New member with 1965 Fairlane

Hello. My name is Brian and I have just joined this site today. I have a 1965 Ford Fairlane 500 sedan with the original straight six cylinder in it right now. I have a 302 and a 289 in my garage of which I was trying to decide which one to do and put in place of the six cylinder. I have recently acquired a 1968 Mercury Cougar which I am going to part out and I have decided to use the 351 Clevland that is in the car for my Fairlane. My Fairlane is in very good condition with no rot in the quarters at all. The driver side torque box has some rot so I will have to change that but everything else looks pretty solid. I have had the car for about two years and have been driving it with the six in it but it is a dog with the six. The 351 will definitely help wake the car up. The interior is in very good condition as well. Nobody ever cut the dash and the only problem appears to be that the front seat is ripped which will be easy to have fixed. Once I start to drop the motor in the car I will probably start listing whatever problems I come across and what I do to remedy them in this site for anyone interested. I have a two car garage in the planing stages for the backyard and once that is done I will tackle the body work on this car and I will post my progress in here on that as well. I probably will not even start dropping the motor in for a few months from now and I am in no rush to get it done. I also have a 1985 Cutlass with a Pontiac 400 that came out of a 1969 GTO in it. I rebuilt the motor with a very good friend and it is already in the car. I also had a Turbo 350 rebuilt and put a TCI 2,500 stall converter in it. The rear is a 10 bolt posi with 3.73 gears. I also redid the suspension with polyeurethane bushings and put boxed control arms in the back to hold the rear. I also was able to buy springs for the car that are made for putting a big block in it. This car is almost finished with nonsense work left; such as the throttle and kickdown linkage, fuel pump, hooking up the gauges, etc. I will be completing this before doing the Fairlane. I also have a 1968 Chrysler Newport with a 383 in it which is in a friend's shop for paint right now. This motor has Edelbrock aluminum heads, an Edelbrock Performer RPM intake, Speed Demon carb, a purple cam, etc. As you can already tell, I do not really have a brand preference and I like some off the wall car bodies. Well, that is enough for now. To anyone whom has read this; thanks and any comments you wish to make are welcome. Have a great holiday and take car!!!!!!

we need pics[img]/forums/images/smiles/icon_bicker.gif[/img]

How do I post the pictures?

Nice,dont see many 65's around

WOW! NICE!
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sweet jeebus , thats a nice 65 !!! I just put a new 302 in my 65 and it MOVES now.... Can't wait to see the new motor installed.
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welcome to the board btw....

research header availability for the cleveland in that chassis before you get too far along, JMHO.... good luck and post pics

Thanks to all for the replies and the warm welcome. Thanks to 64 TBOLT for listing my pictures for me as well. Norcal 500-that is a really nice 65 as well. My car is a car with a post which has not as nice of a roof line but I still like it and think it does help to stiffen the car a little. Scott-thanks for the advice about the header availability but I am now committed to putting the 351 in it and will do whatever I have to in order to make it work. The Cutlass in the picture with the 65 Fairlane has a Pontiac 400 from a 1969 GTO in it and there were no headers available for the motor in the body. I wound up buying aftermarket Ram Air manifolds for a whopping $500.00 figuring that they are close enough to being headers and they would fit. I do not mind the challenges. They make you feel that much better when someone else looks into the engine bay and notices the amount of work you put into doing the engine swap. I am glad you mentioned it though so I know to pay special attention to this before dropping the motor in first and then realizing it. This is exactly what happened with the Cutlass. I put the motor in before trying to put headers or manifolds on it. It made for extra work.

I forgot to mention that the rims on the Fairlane are actually AMC rallye rims that happened to fit the Fairlane. I think they look good on the car but I am pretty sure I will be changing them in the future.