1960 Falcon Gasser axle install with pics. .

a little background first. . you may recall i purchased this car last year as pictured below. . This car has been a drag car since 1965 and was campaigned in c/gas with a 289 and then b/gas with a 380" cleveland (funny how many people have told me to ditch the cleveland for a REAL g***er motor when this one raced 4 seasons of an actual gas cl***). It started bright orange with "ford" in the side and than became the "351 Express" and was raced at Famosa by "Crazy Charlie Paige". The car was a bracket car until last year when i bought it. When it arrived it was failry solid with the exception of the front suspension being really ragged out and the nightmarish headers that only allowed plug changes with the engine out of the car. . . I had no plans to straight axle it until i tried to replace exhaust gaskets and plugs. . . .

I'll caveat this whole thread by stating a couple things: a.) i'm not a ch***is builder/fabricator/welder but a dumb air-force pilot trying to wrench on cars/drag race as a hobby on the side. b.) i ain't rich, so i reused and bought a lot of second hand ****. c.) i literally trash my cars at the drag strip (no f-ing fairground queens here), so some of the parts are function over form. . .i know my ignition, back tires, gauges etc are NOT "HAMB friendly" so if you're posting to tell me that, save it. . .I need my car to be safe and effective trapping 130+ in the quarter. .

Here is what i brought home:

 

here's the engine bay before i got crazy with a hand grinder, a couple Hamm's and saftey gl***es of course. .




removed ALL of the front suspension, engine, headers. .





measured (twice) and placed 1/2 inch holes around the perimeter of the shock towers on both sides. . .




hand grinder with 4.5" cutoff wheel and 45 minutes later.

 

deburred and cleaned the holes up and now look at all the room for plug changes.



i decided to retain the stock motor mounting solution for the time being because im not smart enough to make new ones and i want to race. . now! so i decide to beef up the stock setup and made these cardboard templates to box 'em up.



cut out of 10 ga. plate and buzzed in with a lincoln mig.

 

the font end was now a bit lacking in support so i buddy (with a tig set-up and better welding skills) helped fab these firewall to frame rail "strut tubes".



firewall



frame rail



then the ups dude showed up with my 46" speedway g***er kit with MustangII discs and 49-54 chevy car spindles, Socal shocks, -3AN braided 25" brake lines (x2), 7/16" x 24 IFF to -3AN adaptors, rod end to fit my stock pitman arm, and a 34" steering arm. total cost for all this; 1157 with the ride to my door.

 

I hear you, I'm just going to wing it and hope for the best. there is a lot of useful advise on here if you search.

 

the car at this point is leveled on adjustable jackstands, centerline was located and drawn on the floor and i plumbed various points of the ch***is and marked them on the floor to locate the front suspension. i figured this to be very important for the car to go straight and safe.

here you can see my laser level as i'm laying it all out with sharpie on the cement. .measure a bunch, no Hamm's for this task.



once located i ***embled the shackles etc, and jacked it up to the rail. They are located off of the car centerline side to side and fore and aft is measured off of the front mounting pocket of the rear leaf springs (not the rear axle as if your's is like mine, it's not necessarily squared with rearend adjustments in place).





I than tacked these in place with a mig and jacke the axle up into the spring pads and centered it to the frame rails, centerline and measured the distance from the kingpin centerline to the rear spring pockets, several times. Shackles are in the rear, straight up and down. i set the kingpin angle to 7 degrees like this.



than tacked the axle.

 

***embled everything to get the weight (minus engine) on the car for final measuring before buzzing it all up.



built these shock mounts 8 degrees of lean to the front, straight up and down (side to side).

 

Very cool, I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of this one.

 

Thanks for posting.

Are you happy with the Speedway axle setup?

I also would love to see more pictures of the project and the progress.

Jimbo

 

got everything completely welded up once measurements were verified; basicallly, four leaf spring mounting points. cleaned everything real good and put a coat of rustoleum satin black on the subframe and fit the brakes/hardware. . .this took several visits to the hardware store as the speedway kit is universal and some stuff worked, some didn't. .







also got the motor in, which would have been cake had i not put the motor mounts on backwards thus leaving a 3/8's" gap between block and bellhousing.

 

headers. . . . yeah, about those. I have a fella that's going to build some 2" primary fenderwell headers and a full exhaust system but he cant do it til winter, so. . . .i had a set of cleveland mustang headers that i hacked/welded into some zoomies to get through this summer. . . they sound sick too. . just ugly.

 

everything double checked. .brakes bled, clutch linkage adjusted, alignment set (eighth inch toe in), test drive complete. . .very docile on the street, no surprises yet (never went above 50mph). .







now. . headed to the track!

 

Awesome love the axle great work. Does the axle help with weight transfer? Itd sure looks tough.

 

Car looks great, love the stance.

 

...excellent job, car looks much better.

 

I had a (48") speedway axle mocked up in my Nova. On an alighnment rack, with the full weight of the car (aluminum head big bock) the axle flexed enough to add 2 1/2 degrees of camber to it. That, and the king pin to axle fit was so loose that the king pin would have moved in the boss. Needless to say I didn't use it....

 

no flex at all with mine (.250 wall tube) and the kingpins fit just as snug as all of the oem one's i have done in the past. dont know what my iron head cleveland weighs compared to a alloy head BBC. . i wouldn't have used that either though. .

i have heard all of the speedway horror stories on here but i experienced good customer service, stupid fast shipping, and all parts appeared to be top notch, even to my ch***is guy who looked it all over and finish welded some of it.

 

Cool car! I Think that is the same one that was on craigslist for a while here up in northern California. Looks WAAAY better with the stick up front.

Question: did you weld the spring and shackle mounts directly to the factory uni-body rails? The factory stampings are thin and weak, and should be plated before spring mounts are welded up. Especially the shackle mounts....not alot of surface area there.

 

i like the way she now sits.looks kinda mean.gonna do the same thing this winter on a 63 fairlane and maybe just mybe my 53 ranchwagon.

 

I like it. I do understand the comments about the Cleveland motor though (and I'm a Big fan of the 335 motors). Since they didn't come out until 1970, and I doubt anyone pulled apart a brand new car to get one, it was probably at least 1971 before it would have been in that Falcon - and by then the Hay Day of the G***er was pretty much winding down. It's cool to me, but like I say, pretty much the end of the g***er era so it won't seem "Traditional" to many.

 

yep, it was on craigslist for about 9 months before he took my offer. . yes, it's plated in both ends of each spring. Also tied the front frame to the rear frame, roll cage, and the thunderbolt style rear crossmember.

 

Really nice job. I have a 1963 Falcon sedan delivery with a econoline straight axele , works great . I like your work.....


Brian

 

Did you leave the steering box in the stock location? It looked like it from the pics, but I wasn't sure. The only thing I see that you did, that was the same as how mine was set up (horribly, I might add) was that spacer between the steering drag link and the steering arm. Mine flexed like crazy when you turned the wheel, and the car wandered all over the place. It seems the speedway flat steering arm wasn't real strong, and that spacer kind of magnified the flex. You could actually SEE it flex back and forth when you moved the steering wheel. It was a bad set up. Cool car, glad you are going to actually race it!

 

I love this thread!!!

 

don maybe people didn't pull new motors out of new cars in your area but it was a common occurrence around here.

 

This steering should be a lot stronger than those tiny tie rod ends on early 6 cylinder falcons. That would have been scary with a heavy cleveland and running 130 down the track!

 

I could flex the stock suspension/shock towers by hand before. now that the whole car is tied together it is way stiffer. . the steering box is stock and i am happy with the speedway steering setup so far. it has no visible flex and is stable at all speeds. . we'll see how it responds to 7 grand clutch dumps and waist high wheelies in a few weeks. .

 

BAD FREAKIN *** !!! thanks for the ideas, doing a 61 Ranchero with my son....same way!

 

Great car! Love that g***er stance!

 

The car is looking great. I`m using a 351C in my g***er. Most people think it`s a BBC with the valve covers I`m running. We used a `67 mustang box in my car. Here`s a couple pictures of mine. G***erman