What did you do to your car today?

[tony-muscle]

I replaced the 40+ lbs 24F battery for a 17lb Brielle battery. These are AGM batteries and the cost is reasonable. They come at about double the price of a standard battery. A little less CCA, at 475, but since I don't drive in the winter I think it is plenty. So far it starts with no problems. That's an easy way to take 25 lbs of the nose and saving the hassle of relocating the battery to the trunk. I will post pictures later in my build thread. Yes, it looks kind of awkward since the battery tray is twice its size. It is definitely not a mod for purist.

 

[droptop73]

I corrected a couple of wiring gremlins from my harness install. ALL my gauge lights work now!! I need to install a tach adapter and hopefully get that working. Then some maintenance to get the car ready for a 2800 mile cruise to the east coast.

 

[Stillakid54]

Fall on the prairies. A beautiful day, just a bit cool for the top to be down.

 

[droptop73]

Fall on the prairies. A beautiful day, just a bit cool for the top to be down.

Looks great!! It's good to see them out on the road.

 

[mrgmhale]

I did not work on the cars, but I did hook our 73 Mustang Convertible, with its 302 2v engine, up to a refurbished Sun Oscilloscope just to see how well the scope was working after over 50 years. The refurbish work was done nicely by a former Sun rep, who works in conjunction with a group of other former Sun reps across the country. I had a blast tinkering with it. So much so that I plan to do it again this afternoon, just because it is a nice day and I feel like tinkering with it again!

Lynda and I did make a quick video showing my first time tinkering with the refurbished Sun scope. It is not meant to be an instructive video session, as in how to use the scope. I really put it together to show Dave Wager, who performed the refurbishment of the scope, how well it turned out after he had it delivered to us in Upstate New York. After I replace the ignition points I will do a video on how these scopes are used to set the engine tune variables to specification. That woulds like a fun weekend project to do, actually. I pulled a plug out the other week, and the electrodes on the plug I pulled looks great,. The scope patterns I saws do not indicate I am having a problem with the plugs with the voltage required to fire them, and the dissipation pattern of post-arc secondary current activity do not indicate a problem with the plugs or any other part of the secondary ignition either. So, I will not be replacing the spark plugs, just the points because the 10 degrees from spec in dwell, which tells me it is possible the rubbing block has work down more than I like, and doing a points gap reset with used points is not as accurate in attaining a good correlating dwell angle measurement as compared to setting a gap using a new set of points with no arcing on their surfaces.

 

[Stanglover]

Today I finalized the LED headlight water shields I devised for the 71-72's Mustangs. 73's will be on the way as soon as I can verify the fit on an actual 73 car.
If you've not followed my thread on this, I found out that water can easily get into the Hella headlights with LED's when I got caught in heavy rain while at a funeral for one of our local "car guys".
I looked at rubber seal that are sold, but these will not work unfortunately, so as my background is in automotive air induction prototyping, I have extensive experience with plastic vacuum forming, so I designed and built a homemade vacuum former. The result seems to have solved the problem, but I will confess I have not had the car out in an actual rainstorm. Tests with the garden hose were 100% positive.
Here are a few pics. 2078 shows the Sealight 9003 LED installed with its driver and plug attached (zip tied) to the inside bucket bracket. The idea was to totally cover all components as seen in 2073.
By the way, these LED's are amazing, just like driving a modern car. I highly recommend them.

 

[timachone]

Greg,

you are washing your car with a garden hose?!? Perhaps sometime with a pressure washer? David (Carolina Mustang) would be shocked...

Just kidding!

Nice product you did, it turned out really OEM looking!

 

[Stanglover]

Greg,

you are washing your car with a garden hose?!? Perhaps sometime with a pressure washer? David (Carolina Mustang) would be shocked...

Just kidding!

Nice product you did, it turned out really OEM looking!

HaHa! No, I don't wash my car with a garden hose, but I had to simulate a rain storm somehow! For those who are scared of water, you'll be pleased to know I NEVER use a pressure washer on my Mustang.
Thanks for the compliments and likes everybody.
Geoff (not Greg. Sorry Tim)

 

[Paul M]

Geeze, yest put the dash back together. I wanted to see the actual resistor wire circuit in the factory tach cars. More than one person mentioned the throttle position solenoid wire for a 12 vt source for a after mkt ignition system. It seemed far too convenient, so I soldered it in and no voltage. Checked at the connector no vts. Checked at the fuse 12vts is there. Everything from that fuse is resisted, it shows the voltage drop compared to others. Regardless, somewhere in the harness is a open wire. Par for the course for this rolling wreck that I'm resurrecting. I went and bought a relay and am going to wire the resistor wire to the relay to run my ignition. I do not want to borrow vt's from the wiper motor.(shared source for ignition) I was going to run one to the ignition switch (somewhere w/out sharing a source on a 14g wire) Nobody @ here has a pig tail for one of these std relays. I hope I don't have to order it. I have today to work on it.

 

[timachone]

HaHa! No, I don't wash my car with a garden hose, but I had to simulate a rain storm somehow! For those who are scared of water, you'll be pleased to know I NEVER use a pressure washer on my Mustang.
Thanks for the compliments and likes everybody.
Geoff (not Greg. Sorry Tim)

Ups, sorry, I meant Geoff! Seems I get older now ..

 

[Stanglover]

Ups, sorry, I meant Geoff! Seems I get older now ..

Nooooo problem!
Heck, I have trouble remembering my own name sometimes, let alone other's names.

 

[Bentworker]

My 71’ Grande is still in paint jail. Went up to visit it last week. Painter got the last of the bodywork finished up and it looks great. Has to roll into the booth for some more primer on the hood and quarters. Final block and sand should be coming soon.

He did a couple color spray outs for me, medium brown metallic (original color) and a pretty wild dark brown metallic with a vivid flop in the sun.

Now having him spray out some Porsche macadamia brown metallic. I think it will be the Goldilocks color, just right…

Sorry for the Porsche photos but these show the color well.

 

[Sheriff41]

My 71’ Grande is still in paint jail. Went up to visit it last week. Painter got the last of the bodywork finished up and it looks great. Has to roll into the booth for some more primer on the hood and quarters. Final block and sand should be coming soon.

He did a couple color spray outs for me, medium brown metallic (original color) and a pretty wild dark brown metallic with a vivid flop in the sun.

Now having him spray out some Porsche macadamia brown metallic. I think it will be the Goldilocks color, just right…

Sorry for the Porsche photos but these show the color well.

That should look real classy on a Grande.

 

[Steve73QMach1]

I am nearing completion on the interior refurb today. The majority of the hard stuff is done. I went with all new LED lights to brighten things up. That fold down seat was a real chore. A lot of the screws and all of the rubber bumpers were missing. It rattled like crazy. Everything is tight now. Door panels are next with speaker replacements. Upholstery is original so it has a few wear spots but not bad. This is an alternate all vinyl Mach 1 interior car (no comfort weave) that was used on the very late 1973 cars so I'm going to keep it the way it is. There's not too many of those left out there. I'm getting this car ready for its 50th birthday which will be 7/5/23.

 

[Big Red Mach 1]

Learned how to bend and flare fuel lines. Never tried before. Went pretty well actually.

 

[Michael O’Harran]

My build is all over the place. Now that the engine and trans are finally right, the driveshaft was confirmed for fit, pulled and rebalancing and then it’ll be painted before install. The quarter window pier window conversion has been a headache but about to turn a corner. It’s all wired. The interior should be complete in about two weeks, installed and all glass installed. Stereo is in and installed with rear speakers under the rear package tray. Rear view camera is wired through the sun visors. Exhaust manifolds are done being ceramic coated. It should all starting coming together quickly now. We are thinking by Christmas it may be done. Fingers crossed.

 

[tony-muscle]

Yesterday I went to a track day at Road America with the Mustang. It was a great time and the car behaved very well. I spun out in turn 3 but luckily I went skidding into the inner grass. No issues. I was back in the track within two minutes. My best times according to Tack Addict was 3:09.382. Unluckily we didn't get as much seat time as expected. After circling with a lead car and instructor I was only able to drive 3 full laps on my own so I am sure I could improve that time. I also noticed that in the long straights I coasted towards the end so I only reached 120mph according to the app. The few times I looked at my speedometer it was past 120, more like 130 when I started coasting. I am sure that as I gain more confidence at high speed I could push it faster and reduced the lap times. I was also gently in the engine not wanting to hold the RPMs above 5,000 for too long, so in the long straights I was shifting earlier from 3rd to 4th and to 5th. I was able to pass a few later Mustangs so that made my day.

 

[tpj71mach]

Yesterday I went to a track day at Road America with the Mustang. It was a great time and the car behaved very well. I spun out in turn 3 but luckily I went skidding into the inner grass. No issues. I was back in the track within two minutes. My best times according to Tack Addict was 3:09.382. Unluckily we didn't get as much seat time as expected. After circling with a lead car and instructor I was only able to drive 3 full laps on my own so I am sure I could improve that time. I also noticed that in the long straights I coasted towards the end so I only reached 120mph according to the app. The few times I looked at my speedometer it was past 120, more like 130 when I started coasting. I am sure that as I gain more confidence at high speed I could push it faster and reduced the lap times. I was also gently in the engine not wanting to hold the RPMs above 5,000 for too long, so in the long straights I was shifting earlier from 3rd to 4th and to 5th. I was able to pass a few later Mustangs so that made my day.


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That looks like an awesome day! Also your times sound pretty good considering your limited seat time and attempts. So jealous, something I always have wanted to do with my cars, maybe someday.

 

[Kilgon]

Yesterday I went to a track day at Road America with the Mustang. It was a great time and the car behaved very well. I spun out in turn 3 but luckily I went skidding into the inner grass. No issues. I was back in the track within two minutes. My best times according to Tack Addict was 3:09.382. Unluckily we didn't get as much seat time as expected. After circling with a lead car and instructor I was only able to drive 3 full laps on my own so I am sure I could improve that time. I also noticed that in the long straights I coasted towards the end so I only reached 120mph according to the app. The few times I looked at my speedometer it was past 120, more like 130 when I started coasting. I am sure that as I gain more confidence at high speed I could push it faster and reduced the lap times. I was also gently in the engine not wanting to hold the RPMs above 5,000 for too long, so in the long straights I was shifting earlier from 3rd to 4th and to 5th. I was able to pass a few later Mustangs so that made my day.


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You need to get a dash cam so you can post some of your runs. It's always exciting to see it from the driver's point of view - especially when it's one of our members and car.

 

[tony-muscle]

You need to get a dash cam so you can post some of your runs. It's always exciting to see it from the driver's point of view - especially when it's one of our members and car.

Yes I have one. I need to upload and try to render the Track Addict video.