Lavron's '64 Build Thread

[poboyjo65]

Made an appointment to take the Comet back to the muffler shop next Friday and get the header hooked up.

Made a few visits around town with it in tow for a few of the people who had asked to see it, the Ford dealership was the biggest crowd, several "That was not what I was expecting to see" when they looked in the engine bay. Fired her up and the owner of the dealership asked me how much of the engine was original, I told him the block and the crank

I decided to just leave the car on the trailer this next week so while it was up there I decided to finally get the rear panel that sits behind the bumper wire brushed and painted, I was not able to do it with the rest of the bottom of the car because the tip over jig was blocking it.



It was pretty crusty and pitted but not going to do anymore to it, can't see it anyway, it is still pretty sound just not too pretty

See Ya,
Mike

I glad you fixed that, now fix it on your sigpic! (which is looking good BTW!) that was one of the things on mine I didnt fix until later , it stared at me for months! so a day or 2 ago I noticed yours was still rusty too! I bet it stared at you in town so when you got home it was the first thing you wanted to do. it always feels good to get one more area of rusty metal back smooth & coated, dont it?

[lavron]

I noticed yours was still rusty too! I bet it stared at you in town so when you got home it was the first thing you wanted to do. it always feels good to get one more area of rusty metal back smooth & coated, dont it?

It has been bugging me for a while It was the last spot on the car that had not been touched.

I was wanting to adjust those brakes and my chair was right behind the trailer so I sat down and was looking at it and thought that the rear panel was easy to get too with up there, I was able to sit in the chair and roll back and forth doing repairs, better than laying on the creeper doing it

I need to find the bolts/clips that hold the rear trim on or get new ones if I could remember what they looked like so I can get it polished and painted and slapped back on there.

See Ya,
Mike

[lavron]

My wife has asked for a ride in the Comet at least twice now

I told her next week when it comes off the trailer and hopefully has an exhaust system I will give her a ride around the yard

She did say she probably couldn't drive the car because before (20+ years ago) when she drove it the clutch was too hard to push, I told it had an easy to push clutch now but she was right, it is a man's car

On those rear trim mounts, I have a bunch of these plastic nuts and I think they are what holds the trim on there and the stuff like the letters.



Just not sure what the other side looks like and how it clips to the rear panel trim parts.

Here is a picture from eBay showing the back with one nut in place but still can't tell what the nut is mounted too.



So they have to attach to those slots somehow, and not fall out as you try and put the trim in place

See Ya,
Mike

[loman]

Mike, Keep up the good work. Whenever I get mine roadworthy again, maybe we can have impromptu Missouri gathering someday halfway between us.

[lavron]

Mike, Keep up the good work. Whenever I get mine roadworthy again, maybe we can have impromptu Missouri gathering someday halfway between us.

We could not too far with us both going toward the center, not sure how far from Lake of the Ozarks, Jeff City, or even Mexico MO you are (those were just off the top of my head Columbia is somewhere in that mix as well) I will need to plan a few shorter trips as I work out my bugs in the months coming up. We used to travel every Labor Day up to my wife's brother and stay a few days but that is way up there (Palmyra), my wife is from Quincy IL.

See Ya,
Mike

[lavron]

I painted my rear trim and temporarily bolted it back on the car, I just used some long thin carriage bolts I had in the drawer they will work ok for now.



I tweaked the fuel filler door a little more and I think the left taillight is a little crooked but I didn't feel like loosening it and straightening it back up, it is missing most of its studs anyway and I need to take some off my other set of taillights, also the fuel door rubber bumpers were hard and flattened out so I went out and took the glove box door bumpers off the parts car, they at least have a little squishiness to them, I will order some new ones sometime when I am getting other things.

See Ya,
Mike

[SASSY]

Neat treatment of the filler panels!
Fred

[lavron]

Neat treatment of the filler panels!
Fred

Trying to give them the same flavor as the grill the black part is lightly painted with bed liner to give it texture and then flat black over the top of that because the bed liner has the tendency to fade in the sun in my experience.

I did not worry too much about polishing the aluminum or straightening a couple of bobbles in it, I kinda want to go for the not too perfect worn look, well, mostly because then I would have to spend all kinds of money having the bumpers straightened and re-chromed etc.

See Ya,
Mike

[lavron]

Started getting the gauges mounted in the cluster, thought it would be better in the dash than bouncing around on top of the dash



I have more to do but this will do for now, will get them hooked back up and screwed into the dash tomorrow hopefully.

See Ya,
Mike

[Jims65cyclone]

What gauges are you using?

Jim

[lavron]

What gauges are you using?

The Oil Pressure, Volt & Water Temp are a 3 gauge console by AutoMeter 2398 and the matching Fuel Level 2315, all are 2 5/8" and fit exactly where the original gauges were, of course, I had to hack up the back of the cluster but it is a spare one I had that I bought for the purpose of modifying. The speedometer is the one I set the OD to zero but I need to make a new face for it because it has some glue or sap on the face and I don't think I clean it off without damaging it, I also need to find the lens for the cluster not sure where I put it

I didn't put the speedo in yet because of the issues mentioned and my cable is not long enough to reach anyway.

The only gauge I don't like is the water temp (oil and water are manual) because I can't remove the cluster because you can't separate the line from the temp gauge, not that I remove my instrument cluster very often but would consider replacing it with an electric one.

I also swapped my voltmeter and water temp around so the two full sweep gauges would be either side the speedometer (not that it ever had a voltmeter).

See Ya,
Mike

[lavron]

The lens for the cluster continues to elude me

I got the gauges temporarily mounted in the dash however, my only concern so far is the wiper switch seems to maybe be interfering with the oil pressure gauge, I might be able to reclock the wiper switch around to make more room.



It looks like it sits a bit crooked in the opening but I think it is an optical illusion (I hope) I started the car up and made sure everything still worked after stuffing it in there. I also temporarily mounted turn signal LEDs and need to make some sort of patches to make the rectangular holes round, maybe welding them closed and re-drilling a round hole there?

I really don't want to buy any parts to repair this, like the speedo face and the missing lens so I might just take the original cluster apart and use parts of it, there is really no reason to keep it around, I mainly bought the second one to modify and then if I totally screwed it up I could fall back to my original but it looks like this one is going to work fine so I may as well just use the old one for parts.

See Ya,
Mike

[SASSY]

I'm sure i have a lense i could part with if you need it. Im interested in what you come up with for a dash as you probably know there isn't much on Sassy I won't hack up,, lol
Fred

[lavron]

I'm sure i have a lense i could part with if you need it

Thanks, Fred I will let you know but I hopefully can not mess up anything on the original

The exhaust is hooked up and I made a quick trip up the block and back at the muffler shop, I got to shift up to third so if I keep adding gears I will eventually make it through all 5

I can hear a little lifter tap near the front of the engine now so I will get it up to temp sometime and re-check the valve lash.

I am having trouble with it not running very long now, will try and troubleshoot that, it acts like it is running out of fuel, it could be the dodgy connector on the fuel pump and I have some new connectors to replace them already.

See Ya,
Mike

[lavron]

Isn't this a cool thing?



Followed up a lead JohnO sent me and picked up this NOS I6 emblem, now I will have to figure out where to use it The guy I got it from said he has a barn full late 40s early 50s Mercury stuff so if anyone needs anything I can get you some contact info.

Just a shot of the tight clearance on the exhaust to the starter flange. You can see a little daylight coming through



I went through and pulled the bolts back out on the exhaust flanges and stuck the spring on them and some lock washers, not sure if the spring will do anything but I had them so I used them.

Messed with the timing and idle speed and mixture today, having a bit trouble keeping it running unless I advance the timing a bit, still need to adjust the valves so I guess I will wait to try and tune anymore until I get that done.

See Ya,
Mike