Good morning - this is my first post here, I am looking forward to the wealth of information you all have; hopefully some day I will be able to offer info myself.

My son Josh is 17 and found a nice 1966 F85 last fall, and we have been working on making it road worthy. He is really excited about it as he loves classic cars, and when we found this one, he knew it was what he wanted after looking at some other 60's and 70's cars like Darts, Camaros, Firebirds, Dusters, etc.

The car is 2 door post, all original, about 94k miles on the ticker. It is in pretty decent shape and only needs some freshening up - new paint, go through the brakes, belts. hoses etc. It is pretty basic - 330 2-bbl, 2 speed auto, bench seats, etc. Does not seem to have much in the way of options. Maybe none of these did? But it is a nice solid car for his first car, and, I think, a great way to get him into the hobby.

I have a few questions to start off with. We are just finishing up the brakes, and need to know how to adjust the spindle nut - is there a torque setting I need to know - or is it done more by feel? Any tips here would be appreciated as we don't want to destroy the new bearings.

Thanks,

Jim

 

Hello ! welcome to the site.
1st things first, make sure that the bearings are saturated with bearing grease.2nd, upon tightening make sure that the bearings inner/outer are
properly seated. 3rd, when tightening with a cresent wrench, turn the
rotor to check for the friction. the rotor should turn freely.Also
make sure theres no movement by shaking all four directions.
Free moving,no slack, tighten nut to the next slot for the cotter pin to
be installed.

 

That's pretty much it. One of the reasons they fail is from someone really putting the kabosh on it and tightening it down way too much.

sounds like you and your son have an excellent project !

 

Jim, glad to have you here at our site. I hope you work is successful and the car runs safely and well for a long while. As was mentioned, too much can be too much and shortens the life span of the bearings.

 

I grease it up well then tighten the nut while rotating the drum until it drags a bit, then back it off a few notches on the castle nut. I realize "drags a bit" is a subjective term, but I feel it's important to "overtighten a bit" at first to make sure the bearings have seated fully.

Welcome to the site, I hope Josh has a long, happy and respectful relationship with the car and I look forward to seeing some photos of the new addition.

Tom

motor.jpg

 

Welcome to the website. We want to see some pics.