1964 Comet 404 V8, C4 wagon

Dans funeral was today, all the guys wore shorts and a car show t-shirt to the church, and everyone drove their hot rods. Although it was sad, it was a nice service. The speakers did a great job. The pastor ask people in attendance to come up and talk about Dan, I wanted to but couldnt hold it together. All who spoke were great. God bless Dans family and rest his soul. Thanks again Ryan

 

Good for the friends of Dan. I hope I have a funeral like that and that my wagon will lead the way. I'm sorry you lost your friend and mentor, Ryan. You still have the other guys at the shop and none of you will ever forget Dan.

 

I have been following your thread and your wagon looks great.

Haven't looked in a few days so I also want to tell you I am sorry for your loss of a good friend.

 

Condolences for your friend's passing. You and his pals do him honour, with class.

 

Ryan...so sorry to hear about Dan.

 

Well, moving right along...I have pulled the driveshaft off of the shelf and.................it is bent pretty good. Does anyone know if the driveshaft for the wagon is interchangeable with a coupe, or 4 door ? I am heading to the internet right now to look up specs, Thanks Ryan

 

Without doing any research I'd bet the 4 door shaft would match. I don't think they stretched the wheelbase back then. I could be wrong. I simply don't know about the coupe. I'd guess maybe? Why not get the original repaired? That's if you can't find another. I've heard it's not too pricey. On another forum it was around $400 for a custom aluminum one.

 

OK...what I found is....the 64 Comet wagons were SHORTER in the wheelbase than the rest of the Comet line. 109.5 for the wagon. 114 for the sedans.

 

I did a little checking on this. I always thought that the first and second generation Falcons and Comets ('60-'63 and '64-'65) were basically twins with only some different front and rear sheet metal. Apparently, it was a bit more than that. Research indicates that the Comet models (except the wagon) had a stretched wheelbase over the Falcon. The wagons remained on the Falcon's 109.5" wheelbase. Otherwise, they would have had to engineer a whole new wagon greenhouse just for the Comet wagon.

 

Thanks

So maybe a 4 door Falcon would fit? I noticed the Comet Wagon was smaller than the sedan, I didnt even look at the Falcon, I thought they were the same as well, to repair my drive shaft will be between 2 and 3 hundred, that was an estimate from someone who does not work at the driveline shop. I am checking tomorrow when I go to the shop to work on the wagon. Also I will try to take some shots of what i have done, the motor and trans are in!!!

I ordered about 500 dollars worth of parts from falcon parts.com including door bumpers, wind wing rubber, all the weather stripping for the tailgate, gas tank sending unit, tank filler hose, sending unit seal etc etc. I ope to have more done tomorrow and I will take some pics, as I know you all like pics! LOL

Other good news, is Dan's brother Tom (red head in previous picture) has retired from the his job and will be working in Dans spot for a while. Also the other TOm will help out as needed, I miss Dan but I am very happy to have TOM n TOM in the shop now!

Talk to yall tomorrow

Ryan

 

Got some stuff.....got some stuff done

Well we got some parts from Falconparts.com and put a few of them into "Kathy". Got the fuel sending unit, seal and retainer, a new fangled trans mount for later trans mount style, alot of rubber and seals for the tailgate as well as some rubbers for the wind wings.

The motor is now in, and I have started to assemble the motor accessories from the inside out, and..........problems right away,nothin that cant be handled but.....I think I might have shared already but the Tri-Y's (headers) from the mustang wont fit on the Comet since I am leaving the column shift C4 (green dot) in the car. Also the power steering pulleys dont match up wit the 65 style pulleys from the mustang, and the shift arm is wrong behind the neutral safety switch.

Well i bought the exhaust manifolds back from the guy I sold the motor too, and the shift leg too

Then I found a 62 63 style crank pulley for the mustang motor to match the power steering pump, wow is it heavy (the old pulley)!!! I had the entire power steering system rebuilt and it is back in as well.

Gas tank was put in as well as the wind wing rubbers....That took a while but was rewarding..........kind of a therapy session for those. Anyway here are some updated pics to enjoy. It took me a while to figure out my new stupid a$$ smart phone. ENjoy!!


Here are a couple of pics of the gas tank, undrcoated and installed



Here is the fancy dancy universal trans mount, its kinda hard to see. It actually is a nice piece and eliminated the old cantilever style piece that was on there





Here is the wind wing
BEFORE

DURING....GETTING THE OLD RUBBER OUT

AND NEW RUBBER INSTALLED


And a couple of shots of the motor installed, the black valve covers are temporary, the pretty GOld ones will go on eventually. Oh yeah and I painted the manifold black too




Not sure what I will be working on this week there is so much to do, I will keep you posted, one day a week thats all I got now a days

RYan

 

she sure is comin along

 

Premature?

Well not alot of pics from this Fridays work day. I basically changed the pulleys from the 1965 289 to the old style pulleys from the Challenger 289 (1964) so that I could get the pulleys for the power steering, alternator and water pump to line up.

I also installed some parts I got last week from falconarts.com.........like the fuel filler hose...Thats where the premature part comes in. I could wait to complete the fuel neck and install the holy grail................the gas cap. The guys at the shop joked about me installing it...I will definitely take it off and put it back into storeage until Kathy is done but I had to take a pic for my SWF friends.



Have a great holiday weekend, godspeed to all the soldiers (including my son in Afghanistan)

Ryan

 

That's gonna be a helluva car.

 

Not alot to report

This one day a week thing is killing me but I guess one day a week is better than no days a week. I feel like I am crawling on this resto, lol.

Well this friday, I sandblasted the exhaust manifolds and I painted and installed them. (headers wont fit with C4 column shift).

I installed the front shocks and layed the old wiring harness into the engine bay, I also installed one valve cover and laid the other one on the head.

I also put the carb on the manifold and determined the following:
I need black allen bolts to secure the valve cover, (to look nice), and I need to replace the blue and red fuel log with a nice black one from Earls. lol

Then i pretty much looked and tried to figure out what would be next, on the following Friday, not a real productive day but.........

Cya next week, here are some pics with the valve covers and carb laid into place. Ryan