-Lug and will have gears available.

Question on the C-4... High gear on the c-4 and High Gear on the Ford-O-Matic are both 1 to 1 Right? So they are the same in high gear right?

Thanks'
'

Glenn

[Nathan289]

They only made four lug Mavericks and comets for 2 years. You might spend alot of time searching the yards.. Kenny is the only person I know that was lucky enough to find one..recently..

The answer to your question on trannys is yes.. they both have the same final drive ratio of 1:1

Nathan

[pbrown]

Question on the C-4... High gear on the c-4 and High Gear on the Ford-O-Matic are both 1 to 1 Right? So they are the same in high gear right?


That is correct but think of it as a complete system. Change to a C4 but leaving the rear end the same will have the same final drive ratio and a really low starting gear.

Change to a C4 and a 2.79:1 rear end will give you close the the same final ratios on first and second as the Ford-o-Matic. You would gain an extra gear.

The Ford-o-Matic ratios:
First = 1.75:1 (final drive with 3.5 rear is 6.125:1)
Second = 1:1 (final drive with 3.5 rear is 3.5:1)

C4 ratios:
First = 2.46:1 (final drive with 2.79 rear is 6.8634:1)
Second = 1.46:1 (final drive with 2.79 rear is 4.0734:1)
Third = 1:1 (final drive with2.79 rear is 2.79:1)

Notice the final drive ratios above.

Here is what happens with you use a C4 with the stock 3.5 rear:

final drive is first = 8.61:1
final drive in second = 5.11:1
final drive in third = 3.5:1

These are fine if you are building a high performance car and want good launch characteristics.

A good comprimise for a cruiser would be 3:1, 3.25:1 or even 3.4:1.