Looking for a good forum to help me finish a 66 Ranchero I bought.

After a long search I bought a 66 Ranchero and it was delivered on Friday morning. The rebuilding was almost finished on this truck when the owner found a new love (66 Wagon) that he wanted to put his money into and put the 66 up for sale in its 95%+ finished state. As you all know that last 5% can be very time consuming. It will be even more time consuming for me because I'm use to working on 40s and 50s vehicles from a simpler time and drove and maintained mid 60s Fords when they were just used cars, many years ago. I have a big learning curve just to figure out what is missing and what goes where. I spent the day doing a few obvious things and making a list of what I know needs to be done. I hope to use the combined knowledge of this group to get educated and find some parts as I decide what I need.

Here's todays problems:

One of the springs that keeps the door from swinging free is off. I have the springs but have not come up with a way to compress it enough to get it installed. Any tricks?

Wiring is one of the things that was completed, lots of wires don't go anywhere so I don't know what is missing. Everything seems to work as is but the horn, which I have to get fixed to get it through NY inspection. I have taken the horn ring off and cleaned contacts. The horn works if I just connect it to the battery. I can not find any of these contacts with any voltage on them so I'm going under the impression that a wire is off somewhere. The fuse block is in a state of disrepair with a couple of pigtail fuses added to replace bad fuse locations. Any ideas where the power gets fed to the horn circuit?

I'll have lots more questions but this will do for today.

If you want to see it I set up a web page to show it off.
http://www.crosley-gang.com/users/ji...ero/index.html

Jim...

 

the contacts in the column are for grounding. there should be a 3 wire horn relay under the hood, i am not sure where on a 66, ford usually put them around the solenoid somewhere. the power is usually fed from the bat side of the solenoid.

jim

 

Thanks for the info on the horn relay. It is missing and no sign of any wiring for it. I got a parts book off eBay and I found a diagram that shows the horn relay right were you said it should be. I'm going to the Dunkirk (NY) flea market tomorrow and have an electrical manual for the 66 being delivered there by a vendor. I hope I can figure out were the wires are suppose to connect in to the wiring harness with that. I assume the horn relay is still available from Ford or after market.

Jim...

 

The "quick n dirty" way we used to use at the Mustang shop to put those door hinge springs in was to put them in a vice to compress them and run some bailing wire through it while its compressed and "twistie tie" it in place. You may have to use 2 wires on opposite sides to keep it straight when not in the vice. then you just line it up with the stubs on the hinge and the catch peice and cut the wires. (wear safety glasses as I have seen them go flying across the shop)