[ggroth]

After 15+ years of it sitting there, I am finally in a position where I can restart my 64 Fairlane project. I bought the car for $125, as a non-runner, blue sedan 2 door, with a 170in-line 6, 3 speed trans, and Flintstone floorboards. It started out as fix the floorboards, and get it running as a daily driver. Then the project grew. Add a small block with some headers, a T5 trans,a posi, some bigger wheels, disk brakes in the front, etc.,etc.

When the project stalled in 2003, I had completely removed everything off the front end. Fixed most of the rust from the cowl forward. Installed Granada spindles and disk brake rotors. Boxed the lower control arms, and beefed up the point where the anti-sway bar connects. Rebuilt a 302/ Cut the shock towers down, and then it sat in storage. The biggest reason was that I was doing the work in my brother's garage, and he wanted it back.

In the last 15 years I haven't been able to do any work on the car, but was able to get some tools, toolboxes, a mig welder and air compressor. I'm currently finishing getting the insulation done in the garage so I can install a furnace next month, and then start actually working on the car. I have most of the parts need to finish the project, and am planning on tackling the floors and frame rails first. Once that's done, get the rest of the bodywork done, get it painted, and put it back together.

When I'm done, I'd like to have something I can drive daily, if I feel like it,and put around 300hp. So until the body is done, I'm planning on what to do with the rest of the car. Since the 302 has been sitting for all this time, I'm tearing it down completely before it goes into the car. If 300hp is my goal, should I be looking at a stroker kit? The 302 is bored .40 over, stock crank & pistons, with Windsor Jr heads and a mild cam (I need to see if I can find the cam card for it).

I had a pretty good idea of where I was headed with this project all those years ago, but after all this time, aftermarket vendors have come and gone, and I'm not sure that the plans I had 15+ years ago make sense now. Back then, granada spindles were your only option to ditch the front drums. Years later I see that I might have created an unwanted bump steer issue. It also has me rethinking everything else I planned, and wondering if i should be reconsidering anything else. I would love to hear your expereinces.

Hopefully I'll be able to start posting pictures in the near future.

GregG

 

[Action]

Would like to see pictures.

I do not have experience in the small car world modifications so I will let others post back. I think the platform is similar to Falcon. And there are a number of Falcon members here.

Action

 

[Cacstang]

Check out the scarebird classic brakes,he sells a nice front kit for 62-69 Fairlane,as for the engine the Windsor Jr head's are nice, maybe up grade your bottom end to good pistons and rods, really depends if you want a good running cruiser or street/ track car, as far as the t5, I like that upgrade, personally, but everyone likes something different, build it your way, your name is on the title 👍

 

[charles jahnke]

i have the same car owned for 30 years or more have not driven since 96 i installed custom length front frame rails and rears making rear wheel wells for the fire wall installed 90% of the floors made pans to go on top of rear rails for the suspension i have a rod & custom coil over front and rear 9 " shortened 4 inches wilwood brakes all around including master r&c booster tko 600 with hydraulic clutch 347 stroker fitech fuel feed been buying parts for years so hopefully start puttting things together in the next year or so mine started out as a 289 special 4 speed bucket seat consule car glad to see someone else is getting dirty good luck !!!!

 

[ggroth]

Project 2.0 has begun. First part was to finish insulating the garage, and hook the water & gas line back to the house that I installed when the garage was put up some 15 years ago. Along with the gas / water, I had ran 1 1/2" rigid & CPVC for the 100 amp subpanel and the low voltage stuff (the electrical was finished up a couple of years ago). Bought a Big Maxx furnace and put that up as well. Now I have the garage I've always wanted, and we got the car up on jack stands and started digging into it - "we" being myself and my 22 year old son.

My Nikon took a crap, so I don't have any pics yet. But we haven't done much except make the car look worse, so maybe not a bad thing. When the car went into storage, I had completed stripping the entire front end, cutting down the shock towers, adding granada spindles, painting everything, and getting the front suspension back in. I was in the middle of ripping out the driver's side floorboards when the whole thing went into storage. So the first thing we did was pull it back out, and empty all the parts that were stored inside and clean everything out, and lay everything out to see what I still have.

Once that was finished up, it was time to pick a starting point and get to work. I had bought a homemade rotisserie from someone years ago, and was planning on stripping the car, and flipping it over to do the floors. Upon further inspection though, the rear frame rails were pretty bad, so no way to connect it to the rotisserie just yet. So I decided to strip the back of the car, replace the frame rails, and go from there. So we pulled off the trunk lid, scraped out the remains of the trunk mat, pulled out what was left of the exhaust, removed the gas tank, and then got to work on the axle. Cut the u-bolts and the shackles and was able to get the axle out. Someone put the front spring bolts in from the outside in, so there was no way to get the bolts out without cutting them, so we pulled the spring perches that appeared to be bolted in - I say "appeared", because at some point someone welded a corner of the driver's side spring perch to the torque box. Needless to say, it took a couple of days just to get the rear springs out.

Then we focused on pulling out the rear cards, windows, regulators, etc. Then pulled the trim off the quarters and trim and lights off the back of the car. Next came the 4 bolts holding the bumper to the frame. After using an acetylene torch, die cutter, multiple hammers, chisels, pry bars, air hammer and a sawzall, 5 hours later we removed the bumper. In the process of doing so, I came to realize that the 15 1/2" rail repair kits I bought years ago weren't going to be enough to fix the frame rot. So I have a set of the 31" rails on order and should be here in a couple of weeks. (The 15 1/2" are up for sale in the "Parts for Sale" section, if anyone needs any) The rear quarters were in worse shape than I realized, as well as the trunk panels they weld to. I have the replacement quarters now, and am waiting for the trunk panels next week. In the meantime, we drilled out all the spot welds on one of the frame rails, but are leaving what's left of the trunk floor in place for now. Once I have the new replacements, I'll mark and cut out the old rail, then butt weld the new rail into the frame. Once I have it where it needs to be, I'll cut out the trunk floor and get it all welded in.

I figured as long as I'm going as far as replacing the rotten quarters, rotten trunk panels, rotten trunk floor, and have some rot on the rear part of the winner and outer wheelhouses, I might as well pull the inner wheelhouses all the way, and do mini-tubs. I did the shock towers, even though I'm planning on a small block, just because I knew if I didn't do it when I had it all ripped apart, I'd be kicking myself at some point down the road. Next step will most likely be pulling out the rear glass, windshield, headliner, and strip the dash. Then either start putting the drivers floor back in, or start on the frame rails if they're here yet.

Anyone here done the mini-tub thing? I've seen some pics of other projects, and it looks like you leave the trunk hinges as-is on the top, and just drill out and reweld the bottoms where they connect to the inner wheelhouse. I see that the rear seat back supports will need to be drilled out and modified / relocated. Has anyone messed with removing the package tray for access? Or is access OK with it place / more trouble getting it out than it's worth?

Replacement camera body on order from EBay, hopefully have pics up soon.

GregG

 

[Dominick 1]

Someone here may have done that
Good Luck

 

[charles jahnke]

i also plan on widening my rear wheel wells im thinking of splitting well in half on the seam and adding a strip in middle and reinstall wheel well against the frame rail to get 2 plus inches of wheel clearance and like you said reattach trunk supports they may need a little massage to reconnect but im still working on floor pans and front wheel wells at this time lets see some pictures

 

[Iowan]

I have considered minnie tubs for my 64 Fairlane but after doing my measuring the wheel wells I determined that I can fit a 275/60/15 with a little trimming of the rocker panel. The limiting factor of the stock opening is the leaf springs, you will need to move them to fully use even the stock wheel houses.