Custom Taillights
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For his birthday in 2011, we gave him a pair of NOS taillight lenses.
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To a purest, this may look odd. Seems that the '61 Ranchero had the backup lights either on the tailgate or below the bumper. However, the '63 had the backup lights integrated into the taillight lens. So we found a set of the lights and grafted them into the '61 lens.
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The original '61 lens looks good with the '63 backup light grafted into with original bezel from the '61. And, in case you were wondering, the '63 lens and bezel does not fit the '61 body. We tried. We plan to actually mill out a new '61 lens and graft the backup light into the new lens for the final assembly.
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Time to modify the actual lens. This will require a steady hand to go with the steady drill press that will be used carve out the center of the lens. However, these are new replacements, not the NOS ones. We kept those pristine and in stock configuration.
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One lens almost done.
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Comparison of modified taillight and the unmodified replacement. The small round white segment is the backup lens from the 1963 Falcon.
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The new look with a replacement bezel. We found a nice set of bezels on a Falcon in a local salvage yard.
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Time to modify the second lens.
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Custom Headers and Engine Bay Changes
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Yes, the stainless steel 2" dual outlet Mustang header is touching the shock tower. This has to be fixed.
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We clearanced the shock tower. All is good now.
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The brakes will be a Wilwood dual master with 7/8" bore, but still manual brakes. Due to the
location of the master cylinder in relation to the shock tower, there is not enough room to
add a power brake booster. Front brakes will be a stock option '65 Mustang Kelsey Hayes 4
piston. Rear will be stock drums for the '94 Explorer donor rear axle, 10" x 2.5".
We had to drill the hole where the T-wrench is in order to access the fourth
screw for the top.
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The driver side subframe connector should help strengthen the unibody. These will tie the front
sub frame to the rear frame rails.
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The new radiator is by Champion, an aluminium 2 core. It has a transmission cooler option, if
we ever decided to go to an automatic trans.
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The radiator is being used to test the fitment of the mechanical fan as well as the AC condenser.
The mechanical fan was upgraded to a 6 blade, as used on factory AC included cars.
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The original air cleaner will be used to keep the stock appearance.
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However, the original ring was rusted out. A replacement ring was created to fit the new
2 barrel card and welded in. This is the bottom of air cleaner base.
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The inside of the repaired air cleaner base. The new metal is more visible here, but only
the air cleaner will see this area.
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