1969 Falcon Build

[Bradfords_garage]

Howdy folks. New guy here. I posted an introduction in the new members area. But for those of you who didn't see it, I'm Brad and I'm building a 1969 Ford Falcon Futura Pro-Touring car for daily driving and weekend autocross/road course stuff. I've been a lurker for a few months and now that the project is underway I figured I'd join and share the progress and hopefully you guys with more experience than I have will give critiques when necessary.

Here she is on the trailer after pulling the I6 out.





Getting the first look with the 285's under it.


And out with the old...


Braced up the body with some 1x1 and mounted it to the rotisserie that I built.


Finding some rot. Its like this on both corners or the firewall and the cowl. But its a 50 year old Michigan car. All things considered its actually in pretty good condition


Braced up, on the rotisserie and the floors removed. I'm just about ready to start building the tube chassis.


Thanks for looking and let me know what you think!

Brad

[Peanut1959]

I love outside-the-box projects. Subscribed!

[slimjim]

Very cool project, similar to the falcons released in Australia

[Boosted Falcon]

Nice

[egoman]

I get excited when somone does a frame replacement style build!

[Bradfords_garage]

I love outside-the-box projects. Subscribed!

Thanks!

Very cool project, similar to the falcons released in Australia

Yea! I’ve been watching a lot of the Australian Touring Car Masters races since starting on this car. I’ve seen very few of these cars here in the states, so it was kinda cool to realize it is a staple in the Australian Touring car scene. And a four door at that!

Nice

Thanks, exciting project

I get excited when somone does a frame replacement style build!

That your ride? That frame looks super rigid! I’m using corvette uprights also. Looks like you used the whole front subframe., very nice!

[egoman]

Yes a build thread will be coming soon. I have a school commitment that should be completed this summer and then I will start posting daily/weekly. I have at least 2 years of posts already but I don't want to run out LOL. If you are using that style of subframe I can send you a lot of technical info that I cant post online.

[Bradfords_garage]

Sweet man! I appreciate the offer, I’m only using the uprights, though. I’ll be fabricating controls arms and connection points along with the chassis. Looking forward to your future build thread!

brad

Yes a build thread will be coming soon. I have a school commitment that should be completed this summer and then I will start posting daily/weekly. I have at least 2 years of posts already but I don't want to run out LOL. If you are using that style of subframe I can send you a lot of technical info that I cant post online.

[jaybee]

Cool car! When I was growing up Dad had a 1966 Falcon Ranchero, effectively a Fairlane with the front sheetmetal of a Falcon. I think it's one of his 2 favorite cars ever and it was the first car I ever worked on.

[chunger]

Nice project! Good to see another Fairlane based car on here.

What's the plan with the Cougar body?

[Bradfords_garage]

Cool car! When I was growing up Dad had a 1966 Falcon Ranchero, effectively a Fairlane with the front sheetmetal of a Falcon. I think it's one of his 2 favorite cars ever and it was the first car I ever worked on.

Thanks! Good memories!

Nice project! Good to see another Fairlane based car on here.

What's the plan with the Cougar body?

Thanks! The Cougar isn't mine. Not sure whats going on with that.

[Bradfords_garage]

Hope everyone is healthy and doing well!

I was able to get some more done on the Falcon. I decided to take the inner rocker skin off and replace it with a piece of 16ga. That way I've got something a little thicker and more solid to weld the frame rails to. I also wanted to remove the lower pinch weld and clean out the rockers and do a rust treatment inside before closing it back up.

Question- What can I use inside the rocker to seal it up/treat the rust before closing it back up? Something that won't cause a lot of grief when welding the rocker back together, hopefully.

Anyway, here we are-

Drilling out all of the spot welds on the inner rocker skin


And separating with a chisel and hammer


The spot welds drilled on the upper pinch weld and the lower pinch weld cut off flush


I cut the pinch weld just above the radius and then used a hammer and dolly to roll the metal back over. I wanted to keep from grinding it flat which would result in the metal coming to a sharp, thin point. I figured that would make it hard to weld.


And then just used a file by hand to true it up nice and straight. It took a while...


Prepping the metal for welding


The replacement piece. One small spot to trim out at the front still. But it fits nicely.


Well thats where we are. Once I get the rust treatment/primer inside the rocker I can weld it up, so let me know what you guys use for that. I'm working on the next YouTube video update, too. I'll let you know when its up. Thanks!!

Brad

[Bradfords_garage]

Got a little more work done on the ol' Falcon yesterday. Here in MI most of the plants are on lockdown so the tool shop decided to follow suit. So, I've got some time on my hands for a little while!

Alright, I got the rocker skin off in the previous post, and yesterday I did some more cleanup, and ripped some strips of 18 ga. to spot weld to the inside of the bottom of the rocker panel. With the bottom now being a corner joint, that should give me a little more meat to weld the new inner skin to. I also found a rusty spot in the rocker and figured I'd go ahead and patch that while the rocker was open so I could get in behind and dolly it out.

Remembering to stop and take photos for this thread while also shooting video and actually building the car is just about more than my brain can handle! I'll get better. For now, here is a few photos.

Here is a 3/4" wide strip of 18 ga vice gripped to the inside of the lower rocker. I drilled a hole every 3 inches along the bottom side that I'll puddle weld and metal finish from the bottom side. Should make it easier to weld the corner joint on the new inner piece.


The rusty spot cut out


Started wire brushing away the rust on the inside of the rocker and ended up seeing daylight. Heres the piece I cut out to patch.


TIG welding the patch in place. This is my first time patching a body panel, and figured since I had the TIG welder I might as well dive right in!


Some grinding...some dolly work...some more grinding. According to the YouTube tutorial I watched I did it right...;)


I need to get a body hammer...but I have my dad's old dollies to work with.


The finished piece. It will need some body filler, but all in all it's alright.


Thanks for watching!

[Bradfords_garage]

Helloooooo again! Just a quick update on the falcon. First, Episode 2 is up on the YouTube's. Check it out HERE!

Second, have you seen the videos of InnovaSpeed's (sbeck09) Road Race F150?! He did a great job! Looks like a lot of fun to drive! He's posting videos on Instagram if you haven't seen them.

And finally, here are some photos. I ended up having to patch two spots on the rocker. Both spots were directly above the drain holes in the rocker which I find curious. I guess the salt was splashing up through them and inside the rocker.

I have the rocker all patched up, though. I ended up treating the rusty spots where there weren't holes with POR15 and then did a weld-thru primer over the hole inside of the rocker before putting the new piece of 16ga on the inside. It looks good. I still have to weld the bottom corner and finish it, but the spot welds are all done. I hung the door on it too to make sure the rocker didn't warp or anything and it still fits well, so thats a relief. Hopefully get going on the actual chassis in the next couple of weeks here.

The rear patch after I TIG welded it in.


Before tacking the bottom corner of the new inner panel I flipped the car over and set a level across the rockers to get it level, and checked the inner panel for plumb.


Door still fits..whew




Thanks for watchin!!

[chunger]

Nice progress! Keep it up!

[Chad-1stGen]

Good stuff. What are you using to take pictures? Some of the pics the in focus area is pretty small. For fabrication stuff I'd like to see more in focus. Just my opinion.

[Bradfords_garage]

Nice progress! Keep it up!

Thank ya!

Good stuff. What are you using to take pictures? Some of the pics the in focus area is pretty small. For fabrication stuff I'd like to see more in focus. Just my opinion.

Thanks, Chad. Funny you should mention that, I have noticed it too and just this last week I worked on finding better settings. (If you care or understand photo junk- I closed the aperture a bit for a less shallow depth-of-field and better definition.) The shallow depth of field is nice for dramatic effect, but not really doing the detail any favors here. I'm using both a 7D and a 5D MarkII, and 35mm f2.0 and 50mm f1.4 lenses.

I learned to use a camera while building guitars and shooting weddings with my wife, and for that work, almost exclusively at wide open aperture. But I'm finding with the lack of contrast and also the smaller details of the metal work the wide open aperture leaves much detail to be desired in the photos. I'm still working out how to shoot this stuff. The barn environment is (covered in foil with florescent lighting and concrete floors) very cold and is testing my limited photography skills trying to pull some warmth out of these photos! Totally different than my wood shop in that regard. I need to find some editing software for my computer, too. My wife is the real photographer, maybe she'll help me learn photoshop .

But thank you for the feedback, I appreciate it.

Brad

[chunger]

Thank ya!
. I'm using both a 7D and a 5D MarkII, and 35mm f2.0 and 50mm f1.4 lenses.
Brad

Nice bodies and real nice lenses!

[454bug]

Great project! Looking forward to your updates!

[Bradfords_garage]

Howdy folks! Heres the latest on the Falcon project. Thanks Chunger and 454bug for your recent comments and interest!

First off, here's a little sneak peek at the ride height. The track width will be 5" wider than this, so I still have to decide what route I'll take to widen the body.



I got the lower corner of the new rocker TIG'ed and finished. Came out really nice. These photos were taken before I started playing with camera settings so the detail is still lacking a bit. Bear with me.





I ground the corner to a radius with the roloc discs and then finished it off with a DA.


I took all of these measurements before cutting the car apart, but now that I could actually set a tube against the rocker I wanted to double check the length so my kick-ups would line up with the firewall.


Everything looked good, so I started cutting up some tubing, and got the outer rails and the turn-ins tacked onto the frame building table.


Just a few things in place, but I had to set the tire on there, just for kicks, really.


I'm heading out to pick up some more tubing today to make the front kick-ups, k member and rear cross beam. Should start looking like a car again pretty quick here.

Also- I posted this in the suspension section, but I'll ask it here as well- Is there any reason that the engine/trans and pinion can't be set level if their centerline's are the same height? I'm drafting it out and if I go with a dry sump I can get the engine low enough so the crank centerline will match the height of the pinion. Is some degree of tilt preferred? I've read everything I can find on the matter, and they all mention keeping the pinion angle parallel to the engine angle, but no information on whether or not they can just be in-line with each other if possible.

Thanks for watching!

Brad