Projects 1965 Comet Caliente Convertible Project

9/1/2010 -- Well it’s time to batten down the hatches and prepare for a years worth of travel ball softball. My daughter is a pitcher so we spent most of our spare time for the next year at softball fields in Nevada, Arizona, Colorado and up and down California.

Pictures 1 and 2: This is what we worked on for the next year (9/2010 – 7/2011) but that doesn’t mean we won’t have a little time to do some Comet work too.

Pictures 3 and 4: Everything is boxed up and covered up in rolling carts.

 

Jeff;I also took time off from working on my Comet to coach my Son during his Baseball years!The kids grow up too fast,so spending time with them is important!!! ROY.

 

Roy,

I agree. We had a great time traveling around for that year and we had some pretty good success. I coached both my kids in most their sports from age 5 until my daughter was 16 then I bowed out allowing me to just be a dad.

Jeff

 

11/2010 – Even though we spent weekends at the ball park there is still time to plan and collect parts. We had a free weekend so we test fitted the engine.

Picture 1: Collecting parts

Picture 2: Test fitting the engine

Picture 3: Engine fits with the 68 Mustang motor mounts, front sump oil pan and pickup and relocating the dip stick. I will have to build the transmission mount. We will use the Mountaineer drive shaft with a spacer.

Picture 4: There’s just a few things to do in here. When we got the car the transmission tunnel was already gone and big chunks of the fire wall and the shock towers were cut away. I will have to fabricate all of that.

 

Jeff;looks like it fit OK!You would have needed to do some cutting anyway,they may have done you a favor! I helped do two of those swaps,you need to build new tunnels to fit that BIG AOD/AODE in their.We used a cable throttle pedal as it needed to move over,plus the throttle body location makes a cable mandatory! ROY.

 

Roy,

Excellent you have done some of these swaps that’s good to know. What did you use as the wiring harness? I thought the transmission tunnel would be in the way for this transmission so you are correct I would have had to do some cutting anyway. The previous owners did help me out by cutting it up. This is a 4R70W transmission it’s a big ****er. Is that the same transmission that you used on your swaps?

Jeff

 

Jeff;I believe they were just AODs,they were out of 87 T-Birds[engine and transmissions[,one went to a carb the other used a Painless kit[not very painless though].Take that clutch/brake pedal ***embly out as a unit and get a single pedal unit,the double is VERY desirable!!!! ROY.

 

Roy,

I am looking forward to the wiring and not all at the same time. I do have a friend who is very knowledgeable about the ford wiring harness he has a business dieting harnesses for a lot of the FFR projects and now some street rods. His site is Wirediet.com. I may need to call him for his services.

Oops … about that pedal box. I do still have it but it’s a little lighter than it was when it came out of the Comet. I’m using the Mountaineer pedal box along with part of the Comet brake pedal. You will see this in one of the upcoming posts.

 

Hey, be careful with those chrome slots!

 

Jeff;I don't know if Ford Racing still has a "Hot Rod" wiring kit but that is part of what we used onohne 87 engine,it ran great!!! ROY.

 

Nads,

I keep hearing this about those slots. At first I didn’t know what slots meant. Now at least I know that. Unfortunately I only got 2 with this car and they are a bit rusty. I think they spent too many months in a snowy field. They would work ok up front but they have the wrong back spacing for the differential I’m using. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with them.

 

2/2011 - Below are some pictures of what I have done lately. What you have to understand is this car was ones step away from being a parts car. I got it for a good price but it has lots of rust and pitted chrome. Most everything is there with the exception of the motor and transmission so what I am doing is cleaning up and rebuilding what is there. If it is missing then I will try and build it if not then try and get it used and if all else fails buy it new. What I envision is this car was sitting outside for years with a ripped top and full of snow until it thawed and then the rain came. So the pictures you are about to see are a huge improvement over what I got and it took lots of work to get it to this point.

The first picture is a before and after. The left side is how I got it and the right side is after I worked on it. It's a big improvement but still pitted. As time goes on I will get some of this stuff re-chromed but for now it is what it is.

The second picture I cleaned up the lights, replaced missing bolts, nuts and rewired them. The rear view mirror and the license plate light where completely rusted not a bit of paint or chrome left on them.

Picture three I cleaned up the bumpers removing rust, dirt, grease, tar ... and I cleaned up the lights and rewired them. I'm not even sure that is the correct front bumper but it's good enough.

 

Jeff;that front bumper ma be a 66/67,it is not a 64 or a 65,looks real close to a 65 though! ROY.

 

Roy: Thanks I think you may be right. It’s close but not right. You should have seen how it was connected to the car. It almost fell off during delivery.

I have heard several comments about the Rims I have called slots and I should take care of them so I thought I would take an hour and clean them up. There is definitely rust damage to the chrome so they would need to be re-chromed but they have no scars and no bends. They are nice rims.

 

5/2011 – I have done some work on figuring out what I am going to use for the brake system. The master cylinder is from the donor Mountaineer, the power ***ist unit is the largest one I could find that would fit the master cylinder and fit in the space and it's from a 97 Probe and the pedal box is from the Mountaineer. I worked on getting the mountaineer gages to in the dash. The gages are bolted to the back of the piece of wood in the picture. The wood will be replaced with Lexan. There looks to be room on both sides of the gages to fit some other gages if needed.

 

65,
Great work, and great craftsmanship!! I think it's great your working with you daughter on this car.

FWIW, I put a 93 Cobra 5.0 into a 70 Bronco, with all the efi stuff, and it's time consuming, but worth the effort.

Plus, like Roy, and yourself, I have a 65 Comet, too!!
Eric

 

Eric,

Thanks we are having a fun time with it. There aren’t that many 65 Comets out there. It’s a one year car. They were very different before and after 65.

Jeff

 

Yep, your right on that one Jeff. PS save the slots!

 

Great project! It is refreshing to see a father and daughter working together on a car.

I too built an FFR Roadster. You probably couldn't tell from my screen name though..

 

Yes I would never have guessed. Did you build number 1222 if so that’s one of the first. Or maybe you spent 1,222,000 well maybe not. I started a topic on the FFR site called the “The Natural Progression Cobra to Comet/Falcon/Fairlane” because there were several of us who ended up with that as our next project. What are you working on now?

 

I had FFR # 1222. Got the kit in '97, I drove it on Hot Rod Magazines 1998 East Coast Power Tour. I sold it in '02. I see it every year at the Charlotte Auto Fair.
When I finished it I had a little over $15k in it. Sold it for $21k. One of the few cars I ever made money on.


1965 fastback Mustang is what I am building now. Going with a 347 with an Eight Stack fuel injection system (looks like 4 webers with injectors in the fuel bowls).

What year did you get your FFR?

 

That is rare to make money on a car you build for yourself congrats. Do you have the build for the Mustang on a forum somewhere? Is that a Biscayne in your avatar? Cool car I have always wanted to build one of those. I got my MKIII in 2004 and will continue to work on it after this project is done. It is registered and I drive it now and then but there is still work to do. I made it to the 2012 Huntington Beach FFR meet this year picture below. We drove it there with body off as usual.

 

I don't have a build thread on the Mustang. I bought it off ebay and picked it up in Florida. That was in 2009. The car already had all new sheet metal and a Heidt's Mustang II front suspension. He lost his job and his wife was a realtor. We all know what real estate was doing in 2009

The car in my avatar is a 61 Impala. We hit a bridge in it in 1970, right before I went in the Army.

I enjoyed my FFR, I was really impressed with the ease of the build. I gues you went with a Mod Motor? My donor (it was 1997) was a 30,000 mile 1993. I used everything except the clutch, wheels and tires.

It looks like yours is almost ready for paint and body. You going to do that or have it done?

 

Thank you for your service in the Army.

I hate to hear that about the previous owners of the mustang but you helped them out by getting them some cash to get by so all is good. Sorry to hear about the Impala it looks like it was a great car. I have so many body mods I want to do to my FFR I haven’t gotten to the point of deciding final paint. I will do the body mods and primer then make a decision. There is a painter out here Jeff Miller that does incredible work and has done lots to these cars. All it takes is money.

 

Does Jeff go by the moniker "Batman" ? If so, I remember seeing a lot of his work on ffcars.com.

Your Comet will be nice when you get it done. Is the instrument cluster the same as the Falcon? If so, there is a nice gauge cluster that accepts a speedo, tach and four 2" diameter gauges. I got one for my 65. It looks similar to the 66 Mustang cluster, but has a tach.

 

Yes Jeff Miller goes by batman. Recently he was part of one of the teams on the show “Car Warriors”. They built the 33 hot rods. They had both cars at the Huntington Beach show I mentioned above.

The gage cluster sounds interesting. Do you remember where you purchased it? I will probably start with the Mountaineer gage cluster since it is an easy plug in to the wiring harness I am using.

 

send me you email address & I will send you a picture of the cluster with auometer performance series gauges. I bought it from Joe Lutz @ HotRod Dynamics
http://www.hotroddynamics.com/

 

8/2011 - Picture 1: I visited my family in Scottsdale a couple of weeks ago and made a trip to the Desert Cl***ics wrecking yard to look for some emblems and a hood. If you remember the hood I have has a giant hole cut in the middle because someone decided to put a hood scoop on it. We got to the wrecking yard when they opened and it was a balmy 102 but had some cloud cover. The picture is my daughter and my brother in the yard. They didn't have much 65 Comet stuff but they had a lot of 64 Comet wrecks. I found everything I needed

2: as part of the Arizona trip my brother and I worked on the brake system. We made an adapter from the master cylinder to the vacuum ***ist, an adapter from the vacuum ***ist to the pedal box and an adapter from the pedal box to connect it to the Comet body. I will also reinforce the fire wall behind the pedal box

Pictures 3, 4, and 5: My brother builds car like these. He has gotten to the point where he can do everything on a project. He makes me look like a hack. It’s nice to have him as a source of information and he helps me with some of the tasks on my projects.

 

9/2011 - Well I got some work done this weekend. I spent the last two weeks working (the job that makes money) 12 hour days thru the weekends so it was nice to get something done on the Comet this weekend. A little brain break is just what I needed. I finalized the installation of the pedal box, vacuum unit and master cylinder which includes finishing up the welding on the brackets and firewall plate (welding not shown in the pictures) and finished setting the length and position of the brake pedal also not in the pictures. It’s getting to the point where I need to take the car to the sand blaster so I can get some real work done … unibody structure repair and sub frame connectors. Just so everyone knows the holes you see cut in the car … shock towers, transmission tunnel, hood … were all there when I bought the car. That and there was no engine and transmission are some of the reasons I am street rodding it and not restoring it.

And finally picture 4 I picked up the wheels we needed on eBay for 50 bucks a piece. Previous to this we were looking at wheels for 275.00 a piece so this is a huge savings. I need these wheels because of the back spacing because I am using the 8.8 diff out of the Mountaineer. I will probably have to use some wheel spacers in the front to get the offset correct.

 

I really like the simple,compact, brake pedal hanger, very nice work.


...and seeing desert cars with not a speck of any kind of rust...in a J/Yard...tears.