57 Ranchero based on Fairlane?

[jvo]

Here are a couple pics of the side of the car with the door and quarter panel in place.  The quarter still needs to go forward about  3/8 of an inch.  There is only about 1/4 inch between the tire and the bottom of the wheel opening.  I will probably use smaller tires on the car when I choose the final size, probably some 60 series 15 inch and either 235 or 255, whatever might fit.
With this little bit of clearance, does it make the tire hard to remove, or is it just a rubbing issue? 
Why do we change the front of the wheel opening?  I kind of like the factory wheel opening the way it is right now, and I don't want to change it if I don't have to. 
If its just a rubbing issue, then I will use smaller diameter tires to have enough clearance. 
What is the general consensus, and does anyone have any close up pics of before and after the wheel well modification is done? Thanks.

[jvo]

And a couple shots of the side of the car.  The quarter lines up quite nicely, even the new patch I made for the top of the wheel opening.

[lalessi1]

The wheelbase on the donor car was 112.8 inches.  I'm not too concerned with the Ackerman geometry at this point.  In my research I looked at Mustang II options, and they are all front steer from what I have seen.  I don't see how they can get the Ackerman geometry correct on a front steer car, it always seems to be a dilemma from what I have read.  So, I think it will be close enough that I probably won't notice it. 
Most people that I know don't know about that or understand it either and swap suspensions with little regard to Ackerman geometry.  I do like that it is a rear steer unit though. 


I would agree that the wheelbases are probably close enough so that there won't be any noticable negative affects. I have had a friend completely mess up a car by not taking that into account.

[Lucky'57]

I would think if you're gonna stick with a 1/4" clearance, you might want to buy some stock in a tire company. Soon as you wind that thing up your diameter will increase. Be careful, that's not a lot of wiggle room. I'll defer to the opinion on this forum of course, lalessi1 has helped me out with my rim/tire selection before. That's just my 2-bits, really like your stuff JVO, good man, massive project (tip of the hat).

[junior58]

Any updates? Haven't seen anything for a while, hope it is still progressing well.

[jvo]

Sorry.  I haven't done anything for the past several months.  I have been extremely busy helping my son and daughter in law build a new 3 storey building that will house their hair salon, with living quarters above it.  I probably won't get much done before Christmas, as it will carry on till at least then.  I am literally ITCHING to get going again, but life is getting in the way.  We all know how that happens.  Thanks for the interest.  I still have time to read about everyone else's progress occasionally though.

[junior58]

Even though it is temporarily on hold it's good to hear that it will progress at some stage. Thanks for the update.

[jvo]

Well, its about time.  We finally have this building about 98% done.  We also had to tear down this old house for the parking lot for the business to keep the city happy.  Been a big big job, bigger than I first thought it would be, but its pretty much done now.  I just started working on my 57 again yesterday.  I have to do an update on my phone to see if I can upload some pics, or else I have to wait till I get home in a couple days.  Really looking forward to this again.  Been since 2014 when I started the build.

As soon as I can figure out how to get some pics off my phone onto my sons computer, I will post a few more pics.  Barring that, I will update Monday when I get home again.

[jvo]

I only got a little done here, but at least I got started again.  I ended up using one of my ems quarter panels. The quarter I got from Alvin needed 3 small repairs that this would take care of so I decided to use it, instead of 3 separate repairs to different areas of this quarter panel.  It fit fairly well on the initial fit, and there was minimal warpage on the long welds.  I still have to address that warpage before I put it on the car. 
I ended up almost cutting in a new piece however, as you can see in the pics.  Decided I would try to stretch the ems panel where it was a little flat.  Actually more than a little on the front edge of the wheel opening.  The new one was quite flat, and didn't look nearly as nice as the original from Ford.  It did stretch out very nicely though in the end.  I also had to run a dull chisel along the backside to make the body linen a little more crisp.  The Ford original looks way better than the ems panel in that instance.  Regardless, I was able to modify the ems panel to exactly like the original with only about an hour's work. 

[jvo]

Just the last couple pics.  That's all I have to show for the next few days. 

[jvo]

Sitting two hours away from home again at my son's for Christmas, wishing I was at home working on the ranchero.  I got the quarter panel on and pretty much welded in place, and spent a bunch of time trying to align it properly, until I realized that the original ranchero door hinges must be slightly different than the ones that came on this donor car.  Spent a whole afternoon looking for the proper hinges in all the junk I have been keeping.  Glad I haven't thrown much away, other than severly rusted pieces from the original ranchero.   Everything went well after I put the Fairlane door hinges back onto the Fairlane car.  Door fit way better and lined up properly with the quarter panel.
So now, I spent several days fitting the back wall for the cab.  I thought I had it ready to go in, until I started actually fitting it in place.  Just a bunch of fiddly stuff, bend this a little, push that a little, and measure a million times.  It is now in place, and pretty much welded as well. 
So now, just before we left home for Christmas at my son's I hauled the original Ranchero roof down from the loft above the garage, and started measuring and thinking about how I was going to do it.  I am going to use most of the original Ranchero roof, and I have to fix a little rust damage right above the drivers door, where the stainless trim had allowed rust to begin.  Barring any unforeseen difficulties, I should have that most of the way done by the beginning of 2018.
I should back up here and say that I spent a LOT of time looking at pics of B pillars on almost every imaginable vehicle you can think of.  With the exception of some of the galaxie 500's, and the square birds, almost all cars have a tapered B pillar, including modern SUV's.  Some of the mid 60's Mopars even had B pillars that tapered top to bottom, instead of bottom to top.  To make a long story short, I decided to taper my B pillar. 
I had to slice the back of the original ranchero window area to slant it forward.  Made a cut just below the window, all the way across the back panel, and cut the outer corners so the rear window would lean forward.  I mocked it up with cardboard and came up with what I think will look decent.  I sure hope the rest of the free world agrees with me.  The forward part of the drivers and passengers windows will be parallel with the A pillar, the rear panel will have a much more pronounced slant than that. 
I will have to slice the top of the window panel as well in order to get the proper angle of attack. 
So, I put a couple of braces in place to hold up the back of the original Fairlane roof panel whilst I proceeded to whack of the back half of the roof.  It really looks goofy now, with the wrong lines to it, but that won't last long once I get the sawzall out again, and the grinder with the cutting disc.  I wanted to keep as much of the original body work in place until I got the back of the cab panel in, so as to keep as much structural integrity as possible.  I will not cut out the rear package shelf yet either until the roof is welded in place.  The package shelf is holding both rear quarter panels in place right where they should be.
Anyway, I am unable to post pics on my son's computer, cause my phone won't talk to it now. ( Damn updates)  I will post up some pics when I get home the day after tomorrow. 
Really anxious to get going again now that I can actually visualize what the end product might look like.  Will post more soon.

[RICH MUISE]

We'll be anxious to see those pics. They should help alot with, at least in my case, trying to understand what you're doing exactly.
Nice work on the wheel well flare modification. I did notice when I did mine years ago the flares were't as pronounced as the originals. I just left mine as they were formed.

[jvo]

Getting a late start today, but I'll upload a few pics that I took several days back.
This just shows a couple pics of the inner wheel tubs I decided to build.  The originals were pretty rusted out around the wheel wells, and I was given a couple trailer fender remnants by a friend who had tubbed a race car.  Decided to do this while access to it was good before welding the quarter panel on.  I can build a copy for the other side that I wasn't smart enough to do before I welded that quarter panel onto the car.  I won't install these permanently until I get all the outer sheet metal done, so I have access to hammer and dolly the weld warpage and minor sheet metal damage. 

I need to remove the rear wheels on both sides to finish welding the vertical seams above the wheels.  There is some warpage there that I can pretty much get to zero, but only after I remove the wheels.  Haven't done that yet, and they are 255/70/15's so I hope they will come off without pulling the rear shackles and dropping the rear end.  We'll see when the time comes I guess.

[jvo]

So next up was to put the back wall of the cab in.  I noticed in Limey57's build that he had openings in the bottom of the panel so as to access "stuff" from the space under the front of the truck bed, and I thought that was a great idea, so I copied it.  My original was closed off in that area.  The whole back wall is brand new sheet metal up to about 3 inches below the back window. 
The ends of the panel, where the B panel attaches to the quarter panel were cut open, and I made a zip wheel cut about 1/8 of an inch wide below the rear window on the inside of the cab all the way across the width of the panel.  With both sides cut loose, I was able to bend the rear window opening forward to the angle I chose with the cardboard pattern.  It was all mocked up at that stage, and I used a digital angle finder to get both sides the same.  Then I took it back out of the car to do all the final welding on the ends again, as well as the four foot long weld below the rear window opening that I had cut. 

After that, it was placed back in the car, and measured and looked at, and measured some more, and stared at it some more, had a beer, thought about it, then welded it in place.  You should be able to see the difference in how the new angle for the rear window, (angle of the back of the B pillar), compared to the one that was stock that is in my hand. 
Then, you can see the cardboard pattern for the final shape of the B pillar.  That's what I meant when I said above that I sure hope everyone else in the free world likes it when it is done.  I sure hope I like it also. 
DO NOT look at the roof line, as it is not the finished shape.  That is the original Fairlane roof.  I am only using the first 8 or 10 inches from the windshield back of that piece.  The Ranchero roof is what will go there.  If I tried to use that roofline it would surely have an ugly step sister look to it.

[jvo]

If you look closely at the back panel, you can see the full width weld below the rear window.  It looks ugly as sin with that roofline. Going out to the garage shortly to begin the cut and fit for the Ranchero roof.  I'll have to slice the back edge of the Ranchero roof also to move the rear window back to the new slope.
I sure hope it goes as well as it has between my ears this past couple years.  Wish me luck.