Attachment 43662
This is an early view of how H-M set up the diffs, mainly for NASCAR, check out the oil cooling pump drive I think the pulley was fordson tractor.
Also the rear brake air ducts... and lowering blocks
Attachment 43662
This is an early view of how H-M set up the diffs, mainly for NASCAR, check out the oil cooling pump drive I think the pulley was fordson tractor.
Also the rear brake air ducts... and lowering blocks
I have decided not to use the steel doors, fenders, hood & Trunk
but instead opted to use all fiberglass panels as the Graham Hill car ran in the 1964 Monte Carlo Rallye (as did all 8 FIA cars entered)
I now have the Fiberglass hood, front fenders, doors and boot lid. I will be fitting up the panels over the next month and will post some more progress pic's soon.
The panels need a lot of work and will slow progress of the build to complete them and fit them correctly.
the doors will need functioning roll up windows. Most of the fiber panels will need reinforcing and many hours of extra work to get them to fit as they were in the day to be period correct. And then prep it all for paint.
Bodywork is by far the longest part of the build but so important to get it all done correctly as it will be all seen for a long time. So having a finished functional job that you can be proud of is the goal
Myself and Tony Roberts spent a few hours with Paul and his lovely wife Bibi couple of Saturdays ago, they made us most welcome and enjoy looking at Pauls Falcon build, his attention to detail is assume, we had much discussion about his build, FIA schedule K, Homologation papers and the difference between this, T&C and old NZ historic Saloons.
Paul has committed to building his Falcon to FIA and will obtain the correct HTP(Historic Technical Passport) as used in GB and Europe, with the help of the MSNZ Historic and Classic commission. I would one day luv to see a proper FIA schedule K only class for these old Saloons as it appears more are coming, but at least in the meantime HMC and HSC gives them somewhere to race. Dale Mathers
Thanks Dale and Tony for taking the time to come by. It was our pleasure to host you both and talk old cars with like minded people.
Thanks also to yourself and Tony for the support and everyone else that has contributed positive support. I have found it all very motivating.
Cheers to all.
Paul
I'll send you an email
Cheers
Now with all the lightweight fibreglass Hood, Doors, front fenders and trunk lid in the work shop, the big job of fitting and finishing it all begins. Fibreglass panels need an awful lot of work to fit correctly and usually some extra fibre glassing is needed to get it right. also some manufacturers use a type of rubberised type of mold release which is actually a type of alcohol based PVA and must be completely removed all over as a part of the prep work.
Then fitment begins, I have elected to use all of the OEM hinges & Bolts for , Hood, doors & Trunk lid also OEM bolts and fitment for Front fenders to meet the exact mounting placement as original.
As far as researching the Fibre panels for 1964 they were exact copies of the OEM steel parts. So I will continue down that path.
The finish of these parts was pretty good.
The Trunk lid was made almost identical to steel top and inner panel too
Attachment 44043
Attachment 44044
The hood and front fender, pre fit much work to do here
Attachment 44045
Attachment 44046
The doors are nicely made skins but inner frame is too flimsy and will need work
Attachment 44047
On page 3, post #51 the external cut off switch is posted and the plastic modern look just did not cut it for me. So I fabricated a new steel key and a rubber waterproof grommet and I think it looks much more period. I will need to get some red colour on this too.
Attachment 44048
Thats a really nice kit Paul.
Thanks Steve, the freight from the states was a killer but completely worth it.
I started fitting the fiberglass panels, the doors need a lot of work to mount the door handles, locks, latchs and hinges. As I will be using OEM parts to fit the fiber panels I needed to fabricate some door inside hinge mounts and reinforcing. I have modeled these on the exact parts that are in the OEM steel doors. These new steel parts will be fiberglass into the fiber doors. The 4 way adjustable part will be also fitted prior to fiberglass.
The top steel hinge panels for each door also provide reinforcing for the quarter windows which is much needed for these particular fiber doors. The lower steel protrusion On the (top pieces in picture) mounting point will also add to the strength of the mounting of lower quarter window mount bolt.
Attachment 44121
For fitting the handles I made a pattern using 2 reference points from the steel doors then fitted the pattern to the fibre panels for cutting out the door handle holes and lock holes
Attachment 44122
Then I cut out the holes using mainly a drill and grinding tip, because the fibre is a bit thicker around the handle area a small amount of extra material must be removed to fit the door handle successfully
Attachment 44123
The fibre doors will need a lot of tidy up work around the edges and seams after the initial fit. They are by far the most amount of work to fit correctly as they are simply fibre blanks and every mount hole must be created using reference patterns. I have elected to use wind up windows with 4.5mm Lexan replacing the glass. The OEM glass is too heavy for the fibre door structure.
The addition of the steel hinge reinforcing adds extra support structure to the door and I also wanted it for safety with these lightweight parts.
Outstanding work Paul, I can't wait to see this car in the flesh.
Thanks Steve,
I have a lot more time now to work on it so things will go a little quicker now.
Cheers
Looking really good Paul. Yes a huge amount of work to get the doors fitted out. We have a contact for Lexan if you have not got that sorted.
Cheers
Thanks Bruce
I have not got the Lexan sorted yet so a contact would be great, thanks very much for the prompt!. I think its 4.5mm for side and rear windows.
I have spent nearly 30 hours on the doors so far, estimate another 10-15 hours to finish fitting. Then the clean up and panel work, prime and paint prep.
Cheers
Fitting the fibre glass doors (once all the handles, latches and hinges are done) is not your usual job of getting the gaps right.
There will be a variation between the outside and inside moulds and where they are bonded together.
This in turn affects the rubber seal and door gaps.
With Fibre doors they need to be fitted with the door rubbers on (once you have done a prefit of the door shell, marked & drilled the hinge holes) and fitted from the inside first to ensure the rubber is fitting correctly all around the door. First I check the inside gaps are all even and factory. Then to test the fit I close the door with a sheet of paper in between, pull it to check tension. I do this all the way around. This will check the inside seal & weather tightness is correct.
Attachment 44268
Attachment 44269
Then it is down to gapping the door for the correct fit, sometimes this may involve extending some fibreglass to some edges to correct the gap or sanding some fiberglass to get the gaps right.
..... its a mission!
This is Lars Esselius's Falcon Sprint from Sweden, Lars is a specialist in building these cars.
I think this is his second sprint built
Attachment 44474
This car ran 2.03 around Sandfort in The Netherlands
Attachment 44475
Attachment 44476
Attachment 44477
The engine is 398bhp 289, very healthy for a flat tappet engine
Attachment 44478
The gearbox on this car is a toploader with alloy tail shaft & straight cut gears and not a T10 which was original
Attachment 44479
Graham Hill and Ian Walker teamed up in car 201. Graham Hills car carried more interior trim than some of the other cars. He had a few "offs" during the race. One story was he pulled off part of the left front fiberglass fender after they tried to pull out the front of the car with a rope tied to a tree after an "off" on part of a stage during the Monte Carlo Rallye.
This photo was taken at the end of the race, Ian Walker was standing so you could not see the damage of the front left fender which happened in a later stage.
Attachment 45253
The below picture was actually the Media car but carried Graham Hill's race number, a clone for writer reviews
Attachment 45080
If you look at the rear suspension front spring mount, this was much lower than stock, this was a reinforced plate front spring hanger and extra half spring fitted to minimise axle tramp.
Attachment 45081
I finally got to meet Paul last week and take a look at his Falcon Sprint build. As well as being a bloody nice guy, Paul is doing an incredible job with this car. This is going to set new standards for period correct historic tin top race cars in New Zealand. The attention to detail is just amazing, and everything is very well researched and thought out. Can't wait to see the finished product.
Thanks for your kind words Steve. It was great to meet up and "chew the auto grease". I really enjoyed having you visit.
I am still enjoying the build very much. I am chomping at the bit to get this finished, just the fibreglass and roll cage slowing me down, then its off to paint.
Hopefully will get up to HMC HSC next meet, I think in October.
Cheers
So much work has been done to get the fiberglass panels fitted correctly and looking good. The hood is finally fitted & finished and the old school hood pins are fitted as it looked in 1964.
Attachment 45386
The trunk lid is also fitted and finished with the OEM lock and latch, I may fit some stays to the trunk to secure better.
Attachment 45387
The doors are still a work in progress as I want them fitting correctly. I have had to do much reworking of these parts so they will fit and also I want the roll up windows and quarter windows fitting correctly and functioning - more pics to come soon
Reproduction parts>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Well, where would we be without these parts. We are so very fortunate to have many aftermarket companies manufacturing and suppling these parts to keep these old gems functioning and looking schmecco.
BUT, caution, with some aftermarket reproduction parts, while doing my steering I found the cheaper reproduction inner & outer tie rods are not the same specification as the more heavy duty OEM Inner tie rods
The left is a cheaper repro' sold with the V8 part number but 9/16 nut and look at the lower ball joint shaft taper
The right is the V8 OEM product 11/16 nut. They both fit... but.
Attachment 45388
There are other companies making high spec' repro' steering parts, the same as OEM, but they are 3 times the price of the cheaper parts, but well worth it
Watch & caution for cheaper steering parts that are around US$30
Also the toe adjuster sleeves:
The top one is the OEM with 9/16 UNF nut & bolt
The lower one is the cheaper Repro part with 10mm Metric nut & bolt the steel clamp shell is 1mm lighter than OEM and the sleeve is near 1mm thinner than OEM. These sell around US$10
Attachment 45389
The issue here is some of these repro' parts are not as the original manufacturer has designed and I will not be using these parts on my build.
Also watch for rear spring hangers, there are some light weight examples out there too. In most cases it is best to restore the OEM part if possible.
Of the hundreds of part I have purchased, only a very small percentage I have found to be like this.
So I still rate these companies, on the whole, really helpful.
I wrote a small report on Pauls Falcon plus a brief history on these cars and their popularity in European historic racing in the latest NZ Classic Car mag, which hits the shelves on Monday.
Attachment 45498
Thanks for penning another great article Steve!
A perfect overview of Appendix K Group 2 & Group 5 and how this fits within HSC/HMC. You are right, the Falcon will likely not be a front running car built to Appendix K Group 2. I am sure the Escorts and the like will fly past me in the corners as the Falcon takes on an angular state with the 5.5inch rims.
But that's all part of the fun!
Cheers
Yeah you are right Paul. But remember, your car is being built to a set of 1964 regulations, whereas many of the cars you're racing against will have the best part of ten years on you in terms of technology and the freedoms the rules will allow.
The most important thing is that you're building a correct car, that you'll have a heap of fun, and that no matter where you are in the field there will always be someone to race against.
Well I just got sick of fiberglass panels! So I took a break and proceeded with the final pre-fit of the front bumper & grill etc. The grill was re-anodised in USA and the bumpers were from the states, triple plated.
I may look at some aluminium bumpers also a bit later on. For the moment I will concentrate on getting the panel work finished and roll cage finished. Always looks better with the shiny bling bits.
Attachment 45748
Looking good Paul.
Thanks very much Rhys,
While looking for parts (as you do when there is nothing on TV worth watching, so that means every day) I found some Lucas 576 spot lights just to keep the outside looking like the 1964 Graham Hill car #201. I had a good 1964 pic' of the Spot light mounts so I fabricated some today to accept the lucas spotlights, I need to still paint the mounts black.
Picture of #201 Graham Hill & Ian Walker car.. (if you look into the car you car see it was running full interior trim)
Attachment 45797
Pic of Lucas 576 spot lights fitted.
Attachment 45798
I also fitted some stainless mesh to the headlights
Attachment 45799
While I have been avoiding my fiberglass panels I have been also finishing the rear brake set up and fitting the correct 9 inch Galaxie diff with a LSD third member. These were the locker type diffs and worked very well for years.
The rear brake set ups that Holman Moody used on cars they built for endurance such as Nascar and the Monte Carlo Rallye all had a lot of reworking for air cooling and ducts as below -Attachment 46092
So I got to work fabricating, working with steel and aluminium (is what I prefer) and finished the air ducts - (You can see the cooling holes through the mesh)
Attachment 46093
So then the air is directed into the hub via a myriad of holes at the front of the back plate. The air circulates and is released via a similar hole pattern at the rear of the backing plate. I found a pattern of the original 11inch drum back plates and used that as a copy to get this correct
Attachment 46094
The Monte Carlo Rallye Falcons also had rear 9 pad brake shoes on each side to allow the air to disperse around and cool the brake parts, it all works as a complete system and very well designed by Holman Moody. I am getting the special 9 pad shoes done and will post up progress when I pick up the parts. This is a pic' of the front brakes of a NASCAR Galaxie, same system was used on the rear.
Attachment 46095
Cool work Paul.
Thanks Bruce,
It takes about as much time to research the period correct way to do this stuff as what it takes to fabricate it.
But that's what I like.
I can't find any detail on the brake drums, I know with this system H-M had very small holes drilled on the perimeter of the drums. But without the research confirmation I will be leaving the drums stock for the meantime.
Drilling brake drums was common back then- once the heat problem went, drums were still very good- look at Norm Beecehey.
Thanks John & Steve, I just wanted to get some factual confirmation that this was correct for my car. I just needed to dig further to confirm. This is a picture (from Tangerine Crusher Galaxie) of the rest of the H-M period brake drum cooling system I just found.
Attachment 46146
Also Paul, in the 70s Brian Crosbie won a race series in the South Island- see thread....Is this Firebird still around- it had drum brakes front and rear
Did the job against Ernies GTHO and others.
I did not know that the Brian Crosbie Firebird had drums all round. Pretty impressive against the other disc brake cars of the day.
I had a 1958 ford custom 300 (gold flash) with drum brakes all round and I fitted an inline booster and the brakes were fantastic in that car. It had a big block bored to around 6.7L . It hauled, with 2 truckloads of torque!
The Falcon sprint (Monte Carlo rally cars only) had Kelsey Hays 4 pot disc brakes on the front with an in-line brake booster. It even had a dual circuit brake system. These disc brakes were essentially the same as what the 1965 Thunderbirds came out with.
Not forgetting of course, George Sheweiry with drums front and rear on his big Mercury Comet.
He ran pre-65 and also beat Dale -all discs Mustang - home at Hampton Downs a few years ago.
I can pm his email if you want
Thanks John, that would be great, I really like Comets, particularly the Comet AFX 427 big blocks.
I will be approaching car set up very soon. I think I have most of it worked out but its always different in practice. I do want to keep within how Holman Moody built the car so I have a few limitations such as, I cant use the Shelby drop as far as I am aware this did not come until later, 1965 I think?
done- hope it all works.
Shelby drop came later I was told , just check as to when Shelby Mustangs came into production