Ranchero build

[Ford Blue blood]

My plans are leaning on vents in the area of the ash tray.  Not found any I like yet.  Leaning on putting the radio in the same area as the old radio went.  The unit I bought will fit in the recess and is a scoash longer then the current control holes.  Again none of this is firm yet and yes the Vintage air slide controller will go in the right hand "controle hole" next to the steering column.

[gasman826]

Are you thinking of moving the '57 OEM heater controls from the original placement down to the original location for the '57 OEM right vent, choke/lighter controls?  Are you modifying the OEM heater controls to look original but upgrade behind the scenes with Vintage Air Slide Pods?

[KYBlueOval]

That dash was V2.0 of my Custom.  The dash was used for a couple of years...7307.2 miles (still have the Autometer 3-1/8" tach and speedo).  The vents are Vintage Air.  Picture does not show that the right hand accessory plate was also removed, smoothed and the Vintage Air Gen IV Dakota Digital billet controls were mounted.  Unfortunately, no other dash pictures survive.  Dash went to scrap a long time ago.

Thanks Gary for the information. One last question...........it appears that there were 5   2 1/16" gauges below the Speedometer and Tach. Is that correct? Assuming I know what the usual 4 gauges are, what was the 5th?
Thanks
John

[gasman826]

fuel pressure

[Ford Blue blood]

Gary I'm going to fill the original "control hole" to the right of the column and put the Vintage Air control unit in it.  I will angle the top of the filler to match the angle of the dash and center the control unit in the hole.  Vintage Air's standard unit for their "compact" HVAC/Defrost is smaller then the current opening.  The ignition, head light, and left air vent will stay in left control hole.  Given I'm going with an electric wiper motor it's switch will be mounted between the hand brake and hood release pointing down rather then toward the driver.

[Ford Blue blood]

Borrowed a mock-up HVAC unit from a friend.  Vintage Air will supply these for any of their units.  Just let me say, setting up the thing with a 10 oz. mock-up unit is far superior to wrestling around a 15 lb. unit!

Made brackets for the front and back side, modified the defrost vent with 2" exhaust pipe, tacked a large fender washer in the top of the cowl for the bracket behind the blower.  Welded a 1/4X20 to a small flat 18 gauge and welded it to the fire wall for the rear evaporator end and the front of the evaporator goes to the brace that runs from the bottom of the dash to the top near the center.

[Ford Blue blood]

This shot is from the rear window near the center seeing how it would look from the seat.

[RICH MUISE]

Nice job Bill. Where you were able to poition that is going to make the hookups so much easier than where I had to put mine. Good pics/info for guys doing this later. My setup just wasn't normal, so I wasn't able to help much when guys asked.

[gasman826]

Looks great.  I installed the GEN IV and it was like it was made for the car.  I used the plastic defrost distributers so I didn't have to modify the OEM tin but it looks like you got it figured.  The GEN IV is a little different than the GEN II.

First picture is of the firewall prep.  OEM heater and right fresh air holes get filled.  Four new 1/4" holes for the GEN IV rear bracket.

Picture two is the unit bolted in place.  The front VA GEN IV black bracket is included and is also the computer hold-down.  The only bracket I had to fab was the little white one that goes from the front bracket to the firewall bulkhead under the windshield.  I've driven the car with the unit mounted like this.  No squeak, rattle or movement.

[Ford Blue blood]

Thanks Rich.  That moch-up unit made fitting so easy......

Gary that is a good looking fit.  Decided against the Gen IV after much looking and talking to friends who have used them.  Love the control system of the IV, just could not clear my head of size, capacity, and cost compared to the compact.  The area to be cooled in the Ranchero is so small compared to the capacity of the IV.

[Ford Blue blood]

Cut the front coils, checked the ball joints and bushings, all good, not going to "fix" them.  Cleaned and painted the upper control arm and the area under it.  Will clean and paint the rest of the chassis after it goes back up in the air.  Going to remove all that has been installed to do some detail and finish work. 

Put the car back on the ground to turn it around in the shop.  Easy to push out and back in to sand and keep the dust and dirt outside!

The springs were 16" tall, 4 3/4" diameter coils with 1 1/2" spacing.  They contained 9 coils, the wire is 11/16".  Cut off 1 1/2 turns and had a 13 1/3" free height.  With 24 " tall tires the front bottom edge of the rocker is 11" off the floor.  The frame horn on the front drops 2" when I put my 250 lb butt on the front cross member.  Looks like it will be just about where I want it.  May have to use 1" - 2" blocks on the rear.  Have to wait on that until everything is on the car.

[SkylinerRon]

I'd replace the control arm bushings as they are a pain to do later.
Balljoints can be replaced a lot easier.

Ron.

[Ford Blue blood]

Found the radiator support had the usual rust from battery leaks and old age.  Just started with a sharp screw driver poking holes, when it wouldn't go through the metal that is where the cutting started.  Only took eight pieces to make the thing look half way correct.  Still have the bottoms of the fenders to fix and a couple of small patches under the tail lights to do and then the "finish" body work can start.  That does include a gazillion holes in the fire wall, the dash and seat mounts.

[Limey57]

My radiator support was the same.  I THOUGHT it was okay until I had it shot blasted, I then had to replace the entire lower crossmember part.......  After I finished it and painted it I drilled a couple of 3/8" drain holes in it, I temporarily plugged them and filled the crossmember with a mixture of rust proofing was and diesel (10% diesel to make it thinner) and left it for a week, turning the whole thing over now & again so the rust proofing covered everything, I then drained it out.

[Frankenstein57]

Looks like good progress Bill, makes me want to get motivated to work on my 57,  Mark