What did you do to your car today?

[[email protected]]

Pulled hubby away from his 65 Pony and we dropped my 351C 4V and tranny into the 73 Coupe. Izzy is almost ready for paint again. I did listen to several members warning me about dropping the motor after paint. I choose to go ahead and drop them in before paint. Yup! Was told if I waited to drop motor and tranny later I would risk damaging the paint. Yup! You all would have been right! First thing hit was front Urothane bumper. No chips. Just a lot of panicking. But it's done. Sorry, covered motor before I took pics. I was more worried about my motor getting dusty, then pretty engine pics. Next is drill hood twist lock holes. Panic time!

 

[sm3570]

I took it out yesterday, wiped the dust off, drove it around the block...the engine got hot, then it wouldn't fire back up! *sigh*, I think the fuel is boiling at the fuel filter. Time to upgrade the cheap fuel hose.

 

[armyfox]

Just finished replacing fuel tank and cleaning carb. As soon as the wife gets done today I am going to go get some fuel for the tank and reinstall the carb. Praying the car starts up. It will be the first time I hear it run personally *crosses fingers*

 

[Stangace20]

Readjusted the headlights a bit (since one was aimed lower than the other), put a new AC condenser and valves in, and cleaned up the interior a bit.

We were going to take it out to a club event this evening but discovered the right rear turn signal doesn't work, and that the wiring for the lights in general seems a bit messed up, so given that it's going to be dark coming back and we don't want any hassle from the fuzz that (given my luck) will most probably be out, we just put it back in the garage

 

[[email protected]]

Got her paint and clear coat done. Hood locks done and came out sweet. She needs some wet sanding and buffing after black paint is done. One more step towards a sweet ride some day.

 

[droptop73]

Some day looks like today! Looking good Kat.

 

[71JCode]

Also posted this in my other thread from Sunday that chronicles the story of my 429: http://www.7173mustangs.com/thread-the-odyssey-begins-resumes?page=2

New video clips of engine run loaded to http://www.flickr.com/71jcode

Only got to work on it this afternoon and evening. But a very productive session. First, Scott, my favorite paint and body guy came over to assess and draw up the plan of attack for getting a decent 20-foot paint job on her so that we can make the Forest Lane re-union cruise in June.

Then my nephew John showed up. He got to work drilling spot welds out of the donor's passenger seat platform per Scott's orders.

I was busy with flushing the fuel plumbing. Got the electric pump working, installed a replaceable element fuel filter and proceeded to pump almost pure B12 through the tank and lines. Started by dumping out into a can under the tank and then extended to the engine compartment and then again to include the FPR and carb inlet lines.

When that ran free and clear, we drained everything out, ran about a gallon of gas through to waste to flush the lines, poured in about 3 gallons of fresh pump gas, hooked up the 850 Holley, set the floats with the help of the Holley fuel pump, and cranked her to life.

A little fiddling with the idle air screws and, what do you know? That beautiful, angry rumble purr of a heavily cammed 429 at 1200 RPM making music in the shop.

Warmed it up, checked the vitals. Pressure good. temps good. Ammeter was indicating alternator no-worky. Leaks non-existent except for the holey old headers. Clutch works. She was happy. Would've sat there idling away all night! That was fun!

Next project. After a lot of WD, heat and banging and prying, managed to get the rear drums free of the axles. Then it was time for a cold one or two.

Next w/e we continue the body prep for the booth and doing some brake-checks. Goal is to get both the donor and the banana's passenger seat platforms out so we can determine where to cut in the new floor patch. Also need to assess the alternator. Will be rebuilding the brakes in the back (mainly the hydraulics. The hardware and shoes look brand new. De-stripe it. Start to block sand off all the crow's footing in the rear half of the car. Get the dash out. Pull the steering wheel to work on the horn.

Some fun, now.

 

[Mr.Cleveland]

Getting ready for wheel/tire up grade... Went into the garage and checked all the fluids before cranking (car been sitting a while in the garage. While inspecting came across a small power steering leak maybe a old hose/clamp. So before all is done am gonna just replace all the hoses/clamps etc.... So after reading this the question is. WHAT DID YOU DO TO YOUR CAR TODAY ???

 

[mnlnvrz]

I actially took it out in the phx heat drove the hell out of it for the first time. I finally got the tranny to work by adding vacumm line from my edelbrock performer intake. Oh yeah i blew a tire while i was at it. My Elanore is finalling resting from a fun weekend.

 

[Manu Mach1]

I pulled my idiot light gauge cluster from my 72 dash and mailed it off to Bob at Rocketman's Classic Cougar Innovations so he can modify it to have a modern tachometer.

-KR

Hi, if you can make a small reportage about this update, with pics and blablabla, I plan to remove this idiot light as well on my 73 Grandé soon.

In contact already with Bob, nice guy.

Merci.

 

[Widowmaker00]

As time in this deployment is winding to an end, my wife is searching for a new house, with a garage, and I'm getting excited.

I have never had a garage before, and this summer marks my 10th anniversary with my car. I can finally, finally, tear the car down like I've always wanted. I'm finding myself making lists of things I need.

I am going to order a Marti Report today, I'm actually going to spring for the elite report. I figure why not? I don't plan on ever getting rid of the car so might as well. Getting the Eminger Invoice also. I'll post them up once I get them.

EDIT: I just ordered the Elite Marti Report! I will have to wait a few months to get the fancy stuff, but the regular report should be e-mailed to me in a few days.

 

[72HCODE]

did Oil/filter change.

changed plugs, first time since engine rebuild and valve stem Problems that the plugs were actually clean. gapped the new plugs to .45 instead of .35

brake fluid flush. Discovered my less then 3000 mile spring perches fell apart.

Replaced both front junky rubber spring perches with Roller Bearing spring perches.

 

[marks73]

Let me know if you feel a difference in those if you would. I was not impressed with the feel of them when I installed my new rubber ones.

 

[72HCODE]

I wasn't impressed either I didn't feel any difference in handling. I might be imagining it but it felt bumpier on the road. There was no night and day difference for me.

There was also the possibility that the load on my power steering pump was lower when the car was not moving.

However based on how the rubber ones fell apart I will keep the roller perches instead.

Thanks for the PM too

 

[marks73]

Know it doesn't sound like much, but after 7 weeks and 2 surgeries I was back in the garage and finished sanding and got my gas tank painted. Woohoooo!!!

 

[Mikes73]

The gas tank looks great Mark


The gas tank looks great Mark.

 

[Mister 4x4]

Wow! That tank DOES look great, Mark! What kind of paint did you use (and color, please - it's gorgeous!)? I'm thinking I will do mine now (since it's still empty and all).

Today, I took the 'new' tilt column back out of the car to see what I could figure out what went wrong with the tilt mechanism. Turns out, it's broken too. It worked great when I first got it... then got worse. Methinks the ebay seller might've gotten one over on me... or maybe it just coincidentally failed. Who knows - don't care. Here's what I found out:

I pulled the 'new' column apart and found a piece floating around inside. It looked big and chunky, and important as well. I could already see what's broken in the picture (the pivot) and decided to pull the original column apart as well. Fortunately, the same part seems to be intact (the original column had other issues... )

Confirmation of the broken pivot point.

I was able to clean everything usable up and get most of it back together - but forgot to take a final picture for the day. Seems good so far... I'll know more when I get it back in the car with the wheel back on.

A few things I learned:

• The pivot pins are just stuffed in there, and they're internally threaded. The screw in the top picture by one of the pins is what I used to extract the pins with a pair of needle-nose pliers.
  
• The main 'return' spring is a beast. On the left in the top picture - it compresses to roughly half its size to fit. I used a vice to squish it, then zip-tied it while compressed and stuffed it in - then cut the zip-ties... Voila!
  
• Parts washers RAWK! I got everything cleaned up and butter smooth again with some lithium grease (obviously, these were 'before' pics).
  

I will take more pictures and put together a 'How-To' thread. This is not nearly as scary as it looked to me when I first starting taking it apart.

 

[72HCODE]

learned my car HATES .45 plug gaps,,, got to pull all 8 and re-gap to .35

 

[HighOctane]

Installed the hood pins after getting the hood repainted. I waited a few weeks to give the chance for the paint to harden.

 

[droptop73]

After getting some suspension work done I changed the clutch linkage to make the release quicker. I used a chevy rocker ball for the pivot on the link... see chevy parts are good for something.