Hello. 1964 Ford Falcon ute / Ranchero owner interested in aero mods
 

Hey all.
Just thought I'd better put a quick introduction up. I love my classic cars, particularly when they're fast, none of which helps when you want good mileage. At them moment my daily driver is an Australian '64 Falcon ute, which is basically a Ranchero. I've gone from the 2.4L 6 to the later model 4.2L with a 3 speed auto, soon to be swapped out for a 5 speed manual.
I swapped out the commercial diff for a 3.15 LSD, and its got water injection on it, at roughly 10:1 fuel - water, although I'm still fine tuning, so far that has me up to 25.5 mpg from 21. Apart from that I've got a couple of sheets of aluminium sitting in the back yard waiting for me to belly pan it, so if the weather is right tomorrow I'll do some coastdown testing for a base line and then get to work.

Hi, welcome.

Interesting daily driver! I take it the differential swap was for performance then? Did the gearing remain the same?

Welcome to the site! Pretty good mileage, for what it is!

The diff swap was more for mileage than anything, the standard ratio was a 4.0:1, which was great away from the lights but it was barely drivable on the highway.

A 4-oh, eh? Wow...I'll be that was a bugger on the highway!

Does your ute have an 8-inch under it? IIRC, those are available down to 2.70 here in the States.

Its an 8 7/8" Dana 20 from a Hornet. The width is spot on for the early falcons, I can get 2.78's for it, but with a T-5 waiting to go in its hardly worth the shipping to get a set when I'll have a .73 overdrive in a few months.

Most excellent! You're going to be really happy with that 3.15 and the T-5. :thumbup:

I *heart* early Falcons and Rancheros!

Never had one though... yet.

Mine would be a dog in comparison- I'd probably put a four-banger in it, possibly even less!

And the coastdown figures are in.

Posted in a new thread: 1964 Ford Falcon ute (Ranchero) - calculating Cd via coastdown tests

International differences
 

Hello 64Falcon!
I also love the old classics. My second car was a 64 Mercury Comet (US spec) which was the Merc equivalent to the Falcon. It was only 5 years old when I bought it! It had a 260 ci V8 and 3 on the tree, with some kind of high gearing. It easily got @20mpg even with a hotfoot teenager driving it.
Okay, back to my point... Your avatar picture looks like a 62 / 63 Falcon to me. I think that is probably an international difference, but can you post a bigger picture of it? I'd love to get a closer look at it. And welcome; I'm very interested in what kind of mileage can be coaxed out of old Detroit (or wherever yours came from) iron.
Cheers,
Beaver

There were a lot of little differences between Australian and US Falcons. In 1960 we had the XK Falcon, which was basically a US 1960 Falcon. Our next model was the XL in 1962, which had a different and a few other mechanical changes. "Ford boasted the XL had 734 new parts, the idea being that all-new parts would mean the end of the problems that plagued the XK."
Then in 1964 the brought out the XM, which is what I've got. It had a different front bumper, grill, headlight surrounds and all new chrome moldings around the the hood and front fenders, but still running the 1960 front sheet metal "XM prototypes were punished and resulted in 1500 modifications at a cost of £1 million." The utes, still had the US style quarter panels, although they aren't interchangeable. The rest of the Falcon range had all new rear quarters with the taillights mounted towards the top of the panel.
The model after mine, the XP for late '65 - 66 used US '62 Comet fenders, with a different grill and headlight surrounds, I'm not sure of the rest of the changes for this, I've always had a soft spot for the XM's so I don't know all the trivia on the later stuff. But we're still making Falcons over here, for the moment they still have an inline six in them, nothing is the same on it now, but in the next few years its getting replaced with a V6.
[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qckge584w4[/YOUTUBE]
http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f3...M_Keilor3b.jpg

Thanks for the picture; it does resemble our 62-63 Falcon. You do have a nice one! It looks like you already have a full tonneau on it which I would guess helps the aerodynamics quite a bit. If you don't carry loads in it you may be able to lower it a little depending on what kind of roads you drive on. This may do a little better job of shrouding your tires and keeping some of the air out from under the car. Of course if you put a full pan under it that will help a lot I would think.
How does one go about putting a full pan under a car? Do you turn the car upside down to work on it? ;) I guess I'm just too old and lazy to think about laying on my back for anything but a nice little siesta...

no tonneau on it yet, thats just the different shaped quarters to the Rancheros. It will get lowered eventually, but nothing too extreme. It would be a lot easier if the car was upside down, good thing I have a spare roof. But the pan is getting there slowly, I'm doing it in sections so I can still remove things for easy access, there are a few pictures in the aerodynamics section of the progress so far.