Motor Madness

After realizing the the spindles and brakes that were sold to me were for a 1967 Mustang and will not properly work on my 1966 Mustang, I have decided to put off the front steering and instead focus my attention on tearing down the motor for a check and new seals. I'm in the process of deciding whether I want to simply give in and spend the $540 on a complete Granada disc brake conversion or if I want to spend around $2o0 to find new front drum brakes and spindles and then buy spring kits and new brake shoes. In any case I don't exactly have the money lying around to do either, so I wait.

The motor that we're using in the 'Stang was formally in my first 1964 1/2 Mustang that my dad and I built between 1997 and 2000. It was in the car for maybe 2 years until I pulled it out to drop in my dad's 302 from his 1972 Ford pickup truck since i figured that the motor in his truck was better. My original motor is a Ford 302 bored over .30 with a mild street cam (with something like a 580 lift I believe, but its been 10 years since we had a machine shop put it together.) The heads are 1963 Ford 289 heads that had new valves, springs, and hardened seats put in when the engine was rebuilt. It was great on the street and was able to get up and go when I mashed on the gas, but after I dropped in my dad's pickup 302, I noticed that it felt much more sluggish off the line and in acceleration. The combination of the 302 block with the 289 heads was a much better choice for the Mustang. I'm glad it didn't get much use before it was pulled out to sit on an engine stand in my parents garage for 10 years.

It had an Edlebrock Performer RPM intake manifold and will possibly have a 4 barrel Holly carburetor on top of it. I'm not sure what the cfm output on the Holly is, but I'm sure it will be more than adequate for this 302. As you can see, we kept some masking tape covering up the hole where my old Edlebrock 4 barrel carburetor used to reside atop the motor.

This motor always seemed to run hot which is mostly due to the small sized radiator that Ford designed to go into the 65 and 66 Mustangs. After pulling the heads, we could see that there was water that leaked into the right (passenger) side of the motor. There was a little rust where the valves are on a couple of the cylinders...nothing a new head gasket won't fix! My dad is going to take both of the heads to his machine shop and have them checked to make sure they don't have any cracks and don't need to be planed. We'll probably put the motor back together next week and we'll then be able to drop it in the car. Oh happy day.

Here are some pictures of the cast stamps on both the heads and the block:

C8AE 6015-B 302 Block

I found a blurb about the casting number on my 302 on ClassicMustang.com:

"They did however, design and produce a 302 block that was used on 289s after the stock of 289 blocks was depleted. The number was C8AE-6015-B with 302 marking in the lifter valley."

"C8AE-6015-B is a 302 block from the Windsor plant that was used in 1968 on a 289."

289 Head Stamp

289 Head Stamp

289 Stamp on Head

302 FoMoCo block lifter valley

302 rear of block stamp

Steering in the Right Direction

I worked on the car the past couple of days in the rain (usually under a small cover) since I didn't want to forfeit my weekly time to work on it. I decided to continue working on the steering and suspension since that is one of the more important things to install before putting in the engine--not that it had to be installed first, but it makes things much easier. Yesterday I put together the entire front end steering parts (center link, inner/outer tie rods, steering cylinder, hoses, etc.) and today I installed it in the car after pulling off the steering links and replacing the rubbers.With new parts and a painted engine compartment, the front end is looking much better!

Before:

After:

Of course it's still a work in progress since you don't see the master cylinder, export brace or accelerator linkage, but you get the idea. I also need to re-paint the area where the motor mounts were since I had to re-weld that section of the frame as seen on the right side of the engine compartment. When we were having to use a wench to pull the frame where the lower control arm mounts, it split the metal. As you can can see, I had to pull the motor mount brackets in order to move over this area. I'm waiting to re-paint this area before I put the brackets back on the car. I didn't paint it today because it was raining too much and since I'll be using the POR-15 to seal the metal, I'll want to wait-- if any water gets in the paint, it won't stick to the metal.

The car is looking much more like a car with the steering and most of the suspension back in the car now. I think that Lauren would like the car much better now that its starting to look less like a monster and more like something you can drive. We would have put the 1" lowering springs in, but we couldn't find the spring compressors to make them fit. We'll have to find them at which point we will be able put the springs and shocks in. As you can see in the picture to the right, I put the spindles on as well. I'm glad that the entire front end is composed of all new parts and rubbers. My first car (1964 1/2 Mustang) squeaked when it rained and that would get annoying quick.

Differential Dissapointment

After doing some research today, I discovered the the 9" rearend that I bought months back will not work in my car unless I cut the housing and shorten the axles. The distance between spring perches is the same, however there is additional 1 1/2" on each axle leaving the tires to stick out past the wheel-well. It will also work if I can find rims that have the correct offset to accommodate the additional width. Bummer. And to think I spent time pulling it apart and getting it ready to put back into the car soon. I also bought new u-bolts to mount it--another waste of money. My dad is going to see if Mustang Village will trade my 9" rearend for one of their 8" rearends. We'll see...

I spent some time working on the 'Stang today since my wifey was working on a group project in Yorba Linda for a few hours this fine Saturday afternoon. I wanted to start putting in the front steering and suspension so I started with the lower control arms...additional frustration ensued. As you can see in the picture, the lower arm and the strut rod don't line up. It looks like the area that they are bolted up to took a little bit of a beating so that they don't pivot in a straight line. We'll have to straighten it out in order to move forward with this portion of the project.

I did, however get the opportunity to actually fit in the upper control arms after greasing them. I was glad that at least something fit on the car today. I also bolted in a new spring perch on the A arm before mounting it as one piece onto the car. Both sides were installed today although I'll only put up the driver's side as an illustration. I think the car looks much better with a baby wing growing out of the side. Once we get the lower control arm installed, we'll be able to mount the spindles and then the brakes. We'll probably put in the rest of the steering parts before we put in the spindles though. I also used the rebuild kit for the power steering cylinder to rebuild it and then I cleaned off the grime and old paint in order to put a coat of POR-15 on it.

One of the last things I was able to get done on the Mustang today before coming home to my wife was to install the motor mount brackets. I wanted to make sure that they fit in the car before we get ready to drop the motor in. They fit great and also look great. After I took the picture shown to the right, I scraped off the part tags, prepped the metal and coated them with some more POR-15. This car continues to come together one piece at a time and it looks like it might take a bit longer than I hoped it would to finish because it will also cost more than I had hoped it would. Completely restoring a car can not only be a drain on time, but also on the wallet. I estimate about another $4000 before this beast is ready for the road and/or local car shows.

Stang Info

Click on the image above for a clearer image

After using a website to enter in my Mustang's information, I was able to come up with a little more detail about it. In case you have a Mustang and would like to know the details about its origin, feel free to check out the website: 'http://www.mustangdecoder.com/decoder.html'

Sealin' the Car

Instead of using my lame 2.0 megapixel camera phone, I decided to take my Nikon digital SLR and shoot a few pictures. As you can see to the left, I have used some sealant to seal the seams on the floor of the 'Stang. That will help keep out moisture and also slightly keep down some of the road noise.

I also took a picture of the ceiling of the car showing that I sealed it with the POR-15 as well since it was showing mild signs of surface rust from years of sitting in the open with no headliner. The black around the edge is also POR-15, but I ran out of the silver and had to start using a different color. I also painted the black through the openings next to the back glass.

Not to be forgotten is the engine compartment that my dad primered and re-painted with a semi-flat black Rustoleum paint. I like the flat look better than I would a semi-gloss or even a gloss because I don't think the engine compartment should shine...the engine is what needs to stand out. It has a very clean look and I'm happy with the way it turned out. After coating the outside of the engine compartment with rubberized undercoat, it was also primered and painted with the same black paint. It is my intention to paint the rear differential with the same paint before we put it back in the car.

Just for the sake of taking one, I took a picture of the VIN tag with all of the car's information stamped on it.

On Wednesday, my dad and I sprayed the floorboard with the rubberized undercoat to help seal it and also to keep down on road noise. Of course we are going to put something else down (probably rubber matting cut to fit) to help keep down on the noise that will be created from the mufflers under the car as well as the noisy road. The sheet metal isn't as thick as one would think, so we've got to put something down to help keep it quite inside the car.

Still Por-in'

Tuesday I roughed up the POR-15 that my dad sprayed in the engine compartment so that we can spray a coat of primer and then a sealing coat of black paint. I also using caulking to fill seams that we had removed the original sealer around the firewall and under the front fenders. I didn't get as much done as I would have liked because I got stuck at work for an extra hour and was feeling tired around 8pm.

Today my dad bought gray primer, sandpaper, lacquer thinner and some rubber undercoating for the car. I sprayed 3 of the cans around the front and rear fender areas and will be sure to spray a couple of more cans around there, under the car and also inside of the car on the floorboards after I seal the seams with caulking. The picture to the left isn't that great, but you can see that the paint is much more dull than it was a few entries ago. Now that it has been scuffed, the primer will be able to stick to the POR-15. You can see that along the side of the engine compartment, its much darker than it was before since I have a first coat of rubber laid down.

Brushing the silver POR-15 in the interior was good because the floor pans I welded in were already beginning to show signs of surface rust. Now that they are sealed on the bottom and on top (interior) they will last just about forever. I also took the time to lay down some of the rust paint in the trunk since there were a few spots that showed signs of rusted metal. The trunk area didn't look as nice as the interior, but it doesn't really matter since this is only a first coat of paint. I'll be sealing the interior, then laying down a coat of rubber and paint before putting in rubber mats and carpet. I'll probably be doing much of the same to the trunk as well. The paint was very pungent in smell and although I was supposed to use a mask, I forgot...hopefully I don't have permanent brain damage from breathing the fumes for as long as I did. I'm getting closer and closer to beginning to put the front end back together! All that's left is primering and painting the engine compartment before we can drop in the suspension and steering.

As you can see from this picture, we threw a coat of black primer on the area that I welded in a section of sheet metal to shore up the section that the export brace mounts to. It looks very clean after using some caulking to seal where the welds were against the cowl. I would imagine that the rest of the engine compartment will look just as good after some primer and paint.

More Welding

1966 Radio Hole

When I went over yesterday I spent some more time cleaning the floorboard inside the car and welding spots here and there. I welded in a small piece of sheet metal on the passenger side floor, and also welded in some washers behind the dash where the stereo resides. The original stereo had vibrated in the dash for so long that the holes where the volume and tuning knobs came out were worn and sagging. Putting another stereo in there wouldn't help because it wouldn't fit correctly with over-sized holes. After I welded in the washers, I had to use a hand held air grinder to grind the metal flush with the rest of the dash and then had to use drill bits to ensure a better circle. I should have taken a picture before welding in the washers to show how badly the holes were worn. The left side was worn about 1" down and 1/2" wide and the right side was about 1/2" down and 1/2" wide.

I also re-welded a tab that was in place to hold in the backseat that had come loose. We're going to shoot a layer of primer over the POR-15 and then a coat of black paint. That is the next step before we drop in the engine, steering and suspension and isn't too far away.