Bought a 1964 Econoline today!

64 Has Arrived!

Of corse its not as clean as it looked in the original owners pics but all in all a good solid van. Dents right under the ford letters in the front that im going to have to figure out how to knock out.

Anyhow, im officially the owner. Some pics on arrival.

any ideas on how to get those dents out would be great. Can they be knocked out from the inside? Also the drivers side rear corner has a huge dent in it, may have to cut out the metal and replace with new on the corner.

Congratulations on the speedy delivery!
Now you've got to get a 'to-do' list started. We all have one, and we never get completely finished, just keep adding more to it!

Took it for a spin this morning while its not hot and I think I have this 3 on the tree thing down. Actualy pretty fun to drive.

pm comin 2 ya =ray

Congrats! Looks great! There should be no impediment to the back side of the dented nose. But if you can do any welding, it may be better to pull the dents out. I've got several of those dents to deal with, and I think I may figure out a way to make a body dolly out of a 2X6 that can fit around my slide hammer puller... I dunno. If someone has a suggestion or idiotproof way to fix these dents, I'd love to know!

Twinpilot001 wrote:pm comin 2 ya =ray

pm replied

going to hit up so local shops here San antonio and see what they would charge to get the dents out. Cant be much..

Have you been to a body shop lately?

Glad to hear that you're already driving her around. Be prepared for total strangers waving, giving peace signs and yelling Scooby references at you! Try not to smile too big when this happens!!!

There are a lot of little Mexico shops around here so im going to pick up a buddy of mine that speaks spanish and see what happens.

I havnt registered it yet so ive only driven around my subdivision. Bought some original 1964 Texas black plates that im going to refurb and register with.

I want to make absolutely sure the motor in the van is a 170 and not a 200. What should I look for. Im going to snap a pic and post it here in a bit.

It has to do with the number of freeze plugs in the block... 144s have three, 170s and 200s have 5(?) not likely any visible difference between the two. Only clue is if your engine block is possibly the original (earlier than 65, so the block code on the drivers side should read C1DE thru C4DE - help me out again here guys)... basically looking for a code from 1961 thru 1964 from Econoline division, to give a clue that it is the original block. If so, the likelihood that it is the same size as your VIN would indicate is good.

Did 64's come equipped with 200s? May have only had 144 and 170 options... Sorry I'm being so sketchy, don't have my info handy, just foggy recollections.

I'm pretty sure the 200 wasn't offered in an Econoline (except maybe the last few '67s).

Ray, have you found the engine's serial number yet? It's below the exhaust and behind the motor mount on passenger side.

170's have three freeze plugs like the 144's. 200's have five except for some very early 65 200's that had three. A 200 in an Econoline from the factory was very rare. So far, only three have been documented. All three have been 66's. The early econo's came with 144's. Odd's are a 64 has a 170. The general rule of thumb is a 144 will have blue paint from the factory, a 170 will have a red/orange color. The color rule isn't 100% fool proof as Ford was liable to do anything on any given day. If they were out of blue paint that day the might just paint everything red. Other than that they look identical and can only be told by checking the stroke of the piston. You can check this by removing a spark plug and inserting a piece of wire and rotating the crank one turn. A 144 measures 2.5, a 170 is 2.94.

Hope this helps.

Duane in Tennessee

Here it is from the top, havnt looked hard enough for serial number. Going to look for that tommorow

I do know that in 64, the blocks were painted black, 144 had that color blue valve cover, 170 red, 200 gold. in 65, they painted all the engines blue. Your engine has a PCV valve setup... my first engine was a 1963 block in a 1964 Felcon Econoline, and had a draft tube. Yeah, measuring the stroke through the spark plug hole is the only way to be sure which engine it is without doing major surgery (unless you get lucky and find 5 freeze plugs behind the exhaust manifold, or you see that the block is newer than the van).

Never looked for freeze plugs before but I found this pic to help. The previous owner told me 170ci but I just want to be sure thats what is there. Going to get my hands in the doghouse tonight and see what I find.

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v282/jmdotter/F100/Engine%20Swap/100_7062.jpg

Rayallen, good luck w/ your f-plug count. honestly, I think you are grasping at straws. your van didn’t come with a 200 so if it had one it’d had to have been swapped. and if the PO said it had a 170, why would you expect it’s a 200?

a 200 would be a nice upgrade, but I think it’s highly unlikely.

it’s a nice looking van you have. you should be able to find cheap bodywork in SA and shouldn’t cost too much got straighten out.

The reason im checking is because the previous owner told me a couple of things that didnt seem right, and didnt disclose everything to me. Not everything is as original as I was told. It was original to her because she only owned it 9 or so years and didnt do any work to it, she stored it for the last 7yrs without driving it. All the work was done before yr 2000 so im not sure whats been done. Has a moon roof, and side door window which are not original, so im pretty sure there are other things- mechanically I dont know. Im not hoping for a 200, jsut want to be sure I have what I was told i had.

hardly grasping at straws. I want to know everything I can possibly know about the van I now own.

no offense intended. I was hoping to find a/c in mine. it didn’t happen.

Thats some all of us in Texas hope we find. haha. Im saving up to get one at Vintage Air here in SA.

That there is a Big Six 240 or 300. The Small Six aka Falcon Six head has an integral intake, where the Big Six had a separate bolt-on. The two types of blocks are similar as far as freeze plug location goes. The opposite side will have the casting number, something like C3OE 6015 A (6015 is the part number for the engine block, first letter C indicates 1960s, next digit is the year in that decade, so it would translate to 1963 in this case).

Here's another link I found.

link for Falcon Six facts

Got my hands dirty crawled under and did some sherlock holmes research. What did I find! I have a 1965 200ci Ford motor! Visited fordsix site and walla found the codes. I took a peice a paper and rubbed the cast number on. There was also a number 5 by itself to the left of the cast numbers.

Code C5DE 6015-G

Some pics I took