Sunday, January 30, 2011

Smooth Clutch Part II




I worked on the Mustang this Saturday while Lauren was at work. I needed to re-weld the clutch pedal stop onto the clutch pedal since I mistakenly drilled out the spot welds that held it in place. I first attempted to weld through the hole that we drilled into the bracket, but it didn't hold. I instead welded along each side and that seems to hold perfectly (although it doesn't look as nice from one side.)


I temporarily installed the clutch pedal support with the clutch pedal hanging on it in order to find out where the cable needed to come through the firewall. I marked the spot on the wall and put a small dent in it so that I could see where I needed to drill from the other side.



I then found where I needed to drill the two holes required to mount the support for the clutch cable, drilled out two 5/16" holes and mounted it. Bellow is what the setup looks like with the cable inserted.


Unfortunately the cable didn't quite reach the throwout arm once it was all installed and the clutch was positioned against the pedal stop. I'm currently conversing with Mustang Steve to try and troubleshoot the issue. If we can't figure out the problem, I'll just fit an extension to the end of the cable which will allow it to reach further.


On a brighter note, we tested the '67 Mustang driveline that my dad had laying around the house. This time I put a floor jack under the rear and jacked it up so that it simulated actual road conditions and came to find out the the free play is right between 3/4" and 1". He will take the driveline into a shop near his work to have it checked to make sure it is correctly balanced and then I'll be able to clean it up, paint it and install it.

Splendid Spedo



As previously mentioned, since I don't often have the opportunity to go to my parents house to work on the Mustang, I decided to bring home the gauge cluster to roll back the odometer to "000000" since I'll pretty much have a brand new car when I'm all done with it. It will have a different motor, transmission, rearend, suspension, etc etc. so there was no justification for keeping the original mileage on the odometer.


As noted above, the original mileage in the car was 69,395.8 when I pulled the cluster out of the car. Of course it's unlikely that that the original mileage didn't exceed 70K since the odometer starts back at zero after 99,999.9 miles. That was just another reason it didn't bother me to roll back the mileage.


Once I pulled out the speedometer gauge, I was able to see the odometer and the clip that held it into place. Using a small nail I was able to pry off the clip allowing the odometer to slide out.



After rolling back each number to zero starting with the 10,000th column (the far left in the picture) I would need to move the "lock" into the correct position before moving on to the next column. In all it took me about 10-15 minutes to roll all the numbers back to zero since I wasn't 100% sure what I was doing even after watching a video on youtube on how to do it. While I had it out I decided to use some rubbing alcohol and a Q-Tip to clean the numbers (especially the tenths column since it is white.) If you compare the above picture with the one above it you'll see quite a difference in the white.


The next step with the gauge cluster is to clean up the back, paint the needles florescent orange and to buy a new bezel and lens to put it all back together.


UPDATE February 5, 2011:

I decided to buy some plastic polish/restorer from Autozone and try it out on the original gauge cluster lens rather than automatically purchasing a new reproduction lens. It actually worked very nicely and although there are still some scratches on the lens, they will be out of sight once installed and the portion that shows looks pretty darn new. I'd rather use original parts when possible if they are in good enough condition.


I also painted the front and back of the gauge cluster housing and the metal spacer that mounts inside of the housing. The back of the housing wasn't painted before, but since there was rust on it, I decided to clean it up and paint it with Rustoleum flat black. The inside was painted with Rustoleum gloss white since the gauge lights need something to reflect off of for brightness.


I also painted the back of the metal insert which was also white, but had patches of black originally. I tried to mask it off so that it was painted in much of the same fashion as the original. I don't know exactly why they did it that way from the factory, but I wanted to keep it somewhat consistent. Below is what it looked like originally:


I'm going to still buy a new cluster bezel since the original is plastic, faded and broken in multiple locations. I'll also buy new blue gauge light covers while I'm at it. The pictures above only show three (3) because one of them was broken when I pulled the housing apart. The rest that are still mounted are warped and discolored anyways and should be replaced. When I have an extra $40 I'll buy the bezel and light lenses.

UPDATE February 6, 2011:

I received the needle paint in the mail yesterday so I took some time to paint all the needles in the gauge cluster.





Tell me those needles don't look fantastic...go on, tell me.


 UPDATE 07-24-2011

The gauges are complete! I received the bezel and instrument light covers last week and put the gauges back together the way they are supposed to be. You can see the blog entry HERE. 


Sittin' Pretty

Since I'm not at my parents all that often, but tend to have an hour or two here and there once I get off of work I decided to bring the front driver and passenger seat to strip and clean. So far I have only taken the driver's seat down to the frame, cleaned it, sprayed it with Metal Prep and painted it with Por-15. I still need to put the seat back together and will also need to weld one small spot on the top of the chair where one of the backing springs broke.



I have taken the passenger's seat down about 3/4 of the way down to the frame; the top is stripped and part of the bottom is disassembled. Once I finish stripping that chair, I'll spray it down with the Metal Prep and then paint it as well. I brought home the "poor man's A/C" vent and have completely cleaned, prepped and painted it. All I need now is the gasket seal that goes between it and the bottom of the cowl. I'll probably clean, prep and paint the bottom of the cowl when I'm at my parent's house on Saturday.

My next step will be to re-weld the clutch pedal stop onto the clutch pedal, re-paint that area with Por-15 and then install the pedal hanger assembly and pedals. I will then be able to finish installing the clutch pedal cable and connect it to the clutch fork. The plan is to finish that set-up tomorrow while Lauren is working. Not sure what else I'll work on tomorrow seeing as the above should keep me busy enough.


UPDATE- 03/15/11


I pulled the upholstery off of the backseat and as you can see below, the frame/springs had some surface rust on them. Of course the rust wasn't so bad that the frame was falling apart, but it needed to be cleaned up, treated and painted with Por-15 to keep it solid for years to come.


The above picture would be the current view if the trunk was open; its not a pretty sight.  I didn't get any "after" pictures, but it looks 100% better than it does here. There is no more sign of rust and it is now completely black.


My next stop is to finish taking the burlap interlaced with metal wires off of the bottom part of the rear seat before I can treat it and paint it. I'll probably tackle that job sometime in the upcoming week. 

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Smooth Clutch

I received the clutch pedal bearing kit and the clutch cable conversion kit from Mustang Steve on Friday. I wasn't able to begin the install process until Sunday afternoon since Saturday I spent the afternoon in wine country for Bethany's birthday with about 10 other people. Lauren worked on Sunday so she took her sister and Petey along. I went to church first so that I could teach the 5th and 6th grade boys and then stopped at my parents house on my way back home. I was at the house from about noon-4:45 working on the 'Stang today.

Clutch Pedal Support      -     Clutch Pedal     -    Brake Pedal   
I started off by pulling the parking brake and the cowl vent. Next I was able to loosen the nuts and bolts that held in the clutch pedal, brake pedal and the pedal support (mounted to the firewall and the dash. Both pedals came out easily and the entire pedal support was able to be removed through the opening for the gauge cluster. The parts looked a little rusty and in need of some TLC.

The first part I started working on was the clutch pedal since that was one of the primary parts that I was going to be working on today. I needed to bevel the top of the pedal at a 45 degree angle on both sides in order to weld on the quadrant in such a way that would allow me to grind the weld flush with the pedal but still allow the weld to hold.


Clutch Pedal
We used a clamp to hold the quadrant on to the clutch pedal after both the quadrant and the pedal had two 45 degree angles that met up to form a 90 degree angle. The two angles formed a valley that the weld would fill. Below you can see the quadrant welded onto the clutch pedal after I ground down the extra weld the sat higher than the clutch pedal.


Clutch Pedal with Mustang Steve Quadrant
The early style clutches installed in Mustangs used a heavy spring that mounted under the dash and onto a bracket on the clutch pedal which allowed the pedal to return to its original resting position once depressed. Installing the cable setup allows this heavy spring to be removed. I made the unfortunate mistake of also removing the bracket that is mounted to the clutch pedal. The bracket served a dual purpose: 1) To hold the clutch return spring and 2) To stop the clutch from coming up too far. I'll have to re-weld the bracket back on to the pedal after I sand off the POR-15 that I painted it with yesterday.

The next thing on the list was to install the roller bearing kit for the clutch pedal. This required us to knock out the pot metal bushings that were initially installed in the Mustang. Some cars have very worn bushings, but the ones in my Mustang were in great shape. I had my dad grind them down and knock them out so that we could get started. The first step was to clean up the support brace and clean the area around the opening so that I had a clean metal surface to weld. Next I welded in two large washers on the inside of the brace. Once they were welded in, I ground down the weld so that it was flush with the brace. The next step was to set and weld the bearing retainers on the outside of the brace.

Clutch pedal support with roller bearing sleeve welded
We put the entire setup together to ensure that everything fit together. I put a coat of POR-15 on all support brace, clutch pedal and brake pedal.



The next step is to re-weld on the spring bracket, coat it in POR-15 and then reassemble the pedal assembly. I'll still need to install the firewall brace where the clutch cable can be adjusted. I have to wait to install the firewall brace until the clutch pedal is in the car because it has to directly line up with the quadrant. I suppose I'll get to that another day.


Thursday, January 6, 2011

Kits On Their Way

On Monday I placed an order with Mustang Steve for the T5 clutch cable kit as well as the ball bearing kit for the clutch pedal. As soon as I get the kits I'll install them. I am free on Sunday morning, but I don't know if the kit will be here by then. The ball bearing kit was on back-order for a couple of days so we'll see when it's shipped. Since the car is pretty much torn apart it shouldn't be terribly difficult to pull out the clutch pedal and the pedal support.