this is my 65 country sedan. It was given to me by my grandfater who purchaced it from my father. My father bought it in 1986 for 1800$ with 37k on it. He then sold it to my gpa who had it up until 2012 and sat in his garage with the whole front end of the motor torn apart cause he could not do the work. It sat in his garage for about 8 years originally needing a water pump. I remember riding around in thus car with my gpa when i was younger and i picked up the project buying the water pump and followed the yellow brick road from there. Water pumo leading to fuel pump leading to stuck carb floats leading to wrong thermostat in it and so on. After about 300$ i finally got it running nice and drove it once till the oil light came on when the car was at an idle. I threw an oil pressyre gague on it and it read a whole 2 psi no good at all. I decided to pull the valve cover just cause i was curios to see what it looked like and i could not believe what my gpa did to this motor. Sludge like you cant believe it was so bad i had no option but to pull the motor and i did had it out withen 2 hours hell the motor was still warm by the time it was out and now i tore it down to a bare block and sent to the machine shop now iam in the process of reassembling it and getting it back in her. Anyway i have some pics so you can see
That looks like one beautiful car! Love the mirrors, too. They are way better than most you see on cars! What donor did they come from?
Love that wagon! Very nice... If it were mine I might axe the ol' bug screen, but other than that.. very nice!
If you are showing the car, then yes, the bug screen needs to go. If, however, you plan on driving the old girl, especially on the highway, keep the bug screen. It protects the leading edge of the hood and deflects some of the road debris over the roof to save the wind screen as well. Also, if you are going to drive her regularly, front mud flaps, ugly though they may be, will save the rails and torque boxes in the frame, which is a notorious weak spot on these cars. They prevent grit from the road being thrown against the frame and scouring the paint and rust inhibitors leaving bare metal exposed.
Mike, We have paved roads down here, even in Tennessee. The only grit is alongside the road in the form of old soda cans, beer bottles, and McDonalds foam burger containers.
Yes bug screen has been gone since I got it. Took off the aftermarket fog lights to. My GPA put all kinds of gauges in it to that I ripped out cause they made the dash look hiduous my GPA really kinda ruined the car. He had a vacuum gauge a voltage gauge a water temp gauge and a tac god what a mess that was. It's all gone though.
Nice ride and I am glad you tossed the bug deflector however what were the gauges? I personally would have kept them as I like to keep an eye on them but some vintage gauges are hard to find. I plan to keep my wagon without gauges but would maybe add ones that would have been around in 68. What ones did you have in the gal??
OldFox: As pavement ages, it breaks down, and that fine grit will scour the paint and everything else off the frame rails of these cars. I admit our conditions are different up here, but I have seen late 80s and well into the 90s Crown Vics and Grand Marquis with very nice to almost perfect body work, but frames that looked like Swiss cheese behind the front wheels, even if the rest of the frame was in perfect shape. There is something about the front end geometry and the way the particles are thrown up by the wheels that is like a constant fine sandpaper being rubbed on them. The only cars using this frame I have not seen frame problems with are the Police/Trailer Tow III package cars with the 351. The police frame was a heavier metal, and the geometry just seems different enough to save problems. The civilian version seems very prone to rust through, and if mud flaps prevent that, it seems a small price to pay for the added protection on a car that is used regularly.
No they were cheap after market gauges. He put em on in the late 90s I wanted to take it back to its original look. That's what the dummy lights are for also for the temp gauge he had an after market thermostat houseing with the port for the. Temp gauge and didn't realize it was a bigger one and put the thermostat in and the hiuseing was bigger then the thermostat so the thermostat was just sitting inside the manifold. I had trouble here cause mid 65 they went to a bigger housing and I had trouble finding an oe housing cause the book called for the bigger one and it really is the smaller one.
Ahhh I see that's cool you are getting her back to factory. That is where I am at on mine and any upgrades I would like to try to stay with period stuff except the stereo which is too late. Lol! Its a cruiser and I gotta have decent tunes so I hung an aftermarket deck under the dash, put some 5 1/4s in the doors and a box with an amp in the back but that is as far as I am going unless I used some vintage gauges. I plan to do a rake and Hailbrand replicas for my wheels and really want to add gold or black scallops to the body.
Yea I knda wanna out one in my wagon but I decided bot to just Gunna keep her all original. She will look great once iam finished.
