1970 Torino And Fairlane Builds

Well today was very productive. Got the Windsor/c6 removed from the Bull nose, got it all degreased and pressure washed, and painted Torino the engine bay. There’s rain in the forecast tomorrow so I doubt I’ll get the engine taped and painted. Let alone get the oil Pan swapped. But it’s progress. Need to get some other gaskets ordered and find some nice looking aftermarket valve covers. But the Windsor should be dropping it in next weekend. Then it’ll be a month of fiddling with getting the later year 351 to work with the older Torino. Things like trans linkage, driveline and throttle linkage to name a few just seem to soak up time.

 

Also Jeff drove the white Fairlane up today. He ordered a new Holley street warrior 600 for his 302 and it was running really well. I don’t know what happened to the old 600 but it was becoming a real pain. I’m glad he pulled the trigger on that. And the new rear valance and very nice rear bumper are ready to install as soon as this Chevy truck paint work is done.

 

Well we ended up with a few wet days. So I worked on a few other little projects but got back to the Torino today. The new oil dipstick came in so I drilled the timing cover for the front sump dipstick and installed it. I also got the new front sump pan and pickup installed along with a really cool Ford Racing one piece pan gasket that’s very similar to the lube locker gaskets. I also got some accessory brackets, exhaust manifolds and starter removed and the engine painted. I can’t begin to say how much more I love that Ford blue vs the old Seahawk green.
I have another set of stock valve covers and while they’re pretty punky, they’re baffled under the breather and pcv so you’re not picking up a bunch of slinging oil like the present Mickey Thompson covers. I’ll probably try to find some that are a bit nicer, paint and install those.

 

Tonight was productive. Got the car spun around and facing its new heart. But first the old fmx had to come out which was easy enough. I took a quick moment assess the undercarriage general condition before again violating my parking apron with atf for the second time this week. It actually looks pretty decent, aside from the floor rust from above. Lots of surface rust on suspension components but that undercoating has held up pretty well thus protecting the underside nicely.
Also I measured off the fmx vs the c6 with a suspicion. And it was correct. The rough measurement bell to output shaft end on both is 34”. And since the c6 and fmx share the same driveshaft yolk, I’m actually pretty hopeful the Torinos stock driveshaft will bolt back up!
Otherwise I put another coat of paint on the Windsor and spent a bunch of time getting that crappy Chinese hei out of its distributor hole. I figured if it wouldn’t turn it’s better to deal with now then later. Well it was locked in its hole despite heat and pb blaster over the last week. Think I’ll order a summit version of the billet ready to run distributor and an msd blaster coil. I really liked that distributor when it was on the f100’s Cleveland.
Lastly, here’s a shot of the Windsor in its most current form with a stunning peak a boo sunset view through the cedar tree backdrop. As usual pictures never do it justice.

 

Here’s the glory shots.

The engine and trans are in and bolted up. The driveline installed perfectly and although the driver side engine mount fought us we prevailed. At this point it’s time to enjoy a few daddy sodas and enjoy the fact that the car is nearly sitting level for the first time in about 3 decades. There are a few issues already though. The big one being there’s no boss in the block to bolt the column shift linkage pivot stud. So I’ll either have to build something for that or install a floor shifter. Eh, something else to contemplate.

 

Well today I was all over the place with a dump run, yard work and selling a truck bed, but got that marketplace 9” mostly apart. Thankfully the fluid was all oil and none of the water I suspected was present. So I got it all degreased , pressure washed and painted. I also got the driveline removed and the surface rust knocked down with a wire wheel and it’s painted as well. Then I got the old 8” removed. The thought is I need to get brake work done before the hood goes back on. I know we have nice, used 1 year, master power cylinder and small booster I intend to install. We also have the rebuilt rear drum backing plates also removed from Anna’s Falcon at the same time, complete with very functional long hoop e brake cables and decent drums. That’ll all go in tomorrow.
Lastly the valve cover paint came in and I absolutely love the color. It’s different for sure but the contrast with the other engine colors blows my shirt up.
One other note. These u joint caps came off of the drive shaft on the axle end when I removed it the other night. No sign of a needle bearing. I had a few other caps from my used parts stash but this is impressive. You always wonder why the car got parked to begin with. This very well could be the reason.

 

Cool color valve covers and a nice contrast. The Torino is my favorite. . I have a friend, an older guy who had a speed shop. He built motors for liquor and decoy cars years ago. He builds big Ford motors for a hobby now. I was over there yesterday morning, He had a newly built 390 on the engine stand for his GT 500. Open headers. Started it up to show me and wake the neighbors!

 

Any 9” you work on look for cracks in the support boss on that 3rd support bearing area (pilot). Last 9” I built we went through 3 carriers before we found one that wasn’t cracked. Other thing is while you have the carrier (pumpkin if you will) out take a Unibit and drill a hole low down on the side, weld in a bung and plug, and a short piece of tube around it to protect it. This way you have a freaking drain to change the lube. One of the things I hate about the 9” is no oil drain. Even Toyota figured it out.

 

I couldn’t agree more with the drain plug issue. Good call.
And you’re also totally right about the carriers. They’re not all created equal. I’ll have a close look since this is nether a nodular nor a war case.

 

On the docket today was to get the painted 9” into place where the 8” previously resided. I got that done. But didn’t get to installing the new old drums. Jeff drove the Fairlane up to finish painting the Chevy truck, so while it was here I got the crunched rear valance and bent bumper replaced with a valance Jeff had straightened and painted and a nice bumper I’d polished up last month. It wasn’t the funnest job I’ve done lately but far from the worst. And the finished product really cleaned up the rear and. Of course I didn’t get any before pictures but there’s probably previous pictures in this thread showing the damage.

 

Last night i got the drums I’d removed from Anna’s Falcon installed on this 9”. The bonus here is larger drums and pads for hopefully improved braking. The axle shafts are back in for now although I’ll need to drive out the wheels studs and install new ones. And I’ll probably install new wheel bearings and seals at some point before she’s on the road. The spring pads are wire wheeled and painted and u bolts will be here tomorrow. Unfortunately I’ll be out of town for a few days so the Torino will probably see very little action before Sunday.

 

The axle is installed. That didn’t go super smoothly of course but not bad. Had to swap to a short yolk so the driveshaft would fit. Then swap out to a spare axle shaft because the broken wheel studs stumps were not coming out. Anyway it’s all installed, axle brake lines swapped and e brake cable is installed.
At this point I worked on the driver side of the engine compartment from the bottom up using lessons learned from Jeff’s Fairlane. I built a janky but functional shifter pivot bracket, then began fitting the exhaust down pipe off of the exhaust manifold and got that welded up and mounted. Preeinstalling the donut and Everything should make building the rest of the exhaust much easier. Lastly got the new/old master power booster and master cylinder from Anna’s Falcon swapped in. Both brake lines twisted so I’ll need to build those.
Tomorrow I’ll probably work on those two lines, then move to the other side. I need to modify one of the trans cooler lines and get those run. Then I can get the downpipe built on the bench and the passenger manifold will be ready to install. The goal is to get the hood reinstalled sooner than later. I need to get the k5 in the barn to finish the body work so the Torino has so move back outside.

 

The exhaust manifolds with down pipes are installed. The master cylinder is bench bled plumbed with new lines to the combination valve. And made some lower radiator drop mount brackets for the radiator so the upper mounts can be closer to flush mount and the hood can close. I still have the original lower brackets for later on when I buy an actual Torino radiator. The lower brackets are super simple. 3/16” steel bent with a couple of 90’s and drilled to bolt into the original locations. And I used the rubber isolators from the bull nose. It looks like I’ll even be able to cut down the hoses and use those.
I did get trans cooler lines done and installed this morning. I had to remove the starter to snake them between the motor mount and crossmember. This after cutting the far end, reflaring and bending because those were for the fmx and the c6 rear cooler port is in a very different location. Otherwise everything looks really good actually. Tomorrow I’ll pull it all apart and do some finalizing, paint those lower brackets and reassemble hopefully for the last time.
Also the carb, pulleys and fan are installed. And Jeff was here helping today so we threw the hood back on since the tough to reach with the hood on stuff was already dealt with.
Here’s some pictures. It’s starting to look like a car, and the nose is slowly approaching level.

 

She’s super close to firing and moving. I picked up a bunch of stuff today. Unfortunately it was all wrong. I ended up cutting 1/2” from the long driver side exhaust manifold stainless bolts to wrap that up. Added a few quarts of trans fluid and 5 quarts of Valvoline vr1 to prepare. And got the engine turned over to tdc and installed the new ready to run summit distributor. I tried to install the new plugs and wires but the plugs were completely wrong so I’ll have to wait on that.
So after A few buddies stopped by earlier I fired up the little welder and filled the canvas top perimeter holes and the 9mm bullet hole in the roof.
Also the ready to run summit distributor showed up yesterday so got that in. And got the radiator mounts finalized the other night. Still need to find a solution for the upper trans cooler line. And repair the mediator section of line at the rear of the trans. And about a million other things. But here’s some pictures.
As you can see she’s sitting level by the day.

 

The Torino fired up for the first time in nearly 30 years! I found an old msd blaster coil in my electrical junk drawer and I’ll be darned, it worked. The timing was way off and the throttle was bound up with the kick-down linkage so it immediately revved to the moon when it came alive. Got that sorted and tested the gears. They’re all there. I only ran it for a few seconds because I still haven’t figured out the alternator bracket to be able to run the fan belt and water pump.
Also the new valve cover bolts came in so I’ll start working on cutting those down and swapping them on. And I’m comfortable now with beginning work on the rest of the fuel system. I’m hoping I can clean and coat the original fuel tank and use that. Then there’s at least one section of fuel hard line that needs rebuilt. And of course brake hoses are coming in Thursday so I can work on swapping on the new disc brake spindles this weekend. Once the brakes work and the alternator is in I’ll be able to move it about under it’s own power, running on a fuel can of course, which will be hugely helpful.

 

Disc brakes are installed on the front. For now anyway. They’ll come apart some time later on for rotor turning, pads and caliper rebuilds. But for now I just need it to move around the property. The fittings from soft to hard lines are broke loose as well and really only needed a little bit of fire. Tomorrow I’ll get the hoses installed and should be able to start brake bleeding.
I also picked up a bucket of pulleys from fil Jeff. I tried a number of different pulley and alternator brackets but nothing was even close. The issue is on power steering cars, Ford ran the water pump/fan pulley from the crank and power steering. The alternator only runs from the crank. So I think in the bucket there’s a combo of pulleys to run both. Of course I’ll install power steering at some point but again, not a priority at this point. At that point I’ll get to revisit this stuff all over again, hahaha.

 

Wow the last few days have been a battle. Since the car was on Jack stands already I opted to work on brakes so as not to mangle the already mangled grill further having to lean on it. I got the front brake hoses installed which was a battle itself. The hard line fittings were the wrong size and the adapter I had made the rubber hose stretch more than I’d like. So I re reflared the factory hard lines with smaller fittings. Then the passenger side fittings didn’t fit on the caliper and needed grinding. After all that went to bleed the system and it’s drawing air from somewhere. Maybe the used master cylinder? Or the old calipers? Haha who knows but I’ll sort out out.
I moved onto the water pump and alternator setup. After trying about 50 different combos I landed at the original pulleys and went about just modifying the Amazon brackets. I had to build a pivot bracket that mounts to the head. Nothing fancy. Just flat bar and a nut welded on to thread the pivot bolt in. Tomorrow I’ll mess with another adjustment bracket and probably end up needing to modify it. But it’s close!

 

Well here’s a few updates. The water pump is functional and the cooling system does not leak. I finished up the alternator lower bracket this morning. It needs a shorter belt but it works and fits nicely. Part of the challenge was setting the alternator up so there’s still room to mount down the oil dipstick hold down. All that’s accomplished. Nowto take it all apart and finish welding that pivot bracket and paint them.
Out of curiosity I pulled the fuel tank to see what was going on in there, expecting the worst of course. Well I’ll be darned. After adding some paint thinner and sloshing it around with the existing old gas, it’s spotless inside despite is gruff exterior. I have no idea how that didn’t rust over the years in there. Even the sending unit is in good shape. The sock is solid and the gauge ohms out like it should. I have the rubber seal in the freezer shrinking it up for reinstallation. Then paint it and put it back in. Is crazy because the fuel line is rotted out. So that’ll need redone. But this saves me close to $400 not having to replace the tank and sender. And it’s that much closer to running without the jug.

 

And another thing is crossed off the list. The fuel system is complete and functional. Got the fuel tank painted and reinstalled. There’s new fuel vent hoses installed in the trunk. The fuel lines are cleaned with carb clean and compressed air from both directions. And all new rubber hoses and a filter are installed. The filter is temporary. Once I get some miles on her and if this filter stays reasonably clean I’ll change to a metal one. But during the shakedown phase it’s nice to identify issues when you can see the what’s going on with the fuel system.
Otherwise it’s been knocking a bunch of little things off the list. Painting and welding the alternator pivot bracket, redoing the distributor shifting everyone over one so the vacuum advance is out of the thermostat housings way. Install coil bracket. Cut down and install the new valve cover bolts. Finish wiring the ignition properly.
After all that I fired it up and let it run for about twenty minutes. So far the filter is staying clean and no leaks at all. This is highly unusual for a John vehicle but I’m happy with that. I think the next step that I’m procrastinating is pulling the dash and changing that harness. Id like to check gauges and start and stop it from the cab. That would be ideal, hahaha. That and I’m still looking for the throttle cable and bracket we removed from Anna’s Falcon. Otherwise I’ll have to get creative again.

 

Good progress!