NEED A LIFT

 

There are certainly times when every shade tree mechanic could use a big commercial lift. It sure was on my wish list as I crawled around under the mustang trying to install the new dual exhaust. I just can’t help wondering how much easier it would have been with the car more than 2 feet off the floor.

 

Anyway, I had the parts for the new dual exhaust and the job had to be done. The old exhaust came off without too much trouble. I wanted to paint the new kit but first it needed to be test fitted and marked.

I started with the H-pipe naturally since it bolts up to the stock manifolds. Yes, I still have the factory cast iron manifolds. Why, you may ask. Because you don’t need headers unless you’re building an engine with all the power in the upper RPM range. For a little street V8 the stock headers are fine and they give you nice low end torque. So, no need for headers on a 225 HP 289 v8.

You might also be wondering why I didn’t paint the pipes first and then install them. Firstly because I wanted to weld all the connections and I hate having to try to sand off the paint to get a good weld and secondly I wasn’t sure how much modification I would have to do to this kit. So I test fitted and marked all the pipes before painting them.

Then the connector pipes were fitted and marked.

Then the mufflers and tailpipes were fitted. Then it was all removed for painting.

Above is the exhaust kit being painted with high temperature paint. Stainless pipes would have been nice but they were just too pricey. After the paint dried I put everything back on the car and clamped it up and took it for a test drive. It sounded good and everything seemed to be in place.

Overall the exhaust kit fit very well and the only problem with it was that the tail pipes were a bit too short for the stainless tips I was using.

I had to weld some extensions on to bring the tips out far enough. No big deal, just a little more time crawling around under the car. I also welded up the other joints to eliminate leaks.

The exhaust looks nice and sounds nice. Although after a test drive the tail pipes shifted just a bit so I will have to go back and sort that out to keep the tips centered up.

 

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SUSPENSION? YOU BET

OK. So the mustang was way past due for a new front suspension. I figured it would be a good project and maybe I would learn a thing or two in the process. I did learn a thing or two. First, not one minute of the project was easy. Second, not one minute of the project was fun. It was just plain hard, hot, tiring work all the way through from the first bolt to the last. Fun times you bet.

So I don’t have a lot of pictures of the process but there are a few.

I bought a suspension kit that included new upper and lower control arms, tie rods, and bushings for sway bar and torsion bars. Naturally I couldn’t leave them stock so I prepped and painted them to match the car. I also painted the valve covers while I had the paint out.

Everything turned out nice and shiny as planned. So far so good.

I put the valve covers back on and it looks a little better under the hood although there is still much clean up to do.

The next step was to pressure wash the grime off the underside of the car. This was a nasty job indeed.

This is where the grime went after it came off the car. No fun at all.

After cleaning the car and then myself it was time to remove the worn out suspension components.

Above is the “before” picture featuring the worn out stuff. Removing the old parts was just difficult, hot, and tiring. I had a picture with the parts removed but now I can’t find it so you’ll just have to use your imagination on that bit.

So after the parts were removed I cleaned up rusty stuff, painted stuff, and then put a bunch of shiny new parts on. It was a pain and hot and tiring. I did not enjoy it but I did it.

Above are a few poor photos of the new suspension components. Sorry about the poor quality here but it was hot and I was tired and really in no mood for crawling around on the garage floor any longer. Anyway, the suspension is on and the ride quality is much better although there is a shake which may be a wheel out of balance (I hope). I’m going to mess with the alignment a bit before I take it somewhere and get the wheels balanced and then it’s on to the next fun project – new dual exhaust.

SHE RUNS!

I cleaned up the spindle and control arm and stuff and gave it a little spray paint. It doesn’t look great but it looks better than rust. Hopefully in the future it will all be replaced with new performance parts.

The backing plates cleaned up nicely.

Here is the brake assembly with new wheel cylinder. It turned out to be much easier than I had anticipated. I guess I’ve done these old drum style brakes so many times it’s just second nature now.

Once again, it looks better than rust.

So after getting the front brakes finished and replacing a coupling in the brake line the car was finally safe to drive. So I drove it. It ran stinky and it overheated again. So I ordered a new aluminum radiator.

I like the new radiator. It’s shiny.

And it cools much better. It hasn’t overheated yet but it does start to get hot after idling for a while so I ordered a fan shroud. I’ve been driving the car around for a couple of days and sorting out little things. I spent a couple hours yesterday welding the leaks in the exhaust system. I got it pretty well sealed up but the mufflers are junk so it’s still too loud. The vacuum advance is still not working right but I’ve decided to replace the entire distributor and coil and put in an electronic ignition. That will probably be my project for next month. But right it it’s drivable and that’s a good thing. So enjoy a few pictures of the road ready mustang.

GIVE ME A BRAKE

Getting this thing back on the road has been a little more challenging than I expected. After all, I drove it home 60 miles when I purchased it. Now I can’t get it out of the driveway and into the street.

When I last posted the car needed a water pump and I thought it might have a blown head gasket. I put a new water pump on and the overheating seems to be under control although I still want to put an electric fan in front of the radiator to help at idle. I’m also happy to report there is no blown head gasket. After a bit of tinkering I was able to diagnose the engine problem as a faulty carb.

Once I made the diagnosis I decided to take it off and dissect it. As you can see it had a bad case of the cruds. Rather that spend more time and money on this old carb I decided to get a new one. I got the Holley 650 with electric choke. I hope it’ll get a little better gas mileage than the old one. (I wasn’t even sure what size the old one was)

Since the carb was off I thought it would be a good time to clean up the old intake. After a little cleaning and some paint it looks like new.

This is the new Holley 650 installed. Putting on a new carb solved the horrible running condition but there was still a problem with the vacuum advance. I checked the timing and wanted to adjust it but wouldn’t you know, the distributor was all frozen up in the block. It took a week of soaking in PB Blaster to get it loose. I was able to get the timing adjusted right but the vacuum advance is still causing a problem. As soon as the timing starts advancing with the vacuum advance it looses power and dies. I put the timing light on it to watch as the timing changed and at a certain point the power cuts off and the timing light goes dead and the engine dies until the advance decreases. Weird huh? I checked the plate in the distributor and all the point wires and everything looks normal. I disconnected the vacuum advance and it runs fine. I’ll just run it without vacuum advance until I can get it figured out.

Since the engine was running fairly decent again I thought we were ready for a little cruise. Caroline and I jumped in the car but we didn’t get far. We didn’t even make it out of the driveway. The brake pedal got mushy and I could barely stop the car at an idle. So back in the garage it went.

It had the old single bowl master cylinder which was so rusty I couldn’t even get the lid off to check the fluid level. I decided to order a new dual bowl master cylinder. Those things aren’t cheap anymore like they used to be. Anyway, it came in and I put it on and guess what? Still no brakes. So I pulled off the front drums to check the wheel cylinders.

Above is the culprit. I pulled the rubber boot and rusty brake fluid poured out. So I have some wheel cylinders on order. Since this is going to be another whole project I thought I might as well restore everything.

These old parts cleaned up OK. No need to buy a new hardware kit.

These cleaned up good too. The brake shoes look almost new.

These are in progress.

And this still needs to be cleaned and painted. Maybe it will make it out of the driveway by Christmas.

NOT QUITE READY TO ROLL

The good news is the car is pretty much put back together. I got the interior put together and the wiring under the dash cleaned up. The front bumper is bolted on and the lights and turn signals are all working and that’s all good. I spent a long hot Sunday afternoon fitting the trunk lid and trimming the new weatherstripping to fit. Not sure yet if it will keep the water out but it finally closes correctly.

I dragged out the old tail pipes and cleaned them up and installed them along with the new stainless steel tips.

So it all looks great and appears ready for a cruise.

Now for the bad. Caroline and I took it out for a short drive around the block and it ran horrible. The engine was missing pretty bad and it over heated before we could get around the block. Now that I finally have gauges in it I can see how hot it’s getting. So based on what I now see on my temperature gauge I know that the car was overheating a few weeks ago when I had it idling out in the driveway. Ever since then it hasn’t been running well at all.

So the first thing I did was try to figure out the overheating problem. I removed the old thermostat and it was really crusty. After testing it I discovered it wasn’t opening until the water temp was over 200. I got a new thermostat and put it in and the engine lasted a little longer before overheating. There was a little noise coming from the water pump so I figured it was most likely finished as well. I removed the water pump and found the impeller spinning independently of the shaft and then it fell off completely. I wasn’t surprised. I picked up a new water pump so that problem will be solved soon.

Next I thought I’d look into the engine miss. First I opened up the distributor and checked out the vacuum advance. It was toast. I put a new one on and cleaned up everything in the distributor and gapped the points but I didn’t really think that was going to solve the problem. It didn’t. My suspicion is that when it was out in the driveway a few weeks ago overheating that it blew a head gasket between a couple of cylinders. Before I go get a compression test kit I’ll check for vacuum leaks around the intake and the carb but I really think it’s a head gasket. So that’s where we are right now.

 

 

 

 

 

ATTITUDE

Another super busy weekend has reaped a few rewards. I’ve had a couple of projects that have been hanging over my head for a while so I decided to go ahead and get them over with.

I pulled the car out of the garage to make room for my projects.

The hood had been bugging me ever since I painted it. The paint was light and splotchy on the sides and worse than that, the stripes on the back end didn’t quite line up with the stripes on the cowl. It was just driving me crazy every time I looked at it so I took the hood off and started sanding it down for a repaint. The underside of the trunk lid needed painting too so I thought I’d get it all done in one long day.

You’ve seen something like this before. I’m in the process of masking off the silver stripe here.

Here it is after color and three coats of clear.

And here it is after wet sanding and polishing the clear. Everything lines up now and there are no light splotchy areas. I can rest easy now.

This is the underside of the trunk lid all painted and ready for weatherstripping and hardware.

After finishing the hood I got down to installing the gauges. I need to know if the engine is trying to cook itself. I think it may have some overheating problems. I haven’t run the engine long enough to check for overheating since I installed the gauges but the oil pressure is very good and the volts are good so that’s a relief.

Oh yeah. I also painted the air cleaner cover. It was black and crusty and I just couldn’t stand looking at any longer. As you can see I haven’t done anything else with the engine compartment yet. I plan on painting the valve covers to match the body color. Eventually when I yank the engine out I’ll do the whole compartment right.

After I finished up mounting the hood I thought it was time to give the front end a little attitude.

Nothing adds a little attitude like hood locks.

VIEW FROM THE CHEAP SEATS

What do you do when your seats are pretty much wiped out? You could spend about $300 on a new upholstery set and install it yourself, or, if your budget is low like mine, you could go the cheap route and find something to get by until your budget increases.

Here’s what I did in several sort of easy steps.

Step one: Find some presentable seat covers.

I found these FOOSE covers at WalMart for $20.

Step 2: Drag out the old wiped-out seats and give them a good cleaning.

Not too pretty.

Step 3: Take it all apart.

They come apart pretty easily. Just a few screws and some pins.

Step 4: Look at the ugly rusted stuff on the underside.

No surprises here. It’s old.

Step 5: Clean it up and paint it.

Looking better now.

Step 6: Cut the seat covers to separate the back from the seat.

It only took a little cutting to get the pieces ready for installation.

Step 7: Lay out the seat back and figure out the glueing sequence.

I started with the lower center and worked my up using spray adhesive.

After I finished the center section I did the edges and then pulled the remaining stretchy material around to the backside and glued it.

Step 8: Put the seat back panel on.

I had to spray the back panel with vinyl dye. It helped a little.

So here is the back all glued.

Step 9: Do the seat bottom in a similar fashion.

Here it is with the cover glued on. The seat is easier than the back.

Step 10: Assemble seat.

And here it is assembled.

Step 11: Stick it in the car.

Step 12: Look at it.

And that’s how to do a seat make-over the cheap way. It doesn’t look as good as a real upholstery kit would but it looks far better than the slip-on seat cover. Eventually I want to make my own custom seat upholstery but I don’t have the tools for that yet.

SWELTERING

Sweltering. You know the definition of the word just by the way it sounds. Picture yourself sitting in your garage in a pool of your own sweat, eyes stinging, with your arm elbow deep into the car door innards and you get a good idea of my life for the past week. Fun huh? Yeah. So that about covers it. I’m just going to throw a few pictures up and you can see the glamorous part of restoration work without all the real life dirt.

Enjoy the sneak peak. One day this will be a whole car again.

Got the front carpeting in. Installation is more time consuming than you might think.

I learned one great trick for carpet installation. Use a soldering iron instead of a razor to make screw holes. It makes a beautiful, round hole with a plastic edge. So no carpet gets tangled in the screws when you screw them in.

Got the passenger door assembled and installed. Those windows are a real bugger to get back together and aligned.

This side of the car does’t look half bad considering it was half rusted away.

The door panels look real nice.

It actually looks much nicer in person. You can’t see the chrome trim on the panel here but it really sets it off nicely.

Remember the part about the elbow inside the door? I do.

Looking like a real car again with the doors on.

ALL WORK AND NO PLAY, YEAH, SOMETHING LIKE THAT

Yup. Been working on the car again. Got a few things done. Even put the new 289 emblems on the fenders. Before we get into the front end let’s see what’s going on with the other end.

I made an insulated panel that fits between the rear seat and the trunk. I thought it might help with sound deadening and heat insulation.

I had to make a new panel for the rear deck. As you can see it has cut-outs for my new speakers.

This is the panel as I prepared to cover it with the 3M 1080 vinyl. You’ll have to wait to see the finished product.

Yup. I put the pitted old mirror back up. Budget restraints you see.

I spent one very hot evening installing the rear floor carpet and new seat belts. I kind of like doing this interior work.

After I finished the carpet I put the side panels and rear seat in.

And here we have the finished rear speaker deck. It was actually installed before the carpet. You might also notice the rear window.

I installed the rear window at some point. Don’t really remember exactly when – sometime before the rear speaker panel was installed.

Hey, look at that. It has a front end. Wonder how that got there. Oh yeah, all work and no play, that must be it.

WORKING? YEAH, LIKE A DOG

Some folks might think I’ve been goofing off because it’s been a few weeks since my last post. Actually I’ve been working so hard I haven’t had time to take pictures and post them. Much has been accomplished and the following pictures don’t truly portray the amount of work that has gone into the car.

After finishing the headliner I decided to put the new windshield in. It’s a gasket windshield which means you put on a big rubber gasket first and then, using 12 gauge wire, pull the windshield into the frame. Of course you have to use sealers and such but it’s actually a simple process.

Above you can see the windshield right after installation. This was one of the easier projects on the car. The trim was actually more difficult to install than the window.

One very important step when installing the trim is to mark the trim clip locations with tape. That way you know right where to push to clip it in.

The photo above shows the completed windshield and trim installation. And that’s all there is to that project. The whole thing was only about 3 hours I think.

The next project on the list was the new heater core. Earlier I had restored the heater box so now I had to take it apart again to put in a new heater core and add the new defrost plenum and ducts.

Above you can see the old heater box and the new core.

I bought new rubber end seals which had to be modified to fit. With some patient trimming I was able to get a real nice fit.

And here we have the core as it fits in the box.

After some careful assembly I dragged out the heater controls and got some new heater hose and got the whole system mounted up under the dash.

Next project – Radio, speakers, and dash pad.

Remember these? It’s an old Pioneer Super Tuner. I think it’s from the eighties but it still works great. I put the old dry rotted pioneer 3″ speakers back in the dash where they came from. I was going to toss them but when I used them to test the radio I found they still sounded pretty good.

I got some Sony 6 x 9s (from Walmart) for the back. I still have to make a new panel but I have to get the rear window installed first. So that takes care of the sound system. If nothing else works on the car at least I can sit in it and listen to the radio.

After the heater and radio were done I was able to get the dash pad fully installed with all the stainless trim. I just love the design detail in the 65 dash.

Oh yeah, I put in a new glove box and put the glove box door on too. I even got the little glove box light working. So right now the only thing on the dash that’s not hooked up yet is the cigaret lighter.

Next up – Window tint.

I was going to take all the windows someplace and have them tinted but the shop I went to didn’t want to touch it. They said it was too much of a pain to do these old windows with the trim around them. So I had to do it myself. Window tinting is easy if you can keep everything clean. Unfortunately that’s impossible with these old windows with deteriorating gaskets. No matter how many times you clean them little particles still come out as soon as you spray the window and put the film on. So it’s virtually impossible to get a perfect tint with my old windows.

But from a few feet away it looks very nice. Another key thing when tinting is to get the tint cut exactly right with a tiny bit of space around the edge. By the time I did the last window I had it all figured out.

I used a 30% tint which is not real dark. I’m getting a little old and I want to be able to see out the windows at night. When I was young I would have used about a 10%.

The trickiest window was the back one. I had to heat shrink the film to get it to fit the contour. I had never done it before but I watched a few Youtube videos and was able to get it done on the first try.

Above is the quarter window installed. I also installed all the weather stripping and trim. Getting the window put back together took a little time and several tries since I had forgotten how it went back together. But once i got it figured out it went in pretty good and it rolls up and down like new. I did the same on the other side too. Getting the two windows and trim installed took half a day.

Lastly – the rear tail light panel stuff.

The tail light buckets turned out to be a real pain. I had to make some adjustments (re; bending metal) to get them to fit. Then I had to replace some of the bolts that had rusted off. I keep having to go to the hardware store to get stainless steel nuts, bolts, and screws to replace the rusted ones.

Once I got the buckets in I put the bulbs in and the new gaskets, old lenses, and new bezels. I had to grind down the heads of the screws so they would fit down in the bezel like the factory ones. After that was finished I wired everything up. Then I put the Gas filler neck on and mounted the gas cap. After that I spent some time modifying the new bumper mounts so they would fit correctly onto the bumper. Then I mounted the bumper. Oh yes, I almost forgot. At some point I also mounted the rear valence. Anyway, that’s all for now. Enjoy the pictures.