1957 Ford Fairlane

Oh go on then. Can be as much fun as the motor bits!

Well, I made it!! 30 odd mile round trip successfully completed!

I was super nervous before setting off, but she actually ran great and it was a lot of fun getting out and about.

Feeling motivated to crack on with the sprucing - just need the distraction done!

Wowzers, April since the last update!

The "distraction" - a Chevy Astro camper conversion, was mostly finished in time for our weekend away over the second May bank holiday so I was able to spend a bit more time on this.

First thing I did was buy some wheels


Then I decided they needed too much work, so I bought some others. I sold the steels and swapped the tyres over - much ferrying, unpacking and repacking of wheels and tyres...



I also painted the roof, which was a major hurdle in sorting out the cosmetics, purely because of the logistics of painting a large horizontal surface in a low height garage, where I have to open the large door to swap sides of the car. It's come out ok, needs a good flat back though.

I had planned to turn it round in the garage, but the battery was completely flat. Naturally I discovered this after removing all the stuff from inside, around and on top the car, shuffling cars on the drive and loading up the boys for a little fun...
Battery removed and kickstarted with an old school charger, then connected to my conditioner for a couple of days



I believe it to be the old school ticking clock, something is drawing about 40mA and I'd not used it for about 8 weeks... Turning it round allowed me to paint the front of the car. Missed a few pics as I was charging ahead



Masked up below, before sheeting to paint the final wing. The front pan on these was a silver colour as it mainly lines up with the front bumper, so I decided to replicate that rather than experiment with body colour.





Lots of faffing around reassembling in the wrong order, but it's back in one piece and painted (for now - lots of remedial work required, but at least SWMBO is happy)

I also had the chance to look into the poor running. It drives off idle fine, but as soon as you apply any real load it pinks (sounds like) like mad and is flat. If you back off, it cleans up and pulls better.

I noticed a vacuum port on the carb base was open, so that got plugged and it was time for a test drive!






Conclusions: Really happy with how it looks!! Drives better, but still not right... hmmm

I checked out the timing and it was WAY off, like 30^o retarded!! First port of call was to verify cyl #1 TDC to pointer/timing marks and they line up, so I've re-timed it to 10^o BTDC and it starts up well. I've also checked the mechanical advance in the dizzy without the vac advance connected, and is around 30^o (by eye) which, according to the internet, is close enough to rule out any misbehaviour, but I've not yet had the chance to go for a drive.

You might notice a lack of trim, door handles etc. I was waiting until it was painted for the handles etc and I needed to fix a few cracks/chasms in the screen seals.





Following some suggestions from here I used a polyurethane rubber that sets all the way through but still remains soft-ish, applied little by little and the surrounding areas well masked. It's worked pretty well in terms of filling the gaps - I'm not gonna leave it out in the rain to find out though!

Another win is working out why the headlights weren't working on dipped beam. I could hear the relay click when they were turned on and they worked on full beam, so I unplugged the relays and the reason was pretty apparent


Cheapy ebay relay kit! Crimp removed from plug, recrimped (better) and reinserted. Full complement of lights returned!!

Only other real update is that the ride height is about spot-on for my driveway - luckily!



I'm trying to crack on, but have been yet again distracted by round 2 of improvements to the Astro before another trip. 

Seat belts and dash trim/stereo install are next on the list, as well as reinstating the trim and seeing if my ignition timing stuff has made any difference. Plenty to be getting on with!

Just compared the before and after pics of the car with the old and new wheels and it transforms the car.
I've been beavering away (well sort of, the more I beaver the more I find I need to do and more parts needed) on mine so I hope we can have a drive out and meet up soon.

Yeah dude!

Absolutely awesome stuff!

That is a great looking yacht! Awesome work that has gone in to that from both you and Dez.

The paint is coming out really nicely.

How did I not have this bookmarked?!

You know how I feel about this Mate, looks great, and glad to see the timing has made the difference.

As someone who has had a passenger ride in this I can confirm that it is as good as it looks in the pics. Although I've not yet seen the "ten footer" paint job 😆 I'm sure knowing you that it'll be 9 or less, but then I do own a 75 footer.

Must catch up again soon man 👍

Making progress with the stereo installation; I've decided where it's going, where the speakers are going and how to mount them, just have to do it now. Blanks for a basic under dash console have been cut.

Also got the last couple of bits needed for the rear seat belts, so the reels have been mounted.

They're going here, hidden underneath the parcel shelf.


Drill a few holes



Take one universal mount seat belt and a nice thick bit of steel plate, trimmed to shape and painted black



Add a few doubler plates cut from some very thick wall box section



And bolt it all together with some new 10.9 bolts, button head to help hide away.



I need to take the rear seat out to fit the lower point and the buckle, I've got some generic belt mounting plates for those.

The rear speakers are going inboard of the belts, I've just cut a board to mount them, then another thinner board will go over the speakers and belt plates which will be covered in material.

In other, less photo worthy, news I've disconnected the heater matrix to prevent leaking into the cabin. I still need to remove it, but that's lower priority.

I also took delivery of a pukka screw kit for the interior and exterior trim which, while it was expensive, is worth it for time saving. Each screw type and location is individually bagged and marked.

I'm off on hols for a week, so must keep up momentum when I'm back...

Winter/life has really impacted me on this one...

I re-floored the camper project and any time I do any work on that, I need to empty the contents into the garage, usually on top of the Fairlane. This obviously makes working on the Fairlane immensely harder.

However, where I can I've been running stereo wires & making connections to the car, carrying on with the speaker mounting, dash trimming and other generally non-photo worthy things.

I removed the heater ducting from under the dash a while back so I could get the leaky matrix out, which I finally got round to last night! There's no obvious signs of where it's leaking, but plenty of evidence that it has been.









I'm taking it to a place in Tunbridge Wells to see about repairing it. I've also got tomorrow off to progress some further camper jobs, which will allow me to clear out the garage and thus do more on the Fairlane.

Plenty of things to do, and I've finally got some motivation back after a long stretch of felling overwhelmed, so hopefully more progress to follow