DROPPED SPINDLES FOR A 60 GALAXY - PROGRESS AT LAST!

While I'm waiting for my DROP-N-STOP spindle kit to arrive, I've been thinking about what I want to do to the other end of this car. I decided to go with a four bar / coil over shock set up, but instead of a panhard bar I'm going with a watt's link set up to keep the rear end totally centered under the car. I want to put as large a tire as possible under it, and with the watt's link I think I can get a 10" wide tire in there without resorting to a "mini tub".

Wayne (SAWDOFF) Pearce

Have you see Travis Rice's 62 gal. if not you should take a look see, its in the car build ups.

Oh, yeah! I've watched that build right from the get go, only took brief breaks to wipe the drool from my puss (LOL)! Now that you've mentioned Travis's 62 build, I went to see if there's anything new that I might have missed, and it appears that Travis has pulled all the progress pics from day one until his last entry in May - that's a BUMMER!!

Wayne (SAWDOFF) Pearce

Well you can give him a shout im sure he will help you anyway he can.

I saw Travis's 62 in person and it is a very well thought out car. If I had some extra money I would buy it and run a Nostalgia class. I bought an enclosed trailer off of him this spring and when i went and picked it up he had a ton of BBF stick shift parts that I was interested in also but did not have the cash on me. He let me take them with me and I paid him a little later on. Now a days you will probably not find to many people like that out there. Wonder why he pulled the pics and vanished ? Have not seen him on here for a while anyone talked to him lately?

Wayne, you got any pictures of the 60 ? What are you going to use it for a pro-touring, street or race car?

At this moment I don't have any pic's of the Starliner. I plan to take before, and after photo's, and some in progress photo's as well, and will post them once I figure out how. The car has a 521 stroker motor, with a Tremec 5 speed behind it. I had to fab my own engine mounts as the mounts my brother had were of no use at all, as was the headers, individual tubes with slip on collectors. Cylinder 1 and 2, and cylinder 5 and 6 all hung way too low, and all the tubes needed to be reshaped or replaced. My intentions are for this car to be a head turning street cruiser (might have to detune the 521 a bit). I will do some mild custom work, and build an interior for it (no interior in the car when I got it except for a pair of Kirkey aluminum buckets). I want the car to stop, and handle as well it goes, but to get a 10" tire in the rear fender wells without mini tubbing it is going to require the right combo of rear end width (got a 57 9" rear that's 53" flange to flange, as apposed to the Starliner's 57" housing), wheel back spacing, and the previously mentioned watt's link to keep the rear end positively centered under the car. If it all turns out as I plan, I should be very happy with it - it's a "keeper"!

Wayne (SAWDOFF) Pearce

is this a 60 or 61 starliner, both are cool. my brother had a 61 starline 390/401 back in the day untill some lowlife stole it never to be seen agin

The car is a 1960 Starliner, the 61's were sweet looking too, but the 1960 was a HUGE departure from the previous square, and boxy 59 Fords. I've loved them from the first time I laid eyes on the 60 Starliner when I was sixteen, when I crawled through the tall hedges surrounding the local Ford dealers back lot prior to them being revealed to the public. The first 60 Ford I saw was a black Starliner - and I thought to myself "what the f#*K is that, a rocket ship"?? (LOL) The love has stayed with me all these years!

Wayne (SAWDOFF) Pearce

What the world needs...is a Starliner 'glass race car body! I may pick one of those...even over a '58 Custom...
How about a round tube, light weight Starliner Top Sportsman car?
I think it would be cool....
Keith

Keith: We must be smoking the same stuff, I have the same recurring dreams! Tube chassis, with an 800 + inch aluminum engine consuming vast quantities of nitro --- ooooh, yeah, gotta light up again!

Good luck at the bash, I wish I could be there, but too painful without my brother, Tom.

Wayne

This past weekend I tackled the dropped spindle / disc brake kit from Drop & Stop. I took some before and after pics that I will post as soon as I figure out how. I started by measuring from the ground to the highest point of the fender well, it measured 31 1/4". Once you see the pics, you'll notice that the car sits like it has no engine or tranny in it, in fact the upper control arms were buried in the rubber snubbers! Once I got past all of the grease, and muck that has accumulated the swap was as easy as pie. Everything went together exactly as planned, set it back down on the ground and was VERY disappointed - it sat exactly 3/4" lower than when it was before! The kit was advertised as lowering the front end by 2 1/2". After debating what to do, I decided to dig deeper. I dropped the springs out, and found a 1" hard rubber spacer on top of them. I put the springs back in (what a bitch that was, I should have chained them when they were compressed), so I did the next best thing, I compressed them with my lift and chained them - it made life much easier! Put it all back together, let it down on the ground - STILL way too high, and the upper control arms were still buried in the snubbers! took it all back apart again, and cut one full coil out of the springs, back together again, still too high (but off the snubbers at last). Did it all once again, took another half coil off the springs, put it all back together again, and finally the car is sitting the way I like it! I started with 31 1/4", and ended up with 25 1/2" - a reduction of 5 3/4"! In all fairness to Dave at Drop & Stop, maybe if the car didn't have the "springs from hell" + the 1" hard rubber spacer in it, I would have seen a more favorable result the first time around. His spindle / disc brake conversion kit is first class - it came with EVERYTHING except the brake fluid!

Wayne (SAWDOFF) Pearce