The Last Post

The one hundredth post and it's the last one. Coincidence or clever planning? Who knows?

The Galaxie is finished, from this



To this,

in 100 posts and 22 months.

She is on the road and it won't be long before I get a ticket. I just can't stop blowing past nasty euro boxes at 80mph whilst showing off my 63 tags, a proud piece of American history and engineering.

Was it worth it? You bet your sweet ass it was.

Peace out,

David

Sunvisors et al.

During the course of the last 20 months Gene has donated many many parts for the Galaxie and in addition countless nuts, bolts and screws. I am (and will always be) truly grateful. Of course having so many parts around, occasionally they get a little mixed up and the faithful reader will doubtless recall the tragedy with the front bumpers. The faithful reader will also recall the struggle I had with the sunvisor brackets. Now lest you think that I am an ungrateful, whining misery let me once again praise Gene for giving me a set of brackets to replace my missing ones and then point out that the bracket he gave me bore no relation to 1963 Galaxie brackets. Once I realized this (by looking at Gene's car) I was able to swap them out with another set from Gene's stock and then find the mounting holes. After that the job was a doddle.

Check out the cool mirror, the dice and how flat the roof liner is. I also fitted the new glove box,

I know it is only a glove box but look it now contains my registration and insurance.

I also fitted the steering wheel center.

That was about it apart from visiting the man who is going to fit the exhaust system. Whilst he has the car he will give it to his old school tuning man who will adjust the timing and carburation. All of this will be done during the week so hopefully next Saturday I will bring her home and the following Saturday our first cruise in.

On the road.

As you can see I had a successful trip to the DMV on Friday and got my 1963 tags assigned to the Galaxie. There were a few jobs to do on Saturday but the main task was to wash off about an inch of pollen.

The only outstanding real job is to get the exhaust system fitted and the rest is just fine tuning.

The timing and carburation probably need a tweak but I suspect that having the exhaust fitted
will change the set up so that can wait.

So with some sense of trepidation I gave her a shake down run around the back lanes of Henry. I had to get gas and I knew that there was a roadside store that sold premium.

As I was gassing up a local wandered over and said "Got yourself a real slick ride there man".

That made the last two years all worth while.

Nearly on the road

Well I thought that installing the rest of the interior was going to be a bear but as is often the case jobs that one views with trepidation turn out to be a cinch. As you an see I trimmed out the carpet and fitted the sill plates. I got the kick panels in, trimmed out the doors and got the window winders on (not the easiest task in the world Mr. Ford). The only slight disappointment was that not only could I not fit the sun visor brackets, I could not even find the screw holes! Oh well they must be there. Now here is the scary part, I think that I am ready to put her on the road. This week I will get some insurance and then a trip to the DMV to put the plates on and we are legal.

Outstanding tasks ;

Wire up the spotlight
Fix radio
Fix clock
Fit bumper guards
Install exhaust pipes
Repair broken wire on overdrive unit.

Then drive around town to the admiring gazes of my fellow man, and woman.

Another giant leap.

After waiting about 6 months the spot light guy turned up out of the blue and installed the spotlight. The guys that know say that a Galaxie is dressed up when it has a spotlight and bumper guards, now I am halfway there. Actually I should just mention that as a result of some dealing I now have a complete set of bumper guards and they will be installed once I have finished the interior.

Now talking about the interior I have made some huge progress. The carpet is in (although not trimmed out). The back is complete and the front seat is in. Finally I can drive it without falling over backwards. I still have another days work to complete the interior but I was pretty happy with the progress I made. I still have to trim the carpet (I don't quite understand why having spent all that money the carpet was not made to measure but whatever). The rear courtesy lenses need fitting as does the sill plates. I have no idea how I will find the screw holes for the accelerator pedal which are hidden by the carpet and I will have to cut a huge hole in the carpet for the headlamp dimmer switch. Next week I am going to murder some clay pigeons but I will try to do some more work during the week. In the meantime enjoy the pictures.

The Brakes

Here is another tale from the stupid mistakes department.

For some time I have been suffering from a strange syndrome with the Galaxie brakes. It seems like the brakes would start to bind and then get worse and worse until the wheels were just locked up. The last time I worked on the car it took all of the engine's 300 hp just to move her back into the garage. My task for last Saturday, therefore, was to fix the brakes. Now logic dictates that if all the wheels are locked the common denominator has to be the master cylinder so I removed the one from the Thunderbird and for the Galaxie to compare and exchange them. As soon as I looked at the Galaxie cylinder I realised what the problem was. A new cylinder has plastic plugs to keep dust out and I had overlooked to remove the plug for the brake rod. So the rod was pushing on the plug and the plug was pushing on the piston. The plug however was preventing the piston from retracting. Remove the plug and the brakes worked fine. All in all it took about 15 minutes. Of course I had expected it to take all day so I didn't bring any of the interior parts needed. With nothing else to do I was home by midday.

Another big leap forward

On Monday, here in Virginia, we had a blizzard, on Saturday we had 75 degrees and let me tell you after 2 months of doing squat it was mighty good to be working in the sunshine. So today's task was to trim out the headliner, fit the sailboards and put in the rear parcel shelf. (Actually I am not sure that you colonials call it a parcel shelf but it is the piece between the rear seat and the rear window). As the faithful reader will recall due to a cock up by Dearbourne Classics I ended up with a surplus of sailboard material and this I used to cover the parcel shelf and let me tell you that it looks damned sharp. Now back to the story.

I had anticipated that this was not going to be easy (nothing is for team Galaxie) and sure enough the first hour was spent in a rage of frustration, tears and Lord's name taking of in vain. After all of this I had achieved.

One piece of trim and five screws! Then I worked out for myself Gene told me that if you used a ice pick you could not only find the screw holes which are all hidden behind the cloth but you could also use the pick as a lever to align the trim to the holes. After that everything went swimmingly. Of course I was still at it all day but I was now singing a happy little song in the sun.

Here is the sailboard and parcel shelf installed and the rear window trimmed out.

and here is the front quarter. Lest you are worried the gap at the top is where the sun visor bracket screw in. There are a few wrinkles that I couldn't get out but you know I don't care. I shall hold my head up high and tell people that no professional restorer touched my car.

So next week (unless we have another blizzard I shall install the courtesy lamps and the sun visors, then rear panels and the rear seats. Maybe if time permits the carpet and the door panels. It is sure good to be working again. Now if you will excuse me I am off to sing a little John Denver number. Sunshine on my shoulders make me happy (yes it does).