[DesertXL]

Wowzer!!
First, I have never heard of a transmission burning from inside either, that's nuts!!
I had a beat up ol pontiac with at the time, 270-280k miles on it and it had sludge when i changed only 2 lifters, but it still didn't look as bad as this one!! They had have changed oil but when? How many miles were on the odometer or was that sludged up too???!!! I know of one car that probably looked this way inside. A 76 LTD that a freind of mine never changed oil on it and it died because of it. Another friend then bought the car and changed engines. The oil came out like toothpaste. More surprising was not long after the rearend went. Guess what, it was so dry it was dusty inside!! Never seen one last that long that dry! First owner drove that car constantly and longish distance often also. That WAS a good car til the wrong person owned it. Sad. Oh, did the seller think to tell you the AC also worked when parked? LOL You are a brave man! Awesome work on that trans, looks brand spankin new!

The write up was great, not boring or too indepth but indepth enough if that makes sense. You sometimes wrote as an investigator spinning a story to solve the crime. Nicely done!

Hello ShotRod64,

Ever so nice to hear from you. That's the worst transmission with oddest circumstance I have taken apart or seen anywhere online. You wouldn't think there would be enough oxidizer (oxygen) present to sustain combustion of ATF, but the only thing I can think of is the melted front pump seal and spun pump bushing allowed air to be sucked in and aerated the fluid, then the temperature hit the autoignition point of ATF and there were flames as long as the engine was running to aerate more ATF.

It's a shame when people do not take care of things, just goes to show character of an individual I guess. The seller of this dare I say, fine vehicle, said the engine was good because he poured gas down the seized carb and it ran. Yup ran with 2 gallons of water in the oil pan. What a total idiot. If this car wasn't an XL, we would have passed on this pile. But the interior, contrary to pictorial evidence, does have good bones to build it back up (not to mention we have parts cars to draw from), plus factory A/C car as my better half and I won't own or drive an old car without air con as it gets bloody hot in summer in the desert.

This poor XL is/was so bad, it's taking parts from 4 cars (so far) to put it back together. Now 3 of those cars were realistically junk, one wasn't but that's the way the cookie crumbles. The nice one was a '66 gal 500 4 door post car I bought with no engine/trans and mostly option deleted (actually came with Ford radio delete plate and I/P) . It was worth far more in parts to fix the '66 LTD and now this '66 gal 500 XL.

Thank you for the kind words about my ramblings here.

Cheers

 

[ShotRod64]

That water probably really help stir the sludge. I envision a pressurized torch when I think of that transmission flaming inside! I forgot to add the comment that the grill on it looked good, the park lights intact. As far as bones, a lot of cars that appear trashed look pretty good once they are cleaned up a bit. On this one the inside. Good thing you have a lot of parts to draw from! Not sure if it would be worth it if you didn't, even being what it is! Will be watching your progress!

 

[DesertXL]

That water probably really help stir the sludge. I envision a pressurized torch when I think of that transmission flaming inside! I forgot to add the comment that the grill on it looked good, the park lights intact. As far as bones, a lot of cars that appear trashed look pretty good once they are cleaned up a bit. On this one the inside. Good thing you have a lot of parts to draw from! Not sure if it would be worth it if you didn't, even being what it is! Will be watching your progress!

Hello ShotRod64,

I agree with you, a few cars can clean up half way decent with a little bit of work, however this was not that car . I think it was one of the worse specimens that can easily deceive based on first impressions sans body damage as everything was just destroyed and not initially useable except the coil springs and FE engine perches. You have to admit that's pretty sad. Unfortunately the grill is knackered as both sections are bent and cracked. However I have accumulated enough parts to almost assemble two full XL/LTD/7 litre/Country Squire grills that are in really good condition. The parking light lenses will be replaced with new fresh looking ones.

As for being worth it, well it's a relative value that each person assigns. For me if it was just a Custom or base galaxie 500, no. My better half and I like the upscaled models and why spend up to $75K on each in parts, supplies and labour for a low end model. Once completed we plan to drive them till they are plum wore out.

Cheers

 

[puttster]

When my grill got bent fried_daddysent me a good one. Now I still have the old one. It is hell to ship but if Matt can do it I can too, maybe...

 

[DesertXL]

When my grill got bent fried_daddysent me a good one. Now I still have the old one. It is hell to ship but if Matt can do it I can too, maybe...

Hello puttster,

You were lucky in that fried_daddy had a '65 grill. For 1966 there are 2 different grills; one for the Custom and base galaxie 500 and a much nicer all cast one for the XL, 7 litre, LTD and Country Squire. Fortunately I have been hunting these cast grill parts for years and I do have one complete straight and shiny one and just one piece away from having a second complete straight and shiny grill. I had so many 1966 base grills (stamped aluminum) I had to scrap them to make room because just as you say, shipping would be ridiculous for a massive part like that.

Cheers

 

[DesertXL]

Miscellaneous Engine Parts

Just a little more progress.

Some brackets, cover, and tag to install. I made two new head studs out of grade 8 bolts and blackened them. It's sad I see many cars that are missing things like tags, or the transmission cover or the safety retainers in the transmission mount.

I hate studs that come out when you try to remove the nuts so these are glued in.

First the York/Tecumseh base plate goes on first.

Then the power steering pump bracket and then the A/C idler pulley bracket goes atop the power steering bracket.

I thought it would be neat to include the original engine tag since it's visible. It's still a 1966 390, just no longer a horribly underpowered 'Y' code one. I put the tags on the power steering gear and power steering pump. I will make new tags for the transmission and rear axle since those are really modified and the original tag would be more meaningless.

Plus I like little things like this that shows attention to detail.

Even with the York 210 it will still be visible.

So this bar slips into the rear transmission mount and is the secondary retention should the rubber sheer. This car was missing it originally and this is why parts cars are so invaluable as trying to find these little pieces adds up really quick on places like E-Bay and even salvage yards.

Continued in next post.

 

[DesertXL]

Miscellaneous Engine Parts Continued

This was another piece I needed to buy used as the original XL car was missing it and my parts car only had dealer installed air and had a 5 blade direct drive fan and that is not adequate for this application.

Now the used fan still had what looks like the original fan clutch and it's still quite viscous, but in no way would I trust a 50+ year old part that has a seal. I don't care if it still currently works or not.

Now it's starting to look more complete.

New lower radiator hose and these are the stainless steel hose clamps I use. I don't use that cheap garbage sold at autopart stores that seemingly fall apart and or corrode. I learned my lesson on those.

I've been using this rubber grease on hoses and it makes any future service really easy should you need to remove a hose rather than pry or damage stuck on hoses.

It's slowly getting there. I still have to modify the distributor, inspect and detail the brand new York 210, make a new engine dipstick tube, make a new kickdown rod and rebuild the power steering pump. Currently I'm working on the power steering pump and waiting for parts.

Just to recap here's what this used to look like when we first brought it home. This was as bought. What a nightmare... that's the polite way of saying, what a pile of ......

More to come..

Cheers

 

[DesertXL]

Power Steering Pump

This is a long one. It shouldn't have been, but it was. I swear this thing was cursed. Let me start from here. First of all the PS pump that was in the '66 gal 500 XL was the wrong pump. Take a peek once more:

It may be hard to tell but this has the skinny fill neck and slide in dip stick. For '65/'66 it should be the angled back (air conditioning) and the fat neck with the twist off cap with integrated dip stick. The reason why will become clearer later on. With that I used the pump from one of the donor cars. Well, some of it.

I rebuilt this pump about 7 years ago as part of this adventure The Unlikely 400 Dollar FE Refresh.

But since I only did the pump and not the steering gear I wanted to clean this out and change the seals.

And this is where the fun started. Did I say fun... perhaps not the best word.

So the bushing is breaking apart and disintegrating. Now this is the second bushing because the original completely fell apart when I did this pump all those years ago. I can only surmise the remaining oil in the steering gear perhaps became acidic sitting abandoned for decades in the Indian Reservation. This poor car only had about 30K miles on it and it was left for dead.

Now this is a rare kit number as it contains a new bushing. The more popular 8501 just contains the seals. However I noticed BBB Industries is reproducing this pump. This begs the question just how good are the reproductions. If it's anything like the other reproduction parts for these cars I'll pass thank you and try to rebuild the original parts.

Now this is interesting, this is the Clevite part number. A while back I contacted Clevite to see if the part was still available. It was not.

Another interesting tidbit is after I finished this pump I happened to stumble across another kit that is still available that claims to have the bushing, seals and slipper springs. So I ordered two, it'll be interesting to see if that bushing is really included and where it's coming from.

The entire kit.

I started with the pump reservoir. It's cleaned and stripped. Now I am making modifications and some might find this interesting why I am doing this. Two or so months ago I posted a question on the HotRodders forum to see if people are using an old car (40+ years) as a daily driver and if so what did they do to it to make it reliable.

There was a plethora of responses. One stood out as stating he would never use AN lines/fittings as auto part stores do not stock them and if the car breaks down where locally could you get hoses. OK, that is a valid point.

But if I may agree to disagree and I'll explain. Back when I was doing the '66 LTD, the correct power steering hoses were no longer available, as in anywhere. There were hoses offered but they were really long (some other application) and you can not modify the high pressure hose so you were stuck and that was through Rock Auto and the local stores didn't show anything.

That's why I converted the LTD's power steering system to AN fittings. In the last year or so I noticed the correct hoses are offered again. I would suspect the boom in the economy from the last administration prompted companies to service once more the niche market cars (these 3rd gens fall into that category) as it made business sense to do so even if the profit margins aren't stellar.

However I wouldn't count on that in this administration. I would suspect some parts to go off the radar again as business have to evaluate their business plan (tighten production) once more in this new waning economy. With that thought I'm also doing this gal 500 XL in AN lines. But here's the thing to consider, even though I am making the lines myself and ordered through a speed house (Summit) in a pinch if the line blew away from home I can hunt out just about any airport; international, regional, or even those little house subdivision airparks where there is always an aircraft mechanic stationed or around.

If I need a temporary high pressure hose, it's very easy to call these A/P shops and have a certain length AN hose made the same day. Aeroquip 303 hose (common aircraft line) in 6 AN can handle about 1000 PSI and in 3 AN (brake hose) about 3000 PSI.

With that I beg to differ in that if away from home you can get AN lines made same day if you hunt down an airport. Just have to think outside the box.

Weld on AN fitting.

Continued in next post.

 

[DesertXL]

Power Steering Pump Continued

I use stainless ER312 welding rod as it's pretty forgiving on unknown steels (any traces of galvanizing still left, etc).

Onto the rest of it. Now on the pump there is always one pin that is pressed in and the other floats. The pressed in one on the pump from the donor car was slightly bent and I went to lightly straighten and it broke right off. <sigh>

OK, so even though the pump in the gal 500 XL was the wrong year pump, most of the insides are the same. That pump donated a new front.

Here's my little press in tool for the bushing.

Works a treat without harming the bushing.

The new front seal doesn't have sealant around the perimeter like other press in seals do. So a little Ultra Black RTV was lightly applied to the seal perimeter first.

Installed and excess wiped off.

The front pump end plate. The one on the left is the donor car and it's gouged. There had to have been crap in that steering gear and even though I cleaned the pump all those years ago, some of it flushed back into the pump.

Lesson learned, never rebuild just a pump, do the whole system at the same time for something this old!

Continued in next post.

 

[DesertXL]

Power Steering Pump Continued

When assembling these or even transmissions, you can use Vaseline for the assembly grease. It dissolves in ATF. Actually I think the '66 or '68 Ford Service Manual says to use it.

One of these shafts is pretty worn.

The teeth on the right side shaft are worn more. The shaft on the left is also darker suggesting it had a better heat treat process.

On the pump stator and the slippers take some Scotch Brite and cross hatch each item. Noisy pumps are usually caused by a combination of weak springs and polished hardened parts trying to ring together. Installing the cross hatch allows oil to creep between the parts and prevent the ringing together.

As for the springs you can lightly stretch them back out if you can't source new ones.

The end piece is the flow regulator. Remember power steering systems work on a regulated flow rate (independent on engine speed). The higher the flow rate the more assist you have.

The high pressure O-Ring, have to be mindful when installing the outer shell not to injure it.

Continued in next post.

 

[DesertXL]

Power Steering Pump Continued

The other high pressure seal for the pressure fitting.

The springs are the high pressure relief (hitting the steering stop) by allowing the plate to lift off and bleed off pressure.

Round 2 of aggravation. It just twisted right off like licorice. Give me strength. So '65/'66 only have this and this is my only one. OK, you want to play this way pump, you're never going to break again.

I chucked that hex piece on the lathe, centre drilled and tapped on the lathe. Then grabbed a grade 8 bolt chased the thread down and cut the rest off.

Let's see you break now you little...............

Sometimes you just have to remind it whose boss ~

Now I am not a fan of this gasket. I had a bad feeling about the grocery store paper bag gasket when I did the LTD's pump and sure enough, it leaks.

So fool me once......

Not twice..... This is good hydraulic gasket material and it will expand to 5%.

So the original cap had the dipstick broken off. I'm guessing that long stick wiggles quite a bit with engine vibration and that sharp 90˚ bend work hardens and the stick falls off into the pump. Reproductions are inexpensive. I would also assume why the design was changed for '67 for a narrow filler neck with a stouter dipstick.

Continued in next post.

 

[DesertXL]

Power Steering Pump Continued

OK so here's the year difference. If you notice the '65/'66 has the additional stud on the back that keeps the back of the pump stable in the bracket. The later year one has a bracket that attaches to the high pressure port.

Will the '67 and later work in the '65/'66 but for anyone to do that is a pretty poor show.

Pump tidbits to go on. Then I put about 1/3 of a quart of ATF in the pump and shook it up to coat everything and it's not enough to come out the low pressure port.

I wanted to show these seals as a reminder it's really fool hardy to think you can find a car sitting for long periods or just plain abandoned and think you can just drive it because you were able to get it started. I know there are a plethora of online videos that point to this notion, but really this once flexible seals are like pretzels, they just break when taunted with movement.

Just think this is just the power steering pump, everything else in the entire car is like this..............

New and correct belt for the application.

I powder coated the pulley and installed it. One thing I want to mention, if you really want to install that pulley correctly in relation to the coolant pump pulley/crank pulley use a straight edge on the PS pulley and stop installing when aligned with the other pulleys. In this case there is about 1mm of space still left to install the pulley but installing flush with the shaft would have pulled the pulley in a tinge too far.

The devil is in the details.

In order to convert the high side to an AN fitting I cut off the end of the high pressure hose.

This is the idea. Again TIG welded and painted.

Now if you wanted to use an original high pressure hose just take it off. I also use adapters that just screw into the steering gear.

That's it for the power steering pump. The new radiator arrived. However..........

Thank you Fed Ex for destroying a 752 dollar radiator. I swear FRAGILE translates to double dog dare you to destroy this package.

So the company is making me a new one, but it could be 16 weeks before I get it. <shaking head>

More to come.

 

[DesertXL]

Power Steering Pump Rebuild Kit

Just a quick note, I did receive the Ford Thompson rebuild kits from RPS and the kits do have the bushings and the slipper/vane springs. Anyone interested in a more complete kit should give these a whirl rather than the seals only kits.

Cheers

 

[DesertXL]

Refrigeration Compressor

The old Yorks aren't worth trying to rebuild as they make them brand new still and for less than 200 dollars.

Too bad it's made in china.

For those not familiar with the history of the York style of compressor, it debuted in 1958. Even the brand new ones to this day are darn near identical. The only differences are they added ports in the low and high side for pressure switches in the back and I do believe the high side has a blow off valve in the port.

Even though the bolts have the metric hardness markings the threads are still SAE/English. Rather amusing.

The York 210 decodes to 2 cylinders and 10 cubic inches of displacement. There's smaller displacement older versions as well as the Tecumseh which looks very similar and is interchangeable only it's made out of cast iron. The smaller displacement compressors are used with dealer installed under dash units as the BTU capacity is much lower on those.

Using a 210 on a dealer installed A/C without a larger condenser or high fan flow through the condenser will result in higher line pressures which wastes fuel and puts the compressor under more strain. This is a situation where bigger is not better.

Another fact worth noting, this is a very simplistic compressor, there are less moving parts in this compressor compared to a modern Sanden or the like. This has less friction than a newer compressor and uses less energy. It also sports a much better front seal. One more thing, the reason why these seemingly old crocks are reproduced is because they were used on new class 8 trucks and still might be. New class 8 trucks (semis/lorries) have a requirement from the parts they use. The parts they source for their trucks must meet 10 years / 1 million miles.

Now that is the kind of part I'd want on my car

Why anyone would buy the Sanden retrofit kit is a bit beyond me. The one downside of the York 210 is that it is only 2 cylinders and you are more likely to feel the pulses of compression on the vehicle. However if it's a problem, you can mitigate the vibration by using a muffler on the discharge line.

Inspected, oil drained, detailed and inspected.

These are the braces for the compressor.

Continued in next post.

 

[DesertXL]

Refrigeration Compressor Continued

Now this is the tricky bit, this brace originally attached to the OEM exhaust manifold. I'll need to make a bracket that mounts to the exhaust bolts to secure this too. I'll get back to this.

Let's go over clutches.

The most common clutch for the '65/'66 is the Eaton clutch. However the drawback is that it requires an external brush because the electromagnetic coil is part of the pulley and spins with it.

Typical example.

The clutches on these York's/Tecumseh's is measure in two key areas, the diameter and the sheave offset from the centre of the bolts atop the compressor to the centre of the sheave. There are many different clutches in different diameters and different offsets. Never assume they are all the same.

This is the clutch from my '68 XL with FE. The diameter is the same but the sheave offset is about 6 mm inboard than on the '65/'66 setup. This would not make for a happy belt alignment.

Now the problem with the Eaton clutches for '65/'66 is they do use that external brush and that requires maintenance otherwise excessive arcing will occur and aside from never getting an AM station without tons of noise you can even have clutch chattering if the slip ring and brush get really dirty.

Now the '66 gal 500 XL came with a Pitts clutch in which it uses a separate stationary coil and no brushes.

Here's the Pitts on the left and the Eaton on the right. Both are the same diameter and with the same sheave offset.

You cannot go by overall height as shown here as when installed the pulley sheave offsets are equal. The Pitts clutch is the better clutch, but seemingly more rare. I hunted down an NOS coil for it and I think I have a line on a core clutch. But that was searching pretty much the entire internet (what a time vampire that was). I would like to get another clutch and coil to retrofit the LTD's compressor clutch which is an Eaton.

I cleaned the Pitts coil and found the epoxy cracking and worried that water or oil might ingress compromise the copper windings I sealed the face the epoxy with Ultra Black RTV. I have to take care of this coil as they are seemingly rare as hens teeth.

The insulation on the wire is geting VERY hard and I would not trust 50+ year old wiring.

Continued in next post.

 

[DesertXL]

Refrigeration Compressor Continued

I am going to splice in some new GXL wire close as I can to the coil assembly. I used a western union splice, soldered, then inner melt polyolefin heat shrink (has sealing glue to keep out contaminates) then over that PVC heat shrink as a hard outer cover resistant to chaffing.

I cleaned and painted the Pitts clutch. I have a new bearing for it. This clutch uses a metal shield (lower right side piece) that goes in before the bearing. Then the spiral snap ring is installed.

I used the press to install these pieces.

On the clutch shoe there is a spacer that is used.

Then press in the shoe.

Continued in next post.

 

[DesertXL]

Refrigeration Compressor Continued

Then the snap ring is installed.

Tightening the bolt can be a bit tricky as there is no provision in the clutch shoe for a tool to hold it. So you can energize the coil to engage the clutch. This ties the shoe to outer pulley where it's easier to hold.

The correct belt for this application.

That A/C idler pulley deflects the belt just enough to keep it from slapping when the air con is running.

Here's a bracket I made for the hanging York brace. It's 3/4 hard 4130 steel. It doesn't need to be really thick.

I made a little bracket for an Adel clamp for wire management.

I will say this, the '65/'66 FE with air con has some of the oddest belt geometries.

More to come.

Cheers

 

[galaxiex]

Just a silly thought....

Some Ford (actually Borg Warner) Transfer Cases us an electromagnet that looks very similar to that Pitts magnet.

Might be worth a shot to see if they make one with the same diameters.
The T-case magnets usually mount with 3 threaded studs.
Might be able to modify to make it work?

Here is one...

BW4405 & BW4406 TRANSFER CASE MAGNET / COIL FITS FORD ELECTRIC SHIFT (4400645001)

 

[DesertXL]

Just a silly thought....

Some Ford (actually Borg Warner) Transfer Cases us an electromagnet that looks very similar to that Pitts magnet.

Might be worth a shot to see if they make one with the same diameters.
The T-case magnets usually mount with 3 threaded studs.
Might be able to modify to make it work?

Here is one...

BW4405 & BW4406 TRANSFER CASE MAGNET / COIL FITS FORD ELECTRIC SHIFT (4400645001)

Hi galaxiex,

Thank you for the thought. I did buy the second Pitts coil, or rather the coil for the Pitts clutch, all I need is the Pitts clutch. The coils for the later years look identical but the height is different. The '68 coil seems like it would work as it bolts in and clears the Pitts clutch, but it sits too shallow and as the magnetic field strength reduces as the square of the distance it wouldn't pull in on the clutch hard enough and would slip or not engage at all.

Cheers!

 

[DesertXL]

Bucket Seat Floor Braces

This part of the project was a bit time consuming. Hah, like what isn't...

Just a recap, so I needed to add the XL floor braces to this body that was originally factory fitted for a bench seat. Whilst this was a lot of work it was worth it from another view point; corrosion control as Ford left the enclosed areas of the braces in bare steel, which was starting to get a thick layer of rust.

Even though the end supports are the same for bench and bucket I wanted to use the complete set from one car, so the complete set from the XL will be used.

This is very time consuming as you want to be as careful as possible when drilling out the resistance welds otherwise you could make this job much harder and much longer.

I start with using all kinds of light and then use a wire brush and or sandpaper to highlight the dimples in the factory spot welds. I then use a Sharpie to mark the centre.

I then centre punch each spot weld, after which I used a small drill bit to make a feasible deep dimple without hitting the underlying floor sheet metal. After that I used the spot weld drill bit to very carefully drill only as needed to release the top brace. I used a hardened putty knife and gasket scraper to force in between the two welded parts to put pressure to help see if I'm deep enough with the cutter or if I'm off centre. This takes time to do each one. You don't want to drill into the floor sheet metal. Sometimes it happens and you have to fix that after the brace is off.

If you go to deep as a few of them I did on this side, you can build it back up with weld (using 0.025" MIG wire with CO2/AR mix gas) then grind carefully back down.

I was a bit overzealous on this side.

To cut the centre of the old spot weld and grind any welding needed to build it back up level, I used a regular cut off wheel to cut most of it, then used a tiny air belt sander to blend the rest down.

There was a good coating of rust on the bare steel over the years. Those seat plugs dry out and fall off, then road debris, water and salt can enter the enclosed brace area and sit on bare steel. Fortunately this was a Southwest car and I caught it in time, but I have a '68 XL from Colorado Springs (seemed to be from there all its life) and the floor rust started from inside the braces and spread out. Very large sections of the heavy braces are completely rotted away on that car.

Continued in next post