Vintage Thunderbird Club International

Thanks Scott. I was thinking about the shift mechanism at the tranny after I sent my post last night I'll check it out the next time I have the beast up on the ramps. Doug

ABS Power Brake makes a dual master, check it out. I think it will work with the stock booster.

Hey Scott. Great postings, by the way, a real contribution! The last post I see is Feb 22nd. Are there postings after this date? Really interested in your assessment of the performance of the fuel injected beast versus stock, and also an idea of how much $ you've sunk into this project. Thanks, Doug

As I remember, the Thunderbird Ranch website has vacuum schematics, as does the shop manual.

Hi Scott Replacing the shift lever looks to be easy and non-invasive. Just a matter of pounding out the roll pin and swapping the new lever into place. I did a test today. On a slight incline, I put the car in park and let off the brake. It was clearly not fully in park and it started to roll back, ...

That would be ironic! I've got a new shift ever to install as the first step, then will go from there.

Yup. Another cruise-o-matic feature is that if you're going over 25 mph in D1 or D2 and pull the shifter into "L", it will hold the transmission in second gear until your speed reduces below 25 mph at which point it will shift into low. I have a '90 Mustang 5.0 with an AOD with a similar f...

Good to know. When my '64 shifted itself into reverse, I was standing next to it and fortunately was able to open the door, dive in and hit the brakes before it really got rolling. It was a close call. Since then, and until I can go through and fix the shifter issues, I carry wheel chocks...

The shifters on these cars get dodgy over time as the components wear out. My car can be idling in Park on an incline and drop into Reverse by itself.

The vacuum e brake release on my ‘64 is permanently disconnected as a safety precaution. I added a short lever to the manual release so’s it’s easy peasy to release the brake.

My understanding is that these old fords limit castor to a few degrees so not much centering effect.