"Miss Phillips" 1956 Ford Customline Victoria Hardtop

[laextreme5]

Lifted her up this week end and popped the wheels off to attempt to trace down any issues/leaks. Found nothing. I see the front brake lines were somewhat recently changed. The only consensus is when they changed the lines, they lost some fluid and didnt top it off or bleed it. IDK, my search found nothing so i found myself pondering how the future bag setup would work. The upper control arms are painfully close to the motor due to their design. Fabbing some brackets that sit substantially forward would clear up room for the future motor swap, as well as declutter the engine bay.

I also popped off one of the rear wheel covers to look under. I intend to run these hubcaps with some slightly adjust wheel sizes. Measuring the rear, i have nearly 2'' on the inside and outside after some massaging of the flange. Which is PLENTY of room to fit a 275 section width tire. The fronts also have apple room, an additional 3'' outboard from there current location. like stick to a smaller 225-235 size tire. Honestly i would be fine with the current 205s, but i will be upgrading to disc brakes, and that with how heavy this car is i want some grip to be able to slow down in emergency situations if needed.


IMG_7007 by lawrx, on Flickr



IMG_7008 by lawrx, on Flickr



IMG_7011 by lawrx, on Flickr



IMG_7012 by lawrx, on Flickr



IMG_7009 by lawrx, on Flickr

[Asshole Bicycle]

Maybe there is some black-market second-hand brake fluid thing we don't know about. Like crackheads stealing copper wire from abandoned houses.

How is the cabinet paint holding up? Did you use regular latex paint?

[gnmzl]

Oh crap!
That's a scary thing, lucky it was at slow speed. I had the same problem with one of my cars - went on a 2 week business trip, came back to absolutely no pedal feel and an empty fluid reservoir, no leaks, no burst lines. Still don't know what happened, brakes worked when filled and bled and again no leaks. Car is parked now until I figure it out.
Hope you find the culprit soon enough.

[laextreme5]

Well yesterday was eventful. I drove her up to work as Dad and i had planned to during lunch put the timing light on and verify the timing Well come lunch time Dad was on a conference call that was running over, so i decided id go out and grab some food beforehand. Drove over to chik fila, about 2-3 miles away, pull around the building and get in line. Person in front pulls up so i pull up. I notice the brakes dont work all that great, thought that was kinda funny and maybe it was in my head. Well, line moves up again, this time, i cautiously move forward, and im barely able to stop, even having to put it into neutral as brakes wouldn't even hold while sitting in drive. Next time the cars pull up i pull put the line, very timidly and have ZERO brakes. none. pedal goes to the floor. Right out the drive thru line to the right are angles parking spots so i aim for an open one, door open, foot dragging doing everything i can to scrub off speed. In our local chik fila the cement declines every so slightly into the parking spots from the drive thru lane. Much to my no-surprise i pick up speed, foot dragging doing nothing other than ruining my shoe lol. Rt front wheel slams into the square curb, goes halfway up, ALMOST over, and comes back down and i slam it into park. "successfully" parked and no damage.

I ended up having to go bang on the door and get my food as we are under shelter in place, drive thru only yada yada. Mom came and picked me up and brought me back to work. Tow truck was sent to pick her up and bring her back so we could see what the hell happened. I looked underneath and no wetspots, leaks from what i could see. Few minutes after getting back to the shop i get a text from my buddy of the car passing him on the tow truck.

IMG_6983 by lawrx, on Flickr


IMG_2342 by lawrx, on Flickr


After we got it back to the shop we lifted it up and saw no signs of leaks, line burst etc. lowered it back down, popped the top off the master cylinder, WELP FOUND THE PROBLEM. no fluid. Poured some fluid in and pedal instantly came back. At this point thats all we have done. We need to pull the wheels off and bleed the brakes. Then trace down how the fluid evacuated the system. Ill likely do that, then order all new wheel cylinders and and a master cylinder, as well as any damaged/leaking part we find. i DO NOT ever want to experience that again, even if it was just at 1-2 mph. I prolly wouldnt be here right now if this had happened on the road to and from as its a 30-40mph speed limit and decent traffic. Would not have ended well.


IMG_6985 by lawrx, on Flickr

[laextreme5]

That last pic makes me think about the "we have to go back" meme from back to the future

Drive one, the model 3 is fantastic, especially the Performance model like the one pictured

[Fruttolo]

That last pic makes me think about the "we have to go back" meme from back to the future

[laextreme5]

Been a while since I updated here. Not too much has changed lately, been buys with work, the house, and kids. Ever since moving into the new house I hadn't had too much time to piddle with the 56. One thing I did want to do was rebuild the carb, as it was full of varnish from sitting, and getting rid of the points ignition system distributor. Sadly I did not take any pictures through the process.

I finally had some time to finish the swap and getting it up and running. Had my dad come over and help me reset the float levels, still need to set timing as its not quote where it needs to be. There are also some tic items that need to be taken care of before she is fully road worthy and ready for a good cruise.







The car currently has a mechanical fan, and an electric fan that is on a switch that doesn't work. I pulled out the switch and the wiring, which was speaker wire..... For now I will be wiring it in with a relay, and the current switch. Before cruising the coast later this year I intend to put in a triple pass radiator and remove the mechanical fan, and install 2 new electric fans. I don't want overheating to even be considered.

IMG_6964 by lawrx, on Flickr


IMG_6965 by lawrx, on Flickr



I also was able to get this picture today. We are a certified Tesla repair facility, and one of our customers parked next to me. Quite the stark difference, a 1956 v8 barg, and a new electric sedan. Crazy how far we have come.

IMG_6962 by lawrx, on Flickr


Also if you want any updates on my garage, check out my mustang build, I will be updating in there.

[laextreme5]

I don't know what is worst, the trans cross member or that patch job!

Who was the butcher that did that job? Such a shame, cars it's no too bad for be 60 years old.

Im honestly not too sure. Harold, Pop's brother in law is the one who did the restoration. And Pop is only the second owner, and I know they put the 390 into it. Leads me to believe Harold did it, and Pop likely never knew it lol

[DawsonLiri]

I don't know what is worst, the trans cross member or that patch job!

Who was the butcher that did that job? Such a shame, cars it's no too bad for be 60 years old.

[laextreme5]

Oh man, it's always fun finding modifications that have taken place over the past 60 years.

Yeah, we saw the trans mount first, then saw the plethora of rivets in the background and gave each other (my dad and i) a puzzled look. Was quite amusing to find.

[white out]

Oh man, it's always fun finding modifications that have taken place over the past 60 years.

[laextreme5]

Brought her up to the shop this weekend to put her up on the left and check out under her skirt.

Im a little surprised, if I'm honest. And slightly disappointed.

But we will get to that. First as I was pulling her out I decided to take a quick video of idling and some revving. Full Disclosure. Im an idiot. The picture I took before the video I had switched to manual mode for focus. I did not switch back nor refocus for the video. Soooo its out of focus. Luckily that's not important as its mainly for sound.

IMG_2592 by lawrx, on Flickr






Up on the lift and started inspecting. Overall she is a solid car. I did find some rust issues.

Firstly the rear floorboard directly under the rear seat. Driver side is worse but passenger side still has some cancer.

The rockers as well have some stuff going on. Again, driver side is worse than the passenger side. Driver side is more the vertical inner rocker, where as the passenger side a body mount or two has definitely weakened and will need to be addressed.

The front wheel wells also have some rust up directly above the wheels, not hugely problematic but again will need to be addressed.

In the past, someone had decided it would be easier to cut out the trans cross member for trans removal. The proceeded to make some brackets to support it back when out together. Dunno why, can't see why. But it happened. Ill be fixing their "fix" in the future.

They also used several bolts and rivets to what appears to be a patched hole where possibly it was once a manual trans car? idk, but there is at least a dozen rivets coming through the floor in the shifter area.

IMG_2593 by lawrx, on Flickr



IMG_2595 by lawrx, on Flickr



IMG_2594 by lawrx, on Flickr



IMG_2614 by lawrx, on Flickr



IMG_2604 by lawrx, on Flickr




IMG_2598 by lawrx, on Flickr



IMG_2599 by lawrx, on Flickr



IMG_2597 by lawrx, on Flickr




With inspecting everything out of the way I proceeded onto investigations for future plans. First up. Bags

Rears, there is plenty of room just inside the rear Frame rails to mount a bracket and the bag. This would take up the space currently occupied by the exhaust, but there are a few options for re-routing. Worst case I could go under the rear axle, at a passing glance there seemed to be room. Shock will stay in the current location. Overall rear is pretty straight forward.

IMG_2600 by lawrx, on Flickr



The front is a little more involved. My goal is as little alteration to the chassis as possible. Don't want to go hacking this thing up and what not. Currently have a few ideas for the front. Goals are obv. convert to air. Convert to power steering, and lastly reduce the 3'' of inset the wheels currently have. The current front suspension is a double a-arm design. The lower is MASSIVE. Easily twice the length of the upper. The spring sits on the lower, with the shock in the middle, with both mounted/suspended by a large bucket made into the main front rails. The upper is your conventional old school upper a arm that mounts in a way that takes up absurd amounts of space.

My gameplay is to fab up some new upper and lower arms, 3'' wider or whatever the exact width difference I will need to push the wheels out close to flush. Make a mount for the bag to sit in the springs current location, and make a mount for the shock to sit just outside the bag, still in the middle of the arms and mount up top of a new bracket which the space for will be made via the new fabbed upper a arms. Will have to draw it up to better depict as I didn't take enough pics to properly show the idea. As for the power steering ill be getting rid of the steering box and steering linkage in favor of a rack and pinion, likely from a mustang, and utilizing a electric remote mount power steering pump, likely from an MR2. Taking all this into account, visually from the engine it will all look normal and "factory" for the 50s, but be able to lay out at the push of the button. Thats kind of the entire goal behind this car. Keep and retain the old school look, feel, smell, but with modern touches.


IMG_2606 by lawrx, on Flickr



IMG_2610 by lawrx, on Flickr



IMG_2608 by lawrx, on Flickr




IMG_2615 by lawrx, on Flickr

[laextreme5]

Made some progress on the garage over the last week or so. Made some brackets to hang the kayaks out of the way for now. Brought my toolboxes our the shed over into the back wall of the garage. Found some lovely memorabilia from the last owner in the back corner of the garage. gave me a good laugh when I found it. I did take some measurements for width of the mustang, its going to be kinda tight on the left side for a while until I can raise the roof and eliminate the center post, but ill make do. Also got in some LED lights ill be starting to wire in this weekend, they are SUPER bright. Light should not be an issue moving forward. Lighting is mediocre at best right now. This should solve that easily. Lastly I built a shelf to house some of my material right now to get it off the ground and give me some space to work on the mustang. Hoping I'm able to bring the mustang home this weekend, but not too sure if it will happen or not.



IMG_2511 by lawrx, on Flickr



IMG_2512 by lawrx, on Flickr



IMG_2513 by lawrx, on Flickr



IMG_2514 by lawrx, on Flickr



IMG_2515 by lawrx, on Flickr



IMG_2516 by lawrx, on Flickr



IMG_2519 by lawrx, on Flickr


IMG_2520 by lawrx, on Flickr



IMG_2521 by lawrx, on Flickr



IMG_2522 by lawrx, on Flickr


IMG_2523 by lawrx, on Flickr


IMG_2524 by lawrx, on Flickr

[laextreme5]

Great story and nice car.
But also great house and beautiful family.
Man you're live the perfect life!

Thank you, im very fortunate. Sometimes get caught in wanting more more more more and i forget so. Thank you for reminding me.

[DawsonLiri]

Great story and nice car.
But also great house and beautiful family.
Man you're live the perfect life!