September 12, 2013
Another 18 Months since my last post. Over the past year and a half I have been rebuilding pieces of the car. For example, I rebuilt the dash, the heater/AC box, the shifter, etc. I also re-upholstered the bottom of the driver's seat so that I have something to sit on when I move the car around. Recently I took two weeks of vacation time from work to install these parts in the car.
Since I am adding air conditioning to the car, I had to get a different heater box. The heater box for 62 Galaxie's with air is a combination heater and AC box. There are number of challenges and modifications that must be made when adding AC to a non AC car. First I rebuilt each item in the heater/AC box. Then I had to drill holes in the firewall for the different mounting studs, and the various wires that run through the firewall. Here is a picture of the AC box installed in the car.
Here is a picture of the dash installed in the car.
After getting the dash installed, and wiring up the ignition so that I no longer have to use my mini dashboard that I had mounted to the front of the car, I figured I might as well hook up the alternator so that it can be charging the battery whenever the engine is running. The car originally came with a generator, but since I was adding AC, electric windows, and and a powerful stereo, I wanted to convert it to use an alternator. This involves getting alternator brackets from a newer car that had an alternator and a motor in the FE engine family. Then you have to install the brackets and alternator, and replace the voltage regulator with a voltage regulator made for the alternator used. Then the wiring has to be modified from what it was with a generator. I added the brackets and alternator several years ago when I mounted the engine on the frame, but I didn't hook up the new voltage regulator or modify the wiring until now. I hooked everything up, but it wasn't working correctly. Since the alternator and regulator were both new, I figured it had to be my wiring. I researched it and tried different things, but it still didn't work right. After 2 and a half days of trying to figure it out, I finally decided to buy another voltage regulator. It worked perfectly with the new regulator. Below is a picture of the alternator.
In addition to the above items, I have installed the firewall insulation, some of the sound deadener on the floor, the wiring harness to the rear of the car, and the wiring harness to the electric windows. I have also verified that all the window motors are working smoothly (I had to replace one of them) and installed the rubber boot that goes under the automatic transmission floor shifter. The electric window relay that I took off a parts car turned out to be bad. I bought a new one from Mac's.