Gordon writes: 

I own a 1968 Ford Torino GT convertible with a 302 and C4 automatic column shift. I have three questions that maybe you can help me with. First, the column shift jumps out of park. I have adjusted the linkage according to the service manual and still the problem is there. Second, my fuel gauge always shows full when car is running or when ignition is on even with the tank partially empty. When the ignition is turned off it very slowly drops to empty, and when the ignition is turned on the needle very slowly moves to full and stays there. The tank and sending unit were replaced about three years ago, it worked fine until last year.

Finally, do you have any idea what kind of clips or fasteners are used to secure the belt-line trim around the back of the top. The boot has no snaps—it fastens to the trim with plastic clips. Thank you for reading, and any ideas on how to fix these issues is appreciated!

Sajeev answers: 

A cool car with a trio of needs? Let’s see if we can address them, as nothing takes away from the fun of classic car ownership like those “little things” that snowball into monumental annoyances when trying to enjoy the car on a regular basis!

Regarding the first issue, if you are absolutely sure the linkages are adjusted correctly and everything looks right in the steering column, I reckon the park pawl has gone bad inside the C4 automatic transmission. Here are the parts that could be worn out and need replacement, and yes, you have to dig into the transmission to replace the pawl.

Addressing the park pawl might be a good reason for a full transmission rebuild (with a shift kit and a looser stall convertor?), but perhaps ensuring the emergency brake’s reliability is all you need. All that takes is cleaning/lubricating/replacing the external cables and internal levers for the brake shoes (assuming you still have rear drum brakes) which is clearly far more cost-effective. And it likely serves the same purpose. (I say this because Houston is a very flat city; your geographic conditions may vary.)

The fuel gauge is another story. Often the quality of replacement parts is suspect, including that of aftermarket fuel-sending units. But before you blame the sending unit, check the wiring from the tank to the gauge for a short on the power side or a bad ground. (It’s probably the latter.) The video below is a good general guide, but you might need to know the specs of the Torino’s fuel gauge to ensure it is still accurate.

Regarding the convertible-top boot? Everything I see suggests that the Torino’s boot attaches to the body with a plastic “tongue” that slides into the chrome trim’s groove. The tongue-and-groove system isn’t unique to Torinos, but the decorative chrome trim around it is absolutely unique to 1968 through ’69 Torinos. If your boot is missing any amount of the plastic tongue, see if a local trim shop can stitch in a new tongue—or just buy a new boot.

Sorry my advice is so labor-intensive (especially on the transmission), but I hope it gives you a new angle to address! Best of luck.

Have a question you’d like answered on Piston Slap? Send your queries to pistonslap@hagerty.com, give us as much detail as possible so we can help! If you need an expedited resolution, make a post on the Hagerty Community!

The post Piston Slap: A Torino’s parking pawl-em, lost ground, and tongues that lost their grooves? appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Michael writes:

I’m looking for a good resource to restore my 1975 Ford Gran Torino to the OEM single exhaust with the original catalytic converter. The car was modified by its prior owner to dual exhaust, and I’m trying to restore the car to what it was when my grandmother bought it new after retiring from Ford. Can you provide direction?

Sajeev answers:

As a Malaise-era Ford nerd, stuff like this is right up my alley, so I shall do my best.

The story of the catalytic convertor is fascinating, with an evolution since 1975 that’s nothing short of monumental. Finding the GEN I catalytic convertor used on 1975 Ford vehicles was impossible online, but I remained optimistic that the rest of the system was available via the Walker catalog.

Unfortunately, it gives line drawings with no part numbers for the piping. Even worse, the drawings suggest only one bank of cylinders fed the catalyst? Not a good sign, so in order to be 100 percent correct, getting the factory exhaust from manifolds to tailpipe is now in your hands: Contact national NOS parts vendors, make an eBay saved search for Ford part numbers starting with “D5oz” (look what I just found!), and have enough patience to fill the back of a Gran Torino Squire.

But what if you just want an exhaust that kinda looks correct? The pipes can be made locally out of 2-inch (if memory serves me) diameter tubes, and make sure they crush bend it so it looks awful and truly factory correct. Use the Walker screenshot above (or get a Ford shop manual for better photos), buy a modern muffler and catalytic convertor (a good idea for performance), and find an exhaust shop that appreciates your project just as much as I do. Making this happen is easy enough, provided you don’t need to struggle searching for NOS vintage Ford parts.

Bonus! An update on a previous Piston Slap: 

Ryan writes:

I managed to fix the Sandlewood Sable LS, and it is currently running with all of the same parts. The problem was definitely in the IRCM, and it was a relay for the A/C compressor that was in a closed position and basically robbing the fuel pump relay of power. I removed the faulty relay from the circuit board by de-soldering the pins, but the fuel pump was not getting power without the relay on the board, so I re-installed it and then everything worked fine. Maybe the relay had been stuck in a closed position and wasn’t freed until it was removed or installed from the board. That’s the best explanation I can come up with: I had ordered a replacement IRCM and installed it, but that didn’t fix the problem. As you can see in the photo, it didn’t look anything like the original pink circuit board with brown relays, and I’m sure that it was intended to work with a later-year vehicle.

I think for now I’m going to need to carry a toggle switch, wires, and tools in the car just in case this happens again, and if it does I’ll replace the Siemens relays with Bosch relays. Right now, a replacement 1988 or older IRCM is virtually obsolete.

Have a question you’d like answered on Piston Slap? Send your queries to pistonslap@hagerty.com, give us as much detail as possible so we can help! If you need an expedited resolution, make a post on the Hagerty Community!

The post Piston Slap: The Gran Torino’s exhausting history with a Sable’s solution appeared first on Hagerty Media.

I was 8 years old the day we went to pick up our brand-new car in October 1969. It was the first and only new car my dad ever owned. He was going to trade in his old Mercury, but it died two blocks from the Ford dealer in Montebello, California, so he and my uncle and my sister and I walked those two blocks to the dealership. My dad handed over the keys to the salesman and told him where he could pick up the Mercury.

The Brittany Blue Torino fastback sat on the lot. It was so sharp, and even sitting still, it looked fast. It had a 351 emblem on the fenders and GT badges on the wheel covers, the grille, and the rear (fake) gas cap, with chrome hash marks by the rear side windows to emphasize the sleek body. Inside, the light blue interior had bucket seats with headrests and a center console for the three-speed automatic shifter.

That Torino became a big part of my childhood and teenage years. My sister and I learned to drive in it, and it was the car I used for cruising with friends and dating. Later, when my dad retired, the Torino was rarely used. Dad never really took care of the car and only did what was needed to keep it running. By then, I had moved from Southern to Northern California and was busy raising my own family. Each time I went home to visit, the Torino looked worse than the last time. Unfortunately, his Social Security income wasn’t enough to keep it up.

When Dad passed away in 2015, I inherited the Torino and shipped it up to my house. It had only 81,000 miles on the clock, but the whole car looked rough. The paint had faded and the hood was rusty. There were dents and scratches everywhere. The interior was a mess, too. The center console had become brittle and cracked, the carpets were badly stained, and the front driver seat was ripped open. You could see the springs inside it, and my dad had stuffed some old towels and newspapers in there for support. The engine still ran, but it didn’t run well, and it seemed very tired.

I loved that Torino, so I vowed to restore it—and to keep it as original as possible. Using some faded memories and a Polaroid photograph that was taken shortly after we got the car, I spent the next three years working on the Torino. I resprayed the factory blue paint and replaced the interior with new light blue Corinthian leather, plus a new center console, carpet, and headliner. I had the transmission and rear end rebuilt and kept the 351 totally stock; turns out it just needed the carburetor rebuilt and a good tuneup.

Today, I’m pleased to say the car looks like it did in the Polaroid, and it drives exactly like I remember. My one wish is that I could have done this while my dad was still alive. But I know he’s got a big smile on his face as he sees the Torino restored to its original glory. Someday, I’ll pass it down to my son, and he, too, can share the story of our family Torino with his kids.

The post This restored 1969 Ford Torino is staying in the family appeared first on Hagerty Media.

A former road and oval-track racer, Larry Wilson decided to move to a racing discipline with less wheel-to-wheel contact. Land speed racing seemed appealing and, as a fan of ’60s muscle, he decided to search for a classic car that could scratch his racing itch and get his family involved as well. Having grown up owning Falcons, Mustangs, and Corvettes, Wilson was quite familiar with compact performance cars. Although he admired Ford’s larger performance and muscle cars, he’d never owned one. For this venture, though, they seemed like the perfect cars.

Wilson is old enough to remember Ford’s NASCAR homologation cars and Mopar’s winged response. The pointed noses and tall wings of the Superbird and Charger Daytona may have brought superspeedway success, but they didn’t win over the hearts and minds of new car buyers. That’s where Wilson thinks Ford got it right.

Ford’s Torino Talladega and Mercury’s Cyclone Spoiler both had stretched fenders and flush grilles to offer the OEMs’ NASCAR teams a more streamlined body to push the envelope at speeds near 200 mph. Wilson thought it would be appropriate to use one of these as a race car, but he knew purists would be up in arms if he hacked into a pristine Talladega. Still, he wanted the real thing.

Knowing that for every couple of restored Talladegas on the road there was likely a banged-up parts car nearby, Wilson put out some feelers. Sure enough, one surfaced. Wilson made the trip from his home in Houston into southern Kansas to find a rough Talladega sitting in a shed. “It was a rust bucket,” Wilson recalls. There was no engine or transmission, and he had to bring his own wheels and tires to even make it a roller.

With that part of his plan secured, Wilson made the trek to North Carolina and bought a retired NASCAR Cup car. Back at home, the Talladega went on a rotisserie and was cut up to swallow the former NASCAR racer’s chassis. The road-racing front suspension uses components from Ronnie Hopkins Enterprises, while the rear suspension is a Ford 9-inch solid axle with truck arms.

(If you’re not familiar, “truck arm” suspension is so named because the two long trailing arms used in NASCAR initially came from ’60s Chevy pickups. It may seem primitive, but it works.)

Wilson did the bodywork and rollcage himself and employed help from his wife, Stephanie, along with his daughter Ellie and her husband Vladick. When they were done, the car looked very much like the NASCAR superspeedway bullet that Ford had intended. Wilson admits that he wasn’t a huge fan of the Talladega in stock form: “They’re not really that pretty until you lower them.” That goes for quite a lot of cars, if you ask us.

It’s common at Bonneville to pick the record first and then build the engine to suit. For Wilson, the C/Classic Fuel Altered (C/CFALT) class and its record of 243.406 mph meant his car would need an engine between 306 and 372.99 cubic inches in displacement. Turning back to North Carolina and NASCAR surplus, Wilson contacted NASCAR teams to buy used engines that were no longer up-to-date with cutting-edge technology.

The engines, similar to the ones you’d find in a Cup car circa 2008–12, have a limited lifespan when they’re run on the edge for 500 miles of WOT racing. NASCAR sets a maximum displacement and a maximum bore size, and NASCAR teams tend to run as large a bore as possible to help the heads breathe. In addition, they typically choose a short stroke to lower piston speed. This combination means that a NASCAR engine will likely be beyond its max bore size with any kind of overbore. It’s bad for NASCAR budgets, but good for secondhand parts scroungers like Wilson.

“Engines to those guys are kinda like tires—they just get another one,” Wilson says. Initially, Wilson did his own rebuilding; now he relies on an engine builder in NASCAR country.

The engines—Wilson and his team have four of them—are based on a Roush R451 block and use D3 heads. Using the surplus NASCAR crankshafts and a slight overbore, the team’s engines displace either 364 or 368 cubic inches. Wilson has changed the cam specs to broaden the torque curve and upped the compression to 13.7:1. The engine run at 2020 Speed Week measured 862 hp at 8600 rpm. Wilson shifts the car, which runs a Jerico five-speed, at 8900 rpm.

While NASCAR surplus engines are a performance bargain, they offer unique challenges. “You have to be a hands-on type [of] person because so many of the parts are custom,” Wilson explains. For example, even if you find a part number on a valve spring, it could be a proprietary part developed by a race team. That means the company will not sell the spring to anyone outside the team. If that’s the case, you’ll have to resort to finding something that’s close to it. “It’s a lot of reverse engineering,” Wilson says.

Because Wilson and his team compete in the fuel class, they can run whatever combustibles through the engine they may choose. Wilson has opted for a small, 75-shot of nitrous oxide. The engines are built with piston and ring packages for running on gasoline, so they can’t withstand the increased cylinder pressure that normally comes with a purpose-built nitrous engine. The 75-shot avoids putting too much strain on the reciprocating assembly, and every extra bit of power helps. 

When we asked Wilson about Talladega’s handling, he was proud to admit that his center of pressure and center of gravity calculations must have been correct, because the car tracks well at speed.

“It’s never been a car that was twitchy,” Wilson says. Even at 230 mph on the salt, he can drive it with one hand on the wheel. Talladegas were known to have a bit of lift on the nose at speed, but proper ballast has kept that to a minimum. When Wilson and his family finished building the car, it weighed 4430 pounds—not light by any muscle car standards. However, in addition to its substantial heft, Wilson’s added 490 pounds of ballast to keep the car planted on the salt.

That weight makes it a bit tough for the big Ford to accelerate off the line, but once it gets moving, it’s the air that fights against the car. Despite what Ford’s designers managed to accomplish by keeping the Talladega’s lines close to the mainstream Torinos, according to Wilson, “at 190 mph it starts becoming a brick.”

So far, Wilson and his family have made it to five Speed Weeks at Bonneville. The first year they ran 216 mph; the next, they ran 226. In 2018 they ran 239 mph and looked like they were onto something. Salt conditions were poor for Speed Week 2019, but in 2020 they returned with some tweaks that they thought would put them over their 243.406-mph goal. Instead, they took a step backward, running in the low 230s.

Rather than continue running the remainder of the week with the same results, Wilson and his team packed it up and headed home. “We didn’t need any more practice going slow,” Wilson jokes.

If the salt holds out, Wilson and his family team should be back competing in 2021 with some more power and a new game plan.

The post Rescued from rust, this Torino Talladega hits the salt with NASCAR power appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Hagerty readers and Hagerty Drivers Club members share their cherished collector and enthusiast vehicles with us via our contact email, tips@hagerty.com. We’re showcasing some of our favorite stories among these submissions. To have your car featured, send complete photography and your story of ownership to the above email address.

Today’s featured ride is a 1969 Ford Fairlane Cobra. Among Ford’s mid-size offering, launched in 1968, the fastback Fairlane models quickly edged out the convertible and two-door hardtop models in sales. The sleek fastbacks proved to be a hit on the track as well as the street, with David Pearson taking the 1968 NASCAR championship behind the wheel of a race-prepped example.

The street-spec Cobra series, which joined the Fairlane lineup in 1969, added some confusion to the Fairlane family: These cars didn’t bear any “Fairlane” or “Torino” nameplates, only “Cobra.” (Not until the year later, in 1970, would the Torino Cobra hit dealership lots.) Nevertheless, Fairlane Cobras were offered with the appropriate bevy of tire-shredding V-8s and heavy-duty performance add-ons.

This particular 1969 Torino belongs to Craig Gibbs and boasts the heavy-hitting 428 Cobra Jet mill paired with a four-speed, close-ratio manual. On top of that, it carries the optional Ram Air Induction package, power steering and power brakes, and 3.50:1 Traction-Lok rear end. This classy SportsRoof Torino wears Indian Fire Paint over a black interior and originally hails from Ford’s Kansas City, Missouri, assembly plant.

The post Rides from the Readers: 1969 Ford Torino Cobra appeared first on Hagerty Media.