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Horseplay: 1965 Fastback Restomod

Thanks for the kind words from most of you. Bite me, {.}. I will be done. No option but to be done. I do need to go ahead and fire it up soon though. Then decide if i will be completely nuts and swap motors. If i have a solid week ahead of the departure date i will go for it. I want to get at least a couple hundred miles on it before i head west. Want to deal with all the likely leaks, squeaks etc. here at home. Also be nice to let the EFI settle into a tune too.

Headed back to the garage now. Spent the morning dealing with household stuff and a couple slow leaking tires on the wife's Jeep. Roofers on the block and she caught a nail in both passenger side tires. :mad: Plugged 'em up and good to go.
 
good luck. I wish I were home to work on my junk but also would love to lend a hand. My wife is actually go up your way this week. Her mother is having surgery in Central Dupage Hospital in Warrenville so she is going for support. Her parents live in Aurora still and most of the rest of her family live in Naperville.
 
good luck. I wish I were home to work on my junk but also would love to lend a hand. My wife is actually go up your way this week. Her mother is having surgery in Central Dupage Hospital in Warrenville so she is going for support. Her parents live in Aurora still and most of the rest of her family live in Naperville.
When will you finally get home? I HATE extended length trips like you are on. Only thing worse than being on the road all week and not being able to wrench on our cars is when work travel goes into/through weekends.

I hope to get some time to play around on the new engine later today. Have to make it through the to do list on the car itself first. Priorities and all. If I do I'll post up those comparison pics of my aluminum rockers vs the new steel Ultra Pros on engines at max lift, etc. I'm betting on considerable difference on spring clearance between them even though the new engine has a much more radical cam in it. Anxious to see.
 
I have the Fitech on the coupe and it runs really well. You'll prolly be happy with it.

On the other hand...I was about to order another Fitech for the Fastback and then I saw they are getting ready to release a port injection version. That would be alot better. I was thinking of getting the universal kit and putting it on a Super Vic intake, they make an EFI version.

http://fitechefi.com/products/goport/

Chevy version (no Ford pic available)

goportmed3.png
 
So I think I posted it here on some thread but if not a reminder. I'm also swapping out rearends for the tour. The one under it now that I put together is a 4.11 locker set-up. Fun for the street and all but for the Tour I thought dialing it back a notch made sense. So I had a custom housing made up along with a new pumpkin with a more suitable gear and a TruTrac. I decided to stick with a Ford housing vs fabbed (like the look better) but had larger wall tubes used and a couple other mods as well. Anyway, most of the parts are here so more parts PORN!

axles.jpg filler neck.jpg jackpad drain.jpg axle tube.jpg
 
Nice really like the fill and drain. Also the jack pad protecting the drain is a neat idea.
Yeah, no more little spout on the gear oil bottle. Unscrew the cap and let it flow. Also a viewing port into the housing. This thing will handle anything I throw at it down the road too. The thick walled tubes aside from handling gobs of torque also permit welding on of suspension mods without much fear of warping.
 
I hope your car sits a bit taller than ours. We don't have a bottom drain plug but I still have to drive the car up on 2x6s just to slide the jack under the third member! That drain plug setup might drag the ground on my car.

Nice looking set up!
 
Another really late night in the garage last night. Clearing things off the punch list. Got the front end alignment done. That was fun. I had target numbers in mind that I wanted to hit and was able to get there after some effort. Got it all lined up even across both wheels, right on the money. I used John's targets as a guide and ended up at +3.5 caster and -1 camber. Toe set at 1/8". Best part was my shim stacks are very small and almost all equal. Nothing more than 3/16" thick and no more than 1/16" difference between bolts on either arm. My car has proven once again to be a very nice example of a well build Ford product. Thank god!

Got the final coat of paint on the new rearend. First 2K primer followed by Eastwood chassis black. Looks nice. UPS shows the pumpkin finally arriving today. I took the day off (I NEVER take time off so this is a big deal at my house) to get rears swapped out and the new Caltracs installed as the big items for the day. I'm running out of big stuff left to do. Just a long list of relatively minor stuff. Its along list but certainly doable. Of course there is still the engine to finish up building and swapping in!
 
Lots to report to catch up. Spent pretty much all of the weekend in the garage. Got all of the parts for the new rearend in with the last bit coming on Friday as written up earlier. So after painting the housing I dropped in the center section and axles. That's where things went wrong. The axles were cut incorrectly. One too long, one too short. That sucked. Vendor closed all weekend. Contacting them this morning. How the same guys who made the housing (perfect) and axles could make this mistake I have no clue.
 
Did you try swapping them side to side? I'm sure you did, just wanted to ask.

I hate when you plan for a good weekend of wrenching then a part doesn't fit/isn't there yet and the vendor is closed all weekend.
 
Did you try swapping them side to side? I'm sure you did, just wanted to ask..
Yep. Kinda tough to screw that up. One short, one long. Even {.} wouldn't screw that up. I had a custom length housing (shortened) made with a TrueTrac center so a couple different factors to deal with when measuring the axles.

The Caltracs didn't work out either. The link bars are too long. I confirmed the length of the links with Mach1Mark (thanks!). Have to call them this morning too to ask about swapping bars otherwise I have to section these ruining the nice finish. From what I can tell, my 4.5 mid-eye leaf springs changed the geometry enough that the bar length needs modified. As a bolt on these are pretty straightforward so nothing I could have wrong in the set-up. Story of my build. Nothing is ever easy.
 
Corrected axles will be here tomorrow.

Caltrac problem solved. Be advised, although they don't make note of it in any of their information on the website, if you have anything other than factory stock style leaf springs the standard 6400 part number kit will NOT work on your car. Caltrac makes a special front set of brackets for those applications. Called them yesterday and they have shipped me a set of new brackets. Very cool customer service guy. I bought my set from a company (SK Peformance in NY) that had a set in stock and could get them shipped to me before last weekend. My fault. Should have at least called Caltrac to verify stuff, I guess but I wanted things fast to get done over the weekend. Yeah, that all worked out well. lol

By the way, for the first time since I have owned the car...it fired up to life last night. :)
 
That is good to hear. I have their generic kit on mine I think. You'll have to post a picture of the fancy brackets so I can see, maybe that why mine rides so rough.

Congrats on firing it up. Here's hoping it stays together when put in gear, too.
 
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