BUILD THREAD For 1964 Falcon Sprint to Monte Carlo Rallye FIA spec'

[Paul B]

I finally got to meet Paul last week and take a look at his Falcon Sprint build. As well as being a bloody nice guy, Paul is doing an incredible job with this car. This is going to set new standards for period correct historic tin top race cars in New Zealand. The attention to detail is just amazing, and everything is very well researched and thought out. Can't wait to see the finished product.

Thanks for your kind words Steve. It was great to meet up and "chew the auto grease". I really enjoyed having you visit.
I am still enjoying the build very much. I am chomping at the bit to get this finished, just the fibreglass and roll cage slowing me down, then its off to paint.
Hopefully will get up to HMC HSC next meet, I think in October.
Cheers

[Paul B]

So much work has been done to get the fiberglass panels fitted correctly and looking good. The hood is finally fitted & finished and the old school hood pins are fitted as it looked in 1964.

The trunk lid is also fitted and finished with the OEM lock and latch, I may fit some stays to the trunk to secure better.

The doors are still a work in progress as I want them fitting correctly. I have had to do much reworking of these parts so they will fit and also I want the roll up windows and quarter windows fitting correctly and functioning - more pics to come soon

[Paul B]

[color="#FF0000"]Reproduction parts>>>>>>>>>>>>>>[/color]
Well, where would we be without these parts. We are so very fortunate to have many aftermarket companies manufacturing and suppling these parts to keep these old gems functioning and looking schmecco.
BUT, caution, with some aftermarket reproduction parts, while doing my steering I found the cheaper reproduction inner & outer tie rods are not the same specification as the more heavy duty OEM Inner tie rods
The left is a cheaper repro' sold with the V8 part number but 9/16 nut and look at the lower ball joint shaft taper
The right is the V8 OEM product 11/16 nut. They both fit... but.

There are other companies making high spec' repro' steering parts, the same as OEM, but they are 3 times the price of the cheaper parts, but well worth it
Watch & caution for cheaper steering parts that are around US$30

Also the toe adjuster sleeves:
The top one is the OEM with 9/16 UNF nut & bolt
The lower one is the cheaper Repro part with 10mm Metric nut & bolt the steel clamp shell is 1mm lighter than OEM and the sleeve is near 1mm thinner than OEM. These sell around US$10

The issue here is some of these repro' parts are not as the original manufacturer has designed and I will not be using these parts on my build.

Also watch for rear spring hangers, there are some light weight examples out there too. In most cases it is best to restore the OEM part if possible.

Of the hundreds of part I have purchased, only a very small percentage I have found to be like this.
So I still rate these companies, on the whole, really helpful.

[Steve Holmes]

I wrote a small report on Pauls Falcon plus a brief history on these cars and their popularity in European historic racing in the latest NZ Classic Car mag, which hits the shelves on Monday.

[Paul B]

Thanks for penning another great article Steve!
A perfect overview of Appendix K Group 2 & Group 5 and how this fits within HSC/HMC. You are right, the Falcon will likely not be a front running car built to Appendix K Group 2. I am sure the Escorts and the like will fly past me in the corners as the Falcon takes on an angular state with the 5.5inch rims.
But that's all part of the fun!
Cheers

[Steve Holmes]

Thanks for penning another great article Steve!
A perfect overview of Appendix K Group 2 & Group 5 and how this fits within HSC/HMC. You are right, the Falcon will likely not be a front running car built to Appendix K Group 2. I am sure the Escorts and the like will fly past me in the corners as the Falcon takes on an angular state with the 5.5inch rims.
But that's all part of the fun!
Cheers

Yeah you are right Paul. But remember, your car is being built to a set of 1964 regulations, whereas many of the cars you're racing against will have the best part of ten years on you in terms of technology and the freedoms the rules will allow.

The most important thing is that you're building a correct car, that you'll have a heap of fun, and that no matter where you are in the field there will always be someone to race against.

[Paul B]

Yeah you are right Paul. But remember, your car is being built to a set of 1964 regulations, whereas many of the cars you're racing against will have the best part of ten years on you in terms of technology and the freedoms the rules will allow.

The most important thing is that you're building a correct car, that you'll have a heap of fun, and that no matter where you are in the field there will always be someone to race against.

Thanks Steve, Yes its amazing how cars developed in that 5 - 10 year period. I will be more than happy with my 1964 time capsule!

[Paul B]

Well I just got sick of fiberglass panels! So I took a break and proceeded with the final pre-fit of the front bumper & grill etc. The grill was re-anodised in USA and the bumpers were from the states, triple plated.
I may look at some aluminium bumpers also a bit later on. For the moment I will concentrate on getting the panel work finished and roll cage finished. Always looks better with the shiny bling bits.

[Oldfart]

Looking good Paul.

[Paul B]

Thanks very much Rhys,
While looking for parts (as you do when there is nothing on TV worth watching, so that means every day) I found some Lucas 576 spot lights just to keep the outside looking like the 1964 Graham Hill car #201. I had a good 1964 pic' of the Spot light mounts so I fabricated some today to accept the lucas spotlights, I need to still paint the mounts black.

Picture of #201 Graham Hill & Ian Walker car.. (if you look into the car you car see it was running full interior trim)

Pic of Lucas 576 spot lights fitted.

I also fitted some stainless mesh to the headlights

[Paul B]

While I have been avoiding my fiberglass panels I have been also finishing the rear brake set up and fitting the correct 9 inch Galaxie diff with a LSD third member. These were the locker type diffs and worked very well for years.
The rear brake set ups that Holman Moody used on cars they built for endurance such as Nascar and the Monte Carlo Rallye all had a lot of reworking for air cooling and ducts as below -

So I got to work fabricating, working with steel and aluminium (is what I prefer) and finished the air ducts - (You can see the cooling holes through the mesh)

So then the air is directed into the hub via a myriad of holes at the front of the back plate. The air circulates and is released via a similar hole pattern at the rear of the backing plate. I found a pattern of the original 11inch drum back plates and used that as a copy to get this correct

The Monte Carlo Rallye Falcons also had rear 9 pad brake shoes on each side to allow the air to disperse around and cool the brake parts, it all works as a complete system and very well designed by Holman Moody. I am getting the special 9 pad shoes done and will post up progress when I pick up the parts. This is a pic' of the front brakes of a NASCAR Galaxie, same system was used on the rear.

[Spgeti]

Cool work Paul.

[Paul B]

Cool work Paul.

Thanks Bruce,
It takes about as much time to research the period correct way to do this stuff as what it takes to fabricate it.
But that's what I like.
I can't find any detail on the brake drums, I know with this system H-M had very small holes drilled on the perimeter of the drums. But without the research confirmation I will be leaving the drums stock for the meantime.

[John McKechnie]

Drilling brake drums was common back then- once the heat problem went, drums were still very good- look at Norm Beecehey.

[Steve Holmes]

Drilling brake drums was common back then- once the heat problem went, drums were still very good- look at Norm Beecehey.

Thats a good point John, his Nova ran drums for much of its life.

[Paul B]

Thats a good point John, his Nova ran drums for much of its life.

Thanks John & Steve, I just wanted to get some factual confirmation that this was correct for my car. I just needed to dig further to confirm. This is a picture (from Tangerine Crusher Galaxie) of the rest of the H-M period brake drum cooling system I just found.

[John McKechnie]

Also Paul, in the 70s Brian Crosbie won a race series in the South Island- see thread....Is this Firebird still around- it had drum brakes front and rear
Did the job against Ernies GTHO and others.

[Paul B]

I did not know that the Brian Crosbie Firebird had drums all round. Pretty impressive against the other disc brake cars of the day.
I had a 1958 ford custom 300 (gold flash) with drum brakes all round and I fitted an inline booster and the brakes were fantastic in that car. It had a big block bored to around 6.7L . It hauled, with 2 truckloads of torque!

The Falcon sprint (Monte Carlo rally cars only) had Kelsey Hays 4 pot disc brakes on the front with an in-line brake booster. It even had a dual circuit brake system. These disc brakes were essentially the same as what the 1965 Thunderbirds came out with.

[John McKechnie]

Paul- interesting about boosters, ever seen how many are on race cars?

[John McKechnie]

Not forgetting of course, George Sheweiry with drums front and rear on his big Mercury Comet.
He ran pre-65 and also beat Dale -all discs Mustang - home at Hampton Downs a few years ago.
I can pm his email if you want