I am not a mechanical engineer, nor a professional mechanic. Having maintained a growing fleet of mid-century Americana from Detroit’s Big Three longer than I’ve been driving, however, I am in a unique position to judge such sundry criteria as the ease of maintenance, parts availability, and general functionality of the cars that collectively form our automotive heritage and landscape. Therefore, I’ve certainly had a few late to the game questions for Ford’s engineers since I bought my ’63 T-Bird last year, questions that mostly start with “Why?”.
If you’ve ever been to a doctor’s office, the pain scale will be familiar, although I’ll never understand how someone suffering from “discomforting pain” could be smiling. Such is a sunny disposition, I guess. If we instead modify the pain scale to relate to antique car ownership, I can simply and directly relate my thoughts and emotions regarding the “ownability” of my fleet. For example, my experience so far with General Motors products of the 1960s and ’70s that aren’t Corvairs has been on the green side of the scale, maybe a 2 or a 3. My experiences with the Thunderbird, however, have been a little more frustrating, maybe a 5 or a 6. And while “intense” may be a strong adjective to describe a nice year in the garage (a bad day in the garage, and so on and so forth…), I have found some of Ford’s engineering choices “very distressing.”
My first example is pictured above. This fuel hose, one of three, is completely hidden from sight behind a splash shield.
The cavity behind the aforementioned splash shield is a nice home for 50-odd years of detritus, the kind of detritus that will rust fenders, causing previous owners to bondo over said rust and not look any further into its root cause. Additionally, noxious gas fumes emanating from hidden 50-year-old fuel hoses with rusted twist clamps can be hard to find when many mechanics, both amateur and professional, would never expect them to be hidden in such a manner.
My experience tells me, however, that when the good Ford taketh away, the good Ford also giveth. The trunk floor has a built-in access door for servicing the fuel sender so one does not have to drop the fuel tank. Unfortunately, prior mechanics had not taken the time to use the access door for its intended purpose, as the fuel hose at the tank was also (almost certainly) original to the car.
Another curiosity on the ’63 model is the motive power behind the operation of the windshield wipers–the power steering pump. Yes, the wipers run on transmission fluid rather than fast moving electrons or engine vacuum. Occasionally, I’ve found that turning off the wiper switch just doesn’t take, allowing the blades to tentatively climb the windshield in a most unsettling fashion. Or better yet, I’ll find the car parked later on, the wipers having mysteriously risen without my having touched them. Spooky!
The next problem is not Ford’s fault at all, but it was frustrating all the same. The engine in my ’63 is from a ’61 Ford, a Ford that came standard with a generator, thereby having no provision to attach an alternator to the cylinder head. A past mechanic rigged up a system of brackets that not only held the alternator at a strange angle, but would also not allow the belts to be tightened, leading to an odd honking as if a goose were trapped under the hood. I ruminated on this issue for weeks.
Fortunately, a company called CRAP (no kidding, they’re on eBay), makes a conversion bracket to convert early FE Fords from generators to alternators. It was expensive, and I still had to use a few washers to shim the alternator position, but it was a fairly elegant solution to a problem I didn’t know I had when I bought the car.
The ’63 model has a one-year-only alternator, and since mine looked like it was due for a replacement, I also installed a much less expensive ’65 model alternator and changed the wiring harness to accept the updated terminal designs.
The next job resulted in few major issues, other than having to reweld some broken spot welds on a front leaf spring hanger bracket and having some u-bolts bent at a heavy truck parts supplier.
New leaf springs and bushings added a needed inch or two to the rear ride height. Thunderbirds didn’t exactly sport a hot rod rake when new, and old leaf springs shackled with ancient helper springs rendered my back bumper in danger when I backed out of steep driveways.
The front suspension is mostly standard Ford, with the coil spring perched atop the upper control arm, requiring giant spring towers under the wide, wide hood. I had to press in new upper ball joints (using my 12-ton Harbor Freight press).
I also had to press in new lower control arm bushings AND replace the (expensive!) lower bushing brackets, as the stud holding the entire apparatus to the car was dangerously rusted, and hidden from plain sight when the pieces were assembled.
Replacing the lower ball joints was an easy task, but Ford struck again here. The front drum backing plate has to be unbolted from the spindle to remove the lower control arm, because the two parts won’t otherwise clear each other. Come on, Ford! Additionally, the caster is adjusted by moving the lower control arm against a serrated strut rod that is bolted to the lower control arm with huge bolts and nuts. To adjust the caster, I fashioned a turnbuckle that pulled against the subframe. Shims or a threaded strut rod (like Corvairs have) would have made fine adjustments much easier. Brute force, as it does in so many other human pursuits, prevails here.
To me, however, the most egregious fault with the car is how difficult it is to get to anything. The steering box is buried beneath the engine and those HUGE suspension towers (have I mentioned that?) in the engine compartment, and I am heading out today to buy a few cores from a guy who has a lot of cores. This is, unfortunately, my winter project, because the steering box is worn to the point that the car is less fun to drive than it should be. Course corrections are constant and mildly terrifying, although I’ve managed to put over a thousand semi-white knuckle miles on the T-Bird this year. It’s not really dangerous, only discomforting; therefore, I still had a smile on my face.
At the local O’Reilly’s, the core charge for a rebuilt steering box is $500, hence my buying a couple of cores, and this brings up another thing about which I’d like to question the engineers. Why the constant running changes? Steering boxes for ’63 models are, from what I’ve been able to glean from my research, one-year-only parts, thanks to a new rag joint in ’63. In fact, A LOT of parts on the ’63 (again, including the alternator) won’t fit ’62s or ’64s, so it looks like I bought a bit of a mutt.
I’m also going to rebuild the power steering pump this winter, but Ford strikes again. It looks like I’ll have to move the air conditioning compressor and brackets to get it out, because there doesn’t seem to be room underneath. My alternative is to remove the lower radiator hose, something I learned to dread this summer when I replaced the radiator. I also learned to dread installing the fan, which uses a ’61-3 Thunderbird specific fan clutch, because the radiator is so close to the engine…somehow! How is a car this big so cramped?
Speaking of the vagaries of the power steering pump: To tighten the power steering belt, something that should really be a straightforward job, I have to use a jack and a block of wood, which seems to be the most common method according to the Thunderbird forum I’ve found. Come on, Ford!
Of course, complaining about my machinery is nothing new, because I’m kind of a complainer, and it’s obvious that I bring this stuff upon myself. And I love it. Even when things aren’t really going my way, and the cars seem to hate me, there are few things I’d rather do than turn a wrench.
And although fixing the warm yet fully charged air conditioning is likely going to require my completely disassembling the dashboard (Come on, Ford!), I’ll probably do it with a smile on my face, love in my heart, and profanity on my lips.
Even if the T-Bird may not be the engineering marvel of the 1960s, and even if 12 miles per gallon is cause for celebration, and even though my knuckles get scraped if I look at it wrong, it’s such a cool car. The hood scoop, the huge windshield, the fender skirts, the taillights, the X-100 style finlets that should have looked out of date but didn’t…these are all reasons to love old cars in general, and old T-Birds in particular.
And even though having a fleet that requires some off-site storage makes no sense at all, I don’t think I’ll be changing anything any time soon. More updates to come, when I’m struck by a whim.
Having owned both (T-bird and Corvair); I’ll take the Vair in a heartbeat.
Always enjoy your postings here. Aaron65!
*blink* hydraulic wipers? Sticks in my mind that, in the early 60s, someone was using hydraulic power windows too. I really enjoyed the old “Junkyard Wars” TV series, and was not alone in noticing that the hydraulic machines never worked.
Back when the earth was young, a friend of mine had a 62, when they were just cheap old cars. The odd thing about the wipers was they would get slightly out of sync at times and they would collide instead of overlapping at the center. Your wipers creeping sounds like a leak in the “off” valve that lets pressure into the wiper motors. Is there an accumulator in the hydraulic system that would hold pressure when the engine is off? An accumulator would account for the wipers moving when the engine is off.
One feature that Carl’s 62 and my 67 390 shared was if the engine was run long enough to be thoroughly warmed up, shut off, then restarted in only a minute or two, the starter could barely turn the engine over. Let the car sit for several minutes and the starter would turn it fine, but only a minute or two after shutdown, it struggled. I mentioned this on a forum somewhere a few years ago, and several other people popped up to report they had had the same issue. Didn’t matter if it was in a Bird, a Galaxie, or anything else, 390s, at least with automatics, seemed to share this issue.
Nice to see the Dirty Dart still has a home.
“Sticks in my mind that, in the early 60s, someone was using hydraulic power windows too.”
Mercedes-Benz 600?
Mercedes-Benz 600?
I’m thinking Lincoln or Cadillac.
Lincolns of the time also had hydraulic wipers. Lincoln convertibles had hydraulically-powered tops, too; I don’t know about Thunderbirds.
Hudson had hydraulic windows, at least on the convertible, and they could crack walnuts.
I’m not sure about the other companies but GM used their “Hyrdro-lectric” windows up to 1953 (see below). I remember my Dad’s resistance to having power windows for years because of his experience repairing hydro electric windows when he worked at a dealership in the early 50’s. Even early on they leaked and the fluid stained door sills, etc., requiring repainting as well as replacing hydraulic fluid lines. He just hated them and associated power windows with nothing but trouble even after electric windows became more reliable.
http://www.1949cadillac.com/the-infamous-hydro-lectric-system-part-i/
The starter issue sounds like it might have something to do with the proximity of the starter to an exhaust manifold or pipe where some kind of insulation or shield was removed or fell off, i.e., the starter gets warmed up enough not to work until it cools down.
My thought too.
My 67 Galaxie 500 had the starter problem back in the 70s. I knew a source of automotive knowledge who worked in auto parts and he said that there was some weakness in the starter design of that time that could not handle heat well as it got older. IIRC that starter design came out around 65 and had been replaced by somewhere around 69-71.
We had a ’66 Toronado and my in-law’s had an Electra 225 with similar starter issues, but it took a much longer wait for them to start. Copper loses conductivity as it gets hot. At least with GM, the bigger engines had a very large diameter starter which was very close to the exhaust. My theory is that the winding’s were too hot to flow much current and turn over these big high compression engines. I put a super thick diesel engine battery cable on the Olds and it helped.
Our ’64 Continental did not have the starting issue, but did have hydraulic wipers, again with no issues. The power steering pump, however, was not belt driven on the 430, but direct drive on the front of the crankshaft. These Wixom, Michigan Ford products were low volume and sometimes strange, like the bunch of ’63-only parts.
My ’68 T-bird has hydraulic wipers. They work well, and have none of the creep issues Aaron describes.
Their advantage is you can easily get many different wiper speeds. I think my car has 6 speeds including one that’s comically slow but an interesting alternative to intermittent wipers.
The worse problem with hydraulic power windows was whenever a line or cylinder leaked, the fluid would react with the paint in ran onto, loosen it up and let rust start. With the flexing of the lines at door hinges, leaks were a chronic problem. Most car makers changed to electric power windows between 1953-’56. Only the convertible top operation used hydraulic cylinders and they were enough of a problem.
Nice post! As the owner of several classics myself, I completely understand your pain! I think the simple question is that these cars were never designed to last 50 years. There’s no way that the engineers in 1963 were sitting around a conference room table thinking “well, we need to make sure that someone can service this car in 2019”. Heck, with all the duck and cover, Cuban missile crisis, etc., it was no sure thing that anyone would see 1970!
But seriously, I too question some designs, but a lot of decisions were made for assembly and not service. Many parts you discuss were considered to be life-of-vehicle items (not the generator/alternator), such as leaf springs and even the rubber hose fuel sections. Even if the sending unit/pump failed, it was considered that likely only one replacement would be made and then the vehicle would be scrapped. Just designed obsolescence, plain and simple. Ford wanted you to buy a new car, but be satisfied enough not to switch to another company.
Thanks for the post!
…but a lot of decisions were made for assembly and not service.
Ayup. The V6 in my 2008 Taurus X had the water pump in the valley between cylinder banks, driven by the timing chain. Replacement of the pump requires disassembly of about half of the engine. As an added bonus, coolant leaking from the pump, instead of dripping on the garage floor where it can be discovered, runs down the timing chain and contaminates the oil. My T-Rex was sold before the pump gave trouble, My neighbor’s Taurus sedan did require a new pump. He discovered the leak before the engine was damaged, but the pump replacement cost something like $3800.
Ford’s “Water Pump of Death”…
One wonders what they were thinking with that one.
The water pump on a Chrysler 2.7 V6 is just as evil. You must take the top part of the engine apart as well as the myriad of timing chains to replace it.
One wonders what they were thinking with that one.
Ford was probably thinking “it makes a really compact installation, and, by the time it fails, the car will be out of warranty, so not our problem”
Nice car and very interesting to read about the nitty gritty details of a classic like this. I agree with JB, I don’t think Ford was being sadistic with its choices, just not far-sighted. They probably figured owners well-off enough to buy a T-Bird would not be doing their own maintenance anyway.
They probably figured owners well-off enough to buy a T-Bird would not be doing their own maintenance anyway.
And T-Bird owners could afford to pay a lot more for service than a Falcon owner too.
I owned a ’62 T-Bird from ’88 thru ’98 and yes, they were a pain to work on. Tearing apart the dash to replace the vacuum servos for the HVAC system was a glimpse into the future of car design.
At some point the engine had been rebuilt and exhaust gaskets had been installed with those “C” shaped retaining tabs to keep the exhaust bolts tight. Of course, years later the gaskets failed and leaked. I spent hours on my back with long homemade chisels trying to pry the tabs away from the bolts so I could get a wrench on them. Then it was an 1/8 of a turn at a time to remove the bolts. No room for a socket and ratchet here!
But I did love that car! It is better to look good, than to feel good, my darlings!
You are am ambitious man Aaron, I have enough trouble keeping up with one vintage car.
I used to have a late 1960’s copy of “Fix your Ford” and recall the instructions about where to cut the hole in the firewall to service the heater core. Production is king and it’s all about putting the car together, not servicing it 🙁
I have a copy of that book, too! I used to check it out of the library all the time when I was a kid; I’ve always loved shop manuals. 🙂
Its not Ford (or any mfg) fault. IF Hank the Duce had bellowed in the board room meetings, without spilling his cocktail, “We need to make this car last 60 years!” Nobody but a very select few would have been able to afford one. Nice car you have there. Take good care of her. Do you have the factory shop manual for her?
Part of the fun of buying old cars is collecting the literature, and in the T-Bird’s case, it all came with the car. I even have the parts manuals with exploded drawings, which has really come in handy a couple of times.
I understand what you’re saying about making the cars last, but my point is that some cars of the era still seemed to be designed with more serviceability in mind than the T-Bird was.
Nice that you have the manuals. I have worked on a few of those, and the Flair Birds too are no better.
Is it possible that a lot of these woes come from stuffing an engine designed for a full-size car into a less than full size body? I remember when Chevy put a small-block into the Monza and you had some tremendous effort to change the #8 spark plug.
I have never looked into the engine compartment of a 63 T-bird but have on a 64 as someone I know has one. The 390 looks very cramped in that car and the owner is not capable of doing any work himself. Oh, the stories I have heard of repair costs to him for what I consider mild jobs. Now you look at the 390 in my F-100 and I have enough room for a lounge chair to sit and ponder what I will do next.
Savvy mechanics would drill a hole thru the chassis/frame to gain access to that elusive #8 spark plug.
The chain store automotive center I worked at flat out refused to change spark plugs on a V8 Chevy Monza.
Yes, you bought a mutt – but what a handsome mutt !
(still chuckling about hydraulic wipers – wonder how they made the intermittent setting work)
(still chuckling about hydraulic wipers – wonder how they made the intermittent setting work)
Intermittent wipers didn’t exist until around 71. The electric circuit uses a transistor as a switch, a capacitor as a timer and a variable resistor to control how fast the cap charges, which sets the length of pause before the transistor switches the wiper on again. To do all that with a hydraulic wiper, the transistor would be switching a solenoid valve that turned the hydraulic pressure on and off.
My mom’s 64 Rambler had vacuum wipers, another source of hilarity.
Vacuum wipers: one had to laugh, even when exasperated with the wipers. When I was driving a ’41 Chevy ages and ages ago, the wipers would flail back and forth furiously when I let up on the gas, but then when I really needed them accelerating from a stop, they would simply stop, as the rain poured down. Soon as I let up on the gas, though, away they went.
… the wipers would flail back and forth furiously when I let up on the gas, but then when I really needed them accelerating from a stop, they would simply stop,
Rambler cured that, after a fashion, by the early 60s. They piggybacked a vac pump on the fuel pump, so there was always a bit of vacuum, even when there was none from the manifold. Kalamazoo has some long, steep, hills and, in 8 years with that Rambler, the wipers never completely stopped. They would slow pulling one of those hills, then flap furiously when stopped at the light at the top of the hill, but they never stopped.
ISTR that J. C. Whitney had some kind of aftermarket gadget that made vacuum wipers work better.
I had intermittent wipers on my Triumph Herald in the mid 60’s. Ford had introduced them in the US, and a friend saw a PCB wiring diagram in an electronics mag and offered to make me a unit if I payed for components – we were probably still in school at the time.
Ford introduced them in 1969 after stealing the design from Robert Kearns.
The hydraulic wipers didn’t have an intermittent setting. My 68 t-bird has them, 6 speeds including a couple so slow they serve the same purpose as intermittent wipers, but are a bit more distracting.
I’ve been hit with that pain scale at doctor’s offices and hospitals, and am always reluctant to report a number higher than 7 no matter how badly i’m hurt feeling it would be unfair to those who’d been run over by a car, had late-stage cancer, or other major maladies for me to put my stomach ache or back pain in the same category. I nonetheless feel like I’m underreporting my pain and may be getting substandard treatment because of it, especially given recent reluctance to prescribe painkillers.
There are several “what were they thinking?” moments I often find when servicing our mostly spectacularly-engineered 2007 VW Golf/Rabbit, but which seems to not take into account that leaves fall during the autumn. They then clog the forward door sills and cowl ventilation area.
I had a ‘63 TBird; I too thought it was a little tough to work on, as I was only six at the time. Mine was an AMT 3-in-1 kit. If I recall correctly, it had a working Swing-Away steering column, but I got glue in the wrong place and it wouldn’t swing.
I’ve had this promo since 1963. The Swing-Away wheel fell out when it first arrived in the mail from Ford. I remember spending quite a long time with tweezers getting the damn thing back in the dash where it remains today. I wouldn’t chance trying to make it “swing” again.
I remember going with my mom to our local Ford dealer in the fall of 1963 and getting a promo Falcon. Long gone, so I’m amazed and impressed you still have yours. My ‘63 AMT TBird was a convertible.
I have that model, but I had no idea the swing away worked. I’ll have to go check that out. If not, I hope it’s easier to fix than the one in the real car…THAT was a pain.
It DOES! That is awesome.
Yeehaw the first, windshield wipers powered by the steering pump: what in the literal, actual fack?!
Yeehaw the second, one-year-only parts are fun! Sounds like you’re doing your best to eliminate/update them where possible, and work around them otherwise.
My beard stood on end when you hinted at getting a steering box from O’Reilly’s: buy crummy parts, get crummy results (and doom yourself to neverending re-replacement work). Consumer-grade parts stores like O’Reilly are fine for stocking up on name-brand oil and filters when they’re on sale. Fine for picking up car wash supplies, a pack of fuses, a can of carburetor cleaner, wiper blades, a battery if that’s the nearest place when yours dies.
For actual working car parts, though? Effno. Whether we’re talking about alternators or starters or steering boxes, forget that “remanufactured” garbage (yes, even with the lifetime warranty sales gimmick, which just means you get to spend your lifetime replacing shoddy parts).
If you’re not rebuilding a steering box yourself (ambitious but not impossible), check with Steer & Gear or Firm Feel or RedHead Steering for a box that’s been rebuilt properly.
Hey Daniel,
I’m not above rebuilding a steering box on my own, but the T-Bird’s seems pretty touchy regarding the spool valve adjustment. The O’Reilly box is actually a Lares unit that’s a little cheaper than sending it out to Lares. I’ve heard mixed reviews on Lares, so we’ll see how it goes.
I’ll have to check to see if Firm Feel does T-Bird boxes.
I’ve had good luck with Red Head as they are local, actually more local now that they have moved. Don’t know about the mail-ins, but they were always quick for the over the counter units.
You put in a lot of toil and effort to be sure, but boy are the results worth it. Just beautiful. A bit of historical trivia, a ‘63 T Bird coupe was JFK’s last personal car, and replaced a similar ‘61.
And, is that a ‘53 Buick next to it in the garage?
Yep…
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/cars-of-a-lifetime/coal-1953-buick-special-riviera/
For me this generation is the best looking Thunderbird ever, even better than the Gen I two seaters. I tend to agree with those who said this above, Ford never anticipated that these cars would still be on the road today and they also never considered that anyone other than trained mechanics would work on them. The people with the money to buy a new Thunderbird would also have the money to pay someone else for their labor time. Before reading this article I had never heard of windshield wipers being driven hydraulically, I’m sure they were more consistent than the vacuum wipers lesser Fords came with, but that would be a low bar for sure.
Gorgeous T-bird!
As my co-worker who drives a classic car says “If it were easy everyone would do it.”
I love the bicentennial Sting-ray, too!
Thanks!
Beautiful! You never see them that clean (white shows the nicks easily). Many of these were 5 speeds, seems like the single-speed coasters are rarer.
I have a ’76 Kool Lemon Sting-ray standard that I just love.
The pictures do it more justice than it deserves; it’s full of chips, but I had a quart of paint matched at Menards for touch ups, so it’s a 10 footer. 🙂
I don’t mean to generalize but I find your discoveries to be very common with most Ford products from this era all the way through the ’70’s. There never seemed to be any engineering consideration given to the reality that “stuff” would need to be eventually fixed or replaced.
My Dad bought this lightly used 1965 Thunderbird in spring 1967. I well remember the wipers working off the power steering system. They worked well on a car that was almost new and we had for only four years. Much better than the vacuum wipers that others mention and were common on so many cars for years.
Speaking of vacuum. I remember our T-Bird had vacuum-assisted controls for everything – even the transmission selector would hiss as you changed gears and the flow through ventilation system and heater controls were vacuum assisted. Those lines must be an absolute bear to replace/maintain on 60-year old cars today.
I love the Bullet and Flair Birds but would never own one. A friend inherited her Dad’s 1961 Thunderbird (bought in 1963) many years back. As much as she loved the car, it was always in a specialty repair shop here in LA for very expensive work and was sold after a few years. Same with 1965 and 1966 models she owned briefly. I admire your ability and patience in keeping this beautiful car on the road. Thanks for the update.
The power door locks on the ’64 Continental, with hydraulic wipers, were vacuum operated. I replaced vacuum hoses in the dash and out to the suicide doors. At least this Mad Men era car had an ashtray and lighter for every seating position!
You brought back memories of weekends spent in/under my 61. Yes I did the same fuel hose under the inner front fender and yes I did the rear leaf springs. My 61 had a 1 year only front shackle design that allowed fore and aft movement in addition to that allowed by the rear. I have never seen anything else like it.
The hydraulic wipers are interesting – I thought I remembered electrics on my 61, but perhaps I wasn’t paying enough attention. I spent way more time working on it than driving it.
It was removing that front inner fender that finally convinced me to cut my losses after I saw the rusted out supports up at the tops of the fenders. And yes, they engineered the tiniest engine compartment ever put in a 5000 pound car.
The first time I saw the open engine compartment of a TBird in 1961 or 1962, I was struck as a kid how tight and cramped it was. Cars of the ’50s mostly still had big deep engine compartments, and even the typical sedans of the early 60s were still roomy, but the T Bird’s engine literally looked like it had been shoehorned into its tight space.
It’s the result of making it a unibody, which necessitated those giant spring towers, as well as making it so low.
There’s a reason I bought a six cylinder F100: I can stand next to the engine inside the engine compartment. Seriously.
I feel your pain. The only way to change the rearmost passenger side spark plug on my Dad’s ’ 73 Grand Am was to remove the tire and crawl into the wheel well! My dear friend Alexander who founded Squarebird.org would often speak about how difficult it is to work on bulletbirds, let along squarebirds.
Motor Trend road tested a 1962 Sports Roadster for their September 1962 issue. They included a photo of the crowded engine compartment with the caption “Power accessory plumbing, radiator header tank and spring towers limit engine accessibility and hamper simple servicing.” I imagine most people who bought these cars new never opened the hood. It was their dealer mechanics and subsequent owners who had to cope.
I still have this Motor Trend. I’ve been obsessed with these Thunderbirds since I was 10 or 11. I bought these Solido models at Harrod’s in 1985. Among the many Bullet Bird models I still have.
I had those same Solido models too, even the Cadillacs. I also remember one of my T-Birds was a ’63 Sport Roadster. I remember it having the Kelsey Hayes wire wheels and the fender skirts, which was not correct (the skirts didn’t clear the Kelsey Hayes wheels). Unfortunately, mine are long gone.
I tried to change the @#$%ing starter on my ’65 Ford LTD with 352 V-8. ONE of the bolts requires the most convoluted combination of ratchet extensions imaginable.
And I was trying to do this in the fall/winter, lying on a dirt floor. This was back when I was in HS.
I paid someone to fix it.
Great update Aaron. I always love reading about your cars and this T-Bird is one of my favourites. I can relate to Ford idiosyncrasies on weird designs and one year only parts, but at least my Ford is actually pretty easy to work on. Compared to the GM stuff, Ford is often much more convoluted. The Master Parts Catalog and the service manual have been assets in dealing with running changes and discovering which parts are one year only. At least your car doesn’t have the power steering pump driven directly off the engine like the Continentals had.
As for the small engine compartment, I wonder why Ford didn’t use the same suspension setup as the Continentals? Like the 58-60 Squarebirds and Lincolns, the 61 Continentals had the coil spring mounted on the lower control arm. It sure would have made the engine compartment more roomy and could have allowed for more parts sharing between Ford and Lincoln.
I haven’t used a Lares steering box, but lots of the Torino guys I know have. Most seem to have reported good luck with them Ford steering boxes are always tougher to upgraded than the more ubiquitous Saginaw boxes. I know Lares makes a faster ratio Ford Steering box for the later full frame cars (LTD, Torino, etc), but I am not sure if they do for your T-bird.
Beautiful car, informative and entertaining update.
It’s been years since I’ve owned a classic car, and if I were to go back, a ’65 or ’66 Thunderbird would be high on the list, but I’ll admit you’ve scared me more than a bit.
I currently have a stand-in for a classic in the form of a ’13 Mustang V6. I’m spoiled in the engine room and appreciate the simplicity. Compared to the V8 versions with their under hood bracing, I have a lot of elbow room, power comparable to the V8s of a few years earlier, and decent fuel economy. As a late model car, I’ve only had a few projects under the hood; flush coolent, install factory style fog lights, clean the throttle body and change oil. I can lean into the bay and twist the oil filter off the front of the engine from the top! I appreciate the car more every time I work on it.
As much as I love a loaded ’60s luxury car, I might do well to stay in my lane with a Galaxie or Mustang or go back to the GM world I am most familiar with.
My wife drives a 2012 V6 Mustang, and you’re right about service. I did have the “pleasure” of replacing a clunky electric steering rack with a salvage yard unit this summer, but I even knocked that out in a half day or so.
If you like the V6 Mustang’s engine access you will love the 4-cylinder.
The ’61-’63 Thunderbird’s are personally my favorite era of the Thunderbird series. As for the hydraulic windshield wipers, they were also used on the ’61-’69 Lincoln Continental, ’69 Lincoln Mark III and the ’64-’69 Thunderbird. Ford utilized the system because of the quietness of operation. No wiper motor noise and smoother wiping operation. Hydraulic wipers actually work quite nicely when the system is in proper order. I used to own a 2010 Mercedes e550 that had hydraulic wipers that worked nicely. Unfortunately the rest of the car was a lemon.
I’ve now lost any desire to own a 1963 Thunderbird.
We seem to have similar automotive tastes……..
In 1971, I owned a 1966 turbocharged Corvair Corsa
In 1972, I owned a 1965 Dodge Dart 270 post coupe (with factory A/C) – /6.
Around 1987, I purchased a 1962 Ford Thunderbird, white, with a turquoise interior. The engine had a spun bearing, and it was in need of a rebuild. Kids came along shortly thereafter, so I didn’t have the extra money available to get it done. Sold it at a loss……
My dad’s 63 T-Bird, in the same color blue as the one in the pics, was the car which probably made me a Ford hater. Head gasket failures, electrical issues and my dad soon sent it on it’s way, sold to the guy who bought all my dad’s cars, usually at about the 2 year mark. My dad came back to Ford again in ’67, with another T-Bird, and that one pretty much turned him against Ford, but he gave them one last chance when he bought the traded in a few weeks ’69 Mark III Lincoln. He hated that car from the minute he picked it up. Soon it was gone, traded to his older brother for his Caddy Sedan DeVille. Both were in an awful green color. My uncle drove the Lincoln until he keeled over dead. My dad had the Caddy until he passed out from a heart issue and hit a light pole, knocking out power to most of South Toledo. Thankfully, no Ford products and no green cars have been in our garages.