Bagging a 62 fairlane

Nothing special here. Just wanted something the family could fit in, and would be a cool cheap car to build and cruise.
It's a 62 fairlane 500. Car is very very solid. A small tree limb fell on the passenger fender and hood, and busted the windshield.
It's got the 170 6 cyl that's been rebuilt and runs great!

I had the wheels Layin around already.
I started on this 3-4 weeks ago, and plan to be driving it soon. I'll let the pics speak for themselves.

Looks pretty good

Thx, it's got a ways to go.

That's pretty cool! Where did you find it?

Later,

Lee

Nice looking old ford.

It was local. My buddies brother got it, didn't want it, and dropped it off at my buddies farm, I guess to sit and rot, lol

Cool stuff. Let's see more!

4x4fab.com wrote:It was local. My buddies brother got it, didn't want it, and dropped it off at my buddies farm, I guess to sit and rot, lol

Well, that's one way to get a goodie like this!

Happy for ya,

Lee

Rear suspension is done. Just need to mount shocks.
I got the fender and good hammered out. Still can't find a reasonably priced windshield!!!
I guess next I'll tear this whole car down, put it on the rotisserie, fab some sub frame connectors. Weld everything up. Blast the underside, paint whole car, and re assemble. Id love to be done and driving it in 4-6 weeks. We'll see.

Pics!!

Brackets for the watts link

There is just sooo much goin on with the rear suspension, it looks confusing I'm sure...... That's just what it took to fit it all in there, and get it to work!

4x4fab.com wrote:There is just sooo much goin on with the rear suspension, it looks confusing I'm sure......

That's for sure. You did manage to get that old Ford pretty low.

Yeah. I cycled the suspension and the watts link just didn't seem right..... Instead of building it when the watts links were parallel, It just so happened to work out that I built them when they were 12* inclined. Like a complete idiot, the left one should have been 12* in the opposite direction. I feel like an idiot! Oh well. It's all just tacked in. Will only take 20 minutes to fix.

I can't get it any lower. Right now the A-arms are hitting. I could do a Granada swap and get enough lowering out of the spindles to get it on the ground completely. I'm not 100% sure that I want to get it that low. If I were to bust an air line or something, I like the fact that I wouldn't scrape the ground.

4x4fab.com wrote:, I like the fact that I wouldn't scrape the ground.

Some really cool looking fab work. Just trying to figure out where you wouldn't scrape.

Well as of right now, aired out the rockers are just off of the ground a little. I sorta want to air it down and sit them on the ground. But what I was saying is that if it don't sit in the ground, and I have some sort or bag or line failure while cruising down the highway, it would be safer this way.

The roads are rough enough around here that I can't see how you could keep from bottoming out. Hope to see that thing out and about later this summer because I'd like to see that rear suspension. I don't quite understand the Watts Link. Looks somewhat like a panhard bar but with a few joints. I'd like to see how that all works. Sure is wild looking compared to the run of the mill four link setup.

Yeah I really wanted to just go with a pan hard bar for simplicity. With a pan hard bar you do get a little side to side movement with the cycling of the axle up and down. With a watts link, you get very very little side to side movement. With my current axle and wheel setup, I couldn't afford to have the side to side movement of a pan hard bar.

I toyed with the idea of a triangulated four link. There just wasn't enough room. Then I wanted to try a radius arm setup. This could have worked, but I would have had to mount my bags on top of or behind the axle. I wanted to mount them on the links to ensure I had enough lift to have a decent ride height. So, I ended up having to run my upper links that control the pinion angle backwards. I really hated the idea because it takes up so much room, but that's all I could do and still have a backseat, and get it as low as I wanted it. I could have ran them forwards, but they would have been too short, and I would have a lot of pinion angle change as the suspension cycled.
I'm still not real happy with the angle of my lower links at ride height, but c'mon this thing is just a cruiser, not like it's a drag car or somethin.

My old Mercury should set a little lower in the rear but without a little help from some sort of air ride technology I can't hardly accomplish it. I have been in touch with Kevin Erisman about the possibility of getting it just an inch or two lower. It already has Posie lowered springs and blocks in the back with some air shocks. It's just a little hard to carry two people and camping gear when we set out for a weekend excursion. We have to really pack light and fill the coolers once we get to the destination. I've changed blocks a few times to raise it up so it's somewhat functional but then it sets too high. The "Old School" way of lowering a big old heavy Mercury sucks if you really want to drive it. I put an on board pump for the air shocks but it was so old that the outlet hose broke. That system of yours seem quite elaborate compared to my half a$$ed attempt to make a tail dragger.

You could do a simple air helper spring. Do you have a leaf setup? I may even have some stuff Layin around that may work.
This would work similar to an air shock, but it would be better. You could lower your car where you want it, and then air up the bags to counter the added weight of camping gear or whatever.

Yeah, that's something I was looking at. I was told you could take a couple of leaves out of the springs with something like that. It needs the frame notched in the the rear for the axle and the tunnel raised for the driveshaft. When Junkyard Jeff and I were lowering our cars at his house, mine ended up too low. The first time around the block all four tires rubbed. It's got dropped spindles in the front with shorter springs and blocks to lower the spring pockets. I put smaller blocks in the front so the the front wheels wouldn't rub. Junkyard Jeff gave up and raised his old Ford up quite a bit but I hate to raise my Mercury. They're supposed to be low and slow. I got the slow right but still working on the low.

Yeah. You can take a couple leaves out probably. I have seen some people just run the main leaf with bags. Kinda scary IMO and I dunno how they get by the crazy ammount of axle wrap.

Let me know when you get that old Ford up and running (or down and running). You're not that far away because I'd sure like a lesson in that suspension you got on that thing. I've seen all the frame modifications on cars/trucks that lay frame but most that I've seen just had a 4 link and pan hard. That'd give me an excuse to come that way for one of the drive-in nites at Tri-City Service or go to the weekly cruise in and listen to John Howard's stories (or lies) of how it used to be.

I'll let ya know! It won't be long. I've decided to skip the rotiserrie and paint for now and just drive it as is for the summer. I've just gotta weld everything up, weld up my driveshaft tunnel, plumb the air ride and find a windshield.

Oh and build build a fuel tank and re sheet the trunk

Won't be long??? You can tell you're younger than I.