Freddie comes alive!

[Luva65wagon]

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Well, not yet, but just starting a thread to show that something's happening with Freddie now that he's been adopted. Hopefully as I add to this thread it will allow you all to feel like I do as I move Freddie forward.

Of course right now Freddie is still undercover in my carport, but the plans as they currently exist are:

1) Work to resolve the drivability issues.
It's a plain shame how much Gary spent (time and money) to get Freddie running right. Though Gary felt it was pretty good-to-go finally, apart from the dashpot, my feeling is the car has some issues still. A vacuum leak perhaps. I might be wrong, but this is the way I felt it was behaving. After some conversation with Gary it is now known that there is no intake manifold gasket in-use on Freddie - just gasket sealer - and although this might be OK if everything is machined and mated correctly, I will pull the intake off and verify there is no evidence of leakage just for my satisfaction.
2) Dynamat the interior.
I've got a lot of Dynamat coming to probably do Freddie head to toe. That way when I'm playing Doobie Wah on the stereo it will be clear and crisp.
3) Go through all the wiring.
Lots of people ask, "Show me the way" to do wiring, but it's never easy. This is a simple thing for me. I usually always gut the interior and while I'm at it (WIAI™) I pull all the wiring from the car (there really isn't that much in a Falcon) and make sure all the connectors are cleaned and polished and any nicks and cuts are mended. I then add any of my new accessories to the plan and wire these in. Generally I make a custom Ford Looking wire harness these days for each thing I add. As I work to pull apart my wagon, I see how much better at this I've gotten. I've had it since '97 and I've come a long way since then.
4) Carpet
I'll give you money, and you, and you too! That's how these cars go. The carpet is all there, and if I can clean it and reuse it I will, otherwise it will be replaced.
5) Freddie "might be" getting a V8 steering/suspension system.
Because Freddie has 6 cylinder steering and is needing a complete rebuild (it tosses you about with every wind of change), if I'm going to throw money at it I am going to update it to all V8 stuff. Far better and more readily available. Whether I put in the power steering stuff I have, or not, I don't know. I've got to pull all of that out of the shed and look at it. It's all stock '65 stuff, but have never been a fan of it because it's prone to leakage. I also have '65 Mustang disc-brake spindles (ebay) and a new 8" rear-end coming (thank's to Larry "BadBird" Smith). So, the collection of parts has started.
6) #5 requires new wheels and tires.
If I can find some 14" 5-lug wheels, I will reuse the tires. If they are not around I will sell off the rims and tires and hub caps - all are very nice - and do something different. A penny for your thoughts on the direction I should go here.
7) Weatherstripping is all needing to be replaced.
Part and parcel to the Dynamat is to replace all the weatherstripping and window tracks. Some of this I may already have, but others I will need. I'll tell you what I must do when I get there and I don't know when it will be.
8) Seat cushion foams.
The car has buckets and not a bench seat, so all the "All I wanna be is by your side" she might be saying, there will always be this console between us. The seats, though, are shot and I sink to the floor almost. Gary said foam wasn't available when he recovered these, so now it is. I have all the burlap and can fix springs as needed. This will all happen while I'm working on the Dynamat and carpet.
9) Stereo
Because I am pulling my stereo from my wagon, which was very nice, I will consider putting all of this into the car. 1500 watts of pure jumping jack flash! We'll see.
10) Griot's the paint.
The paint's not too bad for a Maaco paint job. I think with some 2000-grit and Griot's polisher this thing is going to Shine On!

So that's the initial list. More to come when it's put into the garage, but man it's no wonder I've got all these lines on my face.

[SmithKid]

So now WIAI has become WIAI™?!? How did that process go? Do I need permission from you to use it?

[Luva65wagon]

I need to make some money to pay for all this, so now if anyone does something else while they're at it, I'll get paid a royalty.

One can wish, anyway.

[SmithKid]

Have you decided on the fee for the use of your trademark? This could get costly if I don't keep tight control of my mouth!

[MacDee]

Numbers 5, 7 and 8 were on my To-Do list until the desire evaporated.
Be careful with number 10; there is NO clear-coat!
I sure hope you find that vacuum leak. I tried for several years before I gave up....
Number 6: I absolutely LOVE the aesthetics of the factory wire-wheel covers with the whitewalls on the hardtop. I went to some lengths to retain that appearance when we did the front disc conversion. Those are '63 Galaxie wheel covers on her now with the original Falcon centers adapted on. That said, she's yours now. Do what you think best!

She.. uh... he has apparently changed gender since changing hands as well. Maybe that's why he was so angry with me!

[Luva65wagon]

Numbers 5, 7 and 8 were on my To-Do list until the desire evaporated.

I hope I get them done before my funds evaporate.

Be careful with number 10; there is NO clear-coat!
I sure hope you find that vacuum leak. I tried for several years before I gave up....

Me too - assuming that is it. I won't give up until I do... give up.

Number 6: I absolutely LOVE the aesthetics of the factory wire-wheel covers with the whitewalls on the hardtop. I went to some lengths to retain that appearance when we did the front disc conversion. Those are '63 Galaxie wheel covers on her now with the original Falcon centers adapted on. That said, she's yours now. Do what you think best!

I remember that and if Steve has the 14" rims he said he had, and these fit, I hope to keep them. With V8 discs I may get forced to 15" wheels though, and if so I'm sure some Falcon owner out there will love and enjoy them.

She.. uh... he has apparently changed gender since changing hands as well. Maybe that's why he was so angry with me!

Freddie is a GIRL! Aahh! Maybe that's why it ended in ie. Never knew a girl named Freddie.

[MacDee]

Freddie is a GIRL! Aahh! Maybe that's why it ended in ie. Never knew a girl named Freddie.

I did a show at a Retirement Center in Woodinville a couple of years ago, and the Marketing Director there was a lovely woman named... Freddie! Apparently was named after her father. He passed away before she was born and her mother had decided to honor him by naming the unborn child after him no matter what gender!

[Luva65wagon]

We don't wanna have-ta deal with no transgendering here. Freddie can remain a girl. I'm an equal opportunity owner, so 'she' will be given the same treatment no matter what.

[Luva65wagon]

Lots of progress on Freddie since the site went down and came back. So lots to update here. After playing musical cars, which was fun...

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I got Freddie safely into the garage after finishing up with my depersonalizing the wagon so I can get it listed elsewhere...

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I then set out to look into what's up with "her" and her drivability/running issues. After not too much hunting I believe I narrowed it down to flooding. Though I've not looked into the carburetor much, it is pretty evident the car is loading up with fuel.

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I also noticed the Classic Inlines intake on this, unlike most intakes having the carb base leveled out relative to the motor, was the same as the motor...

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To address this I picked up a base wedge to get the carburetor back to level. Hopefully this will allow the carburetor float levels to be set correctly, which may help. The plan is to rebuild the carburetor too just to satisfy my mind on that...

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I then moved onto a pretty significant dismantling of Freddie; beginning with all the wiring forward of the front seats... including some unnecessary bits I found up under the dash as well as all the dssh wiring...

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I also pulled all the wiring from the engine compartment and will be making a new harness based upon the parts going back into it...

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While poking around after pulling the intake I did notice some signs of leakage around the freeze plugs and a few of the other fittings (plumbed with Teflon tape - mostly evil stuff in my opinion), so out came the headers and I have a set of brass freeze plugs coming and will remove all the fittings too and seal it all up to my liking.

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I will be repainting the motor black, which is my preferred look. This will make the other cooler items, like the aluminum head and manifold, stand out. Plus it stays cleaner 'looking' longer. Moving the battery to the trunk too - to really show off the motor better.

Nope, not quite done yet...

I then gutted the interior of just about everything in preparation for some floor repairs (thankfully not too bad) and a full Dynamat treatment - under the dash to the trunk. The car will be dead silent after this. Have a new firewall pad and a 2-speed wiper system going in as well as renewing heater. I thought it had been done, but I saw antifreeze in it when I pulled it, so WIAI...

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More to come...

[dhbfaster]

All I can say is....."WOW"



It sure helps when you know what you're doing.

[MacDee]

After not too much hunting I believe I narrowed it down to flooding. Though I've not looked into the carburetor much, it is pretty evident the car is loading up with fuel.

The primary metering plate has oversized Idle Fuel Restriction ports (IFR). Pat did the mod to the metering plate a long time ago. We did this just to get it rich enough to idle with extremely low idle vacuum due to the old cam. It may not be needed with the current cam. It can be "un-modified"... Pat tapped the ports with a 6-32 thread, screwed in 6-32 set screws, and drilled a holes in them one drill-size larger than the original ports. One would only need to screw in new set screws and drill holes in them one drill-size smaller than the holes in the current plate.

It also has richer main jets. In attempting to improve driveability, quite some time ago, I experimented with the jets. I got the best driveability [with the old cam] using #57 jets. I'm assuming that's what's still in there. The carb came with #51's. The goody bag I included has a variety of jets: #53, #55, #59, and of course the original #51's.

[Luva65wagon]

Thanks Gary. I also noticed, but didn't mention, a lot of "black soot" around the secondaries, but not sure yet it that is evident of anything yet. Gene said (while following it home) it was putting out black smoke, which is an indicator. Will focus on that when it's back together.

Spent Saturday fixing the floor. It was getting thin on the drivers side, which turned out to be caused mostly by a huge gap just above the hi/lo headlight switch. Would'a been pouring water in from the DS tire spray. Fortunately ended up being a pretty easy patch. Today started the Dynamat and should have the rest done in the passenger compartment tomorrow or Wednesday...

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Did open up the heater box and sure enough the heater core was leaking in the strangest location. So core is getting swapped. The rest is all good and redone.

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Went to crawl under it when working on the floor to see a large puddle of tranny fluid. Seems the pan is leaking like a sieve. Add that to the list.

Still feeling comfortable with this, but lots of things have and are happening elsewhere, so wish me luck.

[MacDee]

There is an adjustment for the secondary throttle plates. They're supposed to be just barely cracked open at idle. I know I messed with that many years ago. I do not remember where they ended up. Or if Randy messed with them any more.
Could they be too far open? (Or too far closed?)

[Luva65wagon]

Could they be too far open? (Or too far closed?)

Could be. As much as was done to it, and why it was done, should show itself once I get it running again. I was just so overrun by my OCD I wasn't willing to do anything with the running condition before I did a thorough investigation and rework of all the things I saw staring me down. I am pretty confident at this point it will end up being the carburetor, so I will look at it closely. I'll replace it with something else if I can't make it behave.

Almost done with the Dynamat and the new carpet arrived today, so as soon as I get the firewall pad I'll be going in the reassemble direction.

[Luva65wagon]

Making progress on Freddie. Dynamat is in the passenger compartment all the way from the trunk to up under the dash. Still plan to do the trunk and doors.

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Then I set the carpet in to let it relax a couple days.

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The new firewall pad came on Thursday so yesterday I got that put in along with all the carpet.

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I'm going to rework the gas pedal. This is a cable setup, but for some reason it seems to be at a pretty extreme angle when you press on it. May use a stock pedal to push the metal part. Still pondering that. It does sort-of interfere with the newer, thicker, carpet.

Of course, because it is part of Freddie's back-story, the pyramids stay.

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Today I spent all day cleaning and prepping the engine bay for paint, and sprayed it satin black. In a couple days I'll reverse the masking and paint the blue around this that didn't get painted when Gary painted the car. Gary supplied me with a pint of interior blue and a pint of exterior blue. The blue I'm struggling with is the color to spray kick panels and other vinyl.

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Also assembled the heater box to ready it for installation.

I did determine the cause of some of the steering clunk being the draglink being loose in the idler arm. Had another link, so will pull that apart and hopefully I can pull it all tight again without cost. Though the plan was to do a V8 suspension, things have changed, so that phase is going onto the back burner for a while.

More to come.