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!