Month: February 2013

A new game called “you dare!”

MM door sign

I will explain my new game towards the end but it is all relevant to what I got up to on Saturday. I usually have my little comment above where the logo sits just now, but it’s for a good reason that I break my little habit. This is a sign on one of the doors that greets you as you go in. Just a little sign that hides the Aladdin’s cave inside of automotive riches beyond belief. To somebody who has a modern car this really doesn’t seem logical, but trust me – it IS!

Saturday I took the drive down to see an important man – Adam from Mustang Maniac. This drive to my Holy Grail of Mustang offices is always a great day out for me, I get to see Mustangs, lots of Mustangs in fact, I get to buy things for my Mustang and I get to pick the brains of one of the few people I trust when it comes to my car; What more could a man ask for? If you have been following my blog and the progress I am making so far you will know that I have progressed to the brakes. Yep, the scary bit. Why scary? ’cause if you get it wrong its gonna hurt. Not only will it hurt in the wallet department to fix the damaged car, but also in the chest area. Reason for the chest pains is that in the sixties these cars came out and thundered down the roads, they owned the quarter-mile strips but not everybody gave them the respect they deserved, there were no airbags and the steering column is a metal shaft that has no collapsible sections. When people had accidents in these cars the lap belts didn’t really do much to be honest, so the result was they got what was called the “DROF” injury. I had heard this a few times before but never got to the bottom of it. My other trusted friend of mine Will, went on to explain (when I first got my car), that when they used to crash the drivers slammed their bodies into the steering wheels, if you had a particular embossed logo on you steering wheel it left an imprint with the massive bruise if you survived! What is “DROF”?? Again he said it quite simply, what is FORD backwards? Damn it, so simple and then the penny dropped. So now you know too.

Anyway, I digress, I had taken the front brake backing plate off in order to treat them and replace the shoes on them. I sent pictures to him and he said I should bring it with me so he could have a look at it with me to make sure all was OK. I arrived one hour later after I set off and parked up. I had my brake parts in hand, I went to the door like a kid going to the sweet shop.  As if by Magic Adam opened the door and said “Make a cup of tea if you want, I’m just taking Ruby for a little walk”. Ruby is a gorgeous dog that sits with Adam in his office, if your lucky she will sit with you. We chatted and put the world to rights for a few minutes, all the time Ruby was making sure she had her fair share of my attention. Then we got down to some serious stuff, the brakes I had taken off.  We looked and decided to go and compare with a set of drums that had come off for a disc brake conversion, they had not been touched other than that. I don’t trust anything the previous owner has done on this car. As we weren’t certain what was required for the moment, we decided to get the rear parts ready that I definitely needed, that’s new rear shoes and couple of cylinders, I already had the hardware for Christmas from the wife.  We got them sorted and then I was up for a tour of the latest developments and the cars. I was shown the new storage areas that were going on, being in the middle of a move is never good, but I took the photos anyway. I’m sure it will be sorted out – funny thing is, you ask Adam for anything, he will go straight to it. It’s rather uncanny how he can make sense of the new stores even in the middle of the move around. Not all of it is even labelled up again yet.

We were going outside to the yard, I made sure I was walking with Adam through the yard as we were greeted by the other six guard dogs. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love dogs, I liked these ones too. But, there is no way I would even walk near the gates on my own, they sort of look at you as if to say, “If you weren’t with Adam, we would eat you”. I’m sure the dogs licked their lips when they saw me coming! Quite frankly I got the vibes loud and clear thanks guys and girls.  There has been a new dedicated storage area built for the body panels, and a little further along there was a decent sized storage that could hold about eight to ten cars, Adam opens up to reveal benches stacked with engines, gearboxes, drive trains and axles. We find the brake drums comparison we were after, and then we move onto a dedicated area where there is a rather special car that is being built in its own workshop. I say being built as the engine is going to be a 5.4 modern v8 engine under the hood, with the brake horse power to rival most super cars, to top that it has bespoke independent suspension being added to the front, I have never heard of that modification let alone see it. There are no towers or firewalls in the engine bay, the metal is all being fabricated just for this car, a real one-off . Nowhere near finished yet but it will be something else when it is – lucky bloke.

We looked around at some other cars and I got the background on them too, then we wandered back to the gates along with my four-legged furry escort. We sat back down in the office and talked more cars. At this point more customers came into the office to see Adam and we all chatted for a bit,  we were shown his latest design for the 66 rear lights, LED versions behind the original lenses that looked epic. I will be having a set of them when I get to that point. I also managed to get a leaflet on the Evans Coolants. As I am a little worried about the over heating issues this is perfect timing, I have a PDF version here that you can read all about the Evans Waterless Coolant, or go to my “articles” section. It’s an impressive read that’s for sure. Again I will be having this in my car too when I get her going properly, if you have a Mustang that overheats, this will cure it. I have been doing my own research on this coolant as well, it looks impressive I feel the need for a review once it’s added. Lets face it, if Adam is selling this gear with the clients that Mustang Maniac has, then it has to be good.  Sadly time continued to march on, and like all good things it was time for me to go home, but hey, “I’ll be back” as Arnie would say. That you can bet my car on!

I will be producing an interview article with Adam soon that I will put in my articles section. I’m sure it will be an interesting read when I get round to editing it that is.

My Car:

Well I now have the new set of brakes shoes all round and I took the front brake assembly apart, and added the pictures here, or go to the “Front Brake Drum Rebuild (part 2)”, under the photo’s section “Wheels & Brakes”. I have treated the backing plates with the Granville anti rust treatment. During the week I will add the second coats, this will leave me in a good position to reassemble them next weekend ready for more pictures. I have ordered some extra treats to my self from Frost, some VHT brake calliper spray in black to make the drums look nice, along with some Eastwood under-hood black spray which I will review later on as well. I may even get to put the booster back in next weekend too. That is if the weather holds out. As i need to use the Rust Cure today it was to cold outside. I prepared the backing plates outside and brought them inside to finish on the floor in the utility room. My ears are still ringing from the verbal slapping I got. Apparently you can’t put dirty car parts on a clean floor. In my defence I did clean them in the utility sink, which again is not acceptable either as I got the clean sink dirty. How is a man supposed to clean car parts if he can’t use the sink? I was then gonna take them into the kitchen instead to clean them, it was at this point I was offered a game of “you dare”. I had not heard this game for a while, last time I played a variation of this game called “just you dare”, I didn’t win that one either. Bearing in mind the wife lets me have my pocket money each month for my car, I decided to finish the clean outside and not attempt to play, “you dare”.  Apparently this latest version of “you dare” with car parts now starts with the slow deep voice with hands on hips. I will look for these signs next time.

Hot tip for you, if you want to play “you dare”, don’t attempt to play it after your wife buys you parts for your car; this seems to tilt the odds against you.

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Classic Adverts

Many moons ago….

When I left school I took a four-year apprenticeship in Lithographic Proofing, that was hand feed pre-production runs of no more than twelve copies. Sadly that trade died with the onslaught of computers. As a result of my proud trade that took me years to master, I have seen the usual adverts for hair products, cigarettes,  perfume, vinyl record sleeves, video cases, jewellery, auction houses promotional posters, books and various posters. Some of them never went to press but most did. The advantage is that I still have some of those posters for Rolls Royce, Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, Jimmy Dean, Ayrton Senna, Mac Trucks, Ford etc. I mention the background history for a reason, I have always loved rare posters and photos and kept what interested me especially the cars stuff as I have always been a petrol head since I can remember. Why, I’m not sure, I was aways considered the black sheep of the family because of it as everybody else liked football (soccer). From those early days I had my bedroom wall covered in the posters of cars and some I put in frames. A few days ago I wasn’t feeling too good, so I was hunting around on the net for images of rare Mustangs. Yeah, I found some good pics, but what caught my eye was these old adverts that Ford came up with for their Mustangs. I’m not sure with all the politically correct brigade out there now that they could get away with some of them today. What struck me was the way that the times have changed, “featuring all vinyl interiors” and the like. I just had to share these, due to the age and perhaps not so good scans of them they are difficult to read, but you get the idea though. I did try and get better copies but without much luck. Perhaps a little self-indulgent on my part, but hopefully they can be appreciated for what they are, a little piece of history of a great car. I wonder if anybody can remember these adverts at the time and maybe had them on their walls. I am also looking to do my garage up with some old vintage metal signs, you know the sort, Champion, Michelin, Ford,  Shell, Esso etc, I just have to keep my eyes open in the antique shops, but I havn’t had much luck so far. I hope you like them as much aa I do.

Please “Like” my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter if you enjoyed them.

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The Yin and Yang effect

Good & not so good

The weekend started of pretty poor, I had a bug which started Friday morning and stopped me in my tracks for 30 hours or so, as a result I have been busy behind the scenes with the blog, more of that in a bit. I managed to get out into the man cave on Saturday mid morning to start the cleaning of my front brake drum. This time the sun was out, and that made me feel better for a start. The birds were singing and I had time to do what I wanted. I started the ritual tidy and clean up, I looked to my side a caught sight of a tame blackbird just by the door, showing no signs of fear. Not only was he just starring at me but looked like he wanted some food, he obviously changed his mind and flew away. Do they sense you wont hurt them? Back in the man cave I spread out the shower curtain to get my make shift spray booth ready. I mounted and sprayed the brake booster on my home made jig. The results were exactly what I was after, that almost natural metal look with a little character of old age pitting showing. I have posted the pics “Photo Menu, Engine bay, Brake booster part 2” or click here. A real good days work was had and it was only and late afternoon, time to get a quick blue ray in too, this is turning into a great day. Coming back in I went to get changed and heard the toilet running, strange, as the wife was out it couldn’t be her. On lifting the lid to the cistern the float mechanism had got stuck open and over flowing back into the bowl. So now my great day was now startin’ to go down the pan literally. Now I’m not happy, I had to get the household DIY tools in to fix it as they are now locked up in the man cave. I found the spare float valve unit that I bought ages ago, but never used from another kit I had. So off came the cistern from the wall, water spraying all over the place from the remains of back pressure in the shut of valve all up the wall of my freshly painted bathroom. The contents of my tool bag now all over the bathroom floor on a damp towel. the cistern parts mixed up amongst them. Reassembling the inlet float valve didn’t take long to be honest. The front door opened and in comes my wife in a great mood and comes upstairs to see what I was doing, I think the odd naughty word slipping from my lips gave it away. Then comes my favourite question in situations like these,  “What are you doing?” The fact I have half of plumbing world all over the floor should have been a clue. Avoiding, my more obvious choice of a sarcastic remark when I am in a bad mood, I settled on explaining what had gone wrong and needed fixing. I expect we will probably get a bill big enough to fill a small swimming pool as a result just to make me feel even better about it. At this point she left me to get on with it. But she had bought me a nice cake while she was out. Once the job was done and adjusted for the water levels I took the tools out and locked up again. That cake was well and truly deserved, why? Because the spray job still looked good when I went back to the man cave!

Now here is a thought; is there such a thing as the pleasure & pain thing or Yin & Yang? I found this petrol head spin on the idea, brilliant, I just had to post this:

Yin & Yang Mustang
Yin & Yang Mustang

At the beginning I mentioned that I had been busy behind the scenes for the last couple of weeks. I have tweaked the blog a bit to make it a little more user friendly and added a couple of photos for the brake drum clean here, brake booster treatment and spraying here and a review of Granville Rust Cure here.

I have also started a YouTube Channel “One man and his Mustang”, (clever that huh?) where I will post videos, clips and reviews of what I am or have been up too. There are two videos, one for the products that I am using after I was asked that question, so it made sense to show them. The other is my Granville Rust Cure process. Please subscribe to the channel if you like what you see. or give me some feedback on what you want to see. I have moved the “Contact me” button too in order to make it easier to email me.

I have added a couple of good articles as well, on specifications and options for the 66 Mustang for all body shapes. In fact lots of stuff has been added, I hope you like it.

The best thing about my YouTube Channel? You can see a marked improvement in my video editing and techniques that took a leap forward. If only my car would move along that quick!

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“Wherever we wanted….”

“Wherever we wanted to, we could beat the GTO [with the Daytona Coupe]. Even in 1965, when Ferrari started slipping 4.0-liters in there. That old pushrod 289 blew ’em off. That’s one of the greatest accomplishments by a bunch of hot rodders. Shelby American was built around hot rodders, and Phil Remington was the king of the hot rodders.”

– Carroll Shelby, racing driver and engineer, born 11 January 1923; died 10 May 2012.

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“The winner….”

“The winner ain’t the one with the fastest car, it’s the one who refuses to lose.”

– Dale Earnhardt

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Hat trick…

So its Sunday night, and I am thinking about work again. What prodded these dark thoughts? The weather again. Saturday was a good day as the sun was out, cold but the sun was definitely there. Today it has been raining, this stopped a fair bit of play on the car as the wind chill made it feel positively Siberian. But the hat trick this evening, it’s snowing! I couldn’t believe it. It had been locked in my own little world tweaking my blog and responding to a few emails that I had lost track of time. I hadn’t looked out the window, I hadn’t gotten out of my chair or moved from my screen.  At work you are supposedly to have a five minute break every hour from your screen. At home do we? Nope, not me. I was to busy preparing my next review or news on what I have been up to, the time flies by and I’m getting tired. Now I have realised the time, I started to get my stuff ready for work and look out the window, that’s when I noticed the snow is starting to settle. I dare say that the journey into work will be chaos, there will be idiots on the road who think that their 4×4’s are invincible. I have news for you people, the car you drive has rubber tyres like mine, if you hit ice you will skid, just like me. I’m starting to get stressed about it already. This is not a good sign. I need a holiday, a month after Christmas and it seems like half a year ago.

The car, this weekend I have taken the brake drum off and posted pics of that under the photos section, or you can click here. I have sorted out the man cave again as it was getting in a mess. To cold to use filler, to cold to spray and with the amount of rubbing down I have to do I can’t have the door shut with all the dust flying around. So a bit of a non event Sunday. I mentioned earlier I was doing a review, that was for a Snap On torch I have. You can find it under the Accessories section, or click here for the quick link.  I also put a real quick review of some soft jaws for my vice, that can be found under the Tools section by the Stanley vice, or click here.

Lets hope the weather improves here and also the USA gets over their bad weather too. Then we can all get on with doing what we like doing, in my case working on my car. The worlds climate has just mental, I just can’t remember it ever being this mad.

Thanks to everybody who has left comments this week on my blog, it really does make it all worth while to think that somebody has enjoyed a read with me. I appreciate it.

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Sunshine brings a smile

What a day! The sun was out and I was out – in the man cave and then the garage!

The predicted snow didn’t arrive, and I can’t say I was disappointed, but I was smiling. There was blue sky, the birds were singing and there was a beautiful sound of a 80 toothed Snap On ratchet hard at work!  I decided to remove the Brake Drum and backing plate to get it cleaned up ready for the new parts. I have taken lots of pictures and quick step by step process of what I have done. I was not to happy this morning though, I heard the postman, I run to the door and got a bill. Not the hammer I’m, just a bill. I was going to give somebody grief on Monday morning, but changed my mind and brought the day forward to today. I called the company, polite – but the bloke was not the shiniest spanner in the tool box should I say. Anyway, I explained the hammer hadn’t turned up and I was expecting it two days ago. He looked on his system and found that my hammer was awaiting a restock. They never emailed me to tell it was out of stock, to make it worse he couldn’t tell me when it was going to be back in stock either. Their advertising states, always in stock – Failed, they also say next day delivery – Failed. So I suggested that he should give me a refund as I aint happy. Fair enough the refund came through about an hour later, but I am looking forward to giving some negative feedback, oh yes! So as the wife was going out she asked if there was anything I needed as I think she felt sorry for me. To which you can probably guess the response – a hammer? We phoned a local company that specialises in tools, they had some in stock which I duly reserved. The wife picked it up and brought it back after her shopping. It was also cheaper than eBay! I got it in my hand about 1/2 hour  before I actually needed it. Perfect timing. The smile just got bigger.

The Brake unit removal was a good piece of work today, The whole brake unit is now in my man cave ready to be cleaned. If you want to know what a fully rusted set of drum brakes looks like on a 66 Mustang click here, or go to the Photos section/Wheels & Brakes. This was Part 1 to remove the drum, Part 2 will be to remove the old bits and clean, finally part three will be the rebuild and refit.

What shall I do tomorrow? I reckon if the weather is nice I may finish of the Brake booster ready to refit, if it’s not I will clean the first part of the drum up. I just can’t plan anything thing with this weather. According to the news on this side of the “pond” the USA is getting battered by snow. Is it really as bad as they say?

removing the pin
removing the cotter pin
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This weather is doing my head in

The weekend is upon us again, and I hacked off with the weather, again!

We are predicted snow yet again, ok it was fun for a few days but not any more. The country grinds to a halt and the food goes up in price. It never goes down in the summer though, funny that. Petrol goes up, the oil companies make billions and the complain they are hard up, yeah right.

Enough off me being grumpy, I can’t roll it out of the garage if it snows or rains, but on the other hand, I can work in the garage out of the rain. It just goes to show how spoilt you can get in any situation. A couple of months ago I had to stand out in the rain to do anything on the car, now I can stand in the dry and do it, and I moan again. I’m lucky I have somewhere to put my car and I must keep that in mind. I am luckier than a lot of others, I own a classic Mustang and it’s in my garage.

What do I do this weekend? It’s to cold to spray anything again, unless we have a major breakthrough of sun, according to my weather apps that is just not gonna happen. I may do a bit on my blog if its to bad, and catch up on a review or two. I do need to get my brakes drums off and measure the shoes, this is holding me up to get things moving. Once these are a confirmed size I will order them and get them fitted along with the  I hope to use my new tools and see if they do make the job easier. I feel a review coming on for these tools what ever happens. Speaking of tools, I ordered a copper hammer with first class post delivery from eBay, that was on Tuesday this week. Guess what? It ain’t turned up, and this man is not amused. I do suspect that Monday some poor person is going to have a bad morning once they pick the phone up if it’s not delivered tomorrow. If we don’t complain to these people they get complacent, and it becomes the norm. I’m looking forward to the weekend itself, it’s just a shame its not nicer weather.

Frost Auto Restoration Techniques have put a link to my Dinitrol 6030 review. I’m well pleased with that of course, hopefully it will expand my visitors and followers too.

You get a link to their site here or go to http://www.frost.co.uk

THO208

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“If everything is under control….”

“If everything seems under control, you’re just not going fast enough.”

-Mario Andretti

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Brake Booster Removal & Charity

Well that’s Monday over with, and now sitting here wondering where the weekend went and will I make it through the week? Yeah, it was a manic and frustrating weekend but I did get lots done. The brake booster is off and so is the wheel. I have posted pics of the booster under the photos section – engine bay, or click here for the fast link.

The next task is to treat the booster and get it back in.

Charity

On another note, I would like to say well done to Will who gave up drinking beer for the whole of January for charity, that’s a great achievement. Your money is waiting for you at your garage. Oh, don’t forget to drink the next few beers slowly. 🙂

A little while ago I had an idea about my car. Once I get my Mustang back on the road I was thinking of taking it to a children’s hospice and take the children for a ride around the block as it were, they would be able to wave to their friends as it growls down the road. Hopefully they would enjoy it and give them something to talk about and remember. I bet the dads would enjoy it and want a ride too. Lol. But, will I be allowed to do it or not remains to be seen with our child protection laws as they are. What a sad world we live in if you can’t even do that now days.

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