1952-59 Ford 56 Ranch Wagon refresh

Very nice, love the Y and three deuces. is that an old sun tach transmitter on the left inner fender?

 

Yep. The tach is on the steering column. It's the red oval model. Doesn't work though. As soon as I get the funds I'm going to send it in and get it rebuilt.

 

Does the tach need a rebuild or is it a sending unit issue? If its the sending unit, check out this site;

http://www.technoversions.com/TachMatchHome.html

 

I'm not sure. It didn't work when I got it. I found a guy that completely rebuilds them and converts the transmitter to modern electronics. Is the there a way check and tell what's bad?

 

Got a little more done today. Ran the new fuel line and got the engine plumbing done. Alternator and fan on. We relocated the radiator due to fan clearance also. That was a pain in the ***. Got the shifter working great now thanks to a couple wise members. Getting real close to firing it up. Got to hook up the mechanical gauges and reroute some wiring. Have a problem with the overdrive cable. It must have froze up from sitting the past few months because it won't move now. Going to try soaking it down with some PB Blaster. Hopefully that will free it up because I don't want to have to take it out. Oh, got the new trans mount made and installed too and ran new wiring for the trans.

 

Been fighting electrical gremlins for the past month. Word of warning to anyone going to use the MSD 8383 on there y block. You NEED to have a full 12 volts to the coil. I wired everything back up like the 6 cyl was. Didn't work. Took a lot of head scratching to figure that one out. I also took off the tripower set up. Found someone that wanted it more than I did. Now I'm running a Blue Thunder aluminum intake and a 600 cfm Summit with vacuum secondaries. Still needs some fine tuning and I can't seem to stop the thermostat housing from leaking. Just a slow seep but still annoying. I am starting to think the gaskets from Macs are to blame. It seems to be wicking through the gasket. All in all in was pretty satisfying to finally get to drive it again. First car show is tomorrow so I got to spend all morning washing her up.

 

Looks really good.

Interesting note, your car has the extremely hard to find 57/58 "Ranch Wagon" script on it. If you ever want to part with it please let me know. Ford changed the fonts on the lettering almost every year.

 

What does the 56 emblem look like?

 

Looks like she is coming along really great! Inspiring for sure!

 

It was a challenge. This car didn't give up anything easy. But I'll tell you that it's all worth it when you're out on the road. It's nice also the attention and complements you get.

 

Engine looks great! HRP

 

Yes indeed!!, and you'll be getting lots of those compliments...very impressive build.

 

Good job.

 

The engine (and the whole car) looks super.

Nice work!

 

Beautiful engine! Car looks great!

 

Here's my car and a buddies 48 F2 at the show today. Had a blast. Can't wait for the next one.

 

Man that's nice.......