And I'm suposto hold this wire? Or just lay it there?

 

Usually have it laying there next to the port that it fits over. The spark will jump up the coil to the wire. Do not hold unless you like the shocking feeling you'd get.
You only need to crank the starter for a couple of seconds to see what type of spark you get. Do not start it. Once you know you got a good spark just seat it properly on the coil .

 

Just checking to see if-in you were getting a spark out of our conversation I'll make sure to check it tho, never thought of that. Thanks

 

Glove box doors,metal or padded, were optional in all years but mandatory only on a 67 model if a passenger seat was installed from factory. In that case,due to new safety regulations,it had to be a padded door.
The column plate pictured is basically flat and triangular shaped. It changed in 63/64 to a 5 sided "home plate" style that was flat where it met the dash but dropped downward after the ridged section towards the column.
In 65 ,the steering box mount holes in the frame were repositioned to lean the column back toward the driver for more comfort explaining why the seats got thinner on 65-67 models too. Naturally,a deeped plate was now need to fill the larger gap created by leaning the column more to the rear of the vehicle so a 3rd version,similar to the 2nd version was made.
As Paul Harvey would say,now you know, "the rest of the story" :-)

Tim in Ky

 

Thanks Paul....Tim. That is kinda neet to know. Now I have to go look at my 66. I thought it looked like that???

 

One other way to tell on vans is the 61-62 roof doesnt have the lines in it like the 63-67 ones do. 61/62 only has the horseshoe shaped indentations in front and rear but no lines for added strength down the middle of the roof.
Easy way to tell a 67 model is the master cylinder access hole is rectangular not round like 61-66 models.
Additionally all of the long vans (Supervans) were 65-67 models.
Confused yet? Dont worry,theres a lot of other year to year differences too that I wont confuse you with.

Tim in Ky

 

Are the lights on top of the cab different, year to year? Or a dealer thing? This stuff is fun to know.

 

The padded dash thing as I knew was only for 65 to 67. Before that they came with no padded dash. I will leave room to be wrong. But I believe in Canada the p[added dash and glove box doors were only available after 65.
Also halfway through 67 the vans and trucks got rectangle taillights like what was on the 67 ford trucks.
Cab lights I think were a option or aftermarket thing.
Now the roof thing I did not know. I have a 64 van body here with the horshoe roof skin, I also have another with no ribs or horseshoe sheetmetal roof on these two vans. I have seen them with the ribs all the way down. My dad drove these vans in the 60's as delivery vans. I remember the one with the ribs. I use to climb on the roof to was the van for a dime. Us back then was big money. LOL LOL
Maybe some of these change were different from Canada and the states.

 

I have just read a discussion about the padded dash. And they said that they were available as early as 61? Did'nt know about the glovebox though. dont think mine has ever had a GB door. The outside cab lights on my 2 are different, one set is flat and the other set are on pedalstols. Kinda cool looking.

 

The lights on your trucks are not from the econolines. The pedestal ones are aftermarket that were put on semi's back in the 70's.
The ones on your yellow truck are Factory ford lights from a 70's ford truck. I have a 75 Ford 1/2 parts truck that has them.
The econolines did not have cab lights.
The padded dash stuff, my knowledge is they only were available after 65, but I will admitt being wrong if shown. Maybe number dummy may come on here and answer that one.

 

Ok, for those that don't know, I ve been a member/moderator for the Oldeconolines Yahoo website for almost 10 years now so I ve been exposed to an absolutely huge volume of input from various owners of 61-67 Econolines of all varieties both American and Canadian. I also attend several Econoline meets every year around the US from coast to coast.
Additionally I have a side business selling parts for these vehicles. I tend to part out about 4 a year and have had over 30 easily. I now have 10 and a half of them here at my house plus one in a buddies shop. I ve owned almost every style made,except a short body no side door "true" panel van. I have the long version now. I owned a 61 with padded dash and glove door. When I took the pad off the holes were perfect like factory,not drilled later for an install. I ve also seen others like it. Every 67 Econo had padded dash since safety regulations mandated it by then. That leaves us with 62-66 models.
I still own my first Econoline van,Grandpas 66 Falcon CCW(Custom Club Wagon) with padded dash and Glove box. I ve seen and or owned many of the CCW and DCW's(Deluxe Club Wagon) which all came with padded dash since it was part of the CCW and DCW package.
The first Falcon Club wagons were called Station buses originally and I ve seen a 62 model which had the whole package including dash pad. The Falcon DCW dash pads were colored to match the vehicle interior also,the CCW was just black. Black and blue being the most common ones but I ve seen red and tan/beige too. I believe it also came in green. The base model Falcon van did not come with it since it didnt have the CCW or DCW package. It had bare bones interior. The only thing Falcon about it was the emblems and the rear seat provision tracks on the floor in back. Seat not necessarily there either and no side step.
For further support a guy named Jay Long in California and recently deceased Don English also of California have been recording VIN tag data for many years and compared that data to the vehicles themself or thru site members to backup the tag info. They have a few 1000 VIN's on file I believe. Thru the years some errors in the factory manuals were discovered,mostly in the 65 manual, and with this tag data and real life vehicle info, the correct information was revealed.
Im no expert by any means but I have a pretty good knowledge by now of what came factory and most of the differences between models. I feel Im rambling now but needed to give a little background for my conclusions.
I ve never seen any roof without the horseshoe in front and rear on a van,long or short. Pickups didnt have them or the lines. Late 62 on up had the lines,61 and early 62 didnt. This info discovered thru VIN tag data and date of production from it.
All Econo pickups had round tail lights,so did all short vans. 67 models had seperate reverse lights below the tail lights,the base of which was unique to Econoline only as it fit the body curve.
Only the Supervans(18 inches longer produced 65-67) had rectangular tail lights. The 65-66 models were solid red lense,67 had the same as the 69-74 vans with the rectangular backup light built into the red lense.
Im not trying to come off as a know it all by any means and I ll readily admit when Im wrong. Im in no way perfeect that's for sure.
I agree the cab lights arent an Econoline feature but probably could have been ordered that way as was the practice back in those days. You could order almost anything,even A/C but it wasnt specifically Econoline even though they were sold new that way sometimes. I ve seen several versions of the so called factory A/C.
I hope I covered everything. Got other questions,feel free to ask.

Tim in Ky
EconoUSAparts
Your used 61-67 Econoline parts source
Constantly parting out E100 vans and trucks.
A100 parts also available

 

I cant say anything on the Canadian versions except that there were both Canadian built Ford Econolines and also Mercury Econolines,both van and pickup. I have friends in Canada that own both van and pu but they are both Merc's. The horn button says Mercury and so does the pickups tailgate. The Canadian VIN tags are totally different and I cant decode them but there are those who can.

 

I've been lurking on the other site. Tryed to post there a few times, must be doing something wrong.? Lots of trafic over there, been watching the fan story close. As my belt driven fan is 5 1/2" away from the ratiator, with no shroud. It dont matter because I
Put a new cap, rotor, coil and added dry gas and 5 gal of hi test. Still dont run correct. All that made no difference, and I still cant drive it.Heres a pic of the exploded coil. Threw oil all over the inside of the truck.

 

Sorry Tim I was not trying to offend you.
Like I said I maybe wrong about the dash.
Nice to know about the retangle lights being on the supervans. There is one currently for sale here with those lights. A local Machine shop had a pickup with those lights also. It was a 67. They sold it in the 90's to a collector. This explains why I have not seen more of these vans and trucks with the rectangled tailights.
I learned something from you about the steering mount bracket. It gives me something else to help at a glance to Identify the years better.
I've had my truck since 1988. When I went through a divorce in the 90's I have not been able to get at it. I'm still rebuilding a new home a shop. The divorce set me back about 15 years. I was one of the few men who got custody, but not at first. So raising kids with no child support and starting over on home put me behind on restoring my truck and the other econo truck project I want to do. I hope to start in the next year.
I think the serial numbers for Canadian vans are reversed. It seems they start with the consecutive numbers first then the other number identifying manufacturing info follows.
I recently found this when I checked a couple MErcury vans for sale here. We noticed the number were stamped differently than the manual say.
Collectible Automobile February 1998 issue magazine did a story on a 61 Econoline truck. They mention about the no key in the doors. They also said no glove box door. Which I do not beleive. It states the Econoline was put out in October of 1960.
They also say only a 144 engine was available in 61 as does my 61 shop manual.


Shiftles.
I wonder if your timing chainand gear maybe out a notch. It can cause the engine to run like crap. It can happen the chain jumps a cog.
Another thing about the coil is try changing the voltage regulator. It can also cook the coil if sending too hot of current. Most times it will cause your battery to dry up.
Just a thought.

 

No offense taken,just trying to give a little background on myself before I start spewing off infiormation that may seem questionable. The magazine is correct about Oct 1960 production dates and the 144 engine,which thankfully changed to the available 170, and eventually 240. Also reported cases of rare occurences of a 200, and extremely rare prototype V8 which I ve only heard about.
I ve seen pickups that were converted to rectangular tail lights and Supervans converted to long pickups with rectangle lights left in place. Off to bed,gotta work early.