Cliff Notes version, I'm a Craigslist junky and tend to bring home oddball stuff because I think it's cool. I'm also kinda' weird and think that the huge boats of the 70's are just neat. Both combined one day a few months back when I saw an ad for a '75 T-Bird that wouldn't start for $900. I figured what the heck and drove out to look at it. She's in really good condition, straight, no rust, paint is ok, but the interior is in really good shape with only minor wear to the driver's leather seat. All other leather is still nice and soft. Dash is uncut and no cracks to boot.
After talking with the lady that owned it and she decided I wasn't going to scrap it, she dropped the price down to $500 and I towed it home the next morning.
The first thing I did after charging the battery and trying to start it, only to be rewarded by a metallic 'clank' sound was to put a breaker bar on the crank and tried turning it forward, which it wouldn't move at all, and a quick bump backwards rewarded me with something big and metal falling out of the block and into the oil pan, lol. Not exactly what I wanted to have happen, but at least let me know where I stood with it.
So now while I finish some other projects and it's sitting under cover I've been trying to collect parts for it. The plan is to get rid of all the emissions crap under hood and really clean up the engine compartment, build a fun street motor and try to keep the car as stock appearing as possible.
So far I found a '69 460 motor that needs rebuilt, but bought the whole thing for $150, and really I wanted the heads off it so I can get a bump in compression and better flowing head on the cheap. Will probably do some porting on them and have the local machine shop install bigger valves when they rebuild them. The goal is to build a really fun, torquey motor that will move this land yacht around with something resembling performance, since I refuse to drive anything that can be outrun by a Honduh. Then it's going to go to the local car shows every week where it will take up 1.5 parking spots and remind folks that not too long ago people drove cars like these, that will instantly anger any Prius driver, while making the owner of the local gas stations smile.
So I guess the motor will look something like this:
-'75 block, bored over whatever they need to, hopefully not more than .030"
-depending on how bad the rotating assembly is, I may end up with a Scat stroker kit
-C9 heads, ported with bigger valves
-Performer intake, because nothing else will fit under the hood
-smallish carb to keep in line with great low end torque
-would love to do headers but I'm not sure it's possible due to how close the shock towers are to the exhaust manifolds. Have been told that the Gran Torino headers will fit, so I may buy a pair and see.
Will post up pics tonight when I get home.
After talking with the lady that owned it and she decided I wasn't going to scrap it, she dropped the price down to $500 and I towed it home the next morning.
The first thing I did after charging the battery and trying to start it, only to be rewarded by a metallic 'clank' sound was to put a breaker bar on the crank and tried turning it forward, which it wouldn't move at all, and a quick bump backwards rewarded me with something big and metal falling out of the block and into the oil pan, lol. Not exactly what I wanted to have happen, but at least let me know where I stood with it.
So now while I finish some other projects and it's sitting under cover I've been trying to collect parts for it. The plan is to get rid of all the emissions crap under hood and really clean up the engine compartment, build a fun street motor and try to keep the car as stock appearing as possible.
So far I found a '69 460 motor that needs rebuilt, but bought the whole thing for $150, and really I wanted the heads off it so I can get a bump in compression and better flowing head on the cheap. Will probably do some porting on them and have the local machine shop install bigger valves when they rebuild them. The goal is to build a really fun, torquey motor that will move this land yacht around with something resembling performance, since I refuse to drive anything that can be outrun by a Honduh. Then it's going to go to the local car shows every week where it will take up 1.5 parking spots and remind folks that not too long ago people drove cars like these, that will instantly anger any Prius driver, while making the owner of the local gas stations smile.
So I guess the motor will look something like this:
-'75 block, bored over whatever they need to, hopefully not more than .030"
-depending on how bad the rotating assembly is, I may end up with a Scat stroker kit
-C9 heads, ported with bigger valves
-Performer intake, because nothing else will fit under the hood
-smallish carb to keep in line with great low end torque
-would love to do headers but I'm not sure it's possible due to how close the shock towers are to the exhaust manifolds. Have been told that the Gran Torino headers will fit, so I may buy a pair and see.
Will post up pics tonight when I get home.