Moving Along...

I continue to order new parts for the 'Stang, but have yet to work on it since my last blog post a week ago. I've ordered the block plate, throwout bearing, clutch fork, pivot ball, rear differential u-bolts, and rear shock plates. I have just about everything I need (minus mounts) to put the motor and transmission into the car. I shipped out my front steering parts and my new ones are now on their way to California; they should be here by the end of the week.


My next step is to primer and paint the engine compartment in order to drop in the 302 sitting in the garage. I also need to cut out the rear floor pans and weld in new ones in order to paint the underside of the car so that I can put the rear back in. I've got a bid in on Ebay for a set of gauges for a '65 'Stang. Since the shipping is $16, my bid is for $5.99 and the auction ends tomorrow at noon. We have a set at the house, but they have a bend in them and a new set would be ideal.

I should have the chance to work on the car Sunday and I'll provide an update then.

Steering Removal

I dropped off Lauren with her boss and another doctor as they were on their way out to Vegas to learn more about the fun-filled world of X-Rays for the day. It was sad to see her go, but it gave me the opportunity to work a little more on the 'Stang. It's been extremely hot in the Inland Empire and today was no exception. The temp gauge in my dad's truck read 105 degrees!

I had a guy name Miguel come over at 10am to buy both of the 64 1/2 hoods for $200. He hung around for a while and talked to me about Mustang stuff and different avenues to get the same parts cheaper. He told me about a kit that would allow you to put disk brakes from an 05-09 Mustang Cobra for around $450. The only downside to this was that you would have to put 17" rims on the car because of clearance issues with the caliper.




When he left I continued to strip down the engine bay to prepare it for metal etching primer and paint soon to follow. I would be pulling out the steering parts (control valve, tie rods/sleeves, and idler arm) in order to ship it to Illinois to get the V8 steering parts I need. I'll update when I receive the new parts.




I went inside to grab a bite to eat around noon since I was famished and after taking off my rubber gloves, I could see that I might be in need of a bath...Lauren probably wouldn't want me to give her a hug looking like this! You should have seen how dirty my face was!


I stripped down the cross bar that runs underneath the motor connecting both sides of the car. I'll paint it black to match the rest of the engine compartment.



I pulled out the front sway bar and after looking at it up close, I've decided to swap it out for a beefy 1" or 1 1/8" sway bar to stiffen the handling. The sway bar that came in it was for a 6 cylinder motor so dropping in a 302 eight cylinder will add the need for more stability. They run an average of $100, so it looks like I'll be putting that off for a little bit longer. The car won't be on the road for at least a few more months and I have some basic drivetrain parts to buy (i.e. motor mount, trans mount, throwout bearing, pilot bearing, pivot ball, u-joints, etc, etc.)

UPDATE 10-11-11

I broke down and bought the 1" front sway bar and installed it prior to finishing the car. You can see the entry HERE.

I Said, "Motor Mount BRACKETS!"

1965-66 Mustang Motor Mount Brackets

After the mix up with the guy that sold me $20 worth of motor mounts for $50, I found a guy in Placentia that had a brand new set of the motor mount brackets. They run about $110 at any Mustang parts place you go to, but he sold them to me for $75 saving me $35 (which will come in handy for other things later).



On another note, I am going to trade my front control valve, center-link, and tie rods plus $190 for a rebuilt control valve, center-link, tie rods, idler arm, power steering hoses, and a cylinder rebuild kit. The place is called Chockostang and they are located in Illinois. I still need to pay for shipping of my parts to him, but I'd say its a pretty decent deal. I know for sure that I'm saving at least $70 on the tie rods/idler arm so it works for me. I'm going to pull the front end off and mail it to him and await the new parts so I can put my entire front end together.

8" Rearend

Well there certainly have been some eventful things that have transpired over the course of the past few days. I drove to a transmission parts house in Anaheim off of Ball Road to pick up a new front bearing retainer plate and seals for the T5 (which cost be $28.28), and also inquired about them possibly purchasing my other T5 that I have at the house. They said that if its a "turner" (meaning that the input shaft spins), they could pay up to $100. I'll have to see if it spins, and if so, I'll swing it by there sometime next week. After I picked up those parts, I drove to a guy named Scotty's house to pick up the rear shock plates/U-bolts and the engine mounting plates (not the engine mounts). When I got there, he informed me that he didn't have the shock plates that he said he did. Later I would find out that the motor mounting brackets that he gave me were actually motor mounts that I could have purchased at Kragen for $9.99 each (he charged me $50 for two used ones). I called him tonight and told him I wanted my money back and he agreed to give it to me on Monday.


The guy that came to look at the inline 6 motor actually bought it for $150 (even though I had it advertised for $100) because that was the price we agreed upon. The new front end suspension parts that my parents bought me for my birthday arrived at their house in Riverside this afternoon, but we will hold off putting them on until I have cleaned and re-sprayed the frame with rubber undercoating.


While I was at the house today, my job was to disassemble the rear differential and clean off all the grease and road grime. It looked pretty gross. The brake pads on the rear are actually cracked and need to be replaced, but they are pretty inexpensive and I don't have a problem spending the money to replace them when that time comes. The rear is missing the brake line that connects both drums, so I'll have to purchase that from somewhere. As it turns out, this rearend is not an 8" from a 65-66 Mustang...it is an 8" from a 67-68. This means that the overall width of the rearend is 2" wider which will create a need for special backspacing on the rear rims.



I first had to spray some rust remover on the third member bolts to get the nuts off without breaking the housing. It took me only a few minutes to actually get them off, but I'm glad I spent the time cleaning the threads before running them off with an impact air gun. Of course I drained the oil and pulled the axles out before pulling the 3rd member out. One of the axles had been pulled before (possibly to replace a seal) and came out much easier than the other side. The bearings seemed to be in pretty good shape so I'll leave them in for now.


Once I had everything apart and was left with an empty housing, I decided to spray some degreaser on the housing and let it soak. While I let it soak, I used another air tool to clean off the flywheel and pressure plate in order to have it ready to put in the car. It had some surface rust and junk on it, so it needed a little cleaning. Once the degreaser set for about 20 minutes, I used a wire brush to clean off some of the grease. Of course there was a lot of old grease on the rear, so I resorted to using an air tool with a circular scruff pad on it. This allowed me to clean off most everything right down to the bare metal.


From here we'll have to pull my brother Calvin's 3:55 rear gears from his Mustang to drop into my 8" since I'm putting in the 5-speed. He'll want me 2:79's since he is only running the stock C4 3 speed automatic. at 65mph he's currently turning 4,000 RPM and would like to have his motor turning at less than 4,000 revolutions per minute. I on the other hand, would love to have higher gears since I have 2 extra gears in my tranny which will still allow me to have low RPM's on the freeway but performance on the street. After we swap gears, I'll be able to primer and paint the housing to get it ready to put back in the car.


My dad pulled out the engine the other day when that guy came by to buy it, so now I have a gaping hole where there previously was a somewhat smaller gaping hole with an inline 6 trying to fill the space. He spent his time this afternoon/evening pulling out the existing wires and some of the steering parts to get it ready for sanding and painting. This little project certainly is coming along nicely. Hopefully I won't have to switch over all of the steering parts on the front end because that would end up costing me a pretty penny. We'll test it out the new parts soon enough to see if that will be the case.

Flywheel, Clutch & Pressure Plate

Yes, you guessed right, I purchased a used flywheel, clutch and pressure plate for the 'Stang. I had posted an ad on Craigslist (a free online classifieds page) mentioning my need for a 28oz flywheel for an early Ford 302 block. I received three different responses within a couple of days, but the best offer by far was a guy named Brian who was offering me not only his flywheel, but also his clutch and pressure plate that only had about 3,000 miles on them. The best part of the deal was that he only wanted $30 for everything! I couldn't believe how cheap the parts were and there was no way that I would pass up the offer. The parts came off of his 1966 Mustang 4-speed that he had sitting at his parents house in Oceanside, but he was living in San Juan Capistrano. We decided to meet at the San Juan house on Monday once I got off of work in Irvine. The parts looked decent and the flywheel only had a couple of small heat cracks in it, but looked pretty good overall.

Update 09/02/13: I pulled the flywheel and clutch setup above and installed a Ford Racing 10.5" setup. The post for it is HERE.



He had a few other parts including a Holly 4-barell carburetor (without a choke) for $60, a re-surfaced head, '66 instrument bezel, and a Holly fuel pump for $10. Figuring that I would probably be in need of a fuel pump when the motor went in, I decided to buy the fuel pump for an extra ten bucks. Yet another deal I couldn't allow myself to pass up. He said that he had even more parts like front seats and other miscellaneous parts. He seemed like a nice guy and told me to let him know if I needed any other parts and he would let me know if he needed any parts from me. This was a much better transaction that I have had in recent weeks with people online. I hope to have many more encounters like the one I had today.



I still need a few parts to complete the drive train: throwout bearings, clutch cable kit, starter, transmission mount, speedometer gear, front/rear transmission seals, front bearing retainer, motor mounting brackets, motor mounts, alternator, radiator, etc, etc, etc. I'm hopefully selling the inline six for $150 tonight which will fund a few more of those lovely parts. I'll let you know in the next update!

Still Dismanteling!

I was fortunate enough to spend most of Saturday and some of Sunday working on the car this weekend since Lauren was at Gail's on Saturday morning and hanging out with different friends on Sunday afternoon. When I got to my parent's house on Friday night I pulled out most of the interior including the seats, carpet, glove box door, rear quarter panels, scuff plates, and kick panels. There is definite rust in the rear floor panels, but fortunately we have brand new rear floor pans to weld in place of the rusted ones. While I was digging in the garage this weekend I found a few other new parts that we'll be able to use for the 'Stang (i.e. window roller clips, new heater knobs, etc).


We pulled out the rear differential on Saturday, but not without incident. While we were un-bolting the passenger-side leaf spring, the rear end fell off the jack and landed on my face. Fortunately it missed my eye by about one inch, but it did leave a cut and a swollen face and head. A guy came over and bought the rear end for $80, which will just go towards purchasing some leaf spring mounting plates and U-bolts for the new 8" rear that we bought a couple of weeks ago. The car looks a little naked without the rear end, but it will be clothed again within the next couple of weeks I'm sure. I've been coresponding with a guy in Orange who has the plates and bolts i need to put in the new rear. Calvin wants to swap gears with me so that I will have 3:55's and he'll have 2.79's.



On Sunday we pulled off the front drums/spindels. We had to compress the spings to get them out, but they didn't give us too much trouble. We're going to cut one ring off of the sping so that it drops the front of the car about 1". I think we're going to re-use the gas shocks that were already in the car because they seem to work fine, and if they don't work right, they're easy enough to change out. As it turns out, the upper and lower arms have worn out bushings, and it would cost more money to have the bushings changed than it would to just buy new ones. Since my birthday is in a few weeks, my parents offered to buy me new upper and lower control arms as my gift! Very generous! Once I have those, I'll be able to put the front end suspension back together and get it set back on the ground. We'll want to clean up the area and probably paint/undercoat it so that it looks good. I think that we're going to pull out the engine the next time we work on the car. We already have everything un-hooked and the motor is ready to come out. We found a holly double pumper four barrel carburator in the garage, so hopefully we'll get to put that on when the engine is dropped in.

Transmission

I recently acquired the T5 that will back the 302 motor going into the 'Stang. I drove out to Los Angeles after work today to pay some guy named Romeo $180 for the transmission and shifter base. It supposedly came out of a 1988 5.0 Mustang...but who knows. Traffic coming home was horrific, but I survived the L.A. freeways without injury. I plan on swapping Calvin's old 1966 hood for the bellhousing + $20 to pay for a new pivot ball that it is missing. I talked to a guy in San Juan Capistrano named Brian that is going to sell me the flywheel, clutch and pressure plate for only $30!!! The flywheel was recently resurfaced and the clutch only has 6,000 miles on it...can you believe it?! I'm going to pick it up from him on Monday after work. I'll still need a few parts like the block plate, clutch fork, bearings, clutch cable kit and starter. it might seem like a lot, but its really not. maybe another $350 before its all said and done. Things are lookin' up!



I've been cleaning up chrome and stainless steel parts for the car when I get off of work during the week to help move things along while I can't physically be with the car. last week I had a '65 glove box door and the stainless steel molding that goes around the front windshield. This week I have the '66 bar grille, horse and corral, grille support molding and one emblem. I should have them cleaned up and ready to take back to the house to exchange out for other parts.








I like the pace things are moving along. I think we'll pull out the straight six on Sunday when I'm at the house to drop off the transmission. More to come!

Dismantling

The 'Stang will be sitting at my parents house until we have a place of our own that we can park that car. My dad and I pushed the car into the driveway in front of the garage to make it easier to work on when we do find the time to put into it. I went over to the house on Saturday to pull out the transmission and driveline since a guy wanted to give me $150 for them. I noticed some rust on the underside of the car on the passenger-side rear of the car. We'll need to pull out the interior and weld in some sheet metal to shore it up. Now the mid-section of the car is empty and awaiting a T-5 to fill the gaping hole that now occupies its underside.






While I was at the house and had some extra time to kill, I decided to start dismantling the front end of the car so that we could more easily work on the engine compartment. While I was pulling off the front valance and fenders, i noticed multiple metric bolts in the place of the standard bolts that are found on American built cars. The metric bolts were put into place to help hold the car together since the previous owner didn't have standard bolts laying around. The front of the car looks a bit naked now, but its hidden from the gaze of strangers. The frame of the car appears to be in pretty good condition as well, so I won't have to do much work to it to get it ready to put the fenders back on and prep it for paint. I did find some rust on the trunk of the car which will require a little extra attention. Its only a little spot on the bottom left corner of the trunk, but it will need to be cut out and filled. We'll also need to stop the rust from spreading by using some anti-rust product.


The next step in the process is to pull out the engine so that we can sand down the engine bay and prep for paint. We'll use a metal etching primer and a high heat black paint that will withstand the high temps that the engine will be putting out once that beefy 302 with 289 heads is dropped in. It was the same engine that was completely rebuilt for my first 1964 1/2 Mustang that I had when I was in high school. I took out the engine to put in a different 302 that my dad had in his Ford pick up trunk because I thought it would be a better engine. As it turned out, it was a little slower than the first engine that was in there, but I left it out anyways. Fortunately we still have it in the garage and ready to be used again to burn some rubber off the rear wheels.

Buying the Car

While we were in Honduras, Lauren and I discussed one day buying and restoring a classic car. After looking at pictures of different cars, we decided on the Ford Mustang since we both liked the way they looked and that parts were fairly abundant--knowing how to work on them was an added bonus. We figured that we would buy one in a few years upon owning our own home and having steady jobs. I happened to run across an ad on Craigslist.com for a complete 1966 Mustang coupe with a 3-speed manual transmission for $1350. The first thing I did was call my dad to see if he would be interested in buying it for himself, but he then offered to front the money to buy it for me and Lauren instead. I talked to Lauren about it, and she thought it would be a good idea since the car was complete and very affordable.



Upon arriving in Fontana to look at the car, we realized that it didn't have a 289 motor like the ad claimed...instead it had a straight-6 which meant that it also had a 4-lug rear and front spindels. Everything else about the car looked good though and since it was complete, I couldn't pass it up. I low-balled him by offering him $800, but he said that he wouldn't sell it for less than $1200. A few minutes later I talked him down to $1100 and had a pinkslip in my hand. We had a tow truck from AAA come out to pick up the car to take back to my parents house in Riverside for storage.



Besides the car being set up for a manual transmission, another good thing about it was that it had an original center console much like my first 1964 1/2 mustang. The console was still in great shape, although it needed to be cleaned up quite a bit. The rest of the interior was in-tact (or in the trunk) and would be easy to restore with a little time and money. I am going to put in the 289 that was rebuilt and dropped into my first Mustang when I was in high school. I took it out to put in a 302 that was in my dad's old 1973 1/2 ton Ford pickup truck. I'm fortunate to still have the 289 sitting in the garage with a high rise Edelbrock "Performer RPM" intake manifold on it. I'll have to convert the front spindels and rear differential to a 5-lug set-up, but I may have found a guy that will sell both of those to me for $200.


In the mean time, I will spend my extra time cleaning up the parts that I will be able to re-use so that I won't have to buy new parts. I brought the entire center console to Anaheim Hills to clean it up in my spare time after work. I think that it has turned out pretty nice so far. I'll clean up the glove box door next by also stripping off the faded-black paint that adorns it. For now I'd say that the console looks pretty darn good. My only concern is that it fits with the 5.0 Mustang T5 transmission that I'll be putting in.





Looking at the rest of the car, its not so bad...
















































































I'm going to do my best to document the restoration process so that my kids will one day have something to look back on--maybe it will inspire them to do something great. Plus I just like to write and upload pictures, so this provides a good outlet.