Y'all probably are getting the idea I have a bit of a thing for Full Size Fords. Well, yeah.
This one came in to the UK via a mate / partner in crime who had found it resting in Washington State. This is good prospecting country as its kinda dry in most of the state and none of the state uses salt. Its also not as wealthy a state as California, and not so well picked clean by exporters already.
The story was that the car had been "barn stored" for "a couple of years" but I think what they actually meant was "Left in a field for a decade". Ran when parked. you know the score.
Being the utter gent that I am, I let Mark buy it and ship it with me getting first refusal rather than putting my own money up on car neither of us had seen.
The car arrived fine, and I got a call from Mark "I'm at the docks mate, with this Galaxie. You want I bring it straight to yours while its on the trailer?"
"Whats it look like? Does it seem like its mechanically curse word? How bad is the body?"
Mark did a quick walk around it on the camera, and demonstrated that it would fire when fuel was poured direct into the carb. We haggled. We agreed that "since its on the trailer" it may as well come straight to me.
SOLD!
The car is 1970 model Galaxie 500 fast roof coupe. Its got the 351W 2V V8, C4 and WER rear with open 2.75s. Its a factory dual exhaust car with contrastinng roof, disc brakes and the deluxe vinyl upholstry.
So I got the car, and got to work. I found documents showing the car had been unused since 2011 and it was 2020 at this point. We ended up dropping the tank, pulling like 20 gallons of stale filthy fuel out, blowing the fuel lines through, replacing the flexis, replacing the fuel filter and then I went to replace the in-carb filter as my last resort. Yeah, the one in the carb was clogged as heck. So I bought a new one, fitted it, and just as I was tightening it up, I slipped and put my whole weight on the spanner. And snapped the sod in half. So we tried drilling it out, using easy outs all the whole story and still it was stuck in there. So annoyingly I had to replace the carb. I used one which was a used Mustang one but it leaked like a sieve, and then in the end I bought a reman one off Rock Auto and everything was fine after that.
Registration was taking place with the DVLA while this was all taking place and this went smoothly except I forgot to put my drivers licnece in so I got a reject the first time. No worries, the car wasn't ready anyway. I know opinions are mixed on the States Plates but I like them. I have the state of first registration on them rather than Washington where it came from last.
Next was the brakes. I had front but no rear. Turns out it was just siezed rear cylinders. The fronts were fine, the MC was fine, so just replaced the rears the shoes and the rear flexi. Also popped a set of new 235/75x15s on the car. I'm not sure about the Smoothies, they are ideal for earlier cars, but do seem to look OK on this one.
The car was full of wasps nests, yellow jackets I think, cleared a lot of them out of it. Cleaned up the interior but have left the exterior in its "high patina" look for now. The interior was disgusting.
I am thinking of doing the car all one colour as the white top is a bit "Old lady" so I managed to get the alternate (single colour) stainless trims for the roof moulding so it will look factory if I do that.
As well as the whole fuel system being gone through, I did a fuel pump on it as well, I ended up doing all the ignition as well, although thats all been fine from the get go, it made sense. Its all stock right now, but I have plans. I'd like to get a bit firther into it before I start making mods.
Finally got it all up and running and on the road and I even took it for an MOT
Then was able to get it out and use it a little, locally, but still with teething troubles in evidence - hot starting and overheating
The car spent the winter in the barn so I dragged it out to start on it again. Always nice to be driving a "barn find fresh" car round, billowing dust as you go, right? The neighbours are used to it.
The car still has issues, it overheats. So I got a new water pump because the old one was leaking and I've got new hoses, new thermostat annd new rad cap and I did a flush through with chemicals and still its overheating. Next step it to take off the rad and get it rodded and all. Lets see how I get on...
This one came in to the UK via a mate / partner in crime who had found it resting in Washington State. This is good prospecting country as its kinda dry in most of the state and none of the state uses salt. Its also not as wealthy a state as California, and not so well picked clean by exporters already.
The story was that the car had been "barn stored" for "a couple of years" but I think what they actually meant was "Left in a field for a decade". Ran when parked. you know the score.
Being the utter gent that I am, I let Mark buy it and ship it with me getting first refusal rather than putting my own money up on car neither of us had seen.
The car arrived fine, and I got a call from Mark "I'm at the docks mate, with this Galaxie. You want I bring it straight to yours while its on the trailer?"
"Whats it look like? Does it seem like its mechanically curse word? How bad is the body?"
Mark did a quick walk around it on the camera, and demonstrated that it would fire when fuel was poured direct into the carb. We haggled. We agreed that "since its on the trailer" it may as well come straight to me.
SOLD!
The car is 1970 model Galaxie 500 fast roof coupe. Its got the 351W 2V V8, C4 and WER rear with open 2.75s. Its a factory dual exhaust car with contrastinng roof, disc brakes and the deluxe vinyl upholstry.
So I got the car, and got to work. I found documents showing the car had been unused since 2011 and it was 2020 at this point. We ended up dropping the tank, pulling like 20 gallons of stale filthy fuel out, blowing the fuel lines through, replacing the flexis, replacing the fuel filter and then I went to replace the in-carb filter as my last resort. Yeah, the one in the carb was clogged as heck. So I bought a new one, fitted it, and just as I was tightening it up, I slipped and put my whole weight on the spanner. And snapped the sod in half. So we tried drilling it out, using easy outs all the whole story and still it was stuck in there. So annoyingly I had to replace the carb. I used one which was a used Mustang one but it leaked like a sieve, and then in the end I bought a reman one off Rock Auto and everything was fine after that.
Registration was taking place with the DVLA while this was all taking place and this went smoothly except I forgot to put my drivers licnece in so I got a reject the first time. No worries, the car wasn't ready anyway. I know opinions are mixed on the States Plates but I like them. I have the state of first registration on them rather than Washington where it came from last.
Next was the brakes. I had front but no rear. Turns out it was just siezed rear cylinders. The fronts were fine, the MC was fine, so just replaced the rears the shoes and the rear flexi. Also popped a set of new 235/75x15s on the car. I'm not sure about the Smoothies, they are ideal for earlier cars, but do seem to look OK on this one.
The car was full of wasps nests, yellow jackets I think, cleared a lot of them out of it. Cleaned up the interior but have left the exterior in its "high patina" look for now. The interior was disgusting.
I am thinking of doing the car all one colour as the white top is a bit "Old lady" so I managed to get the alternate (single colour) stainless trims for the roof moulding so it will look factory if I do that.
As well as the whole fuel system being gone through, I did a fuel pump on it as well, I ended up doing all the ignition as well, although thats all been fine from the get go, it made sense. Its all stock right now, but I have plans. I'd like to get a bit firther into it before I start making mods.
Finally got it all up and running and on the road and I even took it for an MOT
Then was able to get it out and use it a little, locally, but still with teething troubles in evidence - hot starting and overheating
The car spent the winter in the barn so I dragged it out to start on it again. Always nice to be driving a "barn find fresh" car round, billowing dust as you go, right? The neighbours are used to it.
The car still has issues, it overheats. So I got a new water pump because the old one was leaking and I've got new hoses, new thermostat annd new rad cap and I did a flush through with chemicals and still its overheating. Next step it to take off the rad and get it rodded and all. Lets see how I get on...
