Hot Rods 1964 TBird question

I work with a guy who has a 64 Tbird Hardtop, from pics its a nice original looking car however he swears that it is one of 12 that were built with a 460, (no engine bay pics tho') which to me seems rather wrong........lol.......I've not seen the car in person tho' have seen pics and I know he does have it but I thought that the FE 390 was the standard and only engine that they came with, the car is RHD and has been in Oz since new and supposedly was owned by an Oz TV personality, Brian Henderson.........anyway I've tried checking various books etc but all references I have say a 390 FE............anyone like to comment........and apologies if this is not the correct place to ask............thanks Andy Douglas

 

Pretty sure the 460 didn't come out til 1968

 

No 64 T birds where ever built with a 460 from the factory. Now some early 1960,s had the 406 tri power engine.

 

I think He has been drinking too much Fosters .... The Thunder Jet didn't show up until the Late 60's ,
it could be ( Possible ) that it is a 427 or a 406

 

Bravo Sierra - 429-460 cid 385-series engine first came out in '68. 428 FE introduced for '66 model year. And I seriously doubt a 427 unless there was some serious hanky-panky like Bob Tasca pulled with a '64 'Bird when new. Trust me - I probably wrote a couple of the books you read and have been tracking this kind of thing for nearly 40 years as tech director/editor for Vintage Thunderbird Club International. www.vintagethunderbirdclub.net

 

Thanks guys..........I'll questioned him re this supposed 460 which as mentioned I had read was a 385 series engine and didn't arrive till the late 60's..........I'd forgotten about the 406 FE's and that maybe what he's got it confused with........I'll try & get to see it over Xmas.........so was the 406 still used by Frod in 1964..........and were the 406's all Tripowers.......this car runs a single Holley from what I've been told............andyd

 

About the '406' thing - just like the 427s, they weren't offered in '64 T-birds. Ford did offer a tripower (3-2v) carb-equipped 390 with a unique intake manifold set up for the 'Bird's engine bay with level carb mounting pads and two vacuum ports - one under the center carb for PCV and the rear port under the back secondary carb with a br*** vacuum fitting for controlling the automatic transmission, power brakes and all the servos used for the heater/A/C systems, and used 406 heads plus a slightly hotter hydraulic cam in '62-'63 T-birds, along with a beefed-up Cruise-O-Matic transmission - that was the 340 hp "M"-series engine option - but production of these ran from mid-'62 through early January '63. Unlike multi-carbed full-size cars, Ford was having so many problems with people buying T-birds who were not familiar with hipo setups and multiple carbs not knowing how to run them, i.e. engine fires from backfiring, not knowing how to adjust the carbs and progressive linkage - that they gave up on the option in mid-year production and actually had a recall campaign to swap them out with stock 4-barrels carbs/intakes.

Ford did offer a kit to install tripowers on FE-series engines during the period - typically these were using the Galaxie-style intake with stair-stepped carb bases (the engine in a full-size car was angled while the T-bird engine sat level) and a single vacuum port under the rear carb for use with manual transmissions. A person who knew what to get could source a T-bird style manifold for use with an automatic-trans equipped car. So, if your coworker's car has a tripower or something other than the cast-iron 4-barrel intake/Autolite 4100 carb on it, more than likely it was modified after it came off the boat, but definitely NOT factory.

BTW, Ford didn't manufacture RHD T-birds during this period - these were typically modified by specialty shops Down Under in AUS and NZ before they could be registered for use on the road. Many VTCA/VTCI members I've corresponded with over nearly 4 decades from Australia and New Zealand, especially before the requirement to have functioning RHD was removed for imported cars/antiques in the '90s, have shown me photos of 'Birds converted "back in the day" with varying levels of quality in the conversions - some very nicely engineered and others that were real hack jobs. It would be interesting to see how the RHD conversion was done on your coworker's '64.

 

Yutan.....thanks for the extra info.......I am aware of the various RHD conversions done here in Oz over the years.........some good, some well, lets say not so good.....I used to help out occaisonally at a place in Sydney in the mid/late 70's that was a GM wrecker and parts house, Ivan Hughes, The Buick King........I still remember a rear ended 1962 4dr Buick Electra that was getting parted out, the dash was partially removed and for all to see was the right hand mounted column with a push bike sprocket attached and on the left side was another sprocket and running between the two was about 10 foot of pushbike chain with a couple of small gears acting as idler gears.........and the scary thing was that this wasn't what brought the car off the road, the rear end smash did that............a mate had a Dodge Challenger that the steering column broke as he was backing slowly out of his driveway........lol.........yeh there were some interesting conversions done here.........andyd