Anglia4’s Galaxie Wag

[anglia4]

Settle in for a sharn…

We’ve been talking for a year or two about selling our mustang and getting an old wagon.

The muzzy isn’t quite big enough for us to do family trips in, and we can’t/dont want to tow the caravan with it. So a wagon seemed like a good idea.

After we had been thinking and talking about doing this for such a long time, a really tidy 67 Country Sedan popped up on the LA Wellington Shipping Facebook page.

Some boxes we wanted to tick were: Small block v8, ideally manual, 10 seat option, power steering, power disc brakes.

This one ticked all the boxes, and the price was spot on.

So we sent some money, and Danny from LA Wellington Shipping sent his man in the states to go and inspect it.

How exciting! This was all moving pretty fast!

He came back pretty quick with a stack of photos and to let us know that he had turned it down. It was so close to good enough but not quite. Little rust holes and scabs all over the place and some misaligned panels that have him bad feelings for NZ compliance.

This was pretty gutting, but gave us some confidence in who we were dealing with and that he wouldn’t knowingly set us up buying a shitter.

But we were on the slide now, so kept hunting to find another car.

 

[anglia4]

Yeah so that one looked mint. But up close it had stuff like this around every window and door: 

One of the key things was that we didn't want a project. Our mustang has always been such a primo jump in and drive type car, and quite nice, so we didn't want to replace it with a junker.

[anglia4]

So then we found this one:

It had been parked for a long time, but looked tidy enough, and even cheaper than the first. So we sent the man out to have a look...

And the for sale photos must have been very old photos...

Cos the actual car had been matty-b'd over the brown at some stage and looked like even that paint looked like it was old.

It seemed OK rust wise, and all complete and original, but just stunk of of a car that was hiding some bullshit and the interior was seriously grotty beyond what I was willing to deal with.

Mostly I was just not going to buy a car that was clearly misleading. So that one was out.

The first car was mid-March 2024, this brown one was early April.

Keep hunting...

[anglia4]

I think the next car we found was this 66 Fairlane. I was definitely more keen on a Galaxie, but the Fairlane wasn't as long and this thing looked mint!

But... we got some more photos from the seller and that shiny paint had lots of nasty looking bubbles in it. No thanks.

This 68 LTD popped up in NZ, but it was a bit more than we wanted to spend, I didn't want a 390, and I don't want a 68 as I'm not a fan of the front of them.

 

It was proving quite hard to find what we were after.

This one came up and again it looked perfect!

Until they sent us photos of the floor pan... Which looked like someone had lifted the wrong place with a hoist and crushed the rear pan up

These two were tidy, but very povo spec optioned, and were 68 models. I think I worked out that they were Mexican market cars. They didn't have the flip over headlights, and had almost no option boxes ticked. The blue one came from the factory with a heater/blower delete fitted... So no power steering, no power brakes, no AC...

 

There were plenty of rough and rusty... (in hindsight this one doesn't look so bad! - Edit: I remember now, it was all dented up as well. You can see it in the doors.)

 

[anglia4]

Danny sent us a link to this 65 Fairlane which looked like an absolute gem, and my wife really loved the style, and I really did not...

So it was quite timely for this next car to pop up for sale. I think the message I sent to Danny said something along the lines of "I've found a car to fall in love with"

[anglia4]

Its a 1966 Country Sedan. 

289W and 3 on the tree manual. Power steering. Power disc brakes. Only 6 seater, but at this stage beggars can't be choosers, I'll retrofit the fold up seats. Its got nice 16" Torque thrusts (one of my fav wheels), a really tidy original parchment (cream) interior, and we love the colour.

Its in a small town in Oklahoma.

Its quite a bit more than we were planning to spend, but its on par with the mustang condition wise, so that seems like a good move.

Being in Oklahoma, its too far away from the man in California, so Danny ordered a 3rd party inspection from a crowd called "The Lemon Squad". They sent someone out to inspect it, who sent us back about 100 photos and a report on the condition. They were pretty thorough, A+ would recommend.

Now lots of the cars we had seen, even the nicer ones, all had one thing in common. Rust in the bottoms of the doors and the tailgate. That was really the only fault with this car, and we had resigned to the fact that this was just how things are. So all good, lets take a brave pill and pull the trigger on this one.

Its pretty much bloody perfect for us.

FINALLY!! Stoked!

[anglia4]

So the process for this particular car to this point had taken a long time...

Like 2 months from seeing the ad and enquiring to finally having the inspection in hand and making the call to buy it. The seller worked away from home, and then went on holiday, and was not interested in being particularly helpful, or seemingly in any kind of hurry to sell his car.

So when we finally got to the point where we had seen it and all looked good, and we sent the message to say "Yup we will take it, how much $$ buys it and when can we have it picked up?" - We never heard from him again.

As you can imagine at this point I was kind of done, its now July. I'd had enough, the money we had aside was starting to get chewed into by other things, and I was pretty fucked off with America. I'd started looking at XJ6's on trademe again, clearly I was in a bad place.

No other decent cars seemed to be coming up for sale, so I stopped looking so hard and just from time to time shifted my location on the old Facebook Marketplace to different states to keep half an eye on things.

Then I stumbled across a 67 on Craigslist in Montana. The photos were pretty low-res, but it looked tidy enough. It had a 390 with some work done on it, 10 seats, Holley Sniper EFI and some electric power steering system. It also came with a second car for parts. It looked like a pretty sweet deal even with 2 lots of shipping.

I could see the obligatory rust in the bottom of the doors, and it looked like some in the rear quarter. The sellers were not at all tech savy and were seriously struggling to send photos via email. They managed to send enough photos to confirm yes, rusty doors and rear quarter. It looked like it would be 50/50 on what it might be like underneath.

But if the parts car was halfway reasonable, then selling that on arrival would probably leave a bit of meat on the bone to pay for some repairs if needed.

A couple of other cars started to come up for sale, the Galaxie market seemed to be coming alive again. I messaged a few and got more photos, and they were all total shitters.

The two for one deal was starting to look pretty good so we were going to get a Lemon Squad inspection. The sellers struggle with tech and the obvious rust had me pretty nervous though...

[anglia4]

Soon after that, I happened to be browsing one afternoon and saw a new listing with the "Listed just now" written under it.

"Running when parked" etc.

I didn't think it would be the car for us, but messaged the seller out of curiosity. He was super helpful, quick to respond, and happy to send as many photos as I wanted. The seller himself, was a huge selling point for this car.

So more photos and details came in.

Its a 1967 Country Sedan, 390FE and C6. Power steering. Power drum brakes. Complete and original except for the front bench seat.

Now I'm a terrible optimist, so in my minds eye, I can see this with an original front seat, new carpet, and a steam clean, as being not too bad of a car.

There's a rust hole in the left rear guard, but the seller says its the only one. Yeah sure, heard that before...

More photos please:

Hmmmm OK thats actually straight as an arrow...

And how's that patina!

The price was right on this car too. So we ordered another Lemon Squad inspection, and it came back with everything pretty much as expected except that the windscreen was broken. A crack on the passenger side that the seller hadn't even noticed before. Just the one rust hole in the rear quarter. I poured over the photos, put together a spreadsheet of everything I thought it would need, and quickly priced up all the parts. It adds up to be pretty much the same price as the "ready to drive" cars I've looked at, plus my time (probably lots of it...) but this seems like an honest survivor car, so once I've got it on the road, I'll know what I've got.

And best of all, the seller was a GC. If he ever reads all of this, I hope he knows how grateful I am.

Money changed hands, and I got sent this yesterday. Over 6 months after looking at the first car.

So as far as ticking the original boxes:

Small block v8, ideally manual, 10 seat option, power steering, power disc brakes. Hmmm close enough. Auto is fine, and I'll likely sub out the 390 for a 302W in the future.

Supposedly its only got 6 seats, but the VIN tag decodes to a 10 seater, and the panels for the fold up seats are there in the photos, so hopefully its not a major to make/fit some.

6 hours ago, anglia4 said:

One of the key things was that we didn't want a project.

Hmm yeah that. Well, I figure usually when importing an old car, it needs brakes, shocks, ball joints etc. So just add carpet, seat, headliner and wheels to that list and its sorted. If I'm lucky, it will be less work to get on the road than the rust repairs on that really nice 66 that ghosted us.

[anglia4]

So at this stage I'm busy trying to round up all the parts I need to come over with the car.

The key things being the windscreen and a front seat. The seller reckoned he knew where a good front seat was, and tried to arrange to buy it, but just couldn't get hold of the guy before the car left  

I managed to find a front seat frame in Southern California, but they're not sure that they can get it sent to where it needs to go in San Fran. Fingers crossed I manage to pull something together...

The windscreen is very hard to find for a wagon, but I found a place in Arizona that does classic car glass and has one in stock. They are getting it crated up, but their crating/freight place is busy, and they have a 3-week wait! They're gonna try and hurry it along. Hopefully that doesn't miss the boat either, or things will start to get expensive!

I also came across a good Trademe score and got some 15" wheels and near new tires for cheaps.

[anglia4]

So at the moment the car is parked up in the yard in California.

I've been frantically ordering parts for it:

• Brake shoes
• Slave cylinders
• Carb kit
• Accessory Belts
• Ball joints
• Bushings
• Rockauto tee shirt
• Shocks
• Carpet set
• Sound deadener
• Headliner
• Windscreen
• Replacement headlight bezel for the crunched one
• And a nice leather period correct steering wheel cover

But finding a seat has been a ball-ache.

The boys in So-Cal that have a seat don't seem very motivated to post it. And its for a 66, which might be different. Apparently a 68 model could fit.

Aside from that, I've not had any luck finding a seat in decent condition.

I've phoned and emailed heaps of those 100acre dead classic kind of desert junkyards. Most of them are as useless at communicating as you would expect from such places. I have found one place that has one, but at USD$225 for the seat, then as much or more again for freight, its gonna run me close to NZD$1000 for what they honestly describe as a fucked junk yard seat. Good frame and rails, but will need a new cover. A cover kit is going to cost over NZD $1100. That's over $2000 for a front seat! 

It might be what it will be at this stage and I'll have to bite the bullet. But will probably leave the new seat cover kit and just rough something together at this end with some spotlight fabric/mexican blanket to save the wallet for actually getting it on the road.

[anglia4]

We are on the road!

if you see us coming, hang out the window with the team America world police secret signal.

[anglia4]

So yeah, its here!

I got the message on Monday that it was all ready to go, so I promptly booked a trailer and a day off work.

I had pre-measured the trailer, and knew it wouldn't fit. The trailer comes with full width fold up ramps at the back, and there was no way the Galaxie was going on there with the ramps folded up. So we drifted the hinge pin out of the ramps and left them at home, taking some smaller aluminium ramps from our race car trailer (enclosed jobby that the Galaxie was also never going to fit in).

The day went nice and smooth, we managed to pack all the boxes of parts into the Galaxie and the windscreen crate onto the ranger. About 13 hours after we left New Plymouth, we backed into the driveway with a (not so shiny) new wagon.

The guys at the shipping yard were legends, super helpful, and there was no problem that they couldn't solve with a forklift (like the tip trailer trying to flatten out before the back wheels had got onboard).

All loaded up and tied on:

It makes the ranger look scarily small, for months I've been telling myself its not that big of a car... turns out its genuinely fucking huge.

Aaaaand, there's this...

On 23/09/2024 at 15:27, anglia4 said:

So as far as ticking the original boxes:

Small block v8, ideally manual, 10 seat option, power steering, power disc brakes. Hmmm close enough. Auto is fine, and I'll likely sub out the 390 for a 302W in the future.

Supposedly its only got 6 seats, but the VIN tag decodes to a 10 seater, and the panels for the fold up seats are there in the photos, so hopefully its not a major to make/fit some.

I had seen the fold up panels for the rear seats in the photos I got sent, so was hoping to be able to make some foam and covers up to make them functional again...

This was the very first thing I went to look at when I got to the car, as the 10 seats is something we really wanted to have, but the seller had told us it didn't have seats in the trunk.

FUCK YEAH!

Seats, seat belts, the lot. I assume he had just never lifted those panels to see what was underneath.

So yeah, i'm absolutely fizzing. Its rough paint and interior wise, but it is exactly what I was expecting to turn up. Its straight as, all the emblems etc are there. Its a perfect base for tidying up.

Unfortunately, spending a couple of months at the shipping yard in San Fran looks like its been pretty hard on the patina, and its starting to get active corrosion on it, so I need to figure out what to do with that pronto. I'm picking i'll need to give it a gentle scotch brite and then clear it ASAP. 

 

[anglia4]

When we got it home late that night we shifted just enough stuff to fit it in the shed, but you couldn't walk in there with it...

So over the weekend I've had a massive shed tidy up, which gave me floor space to unpack all the boxes out of the car. The kids have been loving the novelty of it, they head out there regularly just to hop over into the back seats and play. Its the screen time location of choice at the moment.

Next I decided I needed some of that floor space back and that the easiest way to do that was to fit the physically big and easy to fit parts.

So first up was on with the new wheels and tires:

No complaints there, they look perfect!

Then the new front seat. I have it a pretty thorough vacuum and took it outside to bang as much dust out as I could. It bolted straight in, and is easily good enough for my standards. I'll throw a blanket over it to hide the fades and stains and it will be perfect. Its not got any tears that mess with the integrity of it, the springs are a little saggy, which just makes the car feel even more comically huge when little old me is sitting at the wheel.

I also hauled out the manky shitty old carpet. The floor is pretty solid, you can see a little corrosion in the photo above, but its just surface rust where the seam sealer has flaked off. I'll clean that up and re-seal it.

I'm thinking that the Montana winter cold has given some of the seam sealers a pretty hard time, as in a few places it is a bit flakey.

No photos, but I also changed the oil & filter, filled it up with water, pulled the drain of the fuel tank (was empty) and put 20 litres of Z's green stuff in it.

[anglia4]

Things to do before the next start:

• New battery
• New earth strap
• Wire the ignition back to the key (as opposed to the mystery switch hiding under the dash) - Took a few minutes to figure that one out. Also meant it didn't shut off at the "Shut-er-off mate" qeue.
• Fix the source of petrol leaking out of the fuel hose
• Re-kit the carb - the fountain of petrol coming out of the carb being the reason for the "Shut-er-off mate".
• Fix the lamp/wiring for the oil pressure / water temp warning lamps.

It fired up pretty easy once we figured out the couple of little electrical hiccups.

Luckily I pre-empted this, and have a carb rebuild kit for it amongst the stash that came over with it.

[anglia4]

I took the day off work yesterday and spent a solid 6 hours rebuilding the carb. Most of that time painstakingly removing all the stuck gaskets, silicone and blue RTV.

I also fixed the leaking fuel line, pinched the battery out of the mustang again and hit the key.

It runs nice and smooth and responsive. I still need to sort a proper banjo for the fuel connection. 

Next job is to make it turn and stop.

[anglia4]

I've been tinkering. Its slow going though.

I started by unpacking all the parts I brought, man I had forgotten how much I got! It was like christmas.

It looks like I might have got the ball joints wrong, but they are pretty cheap. The front brake shoes are correct, which I'm stoked about as they weren't so cheap and I was worried I might have guessed the wrong size. 

I've got the lower off on one side, will pull the upper apart next and then go and press the bushes in/out. Its been a while since I've worked on an old car like this, so I'm quite enjoying it. Although I do keep getting tempted to cut corners...

[anglia4]

 

Slow progress is still progress.

When we collected the car from the shipping guys, we had to remove the ramps from the trailer, which meant drifting a bent "pin" (2m long pipe) out of the ramp hinges. It took A LOT of hammer swings. Soooo... now I have tennis elbow from that, and can't swing a hammer to drive in a tent peg (as I found at waitangi weekend).

So getting this apart has been a bit of a challenge, I've had to get dad to come around and help me to break all the balljoints. I've just been chipping away at it. Its all apart now though, and I've placed another RockAuto order for the correct ball joints, and a few other bushings, brake hoses and power steering lines.

I've got some work to do with the press now.

I've also been chipping away at a little side project... I'm stepping way way out of my comfort zone (I'm the guy who avoids the telephone at work) and have started a YouTube channel.

 

I'm quite enjoying it, and am getting more comfortable talking to the camera and less concerned about whether the neighbors think I'm a bit weird talking to no-one while I'm in the garage...

If you've got any thoughts, tips, suggestions, I'm all ears!

[anglia4]

I’m still doing battle with the suspension. So far have managed to change the bushings in the upper control arms and have started trying to get the rivets out of one of the ball joints. Ball-ache more like.

anyway, here’s another YouTube video.

 

[anglia4]

I'm still working my way through the front end.

So far I've done the bushings and ball joints in the A-arms, reinstalled them with brand new KYB shocks.

I've rebuilt the left front brake assembly. The right one I have had to order a new adjuster cable for, so that's on its way across the pacific at the moment. I also jacked up the rear and whipped the drums off to check if any other parts were missing, and there was a broken adjuster cable there too, so that's on its way as well.

The adjuster cables were $4 and the shipping was $34, so I went through RockAuto's shopping list for anything else I could think of that could come from the same supplier without bumping the freight up.

So also on its way is:

• Fuel pump
• Spark plugs (fuck these are insanely cheap in the USA)
• Plug leads
• Wheel bearing seals

I was also going to get an air filter, but it must have made the box bigger cos it doubled the freight, so that can stay there for now.

I've gone back and forth in my head, and decided not to paint things. It would add a massive amount of time to it to do properly, and I'm justifying it by calling it a "survivor car", whereby it can have shiny new mechanical parts but not paint.

[anglia4]