Help finding a few parts?
 

I just got my 63 Lemans convertible and well some things were very cleverly hidden. The car only has front brakes literally the rear drums are gutted. The local shops don't even list a 63 Lemans or Tempest in their books or computers they start at 64. Is there any other cars that are compadible? I was thinking corvair brakes might work but I don't know.

In total I need pretty much everything for the rears new pads for the fronts new rubber lines for the fronts lower ball joints, idler arm.

Drove the car and checked it out when I got it and it was all fine. Got it home and the ball joints were so bad I wouldn't take it around the block. Kinda need to get it done as I traded my daily for it.

Lots of stuff available at www.kanter.com & www.rockauto.com Do you mean the rear drums are empty, as in shoes & hardware is missing?? Corvair brake stuff wont work. New catalog for the 61-63 Tempest's just came out from Ames. Lots of stuff there. Lots of people here will have some parts.

Yea the drums are completely empty nothing at all. ordered some wheel cyls at like $30 a pop locally. Only thing I could actually find.

He didn't even notice anything wrong with it and hes been working on cars for over 40 years.

Wish I still had my old Mustang lol. 8.8 posi rear same bolt pattern. put that under the back set my 327 under the hood with a 5 speed and get the tri power intake setup down the road. Those plans will probably work better for the Tempest that came with it. Providing its still there when I go to get it.... Something like a 4 hour drive to get there it better be there lol.

Put in your parts request in the Parts wanted section. See what shows up.

Somebody capped off the rear brakes and sold it to you like that... Yikes, that's almost criminal... Don't drive that thing more than 30mph they don't stop all that well with four brakes.

Rubber front lines are fairly easy Ames Performance has them (left & right side are the same)
The rear rubber lines are harder to find the left side and right side are unique.. i.e. different ends on L & R.

when you sort it all out, list the brake parts that you need here too. I have some spares and I'm sure others will have stuff too.

Did you say this is going to be your daily driver??? in Maine!!???

You found wheel cyls for $30 locally!? Luck-e-e (If they fit and are correct, tell me where you got em.)

yep my daily for now or will be soon I hope. I have a problem cause of my father I have a slight addiction to classic cars. I'm 25 and have had mostly classics other than the oddball newer mustang or camaro and a couple trucks. I was trying to get something practical and economical but I ended up split between this 63 Lemans and a 1937 Lincoln zephyr v12 and nowhere near the Honda civic or something that makes sense since I plan on going down to Boston now and then to visit my girl lol. I'm in northern Maine at that ...

I actually got them at Napa. I see Kanter has a master set with all the pads n stuff. says 4 pads wondering if thats all 4 wheels or just 4 pads (2 wheels) Also comes with rubber lines. The wheel cyls were actually $28 now that I think of it. I ordered the 2 rears. The fronts work fine.

I have a bit of work to do on the carb though it has a massive hesitation if you give it gas it stalls. The carb wasn't even bolted down and had screws loose all over it. I got a nice rebuilt one though might just throw it on.

My dad wasn't too happy when I took the rear wheels off and the drums fell off. Was a nice old man that I got it from said he restored it and drove it for 7 years,

Not sure how "Practical and Economical" left you deciding between A Zephyr/12 or a Transaxle Tempest either way it's going to be an interesting winter. You better get that heater/blower in tip-top shape, those ragtops are cold in January.

Compared to a Tempest, a twelve cylinder Zephyr could almost be considered "Conventional". Get used to the terms "Unique" "Quirky" and "What the ...."

Check out the discussions about unique handling characteristics... not to scare you but just better to understand that there are parameters that need to be respected...

What engine and trans do you have?

Well I was lined up to get a newer honda 40mpg sounded nice then this guy offered me the Lemans and another offered me the Lincoln. The honda kinda got pushed aside by the blinding beauty of the curves on the Lincoln and the neat aspect of the Lemans lol.

Honestly the Lemans has to handle better than the RX7 did that I traded for it. That car couldnt even be driven in the rain it would just slide all over the place. I'm a careful driver anyway not like most people my age in a hurry to get everywhere even when they arnt going anywhere lol.

Its the 4cyl 1bbl auto. Honestly one of the reasons I got it was I assumed it would be easy to put my 327/5spd in it. I didn't realize the tranny was in the back and all that lol.

I don't drive much in the winter so its not going to be too crazy bad. Also have a lil Samurai and a friends H2 I can steal now and then if I need it.

Careful with the NAPA rear wheel cylinders, most likely the wrong ones. I tried to find a set last year and the store said they were no longer available. The one they ordered for me were the wrong ones. Their computer says everything will fit a Tempest but it doesn't.

I prefer to deal with Ames since they are the first supplier to put together a catalog for these cars.

FYI...
 

Pete Serio did TWO of these cars and knows them inside-out. He loves helping fellow hobbyists! Hope I'm not speaking out of school here, Pete! Anyway...he IS the Man when it comes to these cars. Just sayin'. Ron

I know where I can get a 64 389 with the better crank. the originals were weak if I remember right. I was tempted to put that in my Lemans but I was reading on here you need to drill the crank or get a 326 crank I guess. I plan on giving dad the Tempest if/when I go down to get it. Might get that 389 for him to put into it. Not like he needs more projects though lol. 59 Edsel, 63 Olds, 62 Galaxie, Good fun though.

I do like this lil Lemans though. If I can't get all the parts I need (without breaking the bank) I might have to sell it though most likely at a loss as I'm not about to sell it like he did but I don't want to sell it at all thats a last resort.

Lots of stuff is advertised as fitting 63 Tempests when they don't. Among items you need to be sure of are front (and back) wheel cylinders, outer tie rod ends and LOWER ball joints!

As for using a 389, the transaxle setup can't handle a good running 326 if the car is "romped on" much.

If you are thinking of rebuilding the front suspension, save yourself a lot of time and hassle by going ahead and buying a complete kit from Kanter instead of trying to piece together parts off Ebay or swap meets.

P.S. The manual and power steering boxes are the same. (No quick ratio boxes were offered.) The Pitman arms are totally different too.

The wheel cyls were massive compared to the stock ones so bringing them back in a few min.

Ames probably has the idler arm, but if not, check eBay. I've seen several there lately.

What years of brake shoes will fit? This one site says 63-75 lemans shoes are all the same.

61-63 only. All websites say that.

Not entirely. Been looking at shoes allot this morning and quite a few list the shoes as 1963-75 Lemans. Mostly sites that sell AC Delco brakes. Gutted the wheel cyls this morning and replaced all the internals with ones out of a 60s nova I think it was and they work beautiful. The guy had taken a hammer to the wheel cyls and busted up the internals. Just need the brake shoes now ordered some form a newer lemans at napa the pictures looked exactly the same. same dimensions and everything the only difference was the newer shoes need a hole drilled out for one of the springs. If it works then its better than what they wanted to reline my pads and better than $80 per wheel cyl on Kanter. Never know till you try.

63 brake shoes are 9"x 1.5" (9" diameter drums). 64 and later shoes are 9.5"x 2.5" (9.5" diameter). Also, 61-63's have lug bolts on 4 1/2" pattern. 64 and later have 4 3/4" pattern. I think maybe the 63's (and earlier?) have left-hand thread lug bolts on driver side.

Seems like when I was scrounging up suspension parts I ran into a "Cadillac" idler arm that interchanged with a 63 Tempest and it cost somewhat less than the Tempest.

err ... I might be wrong bit I thought the shoes were 2" wide by 9" diameter. I have extra both sides, including brake drums, new shoes, good cylinders and backing plates.

You are both wrong!! Shoes for all 3 years are 1.75"X9" drum.

Please let us know what you find on this. I have the same situation on my '63, changed out the carb with a freshly rebuilt but still didn't solve the problem...

Keith, Thanks for pointing out my mistake!

I was actually reading the specs out of the GTO-TEMPEST book we recently discussed when I made the typo. Absent minded for sure.

About these shoes, drums......... A few years ago I was talking with Joe Cochran who built the altered wheelbase 63 called "Weekend Warrior" about his front brakes. He described that he had put a 1/4" spacer on his spindle and used a 2" wide shoe by trimming off 1/4" of the metal on the outside of the shoes. I don't remember the details.

The problem may not be the carb. Check out the distributor bushings and advance weights. Slow or late timing will cause your engine to bog much like a bad accelerator pump.

Yea if it ever stops raining I'm gonna check out the Dist. The brake shoes didn't fit the guy at the shop measured them wrong and ordered some that were 9"x1.25 or 1.5 can't remember now. Gonna be a week or 2 before they are here though. Might end up selling it though I hate to but this is a bit too much trouble to get parts for as a daily. I had checked stores and rock auto before I got it and they all listed plenty of parts. Wish I had known they were not the right ones it seems lol.

The 1 barrel carbs will wear out the accellerator linkage pivot points. Have seen many carbs that you could open the throttle quite a bit before the acc. pump would start working causing the bog. Need to bend the pump linkage so the pump starts working as soon as the throttle opens.

Speaking of bogs caused by worn linkage pivot points, I had an obvious hesitation followed by a surge that felt like a sloppy linkage problem but nothing would correct it. I tried another carb & looked the linkage over & over. Finally I found out it was the nylon wheel under the gas pedal had a flat spot on it. The flat spot would settle against the pedal (ramp) when I took my foot off the gas and repeat the bog/surge everytime I started from idle.

Cobrae, don't give up!

Concentrate on what the basic things are that you need to make a daily driver out of it.
It sounds like your basic stuff is front suspension and rear brakes and whatever that carb problem is. I again advise that you bite the bullet and buy one of the Kanter type front end suspension kits which will include tie rods, ball joints, bushings, etc. Put all that new stuff in and you will be set (assuming you don't have loose steering box/Pitman arm or worn out centerlink).

The more you drive it, the more likely you will start seeing problems with radiator,etc. Again put in new stuff and you willbe done with it.

These cars are unique cars unto themselves and anyone that has never had one is on the low end of a learning curve so don't feel bad about your situation.

There is a wealth of knowledge in members on this board. If you ask,they will answer cause most of us have been in the same situation.

P.S. If you are down to the nubs on stuff, I may have some bits and pieces stuff like old used ball joints and tie rod ends and sleeves that feel like they are okay which you can have for shipping. If you need them send me a PM and I will see what I have got

Believe me the problem isn't that I don't wanna drive it or fix it up I don't have any income. Money is very hard to come by for me right now. I would love to put a full kit in the front end like I did my 62 Galaxie but I don't have the cash for just ball joints atm.

Still working on piecing the brakes together. My father whos been working on these things for over 40 years if not 50 is helping out with what he can. I think the guy at the parts store ordered a set of corvair shoes to see if we can make them fit just gonna be a week or two till they get here.

I'm not actively selling it right now or anything just going over options I don't even know what the cars worth I just know what I paid for it value wise.

Cobrae,

Another little bit of info about the 63's is that some of them had "finned" front drums. I don't know if they were an option or standard on some cars like perhaps theV8 cars. If you ever run up on a set of them in a junkyard, they would be a low bucks way of getting some "extra braking power". These hubs interchange with the regular drums without any changes to the spindle, etc.

Also, I have read about some people using some Volvo front brake stuff on these 63's to "upgrade" them. I'm sure Keith can tell us more about that.

And, of course there are the "Scarebird" front disc setups that allow you to use a lot of readily available parts store stuff to make an economical conversion. "Scarebird" makes adapter plates for mounting calipers and he probably sells whole kits too. Simple, bolt-on type procedure.

The other car was a V8 it may have some parts still on it. I need to go pick it up I got a year to get it. Its like a 3-4 hour drive there though lol. It looks like it had all the drums on it I can't remember now. It was pretty much a shell with drive train no motor no interior no wheels.

cobrae i am in same boat as you, basically putting together a 63 on a budget. i hate to say this but i used 63 corvair brake shoes 1.75x9 on my car i paid 18 bucks for them and they seem to work well but i have not driven my car over 20mph. and as far as wheel cylinders i found the rebuild kits @ o' reilly auto parts under ten bucks for fronts, same for rears.

I checked my old shoes and Keith is "right on" on the brake shoe width at 1 3/4".

I once thought I was wrong, but I was mistaken!!

Lol. Well I'm probably going to try and get the Lemans going I really don't want to sell it. It would just be nice if I had something to drive in the mean time lol.

I got one wheel cyl pieced together so now I should have all 4 wheel cyls working. I think I have most maybe all of the hold down kit or mounting hardware for the rear brakes. I just need the pads (corvair ones coming in a week or so) and lower ball joints. The idler arm isnt gone but it will need to be done within a year probably. I don't drive much so it should last me a while.

Might go out today and see if I can fix the hesitation and see if I can piece together the brakes with the original pads just to see if they are going to work and I have the pieces. Don't have the money to order the ball joints right now but be nice if the car stops a lil better for moving it around the yard.

Need corvair links
 

Hey Cobrae!!

Just like the guys said, once you get all the silly stuff squared away, it will be a fine daily driver. Don't be taken with over-priced Nos rubber parts that have been sitting for years. Brake hoses can be custom made, shoes relined, and many other parts are same as other models. suspension parts make their way on ebay at times at fair prices. Time and patience is virtue.

If you do use the corvair shoes, you will need the corvair links that fit between the cylinders and the shoes. Tempest shoes use shorter links as the slot in the shoe is nearer to the cylinder than corvair. The corvair links are available new and under $5 each. If you use the tempest links, further pedal travel will be needed to operate the brakes and even possible dislodging of the link altogether will occur. I have a thread somewhere in here with the part numbers.

With scarebird front brake conversion , you will need to upgrade your rims. Being that 15 inch tires are slowly going to the wayside, it may be advisable to look into custom 17 inch rims and tires. Competent tire and wheel vendors can set you up with the correct rims for the Tempest suspension.

The only issue with time and patience is this is my only car. No car no work no work no money to put into said car. As for custom lines and relining shoes that costs quite a bit or at least around here it does.

I've talked it over with my family to get opinions and right now my main priority is getting into school so I am going to put the car up for sale. In the mean time I will be working on it if I get it to be a driver before it sells then I might keep it but honestly right now money for school/relocation is more important and part of my original plan before I even got the RX7.

What do you guys think the car is worth? I imagine I overpaid for it I don't know the value of these as I've never seen one for sale lol. I know it needs some work with the brakes and ball joints but the body is in really nice shape it has a new top and new interior. Ive gotten most of the hesitation out when I gaped the plugs right and put the other carb on. Would it be ok if I posted it on the forums? I know some forums have requirements for posting in classifieds.

I'm not actively trying to get rid of it its not on Ebay or anything though that probably would be the place to put it I just don't know how to. Here in Maine classics don't sell at this time of the year and the economy up here in northern Maine suck so not many are even looking at classics.

We need lots of detailed pictures before a number can be decided on. Post up a bunch of pics's to include the lower fender/rocker areas. Paint, interior, top in up position, etc, etc. Also pics of the frame areas around the rear suspension arm mounting areas.

Bit wet out but I took a couple pics this morning. The car does need paint. You can see where the doors were not aligned and it chipped the paint on the edges and such.

Looks like the rockers have had some work and might have a lil bondo in them not sure. I do know the floor has been patched. Hard to get an older car up here without some patches in the floor.

When it drys out outside I will try and lift it up for a couple pics underneath. We looked it over underneath when we got it on my trailer and it looked pretty good. There is some surface rust here and there but nothing bad or scary.

Couple pics from under. The floors have been patched and it looks like there's been some work done under it. You can see some bondo in the rocker like I figured. Its not perfect but its actually very solid. The guy didn't to amazing work but better than I could do probably. Never touched a welder in my life lol.

I did take a video of it running will take a lil while to upload my upload speed is horrible.

I like the diamond cut interior pattern on the seats and door panels.

Still waiting for the brake shoes. Hoping they are gonna work. I do need to get the hose for the front drivers side brake I think it is. And the ball joints ofcourse.

Still working on getting that hesitation out. Once it warms up it goes away pretty much. Tryin to get it going before I have to actually sell it. If I can then theres no way its going anywhere.

What carburetor is on the car? Did I miss seeing it in this thread?

Its a single barrel. It had the stock on one it but seemed like the... accelerator pump? was gone. So I put a rebuilt one on and it took allot of the hesitation out. I still have to check the dist and stuff.. Been busy trying to track down parts that I can actually get

Brake shoes came in Friday. Ive been down in Boston with my girl (now fiance :D ) over the weekend just got home last night so gonna try to put em on today. They look to be the exact same as the shoes I took off. So all thats left is the ball joints and the rubber hose for the front drivers side. Will any other hose work? Just asking as Napa said it would take a month to get it. I see theres some online on kanter and such too.

On a side note I'm not selling it. I thought about it and thought about it never really tried to. Was mostly just upset cause I got ripped off and lied to and I didn't see it. I like the car though. My father picked up a volvo over the weekend so even if I can't get the lemans going right off there will be a car I can borrow when needed atleast.

Go to Amesperf.com and get yourself their free 61-3 Tempest catalog, rubber lines are there for $17 a piece on page 29.

Gary

I actually have the catalog. Was looking at it earlier and it seems to only list a full set. I may be missing it though. Still tired from the drive home.

They have those too but the front hose is pictured there too.