Guest Julian Posted February 24, 2011 Share Posted February 24, 2011 Well I got the 63 Galaxie 4 dr home yesterday and i must say, that if this car had a title it would be a pretty nice car. It is all original and complete. The fenders and qtrs are not rusted out, bumpers are straight as well as all the front end grill parts. The back seat is in very good condition with no tears. The front seat has a common tear in the seam where some piping goes. The man says that the radio still works etc. very interesting car. 352 2bbl 3 speed.. AND even the steering wheel is not cracked or broken. Car was/is originally a marron color, white painted top and black vinyl interior. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Jim_Edwards Posted February 24, 2011 Share Posted February 24, 2011 Well I got the 63 Galaxie 4 dr home yesterday and i must say, that if this car had a title it would be a pretty nice car. It is all original and complete. The fenders and qtrs are not rusted out, bumpers are straight as well as all the front end grill parts. The back seat is in very good condition with no tears. The front seat has a common tear in the seam where some piping goes. The man says that the radio still works etc. very interesting car. 352 2bbl 3 speed.. AND even the steering wheel is not cracked or broken. Car was/is originally a marron color, white painted top and black vinyl interior.Sounds like that car would be worth going through the trouble of getting a title for it, in spite of North Carolina being a total pain when it comes to that sort of thing. (one of the worst titling/registration experiences I have ever experienced was going through all the crap to get a temp plate to drive a car out of North Carolina.)Jim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Julian Posted February 24, 2011 Share Posted February 24, 2011 (one of the worst titling/registration experiences I have ever experienced was going through all the crap to get a temp plate to drive a car out of North Carolina.) you would have been better off sticking a plate on it go on your way .. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Jim_Edwards Posted February 24, 2011 Share Posted February 24, 2011 (one of the worst titling/registration experiences I have ever experienced was going through all the crap to get a temp plate to drive a car out of North Carolina.) you would have been better off sticking a plate on it go on your way ..I'd have been better off trailering the car, which turned out to be barely roadworthy, which made for over 1000 miles of wondering if I was going to get home in one piece. That was in my just getting into the hobby many years ago and one of those learning experiences that lead me to understand you can't take the word of any seller of an old car for anything having to do with condition regardless of who they might be. Might not even trust myself..Jim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Julian Posted February 28, 2011 Share Posted February 28, 2011 (edited) Started messin with the 63 over the weekend.. Thats the first time since I was in my teens that I stared down at a Ford engine for any lenght of time. I forgot how broad in the shoulders that 352 is. Someone has been messin with it quite a bit. The fuel pump is stopped up (some kind of black goop in it) so it has to go, the little 2bbl carb was not even bolted down and all the lines on it are all messed up. (rounded off messed up threads on the brass etc), The original coil was not working. However the wiring harness was "OK" not all cut up. NONE of the accessories was working. Someone had yanked out all the fueses so need to replace those. The dash ign switch would not work in the "start" position so had to use a screw driver and jump the solendoid switch. It would turn over "slow" Crankcase full of old oil and the tranny was full of nice "red" transmission fluid. Wanted to see if that orig radio would work. VERY nice chrome on the dash. I was quite please with that. Overall very nice interior for it's age. not running yet.. Edited February 28, 2011 by Julian (see edit history) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Julian Posted February 28, 2011 Share Posted February 28, 2011 (edited) Hey Jim.. I tell ya one thing....There aint nothin easy about this 57 I got lol. I went looking for the radiator drain cock to drain the antifreeze so I can replace the intake manifold gasket. Well, I looked and looked so I got my book out and IT even says on the bottom of the radiator. WELL, my 88 aint got one on the bottom of the radiator. You have to drain each side of the block. I found two drain cocks on each side of the engine block in the same locations. Not hard to get to but a greasy grimy mess under there with all the oil, dirt, road junk etc etc that you rub against to get to it ...OHHHHHHHHH and jack up the car too cuz that thing is low to the ground lol.. Anyways.. I got it drained into a bucket. One thing I DID like about that is you can put hose on the side of it and run it into a bucket and not let it run all over the floor "trying" to hit a bucket. lol. Now I am down to taking the manifold bolts out of it and pull the intake and reseal it. My carb is flooding badly too. Not sure how to stop that on this 4gc thing. I hear gasket, floats, bad valves in the carb...etc.. The floats are "ok" not heavy. The right gasket dont know how to tell the valves..again who knows..but saturday when I pulled the carb off there was pooled up gasoline on both planes in the intake. That will make er run rich for sure. Edited February 28, 2011 by Julian (see edit history) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Jim_Edwards Posted February 28, 2011 Share Posted February 28, 2011 Started messin with the 63 over the weekend.. Thats the first time since I was in my teens that I stared down at a Ford engine for any lenght of time. I forgot how broad in the shoulders that 352 is. Someone has been messin with it quite a bit. The fuel pump is stopped up (some kind of black goop in it) so it has to go, the little 2bbl carb was not even bolted down and all the lines on it are all messed up. (rounded off messed up threads on the brass etc), The original coil was not working. However the wiring harness was "OK" not all cut up. NONE of the accessories was working. Someone had yanked out all the fueses so need to replace those. The dash ign switch would not work in the "start" position so had to use a screw driver and jump the solendoid switch. It would turn over "slow" Crankcase full of old oil and the tranny was full of nice "red" transmission fluid. Wanted to see if that orig radio would work. VERY nice chrome on the dash. I was quite please with that. Overall very nice interior for it's age. not running yet..Yeah, Ford FE and MEL blocks seem to be a bit wide in part because of the shape of the valve covers. When they square those up in the mid '60s it shaved about 2 inches off so to speak. Sounds like the fuel pump was sucking oil from the crankcase, a clear indication of the fuel pump being shot.Which two barrel carburetor does it have on it? If it is an Autolite 2100 it is one of the best two barrel carbs ever produced by anyone. Same can be said for it's 4100 4bbl counterpart. Both have cheap to produce, simplistic designs, but both are great, reliable performers that rarely cause problems. Easy, easy rebuilds. Big issue with them is the darn power valve, which if you've ever used a Holley from the era you'll know one backfire and the power valve is shot. A two stage power valve should eliminate that issue, but might have a minor negative affect on performance.I'd check the back of the ignition switch and make sure of the connection with the harness before assuming the switch is bad. But even if it is bad, they are cheap and readily available. If you can't find an NOS one on ebay, Standard makes a flock of generic replacement switches that should fit. I had to use on of those in my '58 Mercury until an NOS showed up on ebay.That radio should work with no problems other than perhaps the tuning capacitor and volume control being a bit scratchy when turning. If it doesn't go away getting 40 years of dust out of it will help. It is all solid state, no tubes.Sounds like luck maybe on your side with the transmission. Nice clean red fluid implies the prospect that someone flushed that guy out and put a new filter and fluid in it. Wonder what the transmission code is. Does it have a C4, or maybe you got lucky and it has an early "round top" C6.Jim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Jim_Edwards Posted February 28, 2011 Share Posted February 28, 2011 Hey Jim.. I tell ya one thing....There aint nothin easy about this 57 I got lol. I went looking for the radiator drain cock to drain the antifreeze so I can replace the intake manifold gasket. Well, I looked and looked so I got my book out and IT even says on the bottom of the radiator. WELL, my 88 aint got one on the bottom of the radiator. You have to drain each side of the block. I found two drain cocks on each side of the engine block in the same locations. Not hard to get to but a greasy grimy mess under there with all the oil, dirt, road junk etc etc that you rub against to get to it ...OHHHHHHHHH and jack up the car too cuz that thing is low to the ground lol.. Anyways.. I got it drained into a bucket. One thing I DID like about that is you can put hose on the side of it and run it into a bucket and not let it run all over the floor "trying" to hit a bucket. lol. Now I am down to taking the manifold bolts out of it and pull the intake and reseal it. My carb is flooding badly too. Not sure how to stop that on this 4gc thing. I hear gasket, floats, bad valves in the carb...etc.. The floats are "ok" not heavy. The right gasket dont know how to tell the valves..again who knows..but saturday when I pulled the carb off there was pooled up gasoline on both planes in the intake. That will make er run rich for sure.Being basically a Ford guy, I often find myself wondering what the heck was going on in the minds of GM engineers in the '50s and even early '60s. With five GM cars in the stable I've had plenty of opportunities to swear a blue streak. I will say that generally the best engineered engines and suspensions among GM divisions at the time are found on Oldsmobiles, but their wiring is nothing short of a cheaply done disaster. Really crude, super cheap connectors and bulb sockets which were crap from the the git-go, even on my '62 Oldsmobiles. My '50s Cadillacs are somewhat tributes to the 1930s electrically. And then there are those pitiful Rochester continually problematic carburetors which must have been intentionally designed to keep dealer shops filled, which is why all but one have a Carter WCFB carb, if that wasn't what was original in the first place.Jim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Julian Posted February 28, 2011 Share Posted February 28, 2011 Does it have a C4, or maybe you got lucky and it has an early "round top" C6.what are the codes for these.. I will check the vin plate.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Jim_Edwards Posted February 28, 2011 Share Posted February 28, 2011 Does it have a C4, or maybe you got lucky and it has an early "round top" C6.what are the codes for these.. I will check the vin plate..Save yourself the trouble of looking. My memory was off by a year for the C4, which didn't appear until '64, the C6 didn't show up on Fords until '66.Jim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Julian Posted April 4, 2011 Share Posted April 4, 2011 63 update.. Well I got the ole 352 running yesterday.. It actually ran under its own power once I got some gas to it.. Had to put a fuel pump on it and after a few minutes it fired right up. I check the compression and found that 7 of 8 cylinders have 150lbs and #4 cyl only has 60 to 90 lbs. I put some new plugs in it and changed the oil.. (NO idea why I did that for a junk car) but it runs pretty good for sitting since 93......now I think I want to stick it in the 59.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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