Big Boned - 1964 Ford Custom Galaxie

[johnnysuede23]

Hello all,
Here is my 1964 Ford Custom Galaxie. It's big, it's heavy and it is perfect for autocross and track days.


I bought it in Arizona in 2003 as little more than a shell and set out to make it road worthy and pretty enough to use for a wedding getaway car. After that it sat neglected while I was building and driving a Factory Five cobra.



Everything came full circle again in 2012, my wife and I had our first kid and the family no longer fit in the cobra. I really didn't have much of a plan besides doing big burnouts and ruining tires with it. That hasn't changed much, although I'm having fun autocrossing it.



I will get into updating this tread as time goes on, I'm hoping to make some significant handling upgrades over the winter. If time / money permits. Thanks for taking a look!

[awr68]

Very cool story! Have fun with it!

[rustomatic]

Awesome car--I love the pic with the just-married couple under a sign that says "liquor store open." That is perfect timing!

I was just watching video of the Goodwood Festival yesterday (mainly for the fire-breathing Holman-Moody Fairlane) that included a couple of really fast lightweight Galaxies. It's great stuff, if you haven't seen it.

I have the mini-version of this car!

[fleetus macmullitz]

Great name for it.

[CurtiSS 69]

Love it. Throwing that tank around the cones...That's fresh. Looks like fun! Can't wait too see what you'll do to it. Bring it on.

Regards

CurtiSS 69

[johnnysuede23]

Thanks for the encouragement guys, it is much appreciated.

Here are some photos of the front suspension I was running this past year.



In the rear a roll bar as well as Viking double adjustable shocks were added. Suprisingly 17/35/315s fit with little to no modifications. I'm hoping to do a 3 link with watts bar setup.

[WSSix]

Welcome to the site! Looks like a fun project. Good luck with your plans.

[johnnysuede23]

I don't have allot of progress to report. I have 6 different spindles in my garage and have finally found one that I think will work. After attending Ron Sutton's class and learning about roll centers and scrub radius and many other things i had never thought about. I realize how much more there is to suspension then I could have imagined. I'm a beginner.
I've decided I'm going for a best effort autocross car. I'm not ready to put a cage in it and as such road course duty is out of the question.

Here are my goals for the front suspension.
-Lower car 2 inches currently 6
-Move wheels out 2 inches on each side (current setup DEEP in the wheel well)
-18x11 inch wheels on front with 6.6 inches back spacing (common mustang rear wheels)
-Minimize body roll I don't know enough about this yet to have a specific goal.
- optimize caster, camber gain, ackerman, bump steer.

[LuxurySportCoupe]

Nice Galaxie! Are those the fatman control arms? Also, I'm interested in what offset, etc you're running to fit 315's? I have 275's on mine (although with a narrower wheel 15x8 and more sidewall bulge) and they barely clear.

[johnnysuede23]

Originally Posted by LuxurySportCoupe

Nice Galaxie! Are those the fatman control arms? Also, I'm interested in what offset, etc you're running to fit 315's? I have 275's on mine (although with a narrower wheel 15x8 and more sidewall bulge) and they barely clear.

Sweet another Galaxie! Nice looking car.

I am running the fatman control arms currently, I'm working on replacing them with a longer lower and adjustable upper.

The back wheels are 17x10.5 i want to say 1.1 inches of + offset. They are a really common and cheap mustang wheel (94-2004?) I also have a spacer installed. Sorry I'm going off of memory here it has been a while since i worked on anything back there. The tire is about a half inch from hitting the leaf springs. I have had some rubs in the wheel well on the outside while autocrossing. that was "adjusted". There is probably a good 1.5-2 inches of space between the quarter panel and the wheel well.
here are a few pics, I want to say that this was with a 1.5 inch spacer and I think I'm running a 1.25 now.