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.