I got the new tires installed and now the car works great! 5th gear becomes useable by 55 mph and it is easy to take off in first gear on a hill. I like the low RPM highway cruising that the 3.1:1 axle ratio offers. The new tires do not look good on the car because of the black sidewall. As soon as the rains stop I will paint the sidewalls white.
A serious transmission problem came up while driving yesterday. The speedometer suddenly stopped registering while traveling on the highway. I pulled off and removed the speedometer cable and found it was in perfect condition. Next I removed speedometer gear and found it was also in good condition. Finally I stuck my finger in the transmission and discovered the big speedometer drive gear on the transmission is totally missing. Damn T-5 transmission! How does a drive gear simply disappear from the ouptput shaft? I am not looking forward to taking the transmission out of the car.
I installed the new fuel tank sending unit so the gas gauge works correctly now! I was able to calibrate the gauge by adjusting the solid state voltage regulator that I had substituted for the old 5V bi-metallic strip thermally controlled regulator. While changing the sending unit I could see a lot of rust inside the gas tank. That must be why the fuel filter before the pump periodically clogs. The great thing is I found rockauto sells a replacement tank that fits 1959 Ford Fairlanes for $190 shipped! It looks the same as the Edsel tank and appears to have the same measurements.
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I wish there was a way to fix the transmission speedometer gear without disassembling the entire case. I bet the drive gear somehow shattered and is in a bunch of pieces in the bottom of the case. Without a speedometer there will be no way for me to know the car is going 88 miles / hour. GPS speedometer may be affected by the interference that the Ford 5 speed flux capacitor generates.