I believe the car sat for many years until 1987, when the guy my friend got the car from bought it. He brought it to Las Vegas, NV from it's home in Carlsbad, NM and worked on it for 9 years before selling it to my friend. Since I've purchased the car, I've put a new front end under it, new transmission, new door locks, new wheels, and some other maintenance things that were overlooked prior to my ownership. I've also chromed the valve covers and air cleaner. I'd like to get AC and a dual reservoir master cylinder someday.

I found a parts car for $200, and wound up getting some more parts for my car there. Now I've got windshield wipers, a speedometer, odometer, and a few replacement pieces of chrome. I sent it to the junkyard after stripping what I could use off of it. 

7/15/05: I've been having a little problem with vapor locking during the day lately. I think it just gets too hot. I changed out the engine mounted fan with an electric one. It seems to have done wonders for my gas mileage. I'm up to about 17mpg, with a few 18's mixed in too. I finally changed out all my spark plug wires too; the old ones were new 10 years ago, I'd guess. I also had the rear-end rebuilt this year. The bearings were going out. The radiator mounts came un-soldered, so I had to fix that last summer. I got the heater core fixed in the fall. The radiator fill tank broke too, so I got that fixed around November '04 I think. So, that's pretty much the whole cooling system.

4/20/06: It wouldn't be another year without another cooling system problem. This time, I managed to spring a couple of leaks in the core thanks to the electric fan I hung on it. The weight and vibration eventually broke the solder. Lesson: Don't mount electric fans to the core, no matter what the instructions say. I spent today putting in the new 4-row radiator, (to replace the old 3-row) and building brackets to hang the fan from. I'll see how it handles in the heat, but it looks like it's already cooling better.

3/20/07: Relatively uneventful year. I was out of town a lot, so the car was in storage for about 4 months total. The alternator bracket broke at some point and the car developed a nasty habit of throwing the fan belt, which led me to overheating the car a couple of times. I wired my aftermarket temp gauge into the dash lights subsequently. I also got the alternator bracket re-welded. The engine had something of a "death rattle" going on at hard acceleration, but after doing a tuneup it seems to sound pretty much ok. I plan on selling the car in the next year. Stay tuned!

4/23/07: The "death rattle" is gone. It was just a case of poorly adjusted timing. The distributor is leaking oil pretty steady though. Even though it's just a bad o-ring (probably) I'm not quite sure what kind of trouble I can get into by pulling the distributor out, so I'm waiting to find someone that can help me. In the meantime, I'll just leave puddles where I park.

8/04/07: Distributor is still leaking. This is my first summer with the new radiator I bought last year, and it seems to be making a difference. Temp is pretty solidly at 210f. No vaporlock problems at all this year, but I'm not sure if that's due to the clothespins or the fan thermostat being set lower.

2/18/08: In November, I had some work done to the car. The distributor leak turned out to be the intake manifold. The shop I took it to had a hell of a time fixing it too, because the heads are from a 289, and the intake is from a 255. They finally found a gasket that would mate them both to the 302 block without any oil/water leak problems after 5 tries. Along with the gasket, they also tuned the engine a bit and built a new alternator support bracket for me. My heater core popped somewhere around this time too, so I had to get a new one built, which wasn't a big deal. I wound up getting the new one just in time for Winter. A couple days ago, I swapped the original point system out for a Pertronix unit. So far, so good. The radiator seems to have developed a leak as well, which is pretty irritating, but it's tiny at the moment, so I'm just gonna live with it for a while.

Cars:
MyClassicCar.comThe TNN show website. Restoration tips, pictures, resources, etc.
Hemmings Motor News (Books, Parts, Cars for sale. Online Car show)
Collector Car Search Find a classic for sale in your area, or sell your own here.
Welcome to CTC's Autoranch Online Good place to find classics for sale.
1960 Fairlane 500 from France Phillipe owns a 1960 Fairlane and has a gallery of images to browse through.

Clubs:
Galaxie Club of America Be sure to check out the "International Car Show" section.
Early Falcon Club A Ford Club in Australia

Learning:
Tire School - Tire Specifications Learn how to decode the numbers on the side of your tires here.
Brake Modification A good article describing the process involved in upgrading to power brakes.
Bleeding Brakes Instructions for bench bleeding a new master cylinder. PDF 28k
Brake Technology Links to a large number of brake articles
Storage Tips 10 tips for long term storage of your classic.