1966 Ford Falcon Pro Mod NOT MUCH LEFT TO DO NOW! 6/19/14

[am73grand]

My '58 Plymouth project is well underway...I had a bunch of spare drag parts left over so I decided to try building a cage from scratch. I had this mint AMT '66 Falcon and decided it would look awesome as a drag car. It was very thick and cutting out the doors and trunk were a challenge.

Here is where I am at so far:

Thanks for looking!!!

Edited June 19, 2014 by am73grand

[Darbo]

Nice start, can't wait to see more.

[cobraman]

Nice ! You don't see the 66 too often.

[dragcarz]

Looks great keep posting

[Bill Edman]

awesome

[vintagedragfan]

great start!!

[Dragracer]

Ron, the car is looking good, the cage came out looking great!, there is just 1 problem i see, in the picture you have showing the body on the chassis & looking from underneath (the 4th pic down), it looks like the front suspension arms are going to be a little to far forward, it would put your front tires into the front fender, need to bring the arms back a little, shorten the frame in front of the firewall or lengthen the front fenders a little, can't wait to see more of this build!

[tyrone]

Looking Good Ron..... keep it going...

[DrKerry]

Looks good so far!!!!!

[am73grand]

Ron, the car is looking good, the cage came out looking great!, there is just 1 problem i see, in the picture you have showing the body on the chassis & looking from underneath (the 4th pic down), it looks like the front suspension arms are going to be a little to far forward, it would put your front tires into the front fender, need to bring the arms back a little, shorten the frame in front of the firewall or lengthen the front fenders a little, can't wait to see more of this build!

Good eye Richard! If you look closely, the back edge of the floor pan is inside the body. When installed properly the floor pan sits even with the outside of the body (the back bumper hides it.) This puts my front wheels a little further back....then the struts tilt back towards the firewall. This puts the front tires ALMOST dead center of the wheel wells. (At least it did at mock-up LOL)

Thanks for the feedback!!! This whole process of building one of these is completely new to me so I'll take any ideas, corrections, mistakes you guys see!!!

[Truck parts]

Great build so far,Keep up the great work.

[am73grand]

I pulled this one back out and mocked it up. The chassis/cage was a mess I decided to start over. I've been asked several times about how I make my roll cages. So I'm going to build this one step by step. Here we go!

On almost all my drag car builds I use the Revell '55 Chevy pro sportsman kit as a donor. Here is how the firewall looks out of the box. You can see the big mold seam:

Five minutes with a sanding stick we have a smooth firewall:

Next we move to the rear of the floor pan. Here it is out of the box. The brace in the back needs to go.

[am73grand]

We'll continue. Here it is with the brace removed from between the tubs:

Now that the pan is prepared we can start on the cage. First step is to install these two kit parts along the transmission tunnel:

Then we glue the kit chassis in place. I always add a tube as shown by the pointing blade:

[am73grand]

Now it is time to start fabbing the cage. I always start with the main hoop. I use a piece of solder to form a prototype hoop then match the styrene rod to it. Speaking of styrene rod this is what I use for cages:

[am73grand]

With the main hoop formed I then trim it to fit inside the car:

And finally the hoop is glued onto the chassis pan:

Next time we'll start fabbing the rest of the cage. Thanks for looking!!

[bobthehobbyguy]

Nice. The solder is a great idea. Keep up the good work.

[Davewilly]

Looks very cool!....wish I had that falcon kit though!

[PappyD340]

Very NICE start, I had a 1:1 66 falcon but it didn't look like that one! just had a 6 banger in it and no roll cage! keep up the good work Ron

[Dragfreak]

Very nice start.

[1 bad55 stan]

I m a chev man but these old falcons are cool.Great looking build coming up as always.

[tubbs]

looking good, love the subject. don't see them too often. I have been doing my own chassis for a while and I picked up on a few things. will be watching.

[Danno]

Great project, Ron.

I love the tip of using solder as a template for your styrene cage. Brilliant! Wish I'd been smart enough to think of it. But that's one of the big reasons we hang out here ~ ideas, tips, technique sharing.

[am73grand]

Let's continue building the cage for our '66 Falcon. The next step was to add the crossbar and diagonals seen here.

Then I added the two rear bars. A piece of solder was used to determine the proper angle. Using a candle, both bars were bent at the same time. I also connected them with a short tube.

Now follow along as I describe how I get those joints nice and tight. These tools are what I use the most. Those sprue cutters make life so much easier.

[am73grand]

When cutting with the sprue cutters one side comes out flat and the other is pointed like this:

This almost 90 degree angle makes fitting bars into corners a breeze!

Stick the pointed end in the corner and then mark your tube and cut it so that both ends are pointed. It will take some getting used to to cut the tubes the exact length you need but you can get a fit that looks very close to a real joint. I use the tweezers to place all my tubes.

Next time we'll turn that one diagonal tube into an "X" brace. We'll also start on the main cage.

[Dragfreak]

When cutting with the sprue cutters one side comes out flat and the other is pointed like this:

This almost 90 degree angle makes fitting bars into corners a breeze!

And I thought I was the only one who figured that out, dang!