The whole car is back up on jackstands, and the rear axle is out. I'm surprised; despite all the surface rust, all the rear undercarriage bolts loosened easily, and most of the rear suspension rubber is still in very good shape.

Axle's out, still has frame.

I've got a pile of lumber and some heavy-duty casters stacked up in the garage to make a cradle for the body once the frame is out. Haven't gotten there yet, though.

The machine work is complete on the front hubs, though they still don't have wheel studs yet. I've got pretty good confidence that it'll all work, though. So the MP Brakes front disc package is on its way to a new owner - a reader of these pages who made me an offer I couldn't refuse - who'll hopefully make better use of it than I have.

Some notes on a bunch of suspension related topics. The big blue Ford parts books provide all the details on front springs - wire diameter, coils, free and loaded heights - and a few quick calculations show front springs for '60-64 Fords everywhere from 330 to 1120 lb/in rate! If I didn't already have my 494 lb/in front springs from Eaton I'd probably order a set to '63-64 police specs, C3AZ-5310-D, which calculates to 522 lb/in.

Unfortunately, the parts books have nowhere near this level of detail for rear springs, listing instead just number of leaves and whether standard or heavy-duty. Mine are C3AA-5560-BZ, which show up as standard-duty 6-leaf wagon springs. Maybe Eaton will know the rate, standard load, etc. Since wagons were typically a little tail-heavy and sprung for heavier loads, it's probably not necessary to go much stiffer than stock (or at least stock heavy-duty spec) in back to get proper front-to-rear balance.

And back on the topic of shocks...by the time you review the KYB, Bilstein, Monroe, etc. application catalogs, you discover that most American full-size cars of the past 30 years have all used basically the same size front shocks. And no one catalogs anything at all for the rear of a '64 Country Sedan.

So, what to do? I've got KYB single-tube gas front shocks, but the most appealing combination I can find out there is the Bilstein B46-1104 front and B46-0929 rear shocks specified for '77-90 Chevy Impalas and Caprices. The overall dimensions of the rear shocks are close enough, but the mounts are wrong. Maybe a set of Explorer lower spring plates swapped side-to-side?

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