Is this a wrap up?

I realize that I haven't posted since August. Really, not much has gone on with the Mustang. Daniel drives it to school and work--truly a daily driver--and along the way we've had a few breakdowns and setbacks. Mostly, though, the car gets him around in style.
Recently, I was cruising Craigslist (always potential for trouble) and stumbled across--another '66 Mustang! It was misplaced in the parts category instead of the cars for sale, which I found odd, so over the next few weeks I continued to watch it to see if it would drop off. It never did.
During the Thanksgiving weekend, Daniel and I polished up his car and we took it to the annual Turkey Run here in Daytona Beach. It was a great moment for Daniel, because it was something he had vowed to do once his car was done. I was really proud of him as he enjoyed compliments from passers by.
After the weekend, I took another look on CL out of curiosity. The car was still there. I began to think that being misplaced meant that nobody could find it. I decided to give it one more week, and if it was still there, I would give the guy a call--just for fun (right!).
One week later, I called and he was excited to speak with me. So much so that I began to think I might be able to make a good deal on this car. So, a couple of days later I busted Daniel out of school and we took a two hour drive to Ocala. Along the way I gave Daniel the game plan. He would hold the cash ($2,500) and we would present him as the buyer.
When we got there, the guy eagerly showed us around the car for a bit, then I announced that Daniel was the buyer and I would step out and let them talk. Daniel presented our pre-planned story, that the $2500 was all he had and he was looking for a project. The guy wafled at first, and as I stepped back in the garage I respectfully thanked him, assured him we weren't trying to insult him, and bid him farewell. There was a brief pause, and then he gave in! He was unable to work on the car, and wanted it to go to someone who would fix it up and not just flip it. Deal!
So what did we get? It's an almost original '66 coupe. Original 289 V-8 an C4 tranny. Pony interior in passable condition. Solid floorpans. Dual exhaust. Headers. Weiand manifold and Edelbrock 4 barrel. A great starting point. It also came with a pair of replacement rear quarters and a new repro roof.
The car originally had a vinyl top, which allowed the sheet metal underneath to rust away. That's the major problem with the car. But, as Daniel says, nothing we can't handle!

Daniel's car done, so time for another one!

So, my Mustang days aren't over yet. My plan was--and still is--to park it in the back of the shop and let it sit. It won't depreciate, that's for sure. My '55 Chevy Belair has been siting back there for 15 years waiting to be worked on, so that moves to the front of the shop. Hopefully, Daniel will lend a hand occasionally on this next project.
Oh, and by the way, I explained to Daniel that this was to
be MY Mustang!

Third time is the charm (hopefully)

Well, our modified lower control arm braces lasted all of about one month before they broke again--for the second time. This time, after a quick glance at the tattered, twisted metal, I decided that the only way to solve this problem was to install new braces.
I did a search on the Internet and, much to my surprise, it seems that these brackets are some of the few that are not reproduced--at least not in the corners where I looked. So, I decided we had to make our own.
Fortunately, I have some sheet metal at the shop that matched, or it may have even been larger gauge than the originals. Without a second thought, we jacked the car up and proceeded to cut away all of

Out with the old and in with...our new cardboard brackets

the old bracketry. With a clean palette to work with, I then flatted out what was left of the old brackets and traced out their shape on an empty Cheez-it box. In hindsight, I should have traced only one, then made a copy of the other, because for some reason when I cut them out and shaped them, they were quite different from each other. However, they seemed to fit fairly well, so I forged ahead.
I used a jigsaw and a metal blade to cut out my sheet metal, then notched and formed the edges for more rigidity. A few tack welds at each joint, a little grinding and sandblasting, and I was left with a pair of not-too-bad-looking brackets.

Traced and ready for cutting

One thing we had struggled with on this side of the car, when we originally installed our new suspension components, was trying to get the lower control arm to align with the mounting bracket. It required a good bit of pushing and twisting to get it to go in place, which is what alerted me to the fact that our frame/suspension was most likely badly out of alignment. The shock towers had also been heavily welded back together at some point, probably due to a serious accident. I accepted the fact that we would probably never get the wheels aligned perfectly, but rather get it all as close as possible and live with it.

Not looking too bad...

Since I had these two new brackets detached from the frame, I decided to use the lower control arm iteslf to assist in positioning them. I ran the bolt through the brackets and the arm, and set the whole assembly up against the frame, Then, I took a couple of self-tapping screws and zipped the brackets up tight to the frame. So far, so good!
It was time to weld. My sloppy technique was to be put to the
ultimate test this time, especially since I had to work from below. The first side went pretty good, with the welder crackling along with some fairly satisfactory welds. When I moved to the other side, however, I suddenly could not find that sweet spot with the welder where it sizzles with the sound of a good solid weld. I adjusted and re-adjusted my settings, and finally crawled out and even tried running some beads on a scrap piece of metal.

Ready for welding

No luck. I couldn't get a good bead to save my life. The only thing I can think is perhaps I have a bad tank of gas. I had to refill our tank for this job and was forced to go to another dealer, as our only other local welding supply house has been swallowed up by a larger competitor and closed down. I was using this tank on the first bracket, though, so I'm not sure my theory holds water.
Anyway, after many minutes of popping welds and globbed metal, I at last got to a point that I thought would be sufficient. With my trusty (and overworked) grinder, I cleaned up my mess as best I could and covered the whole shebang with paint and undercoating. That low grade carbon steel will need all the help it can get for protection from the elements.
Yesterday, Daniel and I got up early and went to the shop to bolt the

Done! Hopefully for good

suspension back together. Our goal was to attend a local car show and swap meet that has recently started up here. Unfortunately, we were never able to get the front wheels to align in even a slightly satisfactory fashion before it got too late in the day, so we'll have to put that show off until next month.
We did finally get the wheels to track reasonably well without squealing or pulling too hard, so tomorrow we plan to find a shop in town that knows how to work with these old cars in getting the front end aligned. Hopefully, they won't laugh us off the property when they see what we have to work with!

Odds-n-ends

What car nut can resist a little chrome?

There hasn't been much work going on with the Mustang for the past few weeks. It's been terribly hot here in central Florida. My work has been keeping me busy. We've gone on a few trips. And Daniel has been driving all over town. He has done a little work--mainly installing a shiny chrome air cleaner to jazz up the engine bay.

This week, Daniel is away at a jazz camp. The Wise One is in Asheville tending to our daughter, which leaves me home by myself. So, I've been doing a little tinkering.

The grille without trim

A lot of what we have left is details, that are unfortunately easy to let slide once the car is on the road. One of the things that has bugged me is the lack of trim around our grille. The car didn't come with the trim, mainly because the car hardly came with much of a front end at all. I found a pair of trim pieces on eBay for a reasonable price a while back, and this week is the perfect week to clean them up and install them.
Since these pieces weren't on the car when we bought it, I didn't realize that there is a center piece that connects both sides, so it's back to eBay I go to find another good buy.

Left one clean, right one before cleaning

The pieces were in pretty bad shape when I got them, but they cleaned up fairly nicely. There's a few knicks and scratches on the anodized aluminum, and the paint strip in the middle was scratched up. I found a nice metallic enamel at Home Depot which is very close to the original matte gray. My only complaint is the can has one of those new-fangled triggers, which, I'm here to report, really stink. While I had the front grille apart, I took the extra time to clean

After cleaning and paint

up and repaint the pony emblem as well. I think it all turned out
pretty good.

Everything back together

Showin' off a little bit

The lack of posts isn't an indication of the lack of work on our little project.
Since we got the Mustang on the road back in the first if May, we've had a number of setbacks, both small and not so small. The biggest problem we've had to date has been the front lower control arm mount that I "welded" back in May to try and get the driver's side front wheel in some sort of alignment. I say "welded" because my handiwork lasted all of a month before it broke. Fortunately, Daniel was only a block away from home, and the control arm was still attached, somewhat, so there was no tragedy.
The car had to sit in the garage for a week before I had time to work on it. Finally, I got out there early on a relatively cool Sunday morning and took the whole assembly apart again. Taking my time this time around, I ground off all my sloppy welds and made sure all weld points were clean and in good alignment. I feel pretty confident that these welds are better and stronger than before, but only time and a (slightly) aggressive teenage driver will tell.
We've also had frustrations with our steering wheel assembly. After getting the turn signals to work, and the front parking lights to operate independent of the brake lights, we had a problem with the rear brake lights not working. Fortunately, it was a quick fix, as I remembered that I had left one wiring connector disconnected, thinking it wasn't related to the rear lights. It was, and once reconnected all was well.
We had to order new horns, because although ours cleaned up nice, the innards were obviously shot, because neither one worked. A bummer, because new horns were rather expensive, but definitely needed. When they arrived, we promptly installed them, looking forward to hearing the Mustang sing her own tune.
She indeed did sing, even without hitting the horn ring! Apparently, our used steering wheel (eBay purchase) is warped and out of round so that when the wheel is turned to certain positions, the horn contacts make a connection and the horn goes off. For now, we've disconnected the horns until we can pull the wheel and try to resolve the problem.

The proud owner at his first car show

In spite of all this, Daniel has been enjoying the car, and this past weekend he got to show off his hard work at his first car show. New Smyrna Beach hosts a monthly cruise night on the main drag downtown, so we made a plan to attend. The Wise One had yet to ride in the car, so it was a great honor to have her accompany us. I was a nervous wreck as we made the 20 minute drive, because it was the first time (to my knowledge) that the car was run over 55mph for an extended period.
She ran smooth and true though, and we arrived early enough to get a prime parking spot in the middle of the show.
Daniel spent the next two hours holding court with all the old timers who came up to him wanting to know "who belongs to this car". The Wise One and myself sat back a bit to give him space as he described all of the work he had done to the car. I may be prejudiced, but it seemed like his little car was one of the more popular of the show. It surely is an eye-catching paint scheme, even if it is a bit amateurish.
Even with the heat of the afternoon sun, Daniel had a great time and I'm sure there will be many more shows in his future. And hopefully, each one will show a little more progress on the car.

Ironing out the kinks

I had a feeling, as we got deeper into this project, that once we got it on the road there would be many more hours of tweaking to get the little Mustang right. And....I was right.
Lately, it's electrical issues that continue to haunt us. When I reconnected the heater many months ago and was surprised that it actually came on, I had a brief moment of hope that maybe, just maybe, the electrical system would be fairly intact. As it turns out, we've now replaced almost all of the major electrical components on the car in an attempt to make everything work.
Our latest, and ongoing, battle has been with the brake and turn signal lights. The brake lights work fine (which surprised me because I had read that the Ford brake switch was rather primitive) but when Daniel applied the brakes, the front parking lights came on as well. A minor issue, I felt, since at least people would know when he is stopping, both in the rear and in the front! Not something to address right away for sure. We also had a problem with the turn signals not working, with all four corners flashing rapidly when the lever was applied.
Yesterday, though, I decided to attack the problem head on. I spent quite a bit of time prior to the assault studying the Mustang's exterior wiring diagram, and felt pretty confident in a couple of possible solutions. Once again the steering wheel came off, as well as the gauge console, for better access to the wiring. I started by disconnecting the rear brake light pigtail, thinking there might be a short in the trunk wiring (which we hadn't replaced). The parking lights up front came on nice and bright when we hit the brakes. First dead end!
Then I pulled the main harness from the steering column apart, because all of these light circuits come together in the turn signal switch. We had replaced the turn signal mechanism, so I felt pretty sure that was good. With everything still energized, we applied the brakes and took readings off of various terminals, which ended up not telling us anything out of the ordinary. Another dead end.
Next, I began the final assault of pulling the harnesses out  from behind the dash and looking for any obvious knicked or damaged wires, thinking a back feed could be the only reason. I did find a connector that had three wires going out of it, and all three wires were skinned back and bare. A possible clue!
Scanning my diagram again, I could find nothing that resembled that connector on the exterior lighting schematic. This connector must be for some of the interior electrical.
Still thwarted, I retreated in for lunch and downloaded the interior wiring diagram. There are a number of circuits that power both interior and exterior, which was illustrated clearly. The parking and brake lights were identified on this diagram as well, so I backtracked from the parking lights until I came across...the emergency flashers toggle switch. There were three wires going to this switch: the two front parking lights and the rear brake lights. Eureka!
Eating a little quicker now, I surmised that the toggle switch must be defective and causing a short, effectively connecting the front and back lights. Opening up the glove box (where Ford conveniently located this switch) I found the toggle switch in the "on" position. Could it be as simple as that? Switching it off, I hit the brakes again and Daniel reported no lights in the front. I then hit the turn signal lever and...success again! All of that work to figure out it was simply a switch turned on. Ahh, life with a classic car!
Feeling pretty cocky, I reassembled the dash and steering wheel, checked the turn signals once more, and strutted in the house happy for a good days work.
Last night, Daniel came home from visiting friends to report that the rear tail lights are now not working. The battle continues...

Wax on, wax off

In spite of the lack of posts over the past couple of weeks, a lot has been going on with the project. Unfortunately, much of the work has been ironing out the hundreds of kinks that keep popping up. To name a few:

• Turn signals not working
• Horn not working
• (New) exhaust manifold leaking
• Oil drips on the floor
• Door latches and locks malfunctioning
• Wheels so far out of alignment that they can't be aligned

Of these, the alignment was one that I have worried about for a long time. As I've noted, the frame and whole underside of the car was beat up really bad, combined with our not-so-scientific approach to replacing frame pieces.

The "repaired" mounting bracket

The week after Daniel's prom, we took the car to the alignment shop. I should've made note of the red flag when the manager told me that, even though it was an old school alignment, he was sure they could do it. This is the regular shop where I take all of my trucks to have tires install, so I felt a little loyalty to him and decided to let them have a shot at it. Eight hours later they called to tell me it wasn't possible, because the driver's side lower control arm was so far out of position that they couldn't align it. The mechanic tried talking me into some adjustable control arms, but I declined. Back into our shop went the car, and up on blocks. We disassembled the whole front driver's side, and I cut the mounting brackets off from the frame. With our cut-off wheel, I took a quarter inch of metal off of each piece and welded them back on. It was sloppy, to be sure, but I think it should hold.
Back to the alignment shop, where, after another full day, they told me that while the driver's side was now perfect, the tech couldn't get the upper arm on the passenger side to loosen so he could shim it out. They said the whole
spring and control arm assembly would need to come off to get the shims in.
Politely, I told them thanks, bummed a pack of shims from them, and took the car home. I figured that they were trying to loosen the arm with the weight of the car loading it, and I was right. After jacking it up again and removing the wheel, It was a simple matter to loosen the control arm nuts and shim it out.
Based on their measurements, the driver's side needed to be shifted out from the bottom a quarter inch, and the passenger side needed the same amount shifted on the top. I feel like we're as close as we can be, so we're going to do the toe-in ourselves and take a pass on the tire shop.

Still gotta get that horn working

Electrically, I knew our luck wouldn't hold out and it didn't. All of the major things seem to work, such as starting, headlights, brakes and wipers, but we have some niggling minor things that are going to take time to troubleshoot.
Most notably are the turn signals. When we powered up the car, we noticed that the front parking lights come on when the brake pedal is applied. The turn signals also failed to operate, flashing rapidly together whenever the lever is pushed. Suspecting a bad turn signal mechanism, I replaced it with a new one that also included the wiring harness. The old harness was pretty chewed up under the dash, so I though this simple fix would eliminate any shorts. Wrong!
I then turned my attention to the turn signal relay, deciding that for a couple of buck we should at

Puttin on a little shine

least rule it out. Again, no luck, and that's where we've stopped. I need to be in the right frame of mind to start tracing indivdual wires looking for shorts. Definitely a job for next weekend!
The door latches have also snookered us. I've now had both doors completely trimmed out, and then completely disassembled at least twice on each side. Things keep getting jammed or fail, which necessitates yet another disassembly. This latest is the crappy clip that holds the driver's lock in place has come loose, so gain, next weekend I'll be taking that door panel off again.
In the meantime, Daniel and I try to do at least one or two things on the car each day. I'm adamant that he will not get it to a "functional" state and stop working. That's my own bad habit, so we're going to power forward. Today we finally got some time to start wet sanding our paint job. We tackled the trunk lid, and after about 45 minutes it wasn't looking half bad. The down side is that when it's nice and shiny, I can see all of the little divots and blems that I thought I had resolved after weeks of bondo and sanding. Frustrating! However, I continue to remind myself that it's a daily driver, and all done on a budget. Besides, it looks pretty damned good scooting down the road!

On the road again!

Home in our driveway

Well, the little Mustang is safely in her new home, which is our garage at home.
The morning after we painted her, we rolled her out on a cool early Sunday morning, took a deep breath, and pointed her to the house. It was only a mile and a half, but it was a long journey for Daniel and I. I had planned to bring it to the house for the day and just tinker and tune, but once we had it in the driveway Daniel asked me what reason did we have for taking it back to the shop. After all, it was registered, insured and, well, I could think of no reason. So....

Underlayment and carpet going in

This was one week before Daniel's prom, to which Daniel had set a goal of driving the Mustang. I asked him to commit to a week of hard work after school each day to get the interior installed and the car safe for driving his girlfriend, to which he agreed. And I have to say he came through. Every afternoon he came home ready to work.
The Wise One graciously allowed us all the time we needed in the evenings, so that by Thursday night things were looking pretty good.

Wrassling with the "molded" carpet

Then Daniel added a twist: could he drive it to school Friday morning? This was a moment that I had been looking forward to, but also dreading. All of our work, our mistakes, our learning curves, our sweat and pains came down to the moment when it was time to put it on the road. Thinking hard to come up with some reason not to, I could find no argument against, and said yes. I can tell you this was one nervous Dad all day Friday until he was safe at home again!
Of course, he was beaming after being the talk of campus that day, but that was what he had been looking forward to himself for a long time.
Saturday was spent with little details, tightening, shining and generally getting ready for prom. Just
like a doting mom with her daughter! It was all worth it, though, to see Daniel, all dressed up, slip behind the wheel and drive off into the setting sun to pick up his date.
The night brought one more check for Daniel's bucket list, as the prom was held inside the Daytona Speedway in the clubhouse. Each time we go to a swap meet at the track, Daniel has vowed to someday drive his own car through the famous tunnel into the infield. That night, dressed in a snappy black tux, his girlfriend seated next to him, he proudly cruised into the infield in the little Mustang.

Things are coming together

He had a chance to have fun with the sheriff's deputy who was keeping tabs on the kids. The deputy approached him as he parked and demanded to know who's car he was driving. At first he refused to believe it was Daniel's, but eventually he was convinced and gave him some nice compliments. I'm happy to see Daniel enjoy these accolades, because he really has
earned the right to them. From day one, I have said that if he wanted a car like this, he would have to earn it. And he has. As well as the compliments.

Time to enjoy the rewards!

We're far from done, but Daniel is driving it daily as we continue to tweak. There's the front end that is in bad need of alignment. There's still a good portion of the interior to install. We need to do some tuning on the motor. We have yet to wet sand and polish our paint job. And yesterday the passenger door suddenly decided it didn't want to open. Plenty of more posts to come, for sure!
Oh, and by the way, that's our car in the header now!

Baby's got a new dress!

It's been a long week of sanding and painting, but as of this morning we have paint on our car!

I finally made my peace with the blemishes on the body earlier this week. Daniel and I shot one last coat of high build primer on Monday, and did our final sanding and a good wash on Tuesday. While washing, we were able to identify a few more rough patches, which we hit with some 320 grit wet sandpaper.
On Wednesday afternoon, with the car masked off and tacked, I shot our blue stripe paint on. It started out as a disaster, with the paint gun shooting blobs of blue all over the hood. Upon inspection, I realized that I had done a lousy job of cleaning it after the last primer coat, so half the spray holes in the tip were clogged. Twenty minutes of soaking in lacquer thinner and wiping and I was back in business. The paint went on fairly well, although with a fair amount of orange peel.
Thursday was spent wet sanding with 800 grit to take down the orange peel and the few specks that floated in while spraying. We then laid out or stripes with 1/4 inch striping tape. Things were starting to look good!

We had been planning on building a paint booth around the car for the final painting, but I changed my mind after realizing that if we did our painting in the early morning, there would be no breeze, little humidity and cool air. We agreed that the effort to sand out a few specks of dust were much easier than constructing a booth. Moving forward!
Yesterday afternoon we re-masked the car, along with our stripes. Daniel had a team of friends drop by and the work went fairly quickly, and all of the boys did a pretty good job. I stayed after they left and double-checked all of the taping to make sure it was in order. Our plan was to get up early Saturday morning and begin spraying immediately.
This morning we had beautiful weather for painting, and hit the shop by 7:30. A few little details later, and we were mixing paint by 8. As soon as I made the first pass on the car, I realized I had trouble. There were areas where the blue dust from wet sanding had not been wiped off, and they showed up like mountain ranges under the top coat. My next pass, on the hood, revealed a dozen fingerprints from sweaty hands the day before. The paint was a mess.

In a panic, I realized I had forgotten to give the whole car a wipe down with lacquer thinner to clean the oil and grit off. I stopped and soaked a rag with thinner, and wiped off the whole half of the hood and trunk that I had sprayed just seconds before. With my heart now sunk to my feet, I grabbed the gun and began again, completely disgusted with myself.
Fortunately, we're using a single stage acrylic urethane which has proven to be extremely forgiving. The paint flowed on beautifully, and with each orbit around the car, my spirits rose. I had planned on using the entire gallon, but after five solid trips around the car, we still had over half a gallon of paint. My arm was getting tired and I couldn't find anything else to coat, so we called it.
I wasn't sure how long to let the paint sit before removing our striping tape, but I knew that the urethane would be dry to the touch withing a couple of hours, so we went back at noon and began to unmask the car. With each pull of the tape we got more excited. It definitely isn't a show quality paint job, but it looks pretty darned good, and should look even better after wet sanding and a good polishing. And Daniel is finally really excited!

Tomorrow we're going to take another huge leap (for us) and gas the car up and drive it to our house. It's only a mile and a half, but it'll be the farthest this little car has traveled under it's own power in probably twenty years. We plan to bring a bunch of trim and interior items home with us and tinker on the car in the comfort of our own driveway.
Prom is next weekend, and Daniel has committed to driving his date in the Mustang. The pressure is on!

Prime time

Foolishly, I though that we could blast a few coats of high-build primer on the car, sand it smooth, and be ready for a top coat. As with everything else on this project, there's no easy way out!

Let the painting begin

I had purchased a HVLP paint gut a while back, and we loaded it up with primer last weekend. The first coat went on pretty good, but unfortunately, I had forgotten that it was HVLP, so I had the pressure up too high and we were in a cloud of paint spray that required two fans to evacuate. I realized my error while getting ready for the second coat, so we backed off the pressure to what I thought was appropriate. The paint cloud was no more, and in fact it seemed like the fans weren't even necessary, although we did keep them going. However, the paint was going on with a pebble texture. I though that it would lay down as the paint cured, but again I was wrong. We were left with a layer of grainy primer that would have to be sanded smooth.

Second coat--a lot less foggy

Undeterred (yet) I sprayed a light guide coat of cheap enamel spray paint on the areas I knew would need some attention, and began sanding. On Tuesday, I sought the advice of one of my employees, who used to be a paint and body tech for GM. He gave some good advice, but also made me realize how much of what I was doing was (potentially) wrong. It seems that the gun pressure was too low on the second and third rounds. Feeling a bit dejected, I vowed to continue forward.
Daniel was unable to help for most of the week due  to work or school obligations, so I plowed ahead on my own, a little each afternoon. Things began to look better as I knocked down the pebble texture, and by Thursday I was beginning to fill in the remaining dimples with glazing putty. I figured one or two rounds around the car would suffice. Wrong again!
With each subsequent circuit around the car, the body began to get smoother and my spirits began to recover. So much so that by yesterday morning (Saturday) I thought that I could give it about one more hour of work and be ready for a final coat of primer. Wrong again!
For every pass of the sanding block, and as I got closer and closer to my work, more blemishes kept

A little sanding and were ready for paint, right?

appearing under my inspection. At first, still full of confidence, I filled what I saw and kept working around. Lost in thought, I had no idea of the time. When I checked and realized I had been at it for three hours, the realization of my reality hit home: I was becoming consumed with fixing every tiny nick, dimple or blemish that appeared. Frustrated, I dropped everything and came home, seeking the wisdom and consolation of the Wise One.
She, for her part, has been more that accommodating these past few weeks as the project has taken up our time. I admitted to her that I was having trouble finding a point were the body was acceptable, and in doing so reminded myself that this was never intended to be a perfect "show car". With that confession, I feel ready to hit it again this morning with a clear stopping point. The plan today is to sand down the last bits of glazing that I did yesterday, clean everything up again, and be ready to paint when Daniel gets off work later this afternoon. We'll see if I can keep to that plan!

Let the sanding begin!

Shiny paint on the new hood

Daniel has asked me numerous times "How long will it take until we can paint." I, in my infinite fatherly wisdom, keep telling him "It takes as long as you want it to take." I also noted that it would be a shame to invest all of this effort into the car only to put a lousy paint job on--which is the first thing anyone will notice. To that end, I've tried to impress upon him the importance of patience with our body work.
We've painted the underside of our new hood and installed it. We've also masked off the engine bay and anywhere paint spray could intrude and ruin our detail work. I began applying bondo to all of the bumps and bruises last week and, just like the rest of the car, I had no idea how beat up the little Mustang was.

Working out 49 years of abuse

The roof obviously served as a nice platform for someone in the past, probably to catch a good view at a drive-in theater. The trunk deck was also pretty wavy, which was not surprising. The rear panel below the trunk lid had been bashed in long ago, and we have spent a bit of time banging and pulling it out to some semblance of original. Our welded quarter panels needed minimal attention, as did the original doors. The entire front clip has been replaced, so there was no need for any repairs other than a couple of small dings on the two fenders. Thank goodness Daniel talked me into buying that new hood!
We've been sanding a little here and there for about a week now. Today (Saturday) I committed Daniel to a steady morning of work while it was still relatively cool, and by doing so we've gotten the body work all but done. There's one final skim coat that I put on to catch a few spots, which I'll sand off in the morning. Daniel has to work until noon, so by the time he gets to the shop I plan to be prepped and ready for primer. If all goes well we should have two or three good coats of filler primer on the car by tomorrow afternoon.

Picking up some steam!

It's been a good few days of progress for Daniel and myself. Daniel can finally see some potential light at the end of this long tunnel, so he's been much more willing to put in time on the project. That definitely makes things go faster!

Front clip going on. Starting to look like a Mustang again!

The swap meet last weekend was something of a disappointment. There were only a couple of Mustang vendors there, so we were unable to get much of our list checked off. We did, however, make one purchase that was unplanned, but I feel was a right one.
We came across a repro hood for $120, and as Daniel and myself stood pondering it, Daniel reminded me that we had a potential four or five hours of work on our original hood to try and make it straight, and surely our time was worth more than the 120 bucks. He made a good case, so I whipped out the cash. I have to agree it was a good decision.

Things look fairly good---from a distance!

We also picked up a 14" rim for a spare, something I had been looking for for quite some time.
We've spent a fair bit of time trying to align all of the body parts. There's an infinite number of adjustments that can be made on both the doors and fenders. This can get really tedious, especially for the second person (Daniel in this case) who is available to occasionally yank this or pull on that. For our particular car, it's made even more difficult because I'm sure the car is twisted and torqued due to the years of abuse she suffered. It also doesn't help using reproduction parts, because they never fit quite right. I was aware of this as I purchased pieces, but justified it by reminding myself (many times) that this is not a show car but a daily driver, and we're on a budget There's still some tweaking to do on the driver's side fender and door, but I'll probably do that myself and spare Daniel the tedious agony!

Details! The headlight buckets are finally back on!

We've got most of the car masked off now, ready for a final run at bodywork then primer. If all goes well (and The Wise One allows us the time) we may be priming by the end of the weekend. Then, it'll be guide coat time---hopefully not too many rounds of that!

Prepping the grille for paint

Back on track

We've got our replacement motor all hooked up and looking good. The carb came back from the rebuild shop and we immediately bolted it on. Hooked up the gas and she fired right up. We're using the old fuel pump that came with this motor for now as it seems to be working fine. Daniel took the car for another spin around the parking lot and proclaimed her to be "real peppy"!

Motor #2 all hooked up

I was able to sell the automatic transmission that came with the motor, so now we're only down $140 bucks. There's a few good parts that I think I can sell on eBay to recoup our cost.
We hit another snag as we were backing the car back into the shop for the day. For some reason, the brakes locked up. At first I thought it was the emergency brakes, which don't work very well to begin with. I was able to get the car in, and we jacked up the back to find the wheels spinning freely. We went around and lifted up the front to find the front wheels solidly in the grip of the calipers. Now, this is a brand new system that has been working fine every time we've driven the car. I was--and still am--at a loss as to what's going on. As an experiment, I cracked the bleed valve on the left front, expecting fluid to shoot out under pressure. Fluid did weep out, but nothing dramatic, so I re-tightened the valve and called it a day. At that time I didn't check the wheels again.
This morning I came in to find everything back to normal. The wheels were free spinning once again. I don't know if it was due to my bleeding the line, or if they just released on their own. We'll just have to continue to take test drives around the lot to see if it happens again.
This afternoon I decided to take some time and try to get the driver's door hardware back in. The driver's vent window on our car had a broken bracket, so I had secured another one off of eBay last month. I discovered that it is a reproduction, and the window channel is larger than the original, so the felt channel for the window won't clip in. I'll have to drill a couple of small holes and run some flat head screws in to hold in in place. The obstacles just keep coming!
Thwarted by the door, I turned to aligning the passenger fender. We had hung it temporarily last week. After a half hour of adjusting, I felt like it was as good as it was going to get. Empowered, I turned to the driver's side and got that one installed as well. There's still some adjusting to be done with the driver's door, which I'll need Daniel's assistance with.

Starting to look like a car again!

We're trying to get our sheetmetal installed by the end of the weekend so we can begin some serious sanding and smoothing of the body. My goal (and hope) is that with Daniel's help we might get him driving this thing to school at least for the last month of the school year. It will be in no way done, but he can at least show it off to his friends.
The Spring swap meet arrived in Daytona this weekend. We have yet another list, but this time it's very small, which I hope is an indication of our progress!

A major setback for the project

As I wrote in my last post, I've been chasing small leaks for over three weeks. The nagging oil leak from the fuel pump continued to drip. The coolant also continued to drip off the rear of the block. To add insult to injury, I discovered that our rebuilt carburetor was dumping gas down the intake at an alarming rate. This hadn't been apparent before, with the engine idling high. Once we began fine-tuning the motor, though, and adjusted the idle to where it was supposed to be, the engine couldn't burn off all of the excess fuel. A quick look down the carb with a flashlight told the story.
My first thought, and the obvious issue, was a speck of debris in the needle seat. I called the carb shop, and they suggested I take the carb off, turn it upside down, and apply a tiny bit of air into the fuel intake. I did that, reinstalled it, and still the fuel gushed forth. Frustrated, I packed it up and shipped it back for a professional evaluation.
Turning my attention, again, to the leaks, I took last Saturday morning to raise the car on blocks and drop the transmission. The leak had to be coming from the real freeze plug, which was the only one I hadn't replaced. The tranny removal went pretty smooth, as would be expected on a nice clean engine and car. Even on my own, I was able to get everything disassembled in about 90 minutes. Daniel had been completely booked for the previous week with school and work, and was so this day as well. It was just as well, because I felt somewhat responsible for this problem and I didn't want him to get discouraged. So, in the peace of the morning, I popped out the "bad" freeze plug and installed yet another one. I couldn't see any signs of drippage, but where else could it be coming from?

Hiding behind the starter

Confident in my repair, I filled the engine back up again with coolant and set about reinstalling the flywheel, clutch and pressure plate. As I torqued the last bolt on the bellhousing, I was bombed right in the forehead with....a drop of water!
After lying under the car for a good five minutes of total frustration, I took the drop light and a dry rag and began going over every possible joint and seal. I could see the coolant oozing along the gap between the oil pan and block. Like a trail of tiny ants, I continued to follow until the trail stopped, about halfway forward of the block. OK, it has to be somewhere in this area. The freeze plugs look good. Nothing coming from the head. The side of the block...wait!
There, ever so faint, and normally hiding behind the starter, was the problem. A nice six inch crack in the water jacket of block. Our engine, at least the block, was junk!
Dejected, I packed up and went home. After rallying my spirits (I still hadn't told Daniel) I again turned to the Internet. I learned that there are many folks who swear by various home remedies, such as JB Weld or brazing or pinning, but nothing is certain. I briefly contemplated grinding a valley along the crack and gobbing it with JB Weld, but my better senses prevailed. We had to get another motor.

Starting over. Looks pretty good

Back to Craigslist. There's always at least one six cylinder for sale locally as people dump the little motors in favor of a V8. Sure enough, I immediately found a complete motor and automatic tranny in
Orlando for $300. My wife, the Wise One, knew that I'd be hitting the road early Sunday morning, and she was right. Daniel had been advised of the bad news, but I begged him not to give up hope.
The motor turned out to be out of a one-owner '67 with 85K original miles on it (supposedly). I looked it over as best I could (it was already out and hanging on a cherry picker) and asked the guy what would he take. When he replied $200, I slapped the cash in his hand. Within 10 minutes I was back on my way to Daytona. The plan was, and is, to salvage what we need, and resell the rest to recoup our costs. With some luck, we may be back whole with two weeks of lost time to show for all of this.

All the new parts off our bad motor

I've been poking at the motor all week, and from what little I know, it appears to indeed be a lightly used engine. The real main seal was bad, which I knew, and today we replaced it. It went in without a hitch. Right now the motor is on a stand, upside down, awaiting the oil pan to be reinstalled.
The Wise One is gone for the weekend, so Daniel and I have plenty of time to focus on the project. I told him that if he could stick with me for three or four hours each day, we should have the motor reassembled and back in the car by Sunday afternoon.

Out with old, in with the new

Our carb has yet to return, but should be back Monday. The rebuild shop could find nothing wrong, so we are figuring that the aftermarket fuel pump I installed might be putting out too much
pressure. To that end we'll keep the dirty old one on our "new" motor and see what happens.
If nothing else, these past few weeks certainly have been character building!

All put back together. Keeping our fingers crossed!

More hurdles

There's still a lot of stuff dripping on the floor beneath the Mustang. Coolant continued to drip, even after our freeze plug repair. When we filled the engine back up we noticed one of the new heater hoses was poorly clamped on the fitting going into the block. An adjustment of the hose clamp and a few extra turns seemed to resolve that.
We then turned our attention to the oil drip. It was coming from the driver's side, and all I could think of was that we hadn't gotten a good seal on the oil pan gasket. So Sunday morning we drained the pan and dropped it low enough to apply a layer of Permatex on the block surface. We reinstalled it and snugged up the bolts and refilled it with oil. Fairly confident that we had solved our leaks, we left the motor there for the day.
While Daniel was turning wrenches on the oil pan, I turned my attention the the heater box. I had removed it about six months ago and found it to be full of leaves (no surprise there) and most of the metal innards were rusted away. I had purchased a number of pieces from a Craigslist contact, and up until now they has been sitting awaiting their turn. Sunday seemed like a good day.

Before opening. A nice pile of leaves and rust sits inside

In addition to the replacement parts, I had purchased a gasket set and a new heater core. I had read that the aftermarket cores, while a good bargain, were ill-fitting, and this proved to be true. However, a little attention with the Dremel and the core tubes fit right into the "new" holes in the heater box. I also confirmed that the two rubber end caps for the core would not allow the new heater core to fit properly, so I decided to go on without them. I couldn't se any real problem with doing so.
Our heater box was in fair shape. A few cracks in the old fiberglass, but on the whole still serviceable. With the new gaskets, new defroster box and a coat of matte gloss, it didn't look too bad. And, it seems to function properly. In an effort to salvage something of the day, we reinstalled the heater assembly and ran our heater hoses to the engine. Cooling system complete (we hope!).

New gaskets, all clean and ready to blow

Today, Monday, I peeked in on the car this morning and found--a puddle of oil and antifreeze! There was even an oil puddle under the back of the motor. Could we have messed up the rear gasket of the pan when we dropped it?
Now I was really getting frustrated, and feared Daniel would soon lose motivation with all of this. I crawled back under the car and began to again remove the oil pan, when I happened to spot a drip coming from the bottom of the fuel pump. Of course! That could be the only explanation of why the "drip" was forming more or less a line on the floor parallel and below the edge of the oil pan. As it dripped off the fuel pump, the oil would run along the edge of the pan, even so far back as the transmission. Confident that I identified the problem, I pulled the pump off and noted that the gasket sealer wasn't really applied well along the face of the block. A better coat of gasket sealer should finally resolve the problem. Another hurdle possibly passed!
My mechanic loaned me his cooling system pressure tester, so this afternoon we hooked that up and pumped up the system to 13 pounds pressure. As soon as the gauge hit "13", we hard a slight hissing coming from the front of the motor. Craning our necks with a flashlight, it appeared that it was coming out from the bottom of the thermostat housing. Now I had become even more frustrated, and sent Daniel home before he could pick up on my bad mood. Throwing myself once more at the engine, I drained the coolant again and removed the housing. The gasket looked OK, but for certainty I applied MORE gasket sealer and bolted it back on. Coolant refilled, pressure up and--more hissing.
I can't get low enough to see where this leak is coming from, but the only other thing on the block in that area is the top of the water pump. To remove it will require draining--again, pulling the radiator and taking off the fan belt, fan and pulley. Looks like tomorrow is already planned out for me.
I'm obsessing about these leaks because I know how aggravating it can be to always have that little oil or water drip on the garage floor. I want this car to be as reliable as possible for Daniel, and having to always put something under it when parked, or constantly adding more water or oil, would not fit that criteria. I'll be taking the water pump off tomorrow, before Daniel gets to the shop, in the hope that this will be the last time.
Hope springs eternal!

Two steps forward, one step back

After our milestone drive around the parking lot last Saturday, we were full of ambition the next day.
As rewarding as the test drive was, we still had a lot to do on the engine before we could crown it "reliable". There was a nagging oil leak along the driver's side of the oil pan. Four of the five freeze plugs were weeping as soon as we filled the engine with coolant. And we used about a pint of gas to drive the short 200 yards around the parking lot. Some obvious adjustments were needed. Be we were energized!
We decided to let the car sit on Sunday and tackle the doors. The passenger door has been on the car for a while, but the window and latch assemblies had yet to be installed. My plan was to disassemble the driver's side door as we reassembled the passenger side, to use it as a guide as to where each blot and bracket went. So, we pulled the driver's door off the shelf where it had been resting for the past 18 month to find that it was missing all of the tracks and regulator components for the window. Completely gone. I hadn't noticed it when we took it off, and by chance we chose the passenger side to restore first, otherwise we would've been aware of the missing parts nine months ago. OK, setback number one.
We then decided to complete the reassembly of the passenger door. I also set Daniel up to put a coat of hi-temp paint on our exhaust system, to keep it looking fresh for as long as possible. I had a recollection of purchasing some special exhaust pipe paint, and looked high and low for it. Couldn't find it, so I told myself that it must be my poor memory. I did have a can of aluminum motor paint, which I handed to Daniel with a brush. It was pretty hot here last Sunday, so the paint was curing up almost as soon as he applied it. Brush strokes which normally would flow out hardened in place. Daniel was getting frustrated and you could see it in his work product. Just as he applied the last daub of paint, I stumbled across the expensive super special hi-temp primer and finish paint. Dang! Setback number two.
Turning my own attention to the door, I quickly figured out where each nut and bolt went. Well, almost. There was one small stop bracket in the bottom of the both that, for the life of me, I can't figure out where it would go. Got the window back in, new rollers on the window regulator, things working somewhat smoothly, then went to put in the door latching assembly--and realized it needed to go in first. OK. Disassemble part of the door track, and finally things were coming together. Got everything connected and closed the door to check alignment. It aligned and closed like it had just came off the factory floor. Finally! Some progress! Went to open the door again and---it wouldn't budge.
The latch seemed to be jammed, even though I had closed the door softly. Trying not to damage anything, I pulled and pushed until it finally came free. A little spray lube on the outer latch mechanism, closed the door and again it worked good. It even opened back up, twice. Then it was stuck again, and no amount of pushing or pulling would get it open. Setback number three.
Daniel had given up about twenty minutes prior to that and gone home. I, too finally threw in the towel in frustration. Needless to say, the rest of the day was spent going over in my head what could possibly be wrong.
Daniel had school commitments on Monday, so I took some quiet time that afternoon and looked over the latch from the drivers door. It seemed to work smoothly, but I could see spots in the gear mechanism on the back that could possibly cause problems. So, again I disassembled the passenger door, and pulled the latch completely out. Sure enough, the mechanism was really sticky, even though I had sprayed it liberally with lube before installation. More spray, some cleaning, and some grease, and soon it worked as smoothly as the other one. By now I had become expert in reassembling a Ford Mustang door, so it went back together quick. I was relieved to close the door and open it again, as smooth as silk. Another hurdle conquered!

Finally working right

The weeping freeze plugs had me even more upset, because we had been very careful to install the new ones, because I knew they were fragile. I tossed the problem to my mechanic, who looked up the part number of the plugs we installed. His book showed that we should be using a plug .01 inch larger than the ones we had. He also loaned me a great tool for pressing the plugs in correctly. Armed with knowledge and new plugs, I took Tuesday afternoon to drain the engine and pop out the five plugs along the side of the block. There are two additional ones on the rear, one of which is behind the flywheel. Those, hopefully, won't give us a problem.
The new plugs were definitely tight, and I'm confident that there will be no more weeping from those little buggers! Another hurdle behind us!
Daniel's only available afternoon this past week was yesterday, Friday. We met at the shop and finished installation of the freeze plugs. He also started prepping the driver's door for sandblasting this weekend. We poured our coolant back into the radiator and as best we can tell, no drips. Hopefully we're back on track!

It's alive, it's alive, IT"S ALIVE! (Apologies to Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder)

After almost two years of sand in the eyes, skinned knuckles, greasy hands, and dozens of set backs and frustrations, the little Mustang rolled out of the garage today under her own power. Needless to say, the excitement was at an all time high!
We've been close to this moment for the last week. I've spent the last few days making up the final electrical connections, installing our new radiator, ensuring that all hoses and lines were connected, and that nothing was at risk of being damaged when we turned the motor over once in the car.
A couple of days ago, I installed the battery cables. Without hesitation, I made the last connection to the positive post of the battery, when suddenly the motor tried to start. Whoops! Totally perplexed, we spent the next two afternoons double-checking our ignition system connections. I discovered that I had landed a couple of the smaller wires, ones that go to the voltage regulator and the coil, on the wrong side of the solenoid. Confident that that was my problem, we tried again, but still the car wanted to start on it's own. The solenoid was new, so I was skeptical that it was the problem, but more and more testing kept pointing to that. Finally, yesterday I gave in and purchased another one, and of course, that solved the problem! There's still current flowing to the voltage regulator when the key is turned off, which I don't think should happen, but for the most part I'm pretty confident that the ignition system is reliably functional.
With that hurdle out of the way, I suggested to Daniel that this Saturday morning should be the day. I wrote down everything that I could think of that needed to be done to permit the car to move under it's own power, and the list was short--maybe a couple of hours at the most. So, flushed with anticipation, we hit the shop this morning with gusto, checking off items right and left. Blast and paint driveshaft. Check. Fill tranny with gear oil. Check. Install radiator hoses and clamps. Check. Fill with coolant. Check. Install u-joints and driveshaft. Check.
We invited Daniels' mom and sister (who was visiting from Asheville to escape the cold) to view the coming out. They arrived before we could get the driveshaft hooked up, so the last few minutes were rushed as we tried to accommodate our audience. In doing so, I didn't tighten the rear u-joint clamps completely, figuring they would be good enough to get us around the parking lot. Wrong, of course.

Daniel turned the key, the motor fired, and he put the car in gear for probably the first time in twenty years, She slowly moved forward--for thirty feet. That's when the driveshaft came undone from the rear axle! Fortunately, everything dropped right there, so we blocked the wheels, and I took a few extra minutes to reinstall and properly tighten the clamps.

Once again Daniel was in the driver's seat, and with a roar of the open exhaust, he motored out to the front of the property. Our little temporary canister of gas that we had rigged then went dry, but a quick refill and she fired up again . Into reverse, which I was relieved to see worked, and he pointed the old girl back home to her garage bay. A slip of the foot on the clutch produced a nice chirp of the rear tires, which startled Daniel and gave me a great laugh. He was beaming as he drove by me back to the garage.

Mom gave us a nod of approval. High fives were exchanged, and we closed up the shop for the day, satisfied with a good morning's work. A celebratory lunch of Wendy's capped off the day!

Clearing a big hurdle

After some quality time with the hammer

As I've noted in the past, our little Mustang took quite a beating during it's life. Most notably, it appears that the last ride for the car before we got it included running over a curb or some other solid, raised object, because so much of the underside was damaged. The frame rails were pancaked. The
gas tank had a huge gash in it, and was flattened. And the oil pan suffered the same fate, although fortunately survived with the rim still sealed to the motor.

Ready for paint

As we get to the final nuts and bolts before dropping the motor back in the car, the oil pan is the only remaining item on the motor that we
haven't attended to. The other day we hooked up our engine hoist and lifted the six cylinder off the cradle where it's sat for the last (almost) two years. With a little contorting and scraping away of grease and dirt, Daniel and I drained the oil, removed the bolts and dropped the pan. With trepidation I peered into the black murkiness of the pan's interior. We were both pleasantly surprised to see very little sludge and no debris of any kind. It looks like someone in the past wisely used good oil and did regular service on the engine.

One last look before it goes into the car

The damage to the oil pan was enough to bend the oil pick up tube up a bit, but the pan itself is still sound, so we decided to beat out the dents the best we could and reinstall it (budget mentality coming back into play). A little hammer time, a little bead blasting time, and a coat of paint and it was ready to be reinstalled.
Today we hoisted the motor for the last time and aimed it for the engine bay. There were a few stressful moments, but the six cylinder slipped in place quite easily--at least for a couple of greenhorns. We did get some help
from a couple of my employees to guide the transmission tail into the proper position before we dropped the motor on the motor mount pads. With a sigh of relief, and hopefully a rush of encouragement for Daniel, we began tallying up the necessary steps to complete the install.

Daniel's trying to stay cool but it was nerve-wracking!

If all goes well, we should be able to turn the ignition key within the next few days and see if we can bring the little car to life!

Safely back in place