Fixing the Stance Part II

This is actually work I completed last year as my spring project.  In my last post I cut the front spring to lower the front end and level the car with the rear suspension work I previously did.  For Christmas one year I got How to Make Your Muscle Car Handle and was reading more into my suspension.  In the book they mention that Chris Alston's Chassisworks makes a drop front control arm.  That's all I needed to get the wheels turning...  

Fixing the Stance

Since I had rebuild the rear suspension with a mid-leaf spring kit, the front of the car has sat higher than the rear.  I also upgraded the rear to 15" wheels, but due to how much it costs, I couldn't do the front wheels at the same time.  Finally, this spring I was able to get the front wheels and also ended up cutting the front springs to address the stance of the car.  I went with P225/60R15 tires for the front.

15" wheels all around, but the stance is too high in the front 

Rebuilding Rear Ends

This one is going to go back in time as I started this project back in February 2016.  The goal was to finish the back suspension of the car and add an Eaton TrueTrac to the rear differential.  So the plan was for me to rebuild the rear end and put everything back together with a new suspension.  I also decided to upgrade the rear brakes from drums to discs.

Out with the old suspension and rear axle

Double Pumping

Carburetors.  Archaic technology (hasn't been sold on a car since 1990) and very temperamental (hard to dial in).  I only say this because I have been having a hell of a time getting them to work for me.  I inherited with my car a Holley 4160 600 CFM which comes with vacuum secondaries.  This means the carb relies on the vacuum created at higher rpms to pull the fuel into the secondary fuel bowl (higher rpms require more fuel to be fed into the engine to meet the demand).  It is actually a pretty nice bit of engineering (for the time), and in theory the fuel is delivered when it is needed.  This was not the case for my 4160.  I am not sure if it was due to the lower vacuum my engine pulls because of the bigger cam, or what, but I could never get the secondaries to open on my carb.  I tried lighter springs and a new diaphragm, but I could never get it to work correctly.  It was costing me horsepower. And then one fateful day, the whole carb decided to die in spectacular fashion.  Gas just started spewing everywhere from every seal.  I had enough.

The old 4160

Spring Projects Completed

Last time we left off I was describing how what started out as a simple project has grown into a monster project.  Long story short, I was going to pull the engine and trans in order to freshen things up and replace things like a new radiator, clutch, flywheel, shift kit, and the infamous rear main oil seal that I have been trying to avoid since I've had the car.

Coming out party

Here's a rundown of each of the projects:

Rear Main Oil Seal and Engine

Whelp, this isn't going to work

Once I got the engine out of the car, I had to break down the engine from the flywheel back.  Once I removed all those parts, I could put the engine on the engine stand.  Except there was one problem.  The new engine puller has legs that come out in the shape of a 'V' and the engine stand has boxed legs.  Have you ever put a square peg into a round hole?  Doesn't work.  So I had to go out and get a new engine stand.  The good news is I have an engine stand for sale.  Anyone interested?

Once I was able to finally get the engine on the stand I went to work on the rear main oil seal.  For the rear main oil seal I went with a Fel-Pro Fluoroelastomer gasket from JEGS.  Except, when I ordered it I got an email saying it was out of stock and on back order and they requested the vendor send it directly to me.  After some research I found out that it was out of stock everywhere!  I was scrambling everywhere trying to find this part.  I even called Fel-Pro and they said they were waiting on production and it could take up to six months.  Right when I was ready to cancel my order with JEGS, a package showed up at my door and it was the rear main oil seal gasket!

I also picked up some Corporate Ford Blue engine paint, new freeze plugs, intake and exhaust gaskets.  I was also able to check the oil pickup depth since I had the engine out (something I didn't do when I installed it).  I never had any problems with it, but I just needed the peace of mind knowing that it is now 1/2" above the bottom of the pan.

Spring Projects

Since this winter was spent building a new garage at our new house, my car projects have pretty much been on hold.  But now it is spring and I am chomping at the bit to start some projects.  What started out as just a couple of projects though has grown into some really big things that I am starting to question my sanity (thanks Greg for talking me into this!)  The original plan was to redo the cooling system and change that rear main oil seal that I have been chasing since last year.  But now this has grown to be:

• Pull the engine and transmission out.  Why replace the rear main oil seal with the engine in the car when you can pull out the whole thing and detail it??  Duh, this is a no brainer apparently.  My goal is to replace the rear main seal and then clean up the engine block and paint it Corporate Ford Blue.  If nothing else, this will help give me more "authenticity points" at car shows and just clean up the engine bay.  It fits with what I am going for, the "stock" look with stealth mods that improve reliability.  The only problem is right now I am having trouble finding the upgraded rear main seal that everyone recommends.  For some reason FelPro is out of their 2901 gasket and no one has it in stock.  Hopefully I will find something out tomorrow when I call them.

Cherry picker is ready to burst its cherry

• Up next is a cooling system rebuild.  I have been wanting to do this one since I have been struggling with the car running hot.  I am just going to do the whole thing new including:

• Griffin radiator
• New fixed blade fan with thermal clutch
• High performance water pump
• Thermostat and housing
  

• Finally, since I am going to have the transmission out, I thought I would fix that up some too.  I plan on upgrading to a 10.5" clutch, including new flywheel and pilot bearing (and potentially a new starter).  I also plan on detailing the transmission and installing a Hurst Competition Plus shift kit. This is the project I am most nervous about.

The way I see it, go big or go home.  Honestly I didn't want to tackle this all at once, but they are all projects I wanted to do.  After talking with Greg, it just makes sense to do it all now.  Luckily I am not in school so I should actually have time to devote to this and get it all done before June.  Whelp here goes nothing.....updates to come.

Under Construction: Part 3

This is part three of a three part series:

• Part 1:  Laying the Foundation
• Part 2:  Building the Structure
• Part 3:  Finishing the Job

Before I could move my stuff over, there were a few things I wanted to make happen.  First I wanted to epoxy the floor which I went with the 100% solid epoxy floor from Epoxy-Coat.  I got the gray epoxy with black, red, and white medium flecks.  I have to admit though I think my impatience got the best of me on this one.  The instructions say it is best when applied over 40 degrees, and by then the cold had really come in and I had laid the floor down in 30 degree weather (at best) and the floor application just really didn't go on smooth.  Especially the clear top coat.  Overall it looks fine though, probably not as smooth though as if I had done this in the spring, but I am okay with it.

The other thing I had to do was get an electrician out to wire up the garage.  My plan is to set up the single door side as the work bay with the double door being the parking bay.  I had a 100 amp subpanel installed in the garage.  This should give plenty of room for expansion for things like a compressor or welder someday. I also went with plenty of overhead shop lighting and outlets around the perimeter especially in the working bay side.

And finally, I went with Cardinal Door for the garage door openers.  They have Liftmaster openers that connect to your home wifi through a gateway, that way I can monitor activity through my cell phone.  Also as a little bit of a splurge, since I was surprised that I ended up with almost 10' to the trusses, my eyes started getting big thinking of getting a lift someday, so I went ahead and ordered a side mounted unit.  The LiftMaster 8500 Series mounts directly to the wall and opens the door from the side.  This frees up then the overhead space for the future (not going to be this year).

Lighting and epoxy floor

Under Construction: Part 2

This is part two of a three part series:

• Part 1:  Laying the Foundation
• Part 2:  Building the Structure
• Part 3:  Finishing the Job

So now the foundation is poured and ready for the structure to be build.  For the structure I went with Coach House Garages. My real estate agent recommended them and I am glad he did, these guys do a good job.  Although I don't think they were ready for how determined I was to get a garage up as soon as possible, they finally came through.  The tried to tell me I had to wait till the spring, but I was determined and able to sub out the concrete in order to meet their timeline before their winter shutdown.  The cool thing with Coach House is that they pre-build everything in their warehouse, which allows them to get everything installed quickly.  There was a crew of seven guys that showed up at 7:00 am and they were done by 3:30 pm the very same day.  They are a well oiled machine and pictures don't do it justice.

Three walls up within the first hour

Progress by 9:00am

Under Construction: Part 1

Hello there dear dusty blog.  Yes, I am still alive.  It has been a wild 6 months or so.  The fall was packed full of trying to finish school.  And then there was graduation and the holidays.  And now somehow we have decided to buy a house, so there was a move.  I swear each move there is more and more stuff that we have accumulated and it makes it that more painful.  Although I will say the only part that is not painful is moving all the toys in the garage.  That is always fun.  I hope you can forgive me.

The new house is pretty cool.  It was built back in 1899 and the previous owner has gone through and updated all the infrastructure.  New heating & cooling, plumbing, electric, fixtures, etc.  What we like the most is that all of the old architectural details were kept.  These houses just have character.  But there was an added bonus / challenge.  There was no garage.  So on one hand I potentially got to build the garage of my dreams, and on the other I had to deal with building it on a tight time frame as I needed to get my stuff out of the old garage sooner rather than later (I don't think the old landlord would appreciate the squatting).

My original thought was to go with a 3-car brick garage like the picture below.  Once I got a bid though for what that would cost, I quickly reconsidered going with a nice vinyl siding garage.

My original plans

The new lot is 50' wide, so being a responsible person, I went with a modest 24' deep by 34' wide three car garage.  I am going to break this up into three different posts:

• Part 1:  Laying the Foundation (this post)
• Part 2:  Building the Structure
• Part 3:  Finishing the Job

Awaking the Beast

I am absolutely giddy right now.  My buddy Greg came into town this weekend to help me install my new ignition system.  I picked up a Crane Cams HI-6RC Ignition Kit to replace the points distributor in the car.  There are a couple of reasons why I picked up this kit.  First, it is pretty much plug and play and second it comes with a small distributor cap that looks like the one I am replacing.  I'm not a big fan of those large GM style HEI distributor caps, especially if it is going to be front an center as they are on Ford's engines.

Installation diagram

Overall, installation was fairly simple.  The hardest part was deciding where to place the ignition box and coil.  We wanted to put the box inside the cabin, but after pulling out the glove box and center console, there really was no reasonable space to place it.  Some guys online had mentioned putting it inside the glove box, but I wanted to keep that functional.  (On a side note, since the center console was out, I took the time to adjust the stereo knobs so they moved a little bit more freely and didn't bind on the console face anymore.)  So we decided to mount the system on the driver's side inner fender next to the widow washing reservoir.  In order to get the box to mount on the sidewall, we needed to shift the window washer motor a bit closer to the firewall, but after that everything was good.  We also mounted the ignition coil on the driver's side shock tower.

For the distributor, I pulled out the old one without marking the timing, whoops.  That meant we had to remove the valve covers and find top dead center (TDC) on cylinder #1 (front of the engine, passenger side when looking at it from the front).  Once we found TDC, we placed the distributor in the block and snapped everything together.  We also had to cut and crimp on ends to the new spark plug wires and when all the wires were plugged in firing order (1-5-4-2-6-3-7-8), we tried to fire it up.  Damn thing wouldn't fire.  After some troubleshooting, here is your top tip:  The distributor rotates counter-clockwise.  Whoops #2 for me.  Once we fixed that mistake, it fired right up.  We set the initial timing to 8 degrees BTDC and we were good to go.  We took it for a quick test drive and found that it was backfiring like a mothertrucker.  I have been having problems with it running rich, so the next step was to tune the carburetor.

Under Pressure

Just wanted to write a quick post following up on the Chasing Oil Leaks post.  I've been busy with school that I really haven't been able to post and follow-up on it.  I tested the oil pressure and it was up around 60psi.  That is around the high end of normal, so there were some suggestions to try and reduce the oil pressure in the system.  The car did not really have a PCV system in place to relieve the crankcase pressure so the thought was that it would help the engine to put one in.  So I went out and picked up a PCV valve, oil breather, rubber hosing, a set of new valve covers and gaskets.

BEFORE:

Before:  No real PCV system in place

AFTER:

New valve covers with PCV valve going to carb vacuum 

Other side with oil breather connected to bottom of air cleaner

RESULT:
Whelp, pretty much the engine bay looks cleaner.  The new steel/rubber valve cover gaskets fixed the oil leak onto the manifold, but I am still leaking oil under the car.  Pretty much accepted that it is the rear main oil seal and will probably seek out someone to fix that this fall sometime.  But for now, I am going to enjoy the car.  There are some good car shows coming up that I want to go to, and I like that now the car looks more like an original HiPo engine bay.

Chasing an oil leak (or leaks)

A couple of weeks ago I installed a new oil pan hoping that it was the old multiple piece cork oil pan gasket that was causing the small oil puddles on the garage floor.  I should have known better.  It looks like that is not the issue (I hope) and there is something else going on that I have to chase down.  There is still a leak and I started to notice some clutch chatter so I need to figure this out pretty quickly before I am fixing a clutch (if not more).  Ugh.  There are all kinds of things that can cause this from intake gaskets to valve cover gaskets to oil pan gaskets to rear main oil seals (which I hope it is not).  I need to get this diagnosed.  If anyone has any thoughts feel free to say something in the comments.

The bellhousing is covered in oil as well as the transmission, but this could be cause of several things

Oil is collecting on the intake next to the valve covers on the drivers side

There is all kinds of oil over the fuel pump

The rear of the intake looks dirty, but not all that wet with standing oil.

Shotgun!

It's finally done, I re-upholstered my front seats:

All done and ready to go

I pulled the seats originally back in March when I started the stereo install.  There was a pretty nasty tear in the passenger side seats, so I got some new foam and upholstery from TMI.  CJ Pony Parts had a sale back in February, so I got them then.  Well March came, and April too, and I never found time to start the seats, so I put them back in the car because the weather was starting to get nice and I needed to drive the car.

Cobra Oil Pan Install

I took off work on Friday to do some work on the car.  Since my semester ended at school, I wanted to catch up on some of the winter spring projects that I haven't gotten to yet.  First order was installing the Cobra T Oil Pan I picked up from Tony D. Branda from my hometown of Altoona, PA.  I also picked up a new FelPro one-piece oil pan gasket that everyone raves about.  The pins that come with the gasket hold the gasket and the pan on the engine so you can bolt it in.

New 7.5q Oil Pan (stock image)

I followed the instructions from this Mustang Monthly article which made it look easy, but I had a hard time with this one.  The old oil pan was a deep from sump pan and I had to remove the brace, loosen the pitman arm, and remove the starter to get the old pan out.  Since the old pan was a deep sump, I needed to get a new Melling oil pickup from O'Reilly's to fit the new oil pan.

No Shift Kit

I decided today to get the mustang out of it's winter slumber.  Sure, I still have the front seats to do, but I won't be getting to them in the next couple of weeks so I went ahead and put the front seats back in.  It is just too nice of a day to keep it in the garage, plus I have taken a couple of days off work to do the seats once this semester is done at school.

Time to wake up!

Stereo Install

Well it is officially spring and I have yet to finish any of my winter projects.  I tried really hard to have the JVC work as a trick head unit hid in the glovebox while keeping the stock AM radio in the center console.  I tried to mimic what this guy did with his head unit, but I could not get the JVC unit to fit, it was just too big.  So I did the next best thing and installed it in the truck!

Well it was back to the drawing board with the stereo and I did some more research.  I found the RetroSound Model II stereo and thought I would give it a try.  It is a pretty cool idea to me, a retro looking stereo with all modern functions.  I especially like the Bluetooth streaming that works well with my Android phone.  CJ Pony Parts was having a 30% off sale in March so I picked one of these up.  I also used their nice installation video to get an idea of how to install the stereo:

Winter Projects

I am getting the itch to start my winter projects and boy do I have a bunch of them, but we will see what my time and money allow me to do.

Projects (listed in priority):

1. Stereo install
2. Front seat upgrade with 3-point seat belts
3. New ignition system with points-less distributor
4. New Shelby oil pan
5. Modern headlight upgrade
6. Subframe connectors

Thanks to CJ Pony Parts winter interior sale, I picked up new foam and seat covers for the front seats.  Just waiting on the parts to come in and I hopefully will have some time over my class break to tackle that project (and get seat belts by then).  I've done some research though and converting to 3-point seat belts might be a bit tricky on a '67.

In the meantime, I will work on the stereo install.  I finally have all the parts to put it together.  The one thing though that I am stuck on is how to mount the new head unit in the glove box.  I've done some research and gotten a couple of ideas, but I really don't have a clue how I am going to do this as of right now.  Looks like I need to look into it more.

Can't wait to get this installed and listen to some good tunes!

You've Lost that Spark

Thought I would give a quick update here while I avoid doing school work and my fantasy football team doesn't seem to want to score points today!

I broke out the thermal temperature gun the other day and was testing the coolant and I decided to check the headers as well.  Every cylinder was running at 500+ degrees except cylinder #8 which was at 200 degrees. I decided to go ahead and get a set of spark plugs.  I haven't changed the plugs since I have had the car and it probably was overdue anyway.  So I went out and picked up a set of Bosch Super Plus Spark Plugs from Summit Racing.  The plugs came and I ended up spending some time on Thanksgiving Day in the garage while the turkey was cooking.

Old Plugs (top) with the New Plug (bottom)

Feeling Gassy

Finally have some time to catch up on some of the projects that I completed at the end of summer this year.  One of my main goals was to get my gauges working reliably and the other was to replace the gas tank.

Gauge Problems:

• Temperature Gauge Pegs at 'H' around 200 degrees
• Fuel Gauge reads 'E' at a half tank of gas
• Oil Pressure Gauge pegs at high upon start-up
• Voltage Gauge reads fine

The first step was to replace the voltage regulator (previous post).  Although everything works now on the cluster, the gauges are sill not reading accurate.

So the next step was to go through and start replacing the sending units.  I picked up an Oil Pressure Sending Unit as well as an Temperature Sending Unit from Mustangs Unlimited.  After installation of these parts, the oil gauge worked perfectly but the temperature gauge was still running too high.  

I was out of ideas for the temperature gauge, so I hit the VMF Message Boards.  Someone mentioned adding some resistance to the wire to bring the gauge down so I went and picked up a 1/2W resistor kit and added a 3.5 ohm resistor to the line.  This brought the gauge down to where it reads 180 degrees around 3/4ths and creeps up to 'H' around the 220 range.  I am now comfortable with both of these gauges and don't feel like I need to freak out when I am sitting in traffic with a temperature gauge pegged at 'H'.  Now if I see that the gauge is pegged at 'H' I better get off the road and let it cool down (hasn't happened yet).

Temperature Sending Unit

Oil Pressure Sending Unit

New Gas Tank

Since I was going to be replacing the fuel sending unit, I decided to replace the tank as well.  It is at least 30 years old (if not the original) and just a good idea.  My guess is the float on the old sending unit has a hole in it that is letting gas get into it and not properly float.  

Regulators!

I finished up my finals for the summer and was able to get out to the garage tonight.  The order of business for the night was pulling out the console again and replacing the voltage regulator.  The last time I had the console out was for the Mini Tach Install.  But even before then, the gauges have always been a bit messed up.  The gas gauge only goes to 3/4 full and I don't trust it under 1/4 a tank.  The oil gauge pegs at high during start-up, and the temp gauge always reads high (but never over heats).  All together, I never trust if the car is going to run out of gas and overheat.

After doing so reading up on the forums, it looks like the voltage regulator might be the culprit of all three gauges not reading right.  The voltage regulator on a first generation mustang has a bimetallic arm and heating element that regulate the current flow to the instruments and keeps it close to a constant 5V.  The contact points can wear out over time, so I decided to replace it.  I picked up a solid-state one from Mustangs Unlimited.  The solid state is more reliable than the points version.

The new regulator (top middle, green) replaces the old one (bottom middle, white)

I also replace the high beam indicator (blue light) with an LED light.  The cluster is now 100% LED (and awesome).

We will see over the next couple of weeks how the instruments read, but I hope that fixes the readings I get now.

The junk yard dogs helped me out today (they become possessed after 10pm)