Bringing the '65 back to life

[racecougar]

Mounted a fire extinguisher, installed the wipers, aimed the headlights, and installed the headlight trim rings this morning, then loaded it up for its first doctors appointment tomorrow morning (alignment).

[aggie91]

Awesome, bet it feels good to drive around in it after all this time.

[racecougar]

Originally Posted by aggie91

Awesome, bet it feels good to drive around in it after all this time.

It's WAY cool to drive it around.


The good: The truck passed its safety inspection, had its first fill-up at the gas station, and got aligned today. It was pretty cool to get the thing up on a lift for the first time and see the whole underside at once.

The bad: Only got to drive it 1.9 miles before the water pump started dribbling out of the weep hole. It was a pretty awesome 1.9 miles though.

Dad already picked up a new water pump. That will be item #1 on the agenda for next weekend.

[racecougar]

Dad replaced the water pump during the week, and we knocked out a few small items this morning before taking the '65 out for a spin. It got to meet the Coug, made its first trip to the auto parts store, took us to lunch, and got its first shoutout ("I love your truck!" from a bystander on a local road). Absolutely killer day.

Since it has finally been reinitiated to the open road, it's time for it to receive its very own keychain.

[racecougar]

Time to fix the stance. We stuck some aluminum in the mill today and whipped up a pair of 1-1/2" drop blocks. It still has plenty of rake, but at least now it's tucking a little tire in the rear.

[northern 85]

That truck looks fun!!!

[racecougar]

It certainly is fun. I put about 60 miles on it yesterday, during which I received four thumbs up from other drivers.


A little change of scenery: instead of working on the '65 over at the shop, Dad came over to my place this morning to install his birthday present, the body moldings.

[racecougar]

I had an enjoyable weekend driving, datalogging, and tuning the '65, but I returned it to Dad this morning with 240 miles on the odometer. We finished up the body molding installation, gave it a quick oil change, and went over all the suspension bits. It desparately needs a bath, but it's ready for the cruise next Saturday.

[racecougar]

A quick vid from today's tuning session: https://youtu.be/t9Ks3eFD6mc

[LostMy65]

Sounds Nice!

[northern 85]

Nice, now we need a vid of a holeshot and a drive by.

[racecougar]

Spent a fair amount of time under the dash today, but now we have tunes! There are a pair of Kenwood 3.5" speakers in the stock location (top center of the dash). Dad is building some slick aluminum panels for the cab corners that will house a pair of Kicker 4x10" speakers. The Retrosound Long Beach head unit has a TON of inputs...I've routed the pertinent ones to the ash tray, which also serves as a handy phone holder. If I find a good spot to tuck a mic, Dad will even have hands-free calling via bluetooth, just like his '17 Silverado K2500HD.

[racecougar]

After putting over 1100 miles on this thing since late-August, it's time to stick a little more gear and a limited slip in it. We compromised on a set of 4.10's, as that will keep the truck completely highway-friendly while offering a noticeable improvement in acceleration over the current 3.73's.

I started the install today (clockwise from top left). Pulling the drain plug, it was immediately evident that something wasn't happy. Removing the cover, more shrapnel was found. It seems that one of the 52 year old spider gear thrust washers wasn't up to the abuse dished out by the new drivetrain. The housing was stripped of everything, new bearing races were driven in, and reassembly began. The pinion is currently installed with the spec shim and mockup bearings. The diff is only set in place. Actual setup will take place tomorrow.

[racecougar]

Did the in-out shuffle today to identify the correct shim thicknesses for pinion depth and backlash. Of course this would have been much more fun if the axle wasn't in the truck.

Final reassembly will take place next weekend.

[racecougar]

Wrapped up the assembly today. All that's left to do is fill it with gear lube, torque the lugnuts, update the tune file, and take it for a spin.

[racecougar]

Decided the truck needed a little more light to gain the attention of distracted drivers, yet wanted to keep the light hidden when inactive. One totally over-engineered mount later: success.

[CURSED GEARS]

I haven't been getting alerts on your thread. All the sudden, I did! Congrats getting it on the road. It looks and sounds great!

[racecougar]

It's been a little while since I posted an update.

A few months back, I made up a plate to squeeze a pair of 5-1/4" Rockford Fosgate speakers into the stock speaker location in the dash. That made a significant improvement over the pair of 4" Kenwoods we installed there previously, but even with the help of the amp, audio quality was still seriously lacking.

Yesterday, we finished up and installed a pair of speaker boxes made to fit in the cab corners. The boxes are wrapped in faux leather and house a pair of Kicker 4x10" 2-way speakers (p/n KSC41004). Talk about a night and day difference! I pulled most of the bass out of the 5-1/4" fronts with the amp's HPF and left the 4x10" rears set up as full-range. It's loud, clear, and has some depth now. Can't wait to take it out for a cruise as soon as the weather cooperates.

[racecougar]

Back to work on the '65!

Dad and I spent the day slicing the good parts out of a beat up hood. This one had a rust free front panel, but was pretty well roached on the drivers side.

[racecougar]

So one thing that kind of sucks about these old trucks is that there are no relief vents in the cab. You really have to wing the doors closed when the windows are rolled up. Time to fix that. The door jambs would be the perfect spot to install a pair of relief vents if we didn't have our rear speakers installed in the cab corners. That being the case, we decided to utilize the kickpanel vent openings as our path for air to escape the cab.

Clockwise from top left: We picked up a pair of stock kickpanel vents, and stripped them down to the bare housings. Sheetmetal from a York air conditioner was cut to create a back panel for each housing. The panels were welded into place and a pair of relief vents were fit up. These vents allow air to pass out of the cab, but do not allow air in. This should make a noticeable improvement in closing the doors with the windows up, without creating a draft. Since nobody wants to see the backside of the relief vents, and louvers are cool, louvered panels were made up for the interior side of the housings. Everything is ready to media-blast and paint.

[racecougar]

Plenty of metal work today. So the front panel we cut out of the red hood last weekend wasn't as perfect as we had thought. Still, the damage wasn't anything a little time with a welder couldn't fix, and it was a far better starting point than the original front panel.

The top row of photos are "before" shots of the damaged areas. The second row are "after" shots showing the repairs. The third row is the original front panel, which was cut out of the hood just after these photos were taken today.

[rvrfoot]

Originally Posted by racecougar

Dad replaced the water pump during the week, and we knocked out a few small items this morning before taking the '65 out for a spin. It got to meet the Coug, made its first trip to the auto parts store, took us to lunch, and got its first shoutout ("I love your truck!" from a bystander on a local road). Absolutely killer day.

Since it has finally been reinitiated to the open road, it's time for it to receive its very own keychain.

I got one 3 weeks ago.

[racecougar]

Installed the vents today...the doors close like a modern vehicle! We'll get to test them out thoroughly on the River Road Run tomorrow.

[racecougar]

After nearly two years off, it's time to get back to this thing. Finished up the metal work on the tailgate today, then got back to work on the hood. Step one: fix the big dent in the passenger side front corner.

[racecougar]

Step two: weld the front back into the hood.