iamjeff171

Got her to fired earlier today. i still dont have the fuel pump situated, but at least i have the wiring figured out. here is the youtube link:

Probably rides like a wagon wheel too... there isnt any air, just several layers of $20 bills.

Got the front sheet metal trimmed and set back on. Hoping to hear her fire up some time next week.

mrwstory, those arent "rubber band tires." these are rubber band tires...http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/5351/30series.jpg i also had those magnum wheels on the front of my '50 with a disc brake conversion. i never tried them on the rear. I did have a set of crown vic 17's and they fit on the rear, but looked very funny without any spacers. the crown vic's would not work on the front without an awful big spacer.

Thanks. that's why i have to make it lower. you know, to reduce drag...or something. :-)

they are 17"s. i'm not sure of the width/backspacing because i haven't put a tape measure to them yet. i bought them used, though they were practically new and had obviously been used on a car stored indoors. i think the are 7" wide with a "standard" offset. tire size is offset front/back, though i don't remember exact size at the moment.

not a whole lot of progress. however i did manage to get the rear end mounted and a new shiny set of wheels.

im curious, what are those with v8 swaps running for radiators?

that isn't the crown vic wheel, but the vic wheels do have the same offset. so i guess is didnt get away with great a deal as i thought, such is life. good news is i can still use them on my DD. I picked up my 8.8 rear for it. I went for the higher gear ratio 3.27 with traction lok. My other option was 3.73s but i figured i would be traction limited anyway and i might get a little better MPGs with the 3.27s. I havent got it mounted yet, but i couldn't resist putting the car on the ground to see how everything looked. I was surprised at how low it is with the dropped spindles. I imagine my springs are a little tired. I've only got about 3.5" of ground clearance between the frame and ground. glad i mounted the engine/tranny pans above the frame. the rear will be probably an inch taller than in these pictures.

after actually putting the crown vic wheels on, they wont fit due to interference with the idler arm. i might jsut end up running the stock 15"s. This may be a kinda dumb question, but can you run tubeless tires on the factory tube rims?

My dad just sprayed some lizard skin on the interior of his 63 galaxie. We dont have the interior all put back together yet, but you can tell a major diference in sound resonation just from tapping on the exterior panels.

My parents neighbor just hapened to have a pair of texas 51 plates that were in there garage... they are in decent condition and i think they will clean up nicely. I forgot to post my finished brakes. It went pretty smooth. Only issue is that the rotors suggested with the scarebird kit have a very larg hub that causes issues with finding wheels that will fit over the hub. For now i am going to be running a set of late model steel crown vic (police car)wheels that i picked up for $100 that had tires with lots of tread left. these i had to clearence a little in otder to get to fit. I will be running an s10 firewall mounted vaccum booster and hanging pedal. Here is a picture of one ot my idler arm. i ground them down for clearence and chamfered the holes. As they are i have zero interference with the A-arms. while i swapped the idler arms from side to site to compenstate for the dropped uprights, i will likely still need to heat and bend the idler arms down a little more. we will see when i get my power rack installed. next on to-do list is power rack, rear end, rockers/floor/firewall.

here is the transmission mount. i was able to use the original dakota mount and used 4x2 box tube to make a frame mount. i will be cutting the original top mounting holes of the transmission mount off so that it is flush with the frame mount. The nice part about using the dakota mount is that it has a kick down on the pass. side to run the exhaust between it and the body.

Got the engine mounted. it is just tacked in at the moment, i will be boxing it in and probably add some gussets. I dont think im going to quite my day job to be a welder any time soon.

paramedic. rescuing people from toe pain and tummy aches at the speed of life.