BUILD THREAD For 1964 Falcon Sprint to Monte Carlo Rallye FIA spec'

[Roger Dowding]

Too True - a bit like my collectables " ohh they have been on order for years !! and what a bargain "[ they apply the rule to buying shoes ?? ]

Paul - your cars bigger brother.

[khyndart in CA]

Paul,
I thought of you as I wandered around a local car show, Solvang, California, I hope you don't mind if I share these.














(Ken H photos )

[Paul B]

Thanks Roger & Ken,
Nice to see another big block 427 T/bolt Roger.
Thanks for the pics of the 63 Fairlane Sport Coupe Ken, many of these came out with 289K hipo engines but with the earlier 5 bolt block as opposed to the late 64/5 6 bolt block.
Cheers to all!

[khyndart in CA]

Paul,
The "Wheels and Windmills" Car Show is held a week after the Laguna Seca historic weekend so next year you can pop in and take a look as you head down to LAX. (How's that for a plan. You would enjoy meeting some of these folk. I will even buy you lunch.)
They have all sorts of vehicles, such as my friend's 1951 "Baldwin Special" that his father raced and he has beautifully restored it.
But as you can see it can not be touched !


You could try this all weather hood / bonnet arrangement allowing you to work on the engine area in sunshine or rain !


This is a typical scene at Solvang.


This great Pontiac behemoth 2+2 was sold back in the days when gas was 35 cents a gal.
It only has 45 miles on the odometer !





Here are some of the cars from last year's show at this site.

https://wheelsnwindmills.com/gallery/index.php

(Ken H)

[Paul B]

Ken,
Love the 1951 Baldwin Special, Beautiful Restoration!! here is some blurb on it:
This the fourth car built by Willis Baldwin of Santa Barbara. It was raced from 1954 thru 1960 by Wm. Hanssen at tracks such as Palm Springs, Hanson Dam, Santa Barbara, and the famed Pebble Beach circuit. It is based on a shortened 1947 Ford chassis and is powered by a Ford Flathead V8 with an Ardun overhead valve conversion. The suspension and running gear is Ford.

[Paul B]

Pic of the under floor and chassis now painted.
More pics on pg 17 post #337

[Steve Holmes]

Nice work Paul. Awesome effort.

[Paul B]

Thanks Steve,
Its not a simple job spraying upside down and with all the different angles and shapes under the floor to get nice coats from the spray gun. but it looks very OEM which is what the build is all about.
Next job is get the shell into the finishing coat hopefully in a week or two.
Then final sand on the bolt on panels and they get sprayed in about four weeks from now - all going well.
Cheers to all.

[khyndart in CA]

So Paul
When do you do the acid dip and put on the vinyl roof ?
Ken H

[Paul B]

So Paul
When do you do the acid dip and put on the vinyl roof ?
Ken H

Its no 1969 Penske Camaro Ken, I don't know how those cars held together during racing, some claim they lost 30%-50% of body weight by acid dipping. I cant imagine a 50%weight loss.
Bush maths = if the steel was 1mm thick back then, a 50% loss in weight could be 0.5mm steel. Cant see how that would work. Probably fold in half in the corners!

[Steve Holmes]

Its no 1969 Penske Camaro Ken, I don't know how those cars held together during racing, some claim they lost 30%-50% of body weight by acid dipping. I cant imagine a 50%weight loss.
Bush maths = if the steel was 1mm thick back then, a 50% loss in weight could be 0.5mm steel. Cant see how that would work. Probably fold in half in the corners!

They did some pretty heavy dipping back then. All the factory teams did. I spoke to a guy a couple years back who builds race cars, and he stopped acid dipping body shells and instead now blasts them. He said there was only about a 20kg saving in the dipping. But I know the Trans-Am teams did some pretty intense dipping.

[John McKechnie]

Try picking up a 20 kg item, you can get a bad back or hernia.....20 kg is a lot.
Norm Beechey did a fair amount of weight saving on his Monaro- reading the write up of his build , dont think that was ever acid dipped..can anyone confirm ?

[Oldfart]

I know of a certain car which was being prepared for B&H way back when. A mysterious fire in the workshop meant that the shell was somewhat damaged. Funny that nothing much else was. As no other shell was available the powers that ruled were asked to OK that it be rubbed down and repainted, and the go ahead given. It always did look a bit less perfect than most of the others

[khyndart in CA]

Paul,
I apologize for trying to have a bit of a laugh as you would be last person in the world to do anything that was not to factory standards and I should not have mentioned acid dipping as it distracts from all the magnificent work that you are doing.
(But I do have some good articles about acid dipping if you are interested !)
You may not want to do that "Bucket List" trip with me now but My "Bucket List" trip was coming out to Taupo this year and meeting so many of you. I will be forever grateful of the hospitality and generosity that made those 3 days unforgettable for me.
Keep up the great work.
Cheers,
Ken.

p.s.
You can get one of the classic acid dip stories from Sam Posey during this YouTube clip.




Sam Posey's 1970 Dodge Challenger # 77. Laguna Seca. August 19. 2018.
(Ken H photo)

[Paul B]

Not at all Ken, I love a good laugh! and always appreciate your humour. We are all mates so that entitles us to have some man banter fun.
You're on for the trip bucket list for sure, your not escaping that easy!
Great video Too, thanks for that.
If I acid dipped the car that much it had ripply panels I would have to bog it up and that would defeat the exercise!

Steve,
I think there was also some Swiss cheesed 1969 cars, and much interior stripping, maybe cutting out weight also in areas not so easy to see? Imagine trying to weld a new roof onto the a thin steel acid dipped body, the welder would be blowing holes in the thin steel like there was no tomorrow.

John you are right 20kg could possibly be a make or break back then.

With my FIA Falcon build there is about 35Kg saving on all the Fiber panels vs steel, not so much on the doors. I guess with the FIA aluminum bumpers it may be another 10-15kg on top of that.They also had lightweight touring seats in 64' guess another 15kg there, the factory seats are heavy.Also maybe another 5-7 kg with Poly-carbonate windows. But the roll cage makes up for quite a lot. Back in 1964 these cars had no roll cage, as did many.

Cheers to all

[John McKechnie]

OK Paul thats enough on the car losing weight...now what about the driver.
How does you height, weight, body mass etc stack up, adding to that the RHR , balaclava, gloves sox ......
Be like a 10 speed MAMIL..(middle age man in lycra)...remove all hair from body, change lead teeth fillings to light weight compound..the list goes on

[Paul B]

Well John all my hair fell out, shaved the rest off, so saved about 500g there, Teeth have already been done, before each race I cut my nails 5g, wear the lightest clothes which gives me a race weight of 76kg, so watchout I'm a lean mean machine!

[khyndart in CA]

You had better hold it right there Paul, I don't want hear of any other body changes you have made just to reduce the weight !

KH

[Paul B]

Ha ha
Good point Ken, it could get very scary... real fast!

Back to sanding tomorrow to finish the shell off, had a few days away, very nice time!

[John McKechnie]

Now you have done all this work Paul, its safe to tell you this story..
When I lived out in WestWorld, there was a guy I knew called Neil G.
Brother did he have a large collection of cars- this is mid 70s last century- in old massive chicken sheds....thats another story, so we wont go down this path.
Anyway, Neil made replica fibreglass guard for Toyota Corollas , HQ Holdens and many other types and brands when no one else was doing it and NOS was hellishly expensive.
This particular story is about his wifes 1964 Falcon Coupe e and decided to see what panels he could make for it.
Well, the chassis rails ,firewall were steel and just about everything else was changed.
Told me at the time lost more than 280 pounds- not kilos- from this exercise, as well as future proofing it against rust repairs. Also had enough pieces left over to make another Falcon Coupe
Why have I waited so long to tell you this......after all this work, heading towards the finish line, you are not going to undo all your painstaking work and try to replicate this weight loss ...or more.