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'62 Falcon Econoline


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Falcon was a Ford car. Econoline is the van. I drive a E150 Ford Van at work. Don't know if they still call it Econoline but pretty sure that's where the E comes from. Owned a '62 Econoline back in the '70s. It was a retired Bell Telephone lineman's van. 170 cu in ? 4.54 diff, top speed about 60? Good times!!!!

 

Saw a '60s Econoline the other week and watched for, and indeed, it said Falcon on it. Mine said HeavyDuty so that's all I knew.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

So I stopped by the shop yesterday to do a bit of amateur gunsmithery.  As I walked up, I looked at the driver's side of the van.  I was a tad irked that it appeared the P&B guy had not touched the thing in the two weeks since saying to me, "Meester Teem, I'm gonna work on jour ban ebry eebning dis week.  You see!"  Then I saw the passenger side.  Yeah, he's been at it with paint stripper and 80 grit!  He's through about four layers of paint and has nice, bare metal beginning to show.  I'm now becoming concerned that the outside is going to be too nice for my half-assed interior work.  Pix this weekend, I'm sure.

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Big box of stuff came in. New seals for all the windows, and new door handles...

 

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As I believe Tim mentioned, he bought door handles for a '67+ van since we couldn't find new handles for a '60-'66 van. Turns out they are the exact same shape and length. Only problem is that the way they actuate the mechanism is different. After a little head scratching, we figured out that if we cut off the flapper mechanism and leave just the push pin, it would work just like the older version...   :thumbup:

 

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Works like a charm and looks much sharper than the crusty old ones...

 

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After that we removed all the rest of the badges, lights, and handles from the truck so the painter can work his magic on it. Stay tuned...

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Doing some doghouse work today...

 

Peeled all the old nasty insulation off the lid...

 

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Doghouse is built from 4 separate panels and the rear panel was caved in, so we took it off...

 

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Hammered it out back where it belongs...

 

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Clamped it back on and decided to weld it together instead of it just being bolted together...

 

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Chucked back in for a test fit...

 

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Lid test to see if it clears the breather...

 

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Clears okay, but the big screws poking through the lid had to go...

 

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Then we had to make a tough decision. See, the plan is to make a wall behind the seats and over the doghouse so we can close off the back, and run an air conditioner in the front. We have a small 110V wall unit we will be running off of a power inverter. But if the wall (and AC) are over the back 5-6" of the doghouse lid, how do we access the engine?

 

We decided to split it for easier access to the engine...

 

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The wall will be about 1" behind the cut line...

 

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Current plan is to permanently attach the rear half, then install a hinge so the front half lifts up...

 

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  • 2 months later...

Next door neighbor is a paint and body guy, and his work was slow, so he stole the van for a bit...

 

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There is an impressive amount of bondo in this van...    :rofl:

 

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He's in the process of grinding all that bondo out and beating the metal back into shape...

 

First door done and primed...

 

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Hopefully he'll have some more work done by this weekend.  :thumbup:

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Ive owned 3 of those 60's Econoline vans over the years, and this thread is definitely a memory lane trip for me.  The thing I remember most is how terribly inadequate the brakes were on those things.  I read some years after there was a later model Ford bolt on disc conversion.  I would definitely research that! 

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How do you find the time for all of these awesome projects... 

 

Yeah, I need to probably slow down a bit, but...   :rofl:

 

 

Esteban got a little more work done in the last two days. He actually thinks all the body work will be done by Tuesday and may be able to start painting it by Thursday-ish...

 

Nose shaved and done...

 

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Right side a little over halfway done...

 

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Left side with all the old filler ground out, panels beat back into shape, and a skim coat of filler in a few spots just to level it up...

 

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Still not 100% decided on paint scheme...

 

Option #1: Yellow top half, flat black bottom half, to match the Chickenhawk scheme. Keep the turbine wheels to match the Chickenhawk as well.

 

Option #2: White top (just from the drip rail up), and purple from the drip rail down. Then switch to some D-slots or Cragar S/S wheels. 

 

Thoughts?

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If he knows how to do it, they used to do lace painting on the upper insert section where a business logo would normally go.  I think it would be a badass retro look myself.

 

Anyway you go, it should look pretty nice.  I haven't seen one of those on the street in ages. 

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How do you find the time for all of these awesome projects

 

Time isn't the main issue.  Money is what's holding me back.  We discussed options for the two "in progress" projects today and I think I've come to this decision...

 

I'm going for KISS.  Keep It Simple, Stupid.  I have "matching" turbines on this and the 1200.  I don't need to throw more money (which I don't have) at a set of Cragar SS or Ansen D-slot wheels to make the purple work.  The van will be yellow over black.  I came to another decision on the 1200 but it'll have to be shared on that thread.

 

Ok, I'll go ahead and tell y'all.  I decided that I'm going to go for KISS with the carbs there as well.  Single DGV/DGAS instead of the dual DCOE setup.  Flame away, I'm wearing asbestos Underoos.

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You could always go with black roof and yellow van, then black lace paint (I freaking love lace paint) insets as previously mentioned.

 

Matching color scheme, but not dead match. Give a little individual flavor to each of them, while maintaining a clear theme.

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