First, this forum is amazing and thank you to those maintaining it. I have a "barn find" 61 Tudor. Well, maybe that's a stretch because I found it in my own barn. Bought this thing about 30 years ago and drove it a lot for about 5 or 6 years before it started to sit for long time between starts. Pretty soon time, neglect and bad gas caught up, and it turned into a "someday I'll get back to it" project. But I kept it around and its been stored dry.

I bought it with a 170 and 3 speed (although the code tells me it was 144 originally). Being a kid, of course I stuck a 289, C4 and 8" rearend in it. Otherwise it was in decent shape and fairly rust free. Recently hauled it out into daylight to assess the work to get it going again. First issue was mouse damage, and that was extensive. Anything chewable had been turned into plush bedding in the trunk and heater box, so first work was stripping nearly all the interior. Gas tank was about half full with the nastiest goop and sludge I've seen. Cleaned that out with lye, which worked incredibly well and I highly recommend. That's about as far as I've gotten, but I've got a big list of things to do and probably a ton of questions that will come up that the group here I'm sure can help with.

Master cylinder was of course in awful condition after sitting, so this seemed like a good time for the dual master upgrade. Just collecting parts and planning now. Here's a partial list just to get it on the road:

Replace all fuel lines, hoses, pump, etc. Need to replace the sending unit as well.
Replace MC, all (or most) brake lines, hoses, probably wheel cylinders, shoes...haven't gotten that far
Carb rebuild, Edelbrock 1405. Probably some jet tuning. I never felt like this carb was set up right before.
Rear wheels and tires. I was a kid with no money then...its got mismatched width rims with re-treads.
Some re-wiring of my old mistakes.

And whatever else I run into along the way. That's just to get it running and ignoring all the creature comforts like upholstery, heater system rebuild, future electric wiper conversion? A future front end rebuild with disc brakes would be nice. Currently 5 lug in the rear and 4 up front.

Lots of work to do.

falcon.jpg