62' Ford Fairlane 500 - 221 ci

I bought a 62 Ford Fairlane 500 last weekend. It has a 221ci windsor motor. The car appears to have been white with a red / white interior. The goal with the car is to get it running and drivable for the a short while until I get all the legalities fixed w/ the nissan pathfinder. Once the pathfinder is good to go, I'm going to do a resto-mod project w/ the car.

So far the 11 year old loves the car too, so it may work out to be a project we can work on together and in time, when the 3 month old get older, he can join in. Eitherway, pictures below are from the day I picked it up.






Below is a picture of the engine as of last night. I've gone through and replaced battery cables, starter selnoid, starter, distributor, spark plugs, spark plug cables, coil, fuel filler hose, inspeced the tank for leaks, all rubber lines between the tank and carb, drained the oil, gas, and radiator and refilled them appropriately. Also, installed the carb. It was in the back seat recently rebuilt. I made sure to clean the machined surface w/ a razor to insure a good seal.



Well, last night it started up w/ the aid of another vehicle jumping it. It ran but was hurting. I'm looking for someone that may know a thing or 2 about this car or engine. I'm trying to figure out vacuum lines. I'm under the impression there should be one running from the passenger side of the carb to the diaphram on the distributor for vacuum advancing the timing. Also, the auto choke isn't working and I'm not sure where the choke diaphram on the carb is supposed to be running too.

I'll also be taking another plug at getting the timing right tonight if I have time. I'm thinkin that I should be able to loosen the pinch clamp at the base of the distributor on the block. Then I should be able to spin the distributor to get it in line w/ the timing.

Either way, let me know your thoughts on the vacuum lines and spinning the distributor. Maybe I'll have this thing on the road in the foreseable future.

My very first car was Grandpa's 64 Fairlane...2-door with a 289. Great project for you with the kids...

Very Nice...

Did you replace the points and condenser? Is the mechanical advance in good condition? Does the breaker plate move smoothly when vacuum is applied to the vacuum advance? Just a guess that you'll need ported vacuum (on the carb, above the throttle blades) for the advance, rather than full time (on the manifold or below the throttle blades on the carb), but you probably have only one choice for a vacuum port to plug in to. It should idle, as long as the vacuum port isn't open to air.

Let me show my ignorance, are the points and condenser the parts on the top of the distributor inside the cap? The part the button pops on to give power to the cap, then to the plugs? If so, no I haven't replaced them. Is that something I should be able to get at the parts store easily? If so, I'll grab em on the way home and switch them out.

I'll take a close look at the carb to see what I can tap into for the vacuum lines. I've got pictures of a CF20r I found online that I'll post up in a second. It looks like there are 2 possible vacuum ports and one fuel-in port. The vacuum ports are on the passenger side, one to the choke diaphram, one below and on the base of the carb. I'm guessing the lower of the 2 is the one I need to tap into for the distributor. Once I have the pictures up I'll post them over here.

Well, I just found that I can purchase an entirely new distributor for 50 bucks up at the local autozone. It comes w/ everything I need installed to include condensor, points, vacuum diapharm and the works. I might do that. Let me know what you think.

Pictures of a similar carb.

Passenger side view:


Driver side:

You have to know how to install and time the distributor. On old stuff, it is not uncommon for the sludge to make it hard to pull.

You can also get an electric choke conversion for the carburetor. .You have a generator, make sure it is charging. Do not throw away the original regulator, many replacements now are made in china and are not worth much. It costs a lot to get a good one. Unless the points are horribly pitted it should be OK. The field windings in the generator if original are almost certain to be bad, the cloth covering will have rotted. Getting out the screws is "interesting" to replace them.

This can easily become a money pit.

For $50 I'd do that.....but, here's what you'll want to be careful of......The distributor will probably be gear driven. It is possible to put it in and be 180 degrees out. When you install the new distributor, make sure to pay attention to where the rotor is pointing, so that when you put the new one in, it is pointing the same direction.

And to answer your question about rotating the distributor after loosening the clamp at the bottom, yes, you are correct. Do you have a timing light? Have you ever adjusted points before?

The Distributor is gear driven so I'll keep an eye out to insure that it's rotated correctly. I guess the best method to insure it's right is to take pictures of the process to insure I'm putting it back together right.

I've done timing on a couple cars in the past with good result so I'm fairly confident I can do this one as well. I picked up an incadecent light this week in hope to use it soon. The one thing I haven't had much luck with in the past is fuel and air mixtures at the carb. I'm hoping that reading the shop manual, when it comes in, will help me with that.

Once I get to the distributor install, should I set it to zero degree's and work from there a couple degree's to get it running better?

Yes, I agree on the money pit.

I'm never really messed w/ converting a manual / vacuum choke to an electric choke. What's invovled?

If you do decide to install a replacement distributor (which may not be necessary, but you will be replacing the breaker points and condenser every 12k miles when you install a new cap, rotor, and spark plugs, so best to learn how to do that now), the gears are helical, so where the rotor points when seated is not where it will point when it comes free. You need to note which way the distributor body points relative to the engine and mark that, then mark the current position of the rotor relative to the body of the distributor, then mark it again when the driven gear just pops free. Then set up the replacement distributor the same way, but starting with the rotor in the free position, then watching it as you seat the distributor body to make sure that it ends up in the same place the old one was in. Also, the oil pump drive is at the other end and is driven from the distributor gear, so that needs to line up, too. It should, as long as nothing weird happens.

For setting points, you need to be able to rotate the engine and you'll need a set of feeler gauges. There should be a spec for the gap when the points are sitting on the high spot of the distributor cam. This controls how long the points remain closed (dwell) to charge the primary winding in the coil. Dwell is also a spec you should be able to get your hands on, but a dwell meter may be hard to come by. It's a nice double-check for the points gap, and on GMs of the era it was possible to fine-tune the points gap with the engine running to get dwell dialed in exactly.

I'd concentrate on getting what you have to work first, before trying to change anything. Otherwise you could end up way down a rabbit hole trying to troubleshoot the thing.

I think we need good pics of your carb installed on the manifold to get a better sense of what should plug in where. Try to get the mainifold in the pics, too. Some of the necessary vacuum ports may be there.

There should on ly be ONE vacum line on that car, from the carb base, to the advance. AND BEFORE you swap out the distributor, remove the cap, spin the motor till the rotor is pointing at the firewall, and draw a line to EXACTLY where the rotor is pointing. Slide the old distributor out, and when putting the new one in, make sure the rotor is pointing EXACTLY where the line you drew on the firewall is. Then replace the wire to the distributor, and stick the cap with the plug wires attached to it back on. DO NOT remove the plug wires from the cap, or the plugs!

Get yourself a vacuum gauge, pretty handy to figure out if there is vacuum where you want to tap into.

Also will give you a very good indication of the health of your valve train and possible vacuum leaks somewhere else.

You can even time your engine with them, rotate distributor to highest reading then back off a little. Should be very close from the timing specs.

Installing a distributor....you have to put the engine at TDC first, then follow spark plug wire Number 1 to the distributor cap, then line everything up.

Fuel/Air mixture....set the screws at 1 1/2 turn, that's a good start.Slowly close them until you hear the engine RPM drop then back off 1/4 turn. You should be right there.

Before you throw money at it....do a compression test.

It is common to get one of these old cars and discover the reason they quit driving it was the engine or transmission was shot.

First, get it running, see if the tranny works, etc. The do a compression test, bad valves are very common with unleaded fuel these days.The alcohol in today's gas will kill a vintage fuel pump in short order, and crack all the rubber fuel lines also. There is a rubber fuel line at the gas tank well hidden. Proceed with caution, this has to be a labor of love, and possibly insanity.

Beware the money pit.

Rod

If all he's doing is a quick R&R, there's no need to go to the trouble of dead timing it. Now if he were going to pull the old distributor and tear it apart for new bushings and might not get back to it for awhile, then yes. If he were going to dead time it, I would recommend putting #1 at TDC before pulling the old distributor to make engaging the oil pump drive easier when installing the new one.

Dude!! That's so freaking cool! Hey it might turn into a money pit, but what the hell huh? Its a cool car.

Thunder Chicken.

Yeah...looks like someone before the OP was doing such quick R&R on that Ford. Not knowing if the distributor is even at the right place....good way to send someone for unnecessary carb rebuilds. Pif...Paf...sounds the same, bad carb or timing off by a tooth.

5 minutes or less finding TDC on them old Fords and checking firing order/rotor enlignment.