New: 1969 Galaxie 500

Hey, I just bought my Galaxie.
1969 2 door hard top. 302 V8. 2 speed. 58,000 original miles.

I am looking for these parts -
Carpet
Headliner
door jamb/window rubber
trunk lid (has rot on inside but not outside)
rear bumper (got swiped and is a little rusty)
moulded dash cover
door arm rests

I live in Western NY (rochester). Car has never seen a winter or snow. Was in a barn from 1973 to 2007. Bought it from a mechanic last night. I am 3rd owner. Other than those parts needed up there, the car needs a paint job and to have the doors re-aligned/adjusted/tightened. I plan to black primer it, raise the rear a little, find some nice race type of rims and I'd like to put in new engine (larger) and do some performance mods.

Open to suggestions and help. It's a boat of a car, but rare compared to all the Chevells, Novas, Camaros, Mustangs and import that people drive around where I like. I prefer having to work harder and be original than to follow the rest of them.

Macs or Autocrafters for interior/seals

best to check out west for a trunklid...desertvalley auto parts (think its DVAP.com) has rustfree stuff, but pricey. before aligning doors try lifting- if the hinges are loose, I'd kinda suspect the miles may be off a bit...I think you can get hinge kits with pins/bushings even at autozone.

believe it or not, that is still one of my favorite bodies...and that has the coolest dash ever(except for the lefthanded radio- if its got AM/FM thats very cool). search on ebay for '69 galaxie dash', bet you can find a skin for 90 bucks to cover the old cracks around the speakers these all had...

neat car, lots of potential...set of torq-thrusts and find ya a 429 4 barrel
Tim

Originally Posted by drkrvnchld

Hey, I just bought my Galaxie.
1969 2 door hard top. 302 V8. 2 speed. 58,000 original miles.

Hey Mr. D,
Nice car. She's fortunate to have been found by someone who cares.

JC

Thanks for the info! When I first got her in the drive way, I was like "Gonna drop a 429 in this and rock it!" BUt the guy I got it from says that he got a little better than 25mpg highway with the current set up - which is pretty good if you ask me. I'd hate to drop down to 10mpg. I'd like to drive this from NY to my yearly trips to Virginia Beach and then to South Parde Island then back to NY. So I was thinking maybe a 351 or 390 tops.

As for the doors, the car sat in a barn and the family kids would play in it. I have a feeling the kids were jumping through the open windows, opening and closing the doors, laying on the doors and leaving the doors open.

Keep suggestions coming. I appreciate them. Where about to go take out most of the interior. The headliner looks like the stiching came out - so we may be able to repair that. My wife is awesome at needle work, She once replaced all the seat stitching of my Firebird with the seats still in the car. The Galaxie seats are mint. I should put a picture of those up. I'm amazed by them. Deff better quality back in the day than what we have today. THere is no saving the carpet though.

Oh, the lights on the dashboard are kind of dull. Any ideas to "perk" them up a but. I'm going to try and remove the lenses and clean them.

turn the light switch handle --it acts as a reostate also-- to dim the dash lights when their to bright at night

Originally Posted by Rich27028

turn the light switch handle --it acts as a reostate also-- to dim the dash lights when their to bright at night

Yeah, did that. THey just aren't bright enough, not like todays cars. I cleaned the plastic lenses up and it helped a little bit. Next I'm just going to take the whole dash apart and replace all the lighting in it. LED's probably.

Need some small interior pieces. Any place that makes reproductions or a good place to get originals? Not finding much on ebay for this car.

my 69 was rotted out bad, but the 429 ran like a top, and the interior was perfect(except for dash crack over the speaker)...was black vinyl, and it was a great looking/comfortable car to drive- and 480 ft-lb just off idle would quietly plant your butt in the seat if you even looked at the gas pedal I miss that car- still got the motor. My Mom and StepDad had bought it from Rittman Ohio PD auction in like 1972 or so- was a undercover copcar, 2 door with the police goodies- I was like 8-9 yrs old then...8 yrs later I promptly totalled it out 3 weeks after I got my license.
Had big plans for that car, still got scribbled up sketches of it out in the garage somewhere, sadly not a single picture of it.
buff up that front grille, and gloss black between the ribs- it looked pretty sweet...a set of torq-thrust wheels would be great- think 9-10 inchers will go under the backend, I'd planned on a gray color with a black accent stripe that came to a point at the rearwindow hipline - actually the sketch I'd made looked very similar to some of the accent stripes Ive seen on the new chargers.
personally, if it were mine I'd pull the vinyl top- both because I like the painted better, and they tended to rust underneath...My Mom drove that car for years and averaged 17 MPG (if she kept her foot out of it), however, I kinda doubt a 10.5/11:1 engine would like todays 93 octane unleaded...I recall the 'growl' it made EVERY time it was shut off- when I was 15 I put in a oil pressure gage and saw why- it sucked it to zero as soon as the key would shutoff- looked close under the hood, yep it ran backwards 1~2 seconds every time it was shut down hot Man did that thing run though.

25 mpg is pretty impressive- our 65 289 does around 20, and it pretty much never gets stepped on...it never pings, so if I added a little timing it might do better too...anyway, love that body style- interiior pics would be great to see- is it black vinyl?

Some pics from today. I finally got to really look at the car as far as the body goes. There's some work that needs to be done. A lot of dings and dents. I should be able to fix them right up before I primer the car.

Also put a video of the car running. Bottom of post.














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I had 17x9.5 under the back of mine with a 275/40/17 tire with no issues. I will say its quite likely a 17x10 with same 5.5 may fit fine too.

I miss my 69 a lot looking at these pics but my 68 still pretty much fills that void. Mine had a vinyl topt hat eventually took the roof and it was downhill from there.

I have a NOS rear bumper for a 69- It's got some slight shelf wear and pitting but is perfectly straight... I also have a very clean reflector panel for above the rear bumper and some other tidbits, including a gauge bezel (I think) somewhere...

Nice find!

looks good- I see its got the rim blow wheel too...mine had that and a rear defroster- wish I woulda saved them, as guess both are pretty hard to find nowadays...mine had that exact same interior.

BTW- that rimblow steering wheel is the same as the Mustangs- Imagine the rubber 'rim blow' band has deteriorated/peeled off, and bet the horn is disconnected too- if it is, dont hook it back up till you fix the wheel -it will go off when you least expect it Mustang suppliers now carry the rimblow rubber switch, only diff between Gal/Mustang is the center ornament in the pad...would you believe I put a 12" foam/chrome wheel in ine and threw away the old wheel-DOH!

do you have the AM/FM, AM-8track, or just AM radio? only bad thing about that dash was you can NOT find a replacement radio for it...I saw a radio delete plate for one on Ebay a while back- would be cool to put gages behind and hide a new radio in the glovebox or something...

one thing I probably shoulda mentioned- as I usually do- to anyone looking at a galaxie: is the frame good? these cars(69/70/71 Ive seen) tended to get rust/cracks just in front of the rear wheels where the frame starts to radius upwards...the ones Ive seen showed there first, and deteriorated from there...our 65 had the rust/cracks there too, but by far the worst was the front torqueboxes(or lack thereof)...I dunno if the front/siderail issues were better after 65/66/67/68 or not- but Ive seen a lot of them with very bad siderails, kinda bad rears. The trouble seemed to be inadequate drain hole size, and roadgrime tended to buildup in the rear arches on later ones, in rear arches AND siderails on the earlier ones.
the 65 I got control arms from in Colorado was clean, but badly rearended/frame bent- no bad spots in the rear at all, but both rails near the front torqueboxes were 'crunchy' when pressed on...
Hope yours is solid, and might suggest to keep it that way try fishing some wire into the frame drains- little 'indents' where inner/outer pieces weld together are the only places for water to get out, and are always clogged up...if I ever get another one, I'd opt to drill some 1/2" holes in the frame bottom to flush it out thru, and snap plugs in when done- any weakening would be minor compared to rot- heres my favorite ugly pic of our 65: