Projects nine year old's first car! 57 ranchero

Well the time has come to get my son started on his car! (he's 9)..... my dad bought this ranchero before he was born and it has been in the barn... this week we decided to start the build!! I personally have not seen a ranchero like this before "plain jane" (as my dad keeps calling it).... from the factory there is zero trim..... the only heat controls are a knob in the center of the dash..... pull for defrost.... and twist for fan speed! no horn ring..... just a plain wheel! and no gear shift lever...auto/or 3 speed..... i guess it must have had a floor shifter... but the floors are so thrashed cant tell if there was a factory cut out on the floor!! anyway hope to keep this updated as we go through it...... on a funny note... dad asked my son..."what color you want to paint it?..... my son responded..." I want it to look like the Watson T-bird!!!" GOOD BOY!

 

The heater is a recirculating type. They were sold mostly in the colder states such as Montana N Dakota and such. The air is picked from inside and run back through the core. I saw several of these when I was still working fof Ford dealer and had one myself from Montana. None of the vehicles came with a floor shift. According to the book 90 Years of Ford there only 6,428 of the plain Rancheros were built & price was $2,098.00. The data plate should list body as 66A.
Cool ride. Good luck.
Bill

 

"no options" no surprise to me as these were work vehicles, I think the "Cowboy Cadillac" theme started in the late '70's/'80's, great car! Good Luck!!

 

thanks for the info!!! well that's going to be a pretty rare ride then.... cool

 

Way cool build........both the car and the son!
Good for you.
Cheers..........

 

Nice!! But the motor looks a little under powerd....

....Roach.

 

no kidding! lol..... we pushed him around the yard so he could drive it yesterday! it defiantly need a little more go!!

 

Nice one! I was lucky to have a 2nd hand bicycle when I was 9.

 

lucky kid ... everything that i can see about the car says stick shift , no prndl on the piece around the steering column etc if someone removed the column shifter they did it right

that ranchero should look sweet painted up like watsons bird what engine are you going with?a blown 514 crate should make him the talk of school and the town..and the cops

 

lol.... not really sure yet.... i built a 312 for it a while back... but really am thinking something with a ava. parts may be a better pick..... y block stuff can be tough today... probably a real bitch in 6 more years!

 

Pretty sure that watsons bird hand an FE. If its gonna look the part it should be the part. And FE parts is easy to come by.

It probably had a colum shift at one time they were an exposed bar that went right through that divot in the dash.

I have never seen a plain jane ranchero either. Pretty cool old tar or cruck.

 

I still had a tricycle when I was 9... We were that poor back then...

 

Love Ranchero's
Your dad must have been a hot rodder, with duel exhaust and converted to floor shift.Looks like it may have had a radio.

 

yeah y-blocks are pretty tough to find that are any count

it will be cool

keep us posted on the progress

 

Cool project! My first car project with my dad when I was 12 was one of my fondest memories growing up. My oldest boy turns 7 tomorrow, but hasn't decided for sure what car he wants yet...Maybe he will have it narrowed down by the time he is your boys age.

 

Great start!

Make sure you put a Y-Block in here.


If you need advice on the Y Bigredtodd is near you and I'm right down the road.

 

Funny, I just noticed the exhaust pipes. Don't know of any Y manifolds that exit strait out the back, wonder if someone had a SBF in there at one time.

 

im jealous of a 9 year old! awesome ride, he'll have a lot of memories workin on that i bet. LOVE rancheros's and the 57 and 58 fords.

 

how many pedals hanging. i see 2, but that doesnt mean the third wasnt torched off at some point. sweet ride for a first car. im sure he will appreciate it all the more when he sees the work required to make it right.

 

sweet!

getting that boy started the right way.

 

absolutely awesome

 

thanks guys..... we got her cleaned up and stripped down to the spindles today. tomorrow the front end will come apart and all the piece parts cleaned and painted then put back together with all new rubber/bushings! as of right now we are putting it back together at stock ride height. I wanna get it pretty and running and then let the kid decide on the kustom touches!! in fact we were talking about painting the whole damn thing white and letting him decide on paint. i am drawing him up a couple "coloring book" style pages.. so he can dream about what it will look like and color them in!!

 

That's awesome. He will be marked for life. Got my first ride at 10 and have never stopped yet. I'm only 31 and have consistantly been wrenching for 21 years. It's kinda like a disease that you never want to get rid of.

 

Im not that far into it yet... but those pipes are just hanging there and dragging on the ground.


P.s. i looks more and more like we will use a y-block! dont really wanna use the ford-o-matic so maybe a c4 kit! although i have the f-o-m behind my 312 and have really had zero problems. and i have a trans in the rebuilding stages on the bench right now so who knows!

 

Good catch Tim. SBF manifolds dump high like that.

 

I used the Flat-o kit to put a C-4 in my FED and it worked very well, everything you need for about $500. No trans and converter of course.

 

cool thank you!

front end is apart



and cleaning parts one by one!!

 

I noticed that too. It probably would have had only a single exhaust pipe even with a Y-block. Many had a cross-over pipe from one exhaust manifold to the other.
Kind of like this:

 

Iv never seen one like that in a car!

 

The early Y-Block cars, like '54 had that set up too.