1963 ford falcon sedan delivery.

I do forget how much I’ve used it tbh. That was when me you and Craig were lugging an axle into the back of it I believe.

Nice...

Those are really good cars.

You probably already know this, but Peter Brock ( of Shelby fame ) had a '63 Sedan Delivery too.

It had his trademark stripes ( he was doing those before he ever went to Shelby ), and several Cobra go faster goodies.




And I built a '63 Sedan for my wife, years ago.

Black on black on black, did some parts matching to end up with a 5 bolt bell 289 and a C4.
Its no longer her daily driver, but its waiting its turn for me to go through it and make it nice again.

( old pic )

Love this. Such a cool daily.

From the same guy i got the sunvisors off I got a v8 5 stud front end. The upper and lower arms are the same, but the spindles have bigger bearings, the drums are an inch bigger (10”) and are 5 stud instead of 4, so you can swap the whole lot over for better wheel styles. These are for future plans.


I also bought some wheels.


Guess which one I’ve cleaned! They’re 14x6 cragars. I don’t like 15s on falcons, they look too big. They’re 13” as stock, so 14s are just about right. Mines actually got 14” mustang steels on it already.
I proably won’t end up using these now though.

I did swap the normal caps for proper cragar spinners and fitted some new white bands though.






Mockup. You can see where I was going here. They may still end up going on...

In the meantime I also did something genuinely useful on the car.
As standard sedan deliveries didn’t have a rear seat, they had a plywood platform in the back that ran up to the front seats to increase the level load area in the back. I’ve never actually seen a real one, nor has anyone else it seems, but there’s a glimpse of one in the original sales brochure.


I wanted something similar to give me some storage space for all the junk i inevitably end up carrying round with me, but didn’t want it to come quite as far forward as that as I’m tall and need the seat far back. I don’t think my bench seat is original as it’s a bit lower down and farther back than usual but perfect for me.

There was already a bit of ply cut for the back area which was reasonably well done, so I kept that and went and bought some more and cut a piece that ran from the edge of the flat load area forward to the B pillar, but not sticking forward of there like original. I made a drop panel that fitted from that down to the tunnel and added some timber framing to strengthen it up.






With that all glued and screwed I bought some carpet and some glue. It stank awful so I figured it would be good.


A while later-








As you can see I cut a couple of cubby holes that will get doors on them at some point to stash things like a fuel can etc. I say at some point cos I’ve still not done it!

A few months later I also got round to buying some ally trim strips and edging, and some nice stainless raised countersunk screws, and did this to make it look proper ‘finished’.


It really does make a big difference to dragging stuff in and out too.

As well as buying suspension stuff I also managed to buy two complete engine and box packages, for various reasons.

The first one I bought was a 200ci version of the falcon six, out of a 64/65 ranchero. I bought this largely for spares, even though it’s a complete running motor I could just fit if I wanted. It’s got the same 3spd manual box and came with a prop and rad as well, so gives me spares of a lot of things. The thing that really piqued my interest though, was that it had the accessory pulleys and compressor bracket for air-con. not only that, but it uses the york type pump (although it had a sanden bodged onto the original bracket). This is important, and quite a score but probably not for the reasons you think.

Here it is dumped in the back of the Passat on the way home with some random bits of Edsel grille I bought off the guy too.


The second one I bought is odd, in a good way. It’s out of a 79-81 fox body mustang. But it’s the ‘same’ 200ci straight six that came out in the falcon/mustang in 1964!
The story goes that ford were having manufacturing problems with the v6s in fox bodies, so rather than axe the 6cyl cars or not be able to fulfill orders, they looked at what else they could stick in them that was cost effective whilst they ironed out the v6 issues, and came up with this. They dragged out the tooling for the 200ci straight 6, that hadn’t be used in any other vehicle for nearly 10 years at that point, improved the head a bit, fitted a newer design carb and dizzy, made the sump drop the right way and changed from road draft to PCV crankcase breathing, and err that was about it!
What this means to owners of early 6cyl falcons and mustangs is there is a bolt-on big valve, big runner head. The inlet manifold is integral to the head on these and is the restriction of power on the earlier ones. But these are bored out which makes the head swap quite an upgrade. Indeed they’re quite sought after in the states for this reason.

I got given this if I could go drag it off the guys drive 10 miles away! He had v8 swapped and it was junk to him. It had been left outside and had got water in, but I figured it was worth the chance. So engine crane stuffed into the back of the Passat I went and picked it up. Was a tight squeeze getting the engine, c4 autobox and crane in on the way back!

So I now had a pallet full of engines and boxes to sort through.

Why do the wheels have oval holes rather than round ones for studs/nuts? What keeps them from moving a bit and working lose when you drive?

They’re called unilug. One wheel fits the 3x most common US stud patterns 4.5” ford/Mopar, 4.75” chevy, 5” big GM (Caddy Buick Olds Pontiac).
By the time you’ve got all 5 nuts in they can’t go anywhere, and they have special shaped washers to spread the load.
Doing the nuts up stops them moving, the clamping force of the nuts is far greater than any lateral load they’re subjected to.

You do see it but not as much.
Obviously there’s zero reason for it OEM, it’s only aftermarket wheels that have it. Some UK/euro wheels do have it though.