Thanks,

Danny

Dan, my 3 cents worth? i believe it seals the incoming air from going over the top of radiator and thus more of the air then is directed through the radiator. Many cars i have seen have deleted them, i think because it makes it hard to reach over when working on the engine, weather its missing makes a huge difference in most cases seems to be ok. Regards bill.

yyy

My 56 was an early production car, and i have the deflector, but never installed it because its jsut another obstruction at tune up time!

Here in australia, we had customline sedans from 55 to early 59 and the deflector was standard on all of them, they were 272 with 2 bbl carb. regards bill.

yyy

It will be interesting to see if someone chimes in with a definitive answer; I always thought that they ditched it mid 56 on 4bbl cars because it didnt do anything, but maybe someone else knows for certain?  Interesting!

I think either way to the OP it certainly doesnt impact performance in any way.  I think if you are worried about the car being 100% correct, then it matters.  I picked one up cheap a few years ago with the intent of putting it on my car until I read/heard somewhere that they werent used after mid year.  I never put it on because of hassles when doing engine work.

Its not often i,m right but i,m wrong again!

yyy

Mark, heaters here were an option due to the generally hot conditions allready, as you may know we had 55,56 57 customlines with the 3 round holes in dash, generally they had a radio in middle and clock to the left and the right side had heater delete, the heater was bolted on LH inner fender and air intake was joined into the flapper valve tube there, then a 3" hole was cut in the firewall about lower dash level and a box with 2 air outlets directed air UP to the screen vents, and a hinged flap directed the air either up there or down to the floor, this was controlled by a push/pull cable and on/off switch for the fan in the fender mounted air box and  they were mounted in the delete position on the dash, very basic! the 58/59 models had different dash layout, same heater system but nice cast dash controls like a 59/60 fairlane galaxie type. The heaters were SMITHS and similar to ones in british MG cars. That my friend is the heater story.

yyy

Mark yes, the 55 was 6volt and 56 on was 12 volt same as usa, we didnt have fairlane series car but carried the customline through to mid 59. In 57 ford Australia used up what appears to be the 56 fairlane side trim and even the trunk emblem insert was changed to read customline instead of fairlane, then in 58/59 they used 55 mercury meteor grill theme and side trim and we called them Star models because of the grill star emblem. They had dash similar to the fairlane series dash but with speedo and only 2 guages, the clock and heater option had delete panels, i dont have dash pics handy but maybe lon or rick may have, it is an interesting difference. We had exterior sunvisors, dual mirrors, door handle scratch plates, rear window venetian blind, power brakes, screen washers, number plate backing frames, towbars, as popular options, a lot had clear plastic covering the inner door trims and seats to protect them. Thanks for your interest. regards bill.

rono