57 Ranchero build

[jvo]

Frame welded, painted, up on wheels.

Got all the welding done, wasn't as bad as I originally thought. It was welded, but there was a lot of weld spatter that I ground off. Painted it with KBS rust seal, and today I got it up on wheels so I can push it in and out of the shop, as I am limited on room.

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[jvo]

Frame welded, painted, up on wheels.

Got all the welding done, wasn't as bad as I originally thought. It was welded, but there was a lot of weld spatter that I ground off. Painted it with KBS rust seal, and today I got it up on wheels so I can push it in and out of the shop, as I am limited on room.

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Sorry for the crappy cell phone pics, but somebody didn't turn off the camera and the battery is stone dead.

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Didn't paint the rear leaf springs, cause I need new ones. These will be good enough for mock up, with new bushings and centre bolts. They were as rusty as the Ranchero, pitted badly and worn into each other.

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Not sure whether I am going to mount the Tahoe rear sway bar forward or backward yet, leaning on backwards, as there is more room there, and it won't be in the way of the shocks then.
Not a lot more to show, just updating the thread. The front wheels aren't matching, one 14 inch and one 15 inch, but its good enough to roll around on. Front disc brakes are from 79 Tbird and just about a bolt on, but I think I have some camber issues. Think I read somewhere that these spindles have that effect. Might have to move the upper a arms "in" a little towards the centre of the car, as I have all the shims removed and there is still excessive camber.
Front springs are 4x6 wood presently, till I my friend Stew brings me his "ready rod mock up coil springs". I'll put the Aerostar coils in after I get any bump steer issues ironed out, after the rack & pinion is finished mounting. Gotta finish building my bump steer gauge also.

 

[Digger_Dave]

Boy ... between you, David and Neil; you sure pick the tough projects!

Will watch this one with great interest.
I love Rancheros.

 

[Bash and scratch]

I have seen a lot of those types of welds on some of the 60's Fords over the years and the rust is reminiscent of a Mustang... lol

Good luck with the project I like these cars too.. almost bought one as a kid but couldn't come up with the cash at the time.

Bash

 

[jvo]

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[/URL][/IMG]Okay, now for the fun stuff. I am a little ahead of myself on this part of the project, but it has been bugging me all winter, so I just had to dive in and do it. I whacked the top off the drivers side Ranchero door, in order to fit the vent window assembly to it. I wanted to see just how much work it was going to be, and how similar the retractable donor door I have is similar to it. That is what the vent windows are from.

Third pic, is of the back end of the Ranchero door, (brown), and the white retractable door. The retractable door will not close into the B pillar on the Ranchero, and I want to retain the stock Ranchero B pillar of course, as it will help with alignment of the back wall of the cab. By using the Ranchero B pillar, the side to side alignment should be bang on. If I used B pillars from a donor car that fit the retractable door, I would have to worry about side to side alignment as well as front to back alignment. Been there on a model A truck project. I want to keep it as simple as possible.
This set of pics shows the difference between the Ranchero door, and the retractable door. There are subtle differences, and I circled the areas that I have to modify and/or use to mount the vent window.
You can see in the one pic, the hole on top that is circled with a sharpie, is on the Ranchero door, but it is there for the one adjusting bolt for the vent window for the hardtop cars. Ford obviously used this one inner panel for all models. I just had to mark and cut the hole in the outer part of the Ranchero inner door frame. Hope that makes sense.

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[jvo]

This fit is very preliminary, but it looks like its going to be a winner. I have to modify the "lands" I made to mount the vent window assembly slightly, and I had to elongate some holes from my original measurements, but overall, it looks like its gonna work quite nicely.
You can see on the upper part of the vent window, on the inside, that I will have to cut back the door frame slightly for clearance. The top of the vent window needs to go in a bit more, but it will not until I made the clearance cut on the door frame. That is one of the big conundrums I have had with this project. I don't know yet how to cut and rebuild the door frame so I can put weatherstripping along the top of the window frame that will seal "just right". Will have to play with that after most of the modifications are done and the new roof is in place. I am not going to cut the Fairlane sedan roof off till I get the quarter panels welded to the back of the cab. Not going to cut the whole Fairlane roof off. I am going to try to use most of the Fairlane roof skin. The drip rail area is only flat from front to back right above the vent window, then it begins to taper down towards the back of the car.
The Ranchero drip rail however is dead flat along the top of the door, so I plan on cutting the Fairlane drip rail right about the back end of the vent window, then graft the Ranchero door top and about an inch and a half or so of roof onto the Fairlane roof skin. The Fairlane roof is flatter and sleeker along the top of the windshield so I plan on retaining as much of the Fairlane roof skin as possible. We'll see how that goes when the time comes.
I'll try to build all that with the present roof in place so as to retain as much structural integrity as possible. So far, the plan is to do the roof after the doors, cab back wall, and quarter panels are in place.

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Sorry, this first pic shouldn't have been in here. The breeze blew the door open slightly when I was taking this pic. OH well.
This is the pic that I wanted.

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That's about all for now. As I stated above, I am a bit ahead of myself on this, but I just had to whack it apart to see how it was going to work. I am glad I did this, as it seems now that it might just be easier than I thought. Lots of fiddling around with mounting points to get the vent window sitting just right, and I'm sure there will be some nightmares down the road when I get the door skin repaired and mounted. The front end of the door should be just fine, as long as I don't modify the inner door structure.
That's one of the things that got me started on this in the first place. Once I read that all 57's are the same from the cowl forward, I knew I wouldn't have to modify the front end of the doors, only the window opening area.
I hope to be able to use the Ranchero window regulators, so they just bolt in. Should be able to, I think. We'll see.

I took the back wall of the cab to the sheet metal shop last Friday so they can measure up and bend me new panels. My brake isn't wide enough to do those panels, as they are over 4 feet wide. I will be replacing all the back wall with new sheet metal from about 4 inches below the rear window. Its all very rusty back there, and pretty simple, just time consuming.

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[jvo]

I'm kinda jumping around with this project, but I had the parts for the back of the cab bent up at the sheet metal shop, so I decided to start putting them in, mostly because I couldn't stand to look at that rusty mess any longer.

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The whole back wall of the cab needs to be replaced and Brent did a really nice job of making the new panels, exactly like the factor did it. This next pic will give a better idea of what is being replaced. I am cutting it out right up to where you can see the paint scraped off. This is the inside of the cab, but its also the front of the bed. The black paint is hiding a whole bunch of small dents and I could fix them, but its just as easy to put the weld up top and have all new metal as it is to put it on the bottom of the panel and have to fix the little dents from stuff rolling around in the box for many years. Same amount of welding.

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The side panels are the inside of the B pillar, the pieces with the oblong access holes in them. I made new ones that are a couple inches longer front to back, so as to facilitate moving the back wall of the cab back a couple inches. You can see here where they are pretty rotten also. Luckily, the rest of the B pillar is not rusty, just the bottom couple inches, and I can deal with that.

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Another pretty shot of the other side.

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Here are the two side panels that are the inside of the B pillar. These are the ones I made a couple inches longer, front to back. Lots of measuring to get all this in the right place. Sure hope it all fits when I go to put it on the car.

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Again, lots of measuring and clamping, and staring at it, hoping it all goes into the proper perspective when I go to put it all on the car.

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More of the same.

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I guess I should have put this shot at the beginning of this post. The old cab wall cut out. I will be able to throw this outside now. I'll still keep it around till I get the back of the cab put onto the Fairlane floorpan just for reference.

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God hates a coward. There's the back wall tacked in place. I'll grind down the mig spots tomorrow, and run a nice tig bead across there afterwards, then metal finish it. It is 16 gauge, so I am hoping the warpage will be minimal.

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And a shot of the corner a little closer in. I can't weld the side of the B pillar in yet, as I might have to adjust the back wall slightly forward or backward once its installed. There is a bolt on each side to hold it in place in the meantime. There was a bolt in each side previously, not sure if it was factory, or if someone had put one in there for whatever reason, but regardless it will secure the back wall to the inside of the B pillars so I can handle it and move it around.
Next I will have to blast the rest of the B pillars, and put new metal on them where they need it, but that's a story for another day.
Moving ahead, albeit slowly.

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And I just realized looking at the last pics, that I forgot to punch holes in the B pillar panels so I can plug weld them later. Oh well, I can separate them slightly and drill them now I guess. Have to do it the hard way.

 

[351CFalcon]

G.m. JVO.

Project is coming along fine.

May I make a suggestion about posting pics and comments?

After a downloading a pic, hit the return button at least 2x but 3x is better.
then download the next one. etc., etc.

Same goes when posting comments either above or below a pic, after you finish, hit the return button 2x or 3x.

It lines up everything, makes it easier to follow and read.

 

[30sx]

G.m. JVO.

Project is coming along fine.

May I make a suggestion about posting pics and comments?

After a downloading a pic, hit the return button at least 2x but 3x is better.
then download the next one. etc., etc.

Same goes when posting comments either above or below a pic, after you finish, hit the return button 2x or 3x.

It lines up everything, makes it easier to follow and read.

return button? for us rookies/ pic and peck, where is there a return button? i have never been able to post more that one pic. at a time on a post

 

[351CFalcon]

return button? for us rookies/ pic and peck, where is there a return button? i have never been able to post more that one pic. at a time on a post

Return button = enter key.

One post can hold up to 15 photos per post.

Keep doing the cut and paste routine, and hitting the enter key 2x or 3x times in between each photo.

 

[jvo]

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THIS DOOR THING. Well, my friend Jer and I made the trip down to Alvin Stadel's in Montana and got a Fairlane passenger door. It is gonna work. I wish I had met Alvin a lot sooner. He is a wealth of knowledge. He told me the Fairlane door from a two door sedan is the same as the retractable driver's side door that I have and he was right. Well, its not quite the same, his was yellow and mine was white, but other than that, they are identical.

I also got all the side trim from Alvin. The Ranchero side trim is different than the Fairlane 500 side trim. I have it all now. Its not perfect, but good enough for a driver, and I can fix most of the little dings that are in the trim. I need the trim also to make sure it all lines up when I install the doors and rear quarter panels. The trim has to line up perfectly, and if I mock up the trim when I go to weld the quarter panels in it should all be fine. I think.

Very glad I made this trip. I was going to use the Ranchero doors, with Fairlane door skins. Turns out the Ranchero doors are 1/2 an inch taller from the bottom of the door skin to the top of the door, than the Fairlane doors. I'm glad I found this out before I got too far into it. I sure don't want to section half an inch out of the door height. So now I have two good doors that I can use, except that the door posts that they close into are not the same.

I could modify the ones I have from the four door sedan, but they might not be perfect, and might not seal properly against the weather stripping if I make even a slight error.

So, I contacted Alvin and I'm gonna make another trip to his place again in a few weeks time. He has the Fairlane two door sedan that I can take the door posts from that will work with these doors. I am going to take the door posts as well as the sheet metal back to the middle of the rear wheel well, which will make the whole job a lot easier also. ( I was going to use the door skin from the rear doors of the four door sedan to fill in the sheet metal). I should have removed the door posts and rear quarters when we were there, but oh well, I thought I could make these work. It was a fun trip last time anyway.

So, the pics. On the left side, is the brown Ranchero door. The back end is sort of ribbed, and the door post is as well. The Fairlane doors will not close into the Ranchero door post, and they also will not close into the Fairlane four door sedan door post, on the far right.
The white door is from a retractable, the yellow door in the middle is the Fairlane sedan door that still has the window frame bolted on. That's the one I got from Alvin. Nice door. The yellow door on the far right is from the four door sedan. You can see the difference in the way the weather stripping is attached to the doors, and the different shapes.
I need the Fairlane door posts that fit the doors.
I could cut the back end of the four door sedan doors, and weld them to the Fairlane doors, and they would close and seal properly, but that's a lot of work, and if I ever get into a wreck and need a new door, I would have to build a door like it from scratch again.
Way easier to drive back down to Alvin's and cut the door posts off his Fairlane two door sedan.

This picture posting thing is gonna drive me nuts. Okay, in the pic above, ( that I wanted below), the brown door on the left is the Ranchero door that I cut the window frame off of. The back end of the door has sort of got some ribs in it, and it will not close into the Fairlane four door sedan door post. I was going to use the Ranchero doors with the Ranchero door posts, but now that I know the Ranchero door is 1/2 an inch taller than the Fairlane door, I have cancelled that plan. I don't want to section half an inch out of the height of the door.

So, the white door is the retractable door that I got from Don Engold in Hanna. Has a little rust on the bottom, but other wise a good door.



Way easier to get the door posts and quarter panels off the two door sedan. I wish when I started this project that I had found this two door sedan in Montana, as it is as good as the four door sedan I am using for this project. Oh well again. As they say, if my aunt had a ****, she would be my uncle.

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Oops, wrong picture.

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That's about all for now. It will be a few weeks before I can get back down to Montana and pick up the Fairlane door posts from the two door sedan, so not much progress being made here. Just a bunch of hard lessons learned. Oh well.
Hope I'm not boring anyone with these trivial details, but I want to document all aspects of this build.

 

[Rusty Olds]

No not boring, just keep us posted on how it goes. It is always two steps forward and one back (if lucky only one back)

 

[Old Ray]

It is always two steps forward and one back (if lucky only one back)

YEP !

John, thanks for the post.

John, I’m not sure what all the guy in Montana has but could you keep a eye out for 1958 Ford Fairlane 500 (2 door?) trim for me, (one year only I think) the gold insert from front fender to rear wheel well with stainless (?) surround trim.

(a cash reward could be involved)

Thank you, Ray.

 

[thumper27]

When you have a chance, Ray, can you shoot me an email? thmpr27 at Telus dot net
Thanks

 

[thumper27]

And by the way, JVO, very interested in details. Uninformed like me need all the details we can get

 

[Sheldon]

I find it interesting as well. People don't realize the thought and heartburn that goes into these cars sometimes.

Sheldon

 

[jvo]

Ray, so far I haven't seen any 58 trim, and I don't think there was any where I got my stuff. He has 57 stuff only, ( and a lot of it). I will watch in my travels though. Took me 8 months to find this 57 stash and he's liquidating all of it, I just got lucky to get this before it is all gone to scrap.

And thanks for the comments guys. I'm not sure how much detail someone wants to hear, but if anyone was ever as stupid as me, and wanted to do this same thing, they would have a lot of good info.

 

[tinmann]

I am a big fan of metalwork, so this thread has my full and undivided attention. Carry on, John.

 

[jvo]

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[/URL][/IMG]Okay, summer is past, time to get busy. Got the quarter panels from Alvin some time ago, and I sure wish I had that whole car to start this with. Would have saved me a lot of work.
So, this post is about the quarter panel patches I decided to do. I have new EMS panels, but the quarters from Alvin are so nice that I am using them. It will save me a four foot long weld in the middle of the body lengthwise. Also, another big reason is that the only part of these that are bad is the extreme bottom, and the EMS panels don't come with the little flange on the bottom anyway. So regardless of which quarter I use, I have to make that.

You can see the bottom flange of the old panel that has the spot welds drilled out is sorta okay, but its pretty easy to make, so I think I might replace that.
You can also see the new EMS panel doesn't have that flange to put the spot welds in. The panel stops short of going there, and there isn't enough material to bend a flange. Has to be added on to a brand new panel. Doesn't make any sense to me.

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[jvo]

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Most of this panel is in really nice shape, but the top of the wheel well is perforated some, and pitted heavily in some areas.
This is how I made the patch. I didn't want to cut the new EMS panel up just for this little patch.
Made a paper pattern the way Peter Tommasini taught us in his metal shaping class. Use magnets to hold butcher paper in place, and a neat little trick he does. Cut the wood off the side of a carpentry pencil to expose a couple inches of the lead. Then you can rub that over the creases in the panel to show the body lines.

After that, use a sharp scribe to cut through the paper and make little scribe marks about an eighth of an inch long, leave an eight of an inch of paper, then another mark. Once you remove the paper, you have the body line.

I used the tipping wheel in my bead roller to tip the body lines, and hand hammered the roll or curvature into the panel, over a post dolly. This pic is the roughed out patch, lots of work to do to it yet.

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Got a bunch more to post, but SHE is nattering at me to go watch a movie. Back later.