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Finishing the Galaxie - A Way Over Due Production

22K views 224 replies 46 participants last post by  AlBeezy36 
#1 ·


Intro:

So I've wanted to do this for quite some time, and I figure now is a good a time as ever. I've started working on the car again, I've been taking pics as I go, I love reading other people's builds, so why not share mine. Please step in and correct, comment, berate, or encourage whenever you want. If there is enough attention, I'll continue to post and it should be fun. I can use all the motivation I can get! :beer:

The car is a 1964 Ford Galaxie 2 door hardtop. Some people call it a fastback, but I think hardtop is more correct. There are no B-pillars which makes for extra awesome windows down action. It is a 500XL trim package car which means bucket seats, center console with floor shift, and some upgraded exterior trim pieces mostly. It was originally equipped with a 390FE rated at ~320bhp and a Cruise-o-matic trans. This is essentially a Ford-o-matic, or an FMX - it's a 3 speed auto that starts off in 2nd I think if it is not put into low. The engines technically aren't big blocks and not small blocks. The FE's are in a category of their own and I've even heard them called midland. All in all it's not a muscle car per se, but it is a big cruiser with a big motor, and I think they look damn good.

These cars are body on frame construction with upper and lower control arms, coil springs in front, and leaf springs in the back on a solid 9" axle. Steering is power assisted parallelogram with an idler and pitman arm. They might as well be trucks. The power assist is wayyy over the top and you can essentially drive the car with one finger. Pretty scary at speed. Brakes are manual 11" drums all the way around, but I've upgraded to a 11" 4 piston discs up front with a dual pot master. OE is a single pot death trap.

More backstory:

Bought the car when I was 19. I'm 32 now, so I've had this thing for too long to not have finished it yet. I was in trade school at the time studying autobody collision. The car was sitting in a garage in West Seattle and I had it towed the .5 mile back to South Seattle Com. College were I was taking classes. While in trade school, I took the body off the frame, blasted the body, painted and rebuilt the frame, and then proceeded to refinish and reassemble the body panels. That's where it sat for the next year or so until I was ready to go off to college.

It is my 2nd '64 Galaxie, with the first being a 4 door hardtop that I painted and threw a rebuilt 352FE motor/ CoM trans in for my senior project. Not sure how I got away with that but I must've had some cool teachers :)

Here is the '64 Galaxie from the HS days:



I sold it to a guy in the Ballard area when I was 18 and I think he still may own it.

OK, on to the progress. Pictures will be of varying quality. I don't have a nice camera, so bear with me. Some will be digicam, some will be potato. The white balance will be off on all of them.

During Trade School:

These pictures were taken on a disposable, printed, and scanned, so I apologize for the quality. It was roughly 2002 at the time and digicams were still too expensive for a 19 year old ;)



Body just off the frame - on cloud nine as I was actually beginning my first real project. My instructor's Dakota R/T when it was brand new and kind of a hot truck.



Shot of me spraying the roof. I'm shooting my SATA gun that I worked all summer for.



A shot of the frame after painting with POR-15, replacing all wear items including springs, and upgrading to front discs.



Pic of the car outside the booth rolling around on the body cart that some really cool guys in class helped me build.

It took me roughly 8 months doing this by myself. Taking the car apart completely, and getting it put back together to a painted, but gutted rolling chassis. I took autobody from 7am-12pm every day, went to class till about 2pm, then came back after normal classes and worked on the car for another 2 hrs almost every day to get it done in time (before graduating). I was learning how to do autobody at the time so things moved a little slow.

OK, so at this point we're going to fast forward about 12 years. I have tons of pics from the body restoration if people are interested in that stuff, including some patch panel work, but they'll need to be dug up and scanned in as they're all in a photo album - yes a physical photo album.

So once I was done with A/B school I went on to finish a General AA, which took about another year. The car sat outside under a car cover until I was ready to ship off to a university. Luckily, once there I had a garage to store and work on the car in. During this time I rushed the car together. I wasn't totally sure what the end goal of the car was, and what style I was trying to achieve. I thought about drag car with black steels on the back and torque thrusts or cragars on the front, but I couldn't really nail anything down. I was on an extremely tight budget being a student, and I didn't really have too much knowledge on the mechanical side of things. I put it together the best I could and got it running for a few years. The interior was never done, and frankly, just about everything I did in my college years was done pretty subpar compared to the time and effort that went into the body. It was time to go back and do things correctly...



Stay tuned!
 
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#38 ·
Thanks man. I actually don't know about the snap rings. The only other place I've seen a yoke similar to what I built was in semi-truck applications, but those are much larger than 1350. I can't remember what type of gap I designed in between the yoke cap and the u-joint bearing but I don't think it was 1/4", at least I hope it wasn't :laugh: It was like 9 years ago though, so who knows. Currently on the car I've got a Strange brand 1350 yoke with traditional u-bolts.
 
#39 ·
OK, slow progress under the hood. I painted the rest of my MSD stuff to match my engine block paint. The jury is still out on it. I can tell you that it photographs better outside of direct light :rolleyes:

Anyways, I can always go back and re-spray something. The master cylinder will get painted black. I'm thinking of doing the valve covers and the air cleaner lids a wrinkle black.



Here is the control module after I painted the raised fins black:



With the ignition electrics ready to go in, I needed to layout a plan for the rest of the systems. I decided to construct relayed harnesses for headlights, fan, and horn. I grouped a few components including the starter relay, the voltage reg, a 6 point junction box, and a 4 relay bank. I decided on the passenger side fenderwell and spotted in the components with temp screws. You can also see the custom trans cooler line setup I put together with butterflied clamps and standoffs.



Starting to run wires. The plan is the redo every wire under the hood. The OE stuff is pretty brittle at this point. Everything will be sheathed in black tubing by the end.



The starter relay, the alternator, and the voltage reg are wire. Now I just need to get some relays and start to build those harnesses. I'm going with an H4 conversion on the outer headlights. I'm thinking of going with a thunderbolt look on the inner headlights to go with the hood.



The junction box has a lid. I think I'll find some wingnuts to close it off.



:beer:
 
#41 ·
Thanks Dood.

OK electrical folks - I realized I goofed. I need fuses between my junction box and my relay box. Can I run fusible links as power wires from my junction box to my relay box? Or, am I stuck with spotting in a fuse panel with a fuse for each relay?
 
#58 ·
Wow, one year later bump. Sorry to anyone who was wondering. I ended up going with Painless Classic Weave loom. Thanks for the recommendation, Patrick!

A lot has happened since I last updated:

- Front of engine assembled including accessory drive
- Replaced offset lower control arm shafts with offset bushings and straight lower control arm shafts (similar to 427 models)
- Rewired everything forward of the firewall (very time consuming)
- Upgraded alternator to a 90amp unit and replaced under-drive pulley with a nominal diameter piece (still doesn't sit pegged at 14V unless revved - will revisit)
- Remade brake lines to clear headers
- Replaced brake master and painted with por-15; built pressure bleeder plate to bleed system by myself (still has air in system but found leak and have not re-bled)
- Installed hella horns on relayed harness
- Installed hella H4 (low/high) headlights on relayed harness
- Ditched inner headlights (high) for faux vents (might go back later and do actual ducting like thunderbolts or lightweights)
- Had bung welded into radiator to move fan temp switch from water neck to rad
- Painted radiator and trans cooler with radiator black paint from Eastwood
- Completed all wiring and remaining integration along core support (a lot going on)
- Adjusted panel gaps between fenders/doors/hood (basically readjusted the front clip)
- Replaced header gaskets
- Filled fluids
- Replaced plugs
- Put a couple in-line fuel filters
- Fired up and drove around block a few times after 3 years of sitting
- Etc. etc. etc.

I also put a new convertible top from Robin's on my NA, bought back a '72 2002 that I purchased from the original owner and then sold back after falling out with his son (long time friend; unfortunately passed away 1.5 years ago).

In addition life has been happening. So now that excuses are over, here a couple subpar pictures of the cars now.

Front of engine put together, wiring a long way from being done:



Fun cars together:



Engine together in running form. Would like to revisit that upper radiator hose:



Out for a quick cruise with my buddy:



Back safely in the garage:
(Those are turn signal wires that will be hooked up once I get the front bumper re-chromed)



I'm currently working on getting the chip valence which goes beneath the grill and behind the bumper repainted and installed. Once that is done I'll install the front bumper and wire the turn signals. From there the exterior is complete to my liking and I'll go back and finish the interior.

Anyways, thanks for looking. See you guys next July :wave::laugh:
 
#60 ·
Very cool I know what you are feeling because I did the exact same thing with my notchback. Built it in autobody during highschool then it sat dormant and now is coyote swapped and a blast haha. As far as the alternator have you every considered going the 3g alt route? All of my older stuff that is the first thing I do to them because the dang spade connectors get loose in the back and arc and melt and just is a mess. 120 amps of juice and always at 14.v
 
#62 · (Edited)
As far as the alternator have you every considered going the 3g alt route?
I didn't look them up yet, but if the body is any larger than what you see (small earlier ford) then I'm not sure it will work with the current pulley setup. This one is a pumped up rebuild from a local guy who said the early bronco guys use them. I'll root around with the multimeter and see if something is amiss.

What's up dood :)
 
#65 ·
Cool thread! :cool:


I wanted one of those soooOOooo bad when I was 16. I worked at a gas station and there was a 64 convertible with a 390 4 barrel and bucket seats for sale for $400 but my Dad wouldn't let me buy it because it needed brake work and the top probably was going to need replaced. :mad: I would have loved that car, it was sooo cool! :(
 
#67 ·
Thanks for the kind words everyone. I found a picture of the old wiring setup under the hood. I thought I'd post a shot showing what I came from:



A rag-tag setup with crap grounding and a cheap power strip in the corner. Now everything is neatly routed with a terminal box that has it's own ground, a relay bank with it's own fuse box, and all new wiring/connectors :heart:

I don't have new picture progress right now, but after digging through older pics I thought my stereo project was kind of fun - thought I'd share.

Stereo

The stock unit is an AM only unit, but it's 2016. I know straight up restorations can't be beat, but there isn't much worth listening to on AM around me, so I went with an upgrade from Retro Sound.





This piece comes with its own bezel, but I wanted to integrate it into the factory stuff as cleaning as possible. To do this I needed to sacrifice a good part to the resto gods (sorry).







Getting built up for install. This unit has a remote USB and AUX plug in which can be mounted in the glove box. I got a little funky there (I'll show ya in a bit).





There is trim missing from the above shot. I kind of jumped the gun building the dash up to the point I have, but oh well. I'm still on the hunt for the long strip which goes behind everything to the left of the glove box.

USB/AUX Glovebox install:


I really ought to replace this glove box cardboard liner. It's a little rough, but it looks OK in the car.








Works!


Thanks for looking :wave:
 
#71 ·
Stereo

The stock unit is an AM only unit, but it's 2016. I know straight up restorations can't be beat, but there isn't much worth listening to on AM around me, so I went with an upgrade from Retro Sound.
I have one of their head units in my bus. You will love that thing. I hemmed and hawed over it for almost 10 years and finally bought one a couple years ago and my first thought was "why did I wait so long to buy this???" :laugh:
 
#73 ·
OK, time for an update.

Last time I posted I had thrown together some pictures of my stereo install to fill some dead airtime. Time has been a little bit tighter as of recent and with some other things in work, the Galaxie hasn't been #1. I have found bits of time here and there though, and here is what I did.

Front stuff:

With the engine up and running it's about time to put together the grill, remaining headlight surrounds, front valence or chip guard, and the front bumper. The current plan is to respray the valance myself busting out the ol' spray gun again, and find a chrome shop near me up north or hopefully close to Seattle at least as I'd rather not ship this 45lbs 5ft long boat anchor. The only remaining real work left on the outside of the car is the hood, but that's another story.

After putting the tin work on and the valence I went and took a look at the bumper horn adjustments. Things have moved since I first put the car together. The front clip has been shimmed correctly and panels have actually been gapped instead of just throwing it together to get it on down the road. Because of all of that I wanted the ability to adjust each of the horns to align the bumper as I saw fit. Unfortunately 19 year old me didn't give a **** about adjusting the bumper. I painted POR-15 right over the joint creating a little hot box for corrosion. It wasn't all that bad, but after trying to turn a few of the nuts I was greeted with rust flakes and dust on the floor in front of me. After breaking most of it free I got a special treat. One of the strap on capture nuts that attach the outer most horns had broken at some point (likely from corrosion caused by some dirt that had collected in the frame rail). Here's me after I'd begun drilling of the head of this 1/2-13 bolt. It was Ford tough with a head that was .350 thick :laugh:



That's my harbour freight drill which is actually pretty darn tough. I've had 2 of them in 7ish years and I beat the hell out of them.

After getting everything off and the dirt out of the rails I assessed the damage. Not too bad really. Some surface corrosion, but nothing to be concerned about.




The big hole in the front accepts an eccentric bushing to tilt the inner horn up and down. It pivots from the first normal sized hole aft of it which is 1/2. The two bolt holes on top of each other aft are the two that hold on the outer horns. You can see on the drivers side I have both strap nuts, but on the pass side the bottom one broke. I needed to make a new one.



Can you find a 1/2-13 capture nut? Can you? I sure as hell couldn't. I ended up sourcing it from somewhere called AMK who apparently specializes in old school hardware. Problem was 2 capture nuts were $5, but they had a minimum order of $30 so I bought a guide to ford fasteners 1955-1973. I should've taken some pics of this thing. It has all types of info including part numbers for bolts, nuts, screws, you name it. Hit me up if you want me to try and look something up in this thing.



Anyways, the strap is just a piece of low quality steel from Home Depot. It's 1" wide and about an eighth thick. Luckily it was easily formed in my vice and ground with my grinders. I didn't mention this, but I cut the end off the capture nut because it had a formed in raised edge intended to sit within a hole much larger than I could afford so I cut it off. I didn't need that type of retention anyways.



I painted both parts in some semi-gloss POR-15 and got some new hardware. In fact I got new bolts for all the horns. I don't get bugged at my local ACE anymore when I dart straight for the hardware aisle.



Here are both of the weird washers and the eccentric bushings that hold on the inner horns and one of the Ford tough bolts. When you take cars like this apart you really see just why they're so flippin heavy. Look at that square washer. It must be to reinforce the rail where the horn attaches, but seriously these things weigh about a lb a piece.



I cleaned these up and painted them with my gloss POR-15. I had to re-use the bolts for the eccentric bushings because they have a square directly beneath the head to index the bushing. Couldn't find anything new so I re-cut the threads, smeared a light amount of grease on them and called it good. Sorry, no re-plating budget here.



I don't have any pictures of the prep for whatever reason, but I really took my time cleaning that surface rust on the frames, then re-coated the POR-15 and started to put things back together. You can really see the gloss die back on the POR-15 with the applications 15 years apart right next to each other. This stuff holds up pretty good, but it's not perfect.





I apologize for that pass side outer headlight surround. It's in awful shape and needs replacing or replating. Not sure where one gets this type of trim redone. I believe it's similar to an anodize process?



So after getting this far I wanted to try and fix whatever was causing my soft brake pedal. Driving the car again had gotten under my skin and I needed more. This thing just sounds nuts. It can kind of boogie for the 4500lb car that it is. I made myself this pressure bleeder because I'm a loser and typically work on my stuff alone. It's just a weed sprayer pump with a pressure gauge in it. It's plumped to an OE cap and provides pressure to the system so I can bleed each screw by myself at my leisure. It also allows you to pump it up and inspect for leaks by watching the gauge or walking around and looking. Pretty neat. There's kits out there but this was more fun. I originally built it for the 2002, but with a couple fittings and some more hose I had it rigged to an extra master cap I had sitting around. You have to put the fittings offset on the cap so the strap can come up, but in hindsight it didn't matter because I needed clamps to seal it anyways. You also need to cut holes in the rubber gasket on the cap and epoxy the perimeter to the metal cap itself. I took my time and prepped both the rubber and the cap and it's held up through multiple sessions. I epoxy on the fittings too. A little on the thread, torque it in, then do a little fillet around the edge. Looks like ****, but seals well. You can see mine holding at 5psi in the pic.



Turned out the leaks were coming from the pipe thread joints that made up this setup. I've always been really scared of brake pressure switches. The 15 year old one on the car leaked when I jumped back in last. This one has been fine, but the unions coming off the prop. valve I guess have always seeped. No problem. I'll take it apart, replace the unions as needed. Seal the threads and move on. Wrong. Leaks and more leaks. When one was fixed, a new one popped up. Now my bleeders are seeping. WTF! Calm down... It's only brakes. I said screw it. Replaced the wheel cylinders in the back and got lucky only needing new bleeder screws on my calipers. I finally bought a drum brake spring tool too. Do you have one of these? If not and you're a total idiot like me struggling with vice grips and screw drivers, stop. Just stop doing it man. I watched a video on youtube and thought it was a joke. Best $6 I've ever spent on tools. What rock have I been under? Back on target I also replace the prop. valve up front. I was kind of drunk and tried to re cut the threads to 3/8-24, ruining them? Why? I don't know I had been drinking. So $45 later I had a new prop. valve from summit but they've changed them to 3/8-24 with a tapered seat to accept a double flared brake line directly and no longer take 1/8 NPT despite it listing that thread on the summit site. OK, guess I can't use these pipe unions anymore. Good, I didn't like the in line brake light pressure switch anyways.




Next I did something I didn't want to do. I ditched the stainless brake lines coming off the master and re made them in the stuff you can get at NAPA. Why? If you can make a double flare in stainless with hand tools I have respect. It is very difficult getting an even flare with that stuff even after resorting to heat. I ended up breaking a master cylinder flared seat (which was a thin cast) after trying to get a good seal on one I'd done. One that I thought was pretty decent too. Maybe it was the MC. Anyways, I came very close to pulling the trigger on the $$$ eastwood unit trying to make a couple stainless lines earlier. If you've got a tool that works share it. I've had most of my success from the OEM brand tool you see in my vice. It's $15 from autozone and does the best job of holding the tube still. I know you can stick the parallel bars in the vice, but it's still bull****. Also, with those same bars the die can rotate and do whatever it wants damaging your flare. With the OEM guy it threads on so you know you're 90.



Anyways, here it is. I got a pretty good bleed on it after 3 times around. Someone who has driven these cars first hand. What did they stop like with no power brakes? A barrel of dicks? Good, it's up to spec then.



After a drive at 8pm. I'm sure the neighbors love me. It's so loud that you have to almost shout at anything more than an idle. I think the 3" Flowmaster 40 series that 19 year old me thought were cool will eventually come off.

See ya
 
#74 ·
I finally bought a drum brake spring tool too. Do you have one of these? If not and you're a total idiot like me struggling with vice grips and screw drivers, stop. Just stop doing it man.
See ya
YES. SO MUCH YES. I know exactly how you feel. I wasted so many hours of my life before buying such a cheap and simple tool.

Car is looking great! Thanks for the updates, keep them coming!
 
#77 ·
I think the next time I get into a car's brakes I'll be buying one. Have you tried it with stainless line? That OEM one I have works perfect for stuff softer than stainless, but even with heat the OEM one struggled and I even damaged the dies a little causing me to have to go get another one last weekend. Stuff is just wicked tough to double flare.

Regarding the cost. I probably have over a $100 into various tools and segments of line. Who knows how much time spent driving here, there, screaming, cursing, crying. Hindsight again is a bitch. Just buy the right tool the first time. Life is rough :laugh:

RR is looking cool. Curious what happens with that wheel rivet and how you plan on fixing it.
 
#79 ·
I'll have an update coming shortly. In the meantime I have a question for the experts.

Backstory:

The car takes ages to fire after sitting. I've made the assumption that the fuel bowls are emptying either via evaporation or slight leaking or a combination of both. In any case, after the car has sat for a week or longer it can take quite a bit of cranking to get the mechanical fuel pump to refill the lines and the carb. I'd like to put a stop to that.

To remedy this, I'd like to plumb in an electric fuel pump for priming purposes, but I'd like the system to control itself. I want it to prime the system, then shut itself off. The idea is to turn the key to the 'on' position, then sit there while it hums, then shuts off. I do not want a manual switch to control the pump. I could then turn the key to start and have it start/run with the mechanical pump doing the rest.

Question:

How would I do this?

I was thinking that I could use an inline 'flow-thru' low pressure fuel pump with an oil pressure switch. The flow-thru pump would allow fuel to be pulled through it via the mechanical pump while the electric pump stands-by. Using a normally closed oil pressure switch, I could have switched power running to a relay which would turn the pump on with key in on position. My demon carb wants 6.5-7psi, so if I pick up an oil pressure switch which opens at say 5psi, I would think it should be pretty safe. The pump would pump, but once a line pressure of 5psi is developed, the oil pressure switch would open and the relay/pump would shut off. If fuel pressure ever dropped below the range specified by the oil pressure switch, the pump would then be turned back on, only to turn itself back off once line pressure was re-established. I figure this could be a pretty passive system and may come in handy when the pedal gets heavy up a hill or we get an occasional hot day. When the car is hot or running around on errands there will be a fuel pressure of >5psi and the electric pump will sit dormant.

Any thoughts from experts or wannabe experts? Have I missed the mark with the fuel system draining itself? Curious if you guys have better or different ideas.

Thank you :beer:
 
#80 ·
That actually seems overly complicated to me. I'd set it up like a glow plug setup for diesels. Have it on a timed relay that gives you what you think will be the appropriate amount of time after key-on and then have it cut off.

Chris
 
#81 ·
That was actually my first approach. The only issue I have with that is the time controlled relay (timed-on) look like a mini computer board. I see a bunch of time delay relays which turn on after 5 or 10 seconds but it gets more complicated when you want to control how long it's on. Am I missing something here? This will be installed under the car near the gas tank, so environment is also a concern. Lastly, the goal is to achieve X pressure in the line, not run the pump for X seconds. That's mainly what got me thinking about the oil pressure switch. Something like this teed into the line where the fuel pump will mount:

 
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