It's been a while since I've posted anything about this car, I've been gaining some traction on it lately, so here's an update.
As a reminder, here's how the car looked when I got it out of the storage barn last spring. Car has been owned by my family since either '93 or '94 and parked in this barn about a week after my uncle bought it. I was 5 at the time, but everyone says the car smoked like a freight train. I didn't even try to start it, just yanked the engine out. Car has original paint and original interior, 100% bone stock with the exception of an 8-track player, some speakers hanging under the dash, and a couple gauges.
I've done quite a bit of cleaning on it, but this weekend is the first time that the car has been out in the sun since I got the paint all buffed out and cleaned up.
Gear Vendor Toploader showed up about a month ago. This install isn't as straightforward as I wished it was. I have a picture below of the mounting ears with the mount bracket held up to it, the ears are the wrong width. I'll be playing with the mount to get that right. The shifter also wasn't in the right position, David Kee already fixed that though. I found a push/pull switch from an MG that I modified to fit a Ford cable pull overdrive handle to, when pulled it
should turn the OD unit on.
The middle gauge here was my Grandpa's. He had it installed in his '63 Galaxie, and then later installed in his '67 Mustang. The gauge was laying in a random box of old parts, I decided to incorporate it into the car. Found matching oil pressure, water temp, and tach (the tach is being re-worked by Williamson's Instruments to allow use of the new Pertonix Ignitor III ignition). The gauge panel I'm going to try to engine turn to match the dash, found some cratex engine turning sticks for the mill so we'll see how that goes.
Parts have started to accumulate in the basement, here's a couple of the more fun things. I think I've decided on installing the 390 badges on the side of the car over the 428 ones (it will be a stroked 428). I don't completely like how the red clashes with the paint, but that
is what it came with...