Project Cars Update: LeMons Ranchero and Falcon

ranchero lemons project carInterchangeable parts, platform sharing and shared engineering are wonderful things. As an engineer, nothing scares me more than low-volume, one-off craftsmanship. On a high level, Ford used The Falcon Platform from the 1960 Falcon to the 1980 Granada/Monarch/Versailles, but their insistence on minor changes over the years has me nearly stymied.
We’ve converted the Ranchero LeMons Racer to nearly full 1965 GT350 front suspension and brakes with minimal effort, but I can’t get the right steering parts to do the same for my daily driver Falcon.

Our 1962 Ford Ranchero LeMons racer creaked into my driveway with 10″ front drums and completely shot front suspension bushings. Between our friends at Open Tracker Racing and a donor 1965 Mercury Comet, the Ranchero sports some pretty serious hardware (by mid-’60s standards): 1965 Falcon/Mustang V8 steering linkage, a Shelby Drop on the upper control arms, some kind of aftermarket stiff-ass coils, 11″ vented/slotted rotors with four piston calipers and the hand-me-down shocks out of my Falcon. There may have been some control arm swaps needed to accommodate the new spindles to accommodate the brakes, but we’re lumping those in with the brakes for LeMons budget exemption purposes ;).
falcon ranchero project cars
I’d installed a similar brake kit on my Falcon back in 2010 and wrestled with the same difficulty of mating the existing hard lines to the new lines coming from the dual-bore master cylinder. Some day someone will make a truly plug-and-play kit. Anyway, my Dad got the brakes in place in the span of a weekend and I swapped the suspension and steering in about a day. Meanwhile, we’ve accumulated three engines, two different manual transmissions and an automatic. The portions of each going to craigslist, scrap or spares remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, my Falcon’s been wanting for less-wobbly steering for some time. I rebuilt the steering box back in 2010, but haven’t touched the control arms or steering linkage. Clipping a curb while spinning in the rain two months ago didn’t help either. The suspension parts swap went smoothly enough, but the steering hit a snag. The plan was to re-use my outer tie rod ends and adjusters with a new 1965 center link, pitman arm and inner TREs. Alas, the ’65 stuff has 11/16-18 threads at the adjuster points, while my outers have 1/2-20 threads. Ford used like 12 different outer spindles over the 20 year run of the platform, and my After pinging every online resource I could find, Jeff from Falconparts.com clued me in to look for conical adapters inside the taper of the spindle. Sure enough, I originally had 6-cylinder steering parts adapted to mate with V8 spindles. A couple raps with a hammer and punch and now I‘m all set probably know what parts I need to order to finish this damn job…

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  1. mdharrell Avatar

    Despite the LeMons cockpit de-scuzzification rule (Rule 3.F.8), I hope you’ll find a way to preserve those wires going through the vacant radio slot. They’re standard equipment on every unrestored Falcon-era Ranchero I’ve ever seen.
    http://i2.wp.com/hooniverse.info/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/20150921_185523.jpg

  2. longrooffan Avatar
    longrooffan

    Tim: The Missus has got to have the patience only a mother could possess. Three Kids and she still manages to send me a big brown envelope every month. Thanks and please continue to entertain us with your Blue Oval exploits.

  3. dukeisduke Avatar
    dukeisduke

    Tapered stud adapters? I’ve never heard of such a thing. You learn something new everyday.