It seems a long, long time ago - but it was 2019 - I bought me a 1968 Ford Galaxie 500, 2 door hardtop off a chap I know locally who "finds bargains" and flips them for a pretty reasonable price. So he texted me and said "You want a Ford Galaxie 2 door with a big block". I felt there should have been a question mark there, but there was not. Maybe that was intentional. The thing is, I did want a Ford Galaxie with a decent V8 engine in it. Oh yes I did.
So I went to see it and hear the story, turns out it was a 390 which is a "big Y block" maybe but hey, happy with that. He'd got it cheap as a non-runner. Then when he picked it up he just thumped the gear selector hard and the neutral safety switch clicked out and he drove it home. Dang. So I got a decent buy, I thought.
It always looked better in the dark...
And thats about it really for then. I replaced the neutral safety switch, and a few other bits, serviced it and drove it. It has a few "obviously suboptimal repairs" from its previous life
I got a post from a guy in the US who had been the guy who arranged for it to be shipped to the UK. Looked better with the vinyl top in white IMHO
And so performance modifications happened...
Edelbrock Performer RPM, Edelbrock carb, Summit electronic distributor, steeper gears, a Posi differential, and then a set of the very lovely Sandersons headers feeding the dual exhausts with their raspy glass pack mufflers....
Not that things always went to plan....
And one period of the car "being a dick" did result in it sitting a little while....
But eventually, after pointlessly rebuilding the carb (twice) and sundry other fiddling, replacing multiple coils, I took it to the fellas at Moonshine Motors who actually found the issues were more bloody vacuum leaks and then, well, things seemed to work better
And then I decided to see how bad that crunchiness was under the vinyl roof.
Just keep saying "California - dry state - rust free car"
Well that was not a good day.
Much head scratching was done. Many folk told me I needed a new roof, and I even tried to get a replacement roof cut off and "posted" to me, but that wasn't happening
So in the end it was shunted off to a place who were feeling like lucky punks.
Well, they found more holes, as anticipated
But gamely the carried on, fabricating large chunks of roof and generally not having a great time of it
We discovered that you can get the whole interior of a '68 Galaxie into a '92 Lincoln Town Car (bar the front bench)
Oh, and then they broke my windscreen
Which was another one of those "not so great days" But I found one in stock and got that replaced which was a relief
Not as much as a relief as when the flippin welding was finished
and the car finally back home...
And I got some neato 70s high backs to replace the bench (props to Rysz for Pony Express on those from Bristol)
Which is about where we are up to now...
So I went to see it and hear the story, turns out it was a 390 which is a "big Y block" maybe but hey, happy with that. He'd got it cheap as a non-runner. Then when he picked it up he just thumped the gear selector hard and the neutral safety switch clicked out and he drove it home. Dang. So I got a decent buy, I thought.
It always looked better in the dark...
And thats about it really for then. I replaced the neutral safety switch, and a few other bits, serviced it and drove it. It has a few "obviously suboptimal repairs" from its previous life
I got a post from a guy in the US who had been the guy who arranged for it to be shipped to the UK. Looked better with the vinyl top in white IMHO
And so performance modifications happened...
Edelbrock Performer RPM, Edelbrock carb, Summit electronic distributor, steeper gears, a Posi differential, and then a set of the very lovely Sandersons headers feeding the dual exhausts with their raspy glass pack mufflers....
Not that things always went to plan....
And one period of the car "being a dick" did result in it sitting a little while....
But eventually, after pointlessly rebuilding the carb (twice) and sundry other fiddling, replacing multiple coils, I took it to the fellas at Moonshine Motors who actually found the issues were more bloody vacuum leaks and then, well, things seemed to work better
And then I decided to see how bad that crunchiness was under the vinyl roof.
Just keep saying "California - dry state - rust free car"
Well that was not a good day.
Much head scratching was done. Many folk told me I needed a new roof, and I even tried to get a replacement roof cut off and "posted" to me, but that wasn't happening
So in the end it was shunted off to a place who were feeling like lucky punks.
Well, they found more holes, as anticipated
But gamely the carried on, fabricating large chunks of roof and generally not having a great time of it
We discovered that you can get the whole interior of a '68 Galaxie into a '92 Lincoln Town Car (bar the front bench)
Oh, and then they broke my windscreen
Which was another one of those "not so great days" But I found one in stock and got that replaced which was a relief
Not as much as a relief as when the flippin welding was finished
and the car finally back home...
And I got some neato 70s high backs to replace the bench (props to Rysz for Pony Express on those from Bristol)
Which is about where we are up to now...
