A Freshen Up

My first proper post of the new year comes at the end of the first month, yes I know that is pretty bad, but there isn’t anything to really say when there are no car shows, (lame excuse time). Is it too late to wish you all a Happy New Year? Anyway, towards the end of December last year I had an email to say that the old blog theme was a bit too dark and sometimes difficult to read on a cell phone. That got me thinking about a very valid point. I hadn’t changed the look in years, so I thought I would update the theme to a lighter and much fresher look. The title for this post was going to be a “A Quick Freshen Up”, unfortunatly it wasn’t anything like as fast as it could have been, so I dropped the “quick”. The process started off with me sifting through lots of themes to see what they looked like, can I have the menu where I wanted it, pictures, widgets etc. I found one that I liked and had created the new header pic. Alas all was not good when I checked the look on other browsers and page sizes. The header image was resized with the page style, that just caused havoc with the title I edited onto a photo itself, what that actually means is that the top part of the header picture couldn’t be seen on wide-screen versions, then only half of the title on the mobile screens. After looking at other various themes I have settled on this one along with another revised new header pic. The old header was based on the car being built with the lights on and the grill. As my car has been completed for a year now (which is still being enjoyed by yours truly), I thought why not have a nice pic of the car, so there it is. I have kept a nod to the old blog pages with the background “pony” image just being an inverted version, with a slight tint added now. I hope people don’t turn away thinking it’s the wrong blog. 🙁

So it was out with the old, and in with the new!

The blog may have a new look and yet I tried to make it still feel the same, so what’s the best bit of the blog now? It’s still the same ol’ me writing about anything however tenuously related to Mustangs. 🙂 Please let me know what you think of the revised blog, did you prefer the old style or like the new lighter version?

Towards the end of last year was interviewed Dennis Fletcher and he posted it on his blog. The last couple of posts from me were reblogs from his site: Customs N Classics, I hope you liked the reads as much as I enjoyed doing it.

The car got a treat over the Holidays, as I asked for donations to the “help keep the Mustang warm” fund. I had been saving up for a while and these came up as a real cheap deal so I ordered them and laid them in the freezing cold. These were 7mm solid PVC, coin top, click together style tiles at half a meter each tile. I ignored the fitting guide (as men do), and made sure that the car’s tyres would run down the middle of the tiles and not across the joins.

The tiles have made a big difference to the temperature in the garage, now it’s not as dusty, non-slip and so much easier to clean up. Not that I spilt anything on the new tiles when they were less than twenty-four hours old! 🙁

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Videos & A Great Soundtrack

On my last post I mentioned that I had a couple of videos to be created and uploaded. The good news is that they are now on my YouTube channel to be viewed as well. I couldn’t wait to do them.

A quick note to point out here, the carburetor was set up at idle and will run all day long like that. But, when the transmission puts the carb under load it will need a few more tweaks for choke, mixtures and float bowls etc. to become more stable. Hence the car sometimes cuts out when cold while engaging a drive gear. It’s an easily sorted out problem of course, but the car will need a few miles under its belt first before those small final adjustments are made once things settle down.

Turn up the volume & enjoy 🙂

The Workshop Move:

The first is of the car being moved for the first from the workshop under her own power. This video was kindly taken by Yogi at Mustang Maniac on Thursday 21st May 2015. The car had all the fluids checked and topped up before attempting to engage the drive from the transmission. The car was lifted off the ground on the ramps and the drive gearing selected for the transmission without load and given some gas to change gears. With the transmission and drive shafts looking OK, it could be stopped and lowered back to the floor. The car was then started up and driven out of the workshop ready to be loaded onto the truck to take her to a show.

The video can also be found on YouTube by clicking here,

First Public Showing:

With the best 2:30 sound track!

Enfield Pageant 21 – 23 May 2015 my car makes its first appearance to the public. The car still has no glass at this point so had to be covered at night and during any weather problems. The car starts fine from cold of course but needs a warm up for the transmission fluids too. This video has a nice extended soundtrack to hear the exhaust note on grass which tends to dull the sound a little. You can hear the difference when the car starts on the flat-bed and when it starts on the grass. If you look in the background you can see some people starting to gather around the car while Adam warms her up.

The video can also be found on YouTube by clicking here,

My main channel with all the videos so far can be found by clicking on the Logo below:

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Taking Some Good Advice

Firstly I would like to wish you all a very Happy New Year. Over Christmas I have been working hard to get the odd parts of my suspension cleaned up, sprayed, painted or treated all ready to go back into the car. I have asked Mustang Maniac for some advice at this point. The question was around the new car paint with old untested parts. The simple answer was almost immediate “Easy – replace the major components such as the top and bottom control arms of the suspension”. The reason is that everything bolts to those major parts such as the suspension and steering, so any wear and tear or damage to those critical parts would mean having to take everything back off and replace those components, which in turn could potentially damage the paint with a unnecessary mechanical task that could result from a slip. So, the advice was given and the advice well and truly taken, Thanks Yogi and Adam on that one. I will replace the top and lower suspension arms, I will refurbish the smaller easy access parts that bolt to it. This would cause much less disruption and you are guaranteed to have tight tolerances where it counts at the very base level. I suppose the analogy scenarios would be the building a house on sand, or making a boat hull out of untreated soft wood. They would look good for a short while but be useless.

So what have I been up to? Well that would be the tie rods, ball joints, steering box, spindles etc. Once completed i have wrapped them all up in bubble wrap ready to take down the Mustang Maniac ready to go back on the car.

Spindles:

These spindles were seriously gunged up and caked in some serious grime, it took plenty of scraping and wire wheel work to get back down to the original metal. Paint on underseal and paint again that was chipped warranted the work. The final stage was coat of satin underhood black spray to take the shine of the spindles.

Steering Box:

The steering box needed a bit more work for some contrast work. Again this was pretty rusted up with hardly any protective paint in place, it being the paint was all going to have to come of along with the rust. I could see the original tag on the box and was keen to keep this and see what it said. A good dig around with the various old screw drivers I have to get into all the nooks and crannies that have almost 50 years of grim all over them.

orig tab cleaned up

With the box back to bare metal and degreased it was time to mask up and get painting. The box was going to be in a semi gloss black with the end cap plate in silver and the bolts in black for some contrast.

The completed article looks pretty good with the tag back in place and the silver end cap.

Tie Rods:

The next part of the front end was the tie rods that were well and truly corroded up and seized. I took the left and right hand sides apart which are different in design. The left side was so seized into the adjustment section I had to get my blow lamp out and heat it up red hot and tap it free. It eventually came free and needed a lot of cleaning. each of the ball joints were solid, so they were soaked in Gibbs Brand and tapped on wood to move them. Little by little they started to free up, fresh grease was added and worked free.

Left side tie rods.

Left side masked up and sprayed with satin black and silver contrast for detail all ready for assembly.

Right side tie rods,

You can see that the adjustment tube is a different design and less substantial.

Right side sprayed up ready for assembly.

Before I took these apart I carefully measured the positions of each of the track rods in the adjustments. I wound them back into place and only gently nipped them into place. They will need to be adjusted properly when on the car anyway.

The finished articles side by side completed.

Those of you sharp-eyed will notice the rubber covers are now missing from the ball joints. There is a good reason for that as you can see from the picture. I need new ones!

My identity crisis:

I was going to leave this post on a good high note but it seems that the gravity and little logo I was using is also being used by another company, who I am not going to mention. Not that I wanted to change my identity but I have modified it, and replaced it with my new design. The changes are subtle, colour balance, drop shadows, vignette, more chrome of the pony etc. but, the main difference is that the background colour has gone from a royal blue to a Acapulco blue now the same as my car. Hopefully this now looks a little more antique as it were. There is the copyright now applied to it in white type to show that this is my work and I have also added an invisible watermark hidden within the picture itself. The only trouble is that my YouTube videos will still have the old style on them. Going forward it will be the new style. I intend to change my header at a later date to my car with some fancy photo of some sort.

New year and a new logo to go with it? I want to be a different entity to any company out there as this is a unique blog.

The comparison of my old identity on the left and the NEW design on the right:

old style

NEW design

Please let me know what you think by clicking on the poll below;

Should I keep the new design or go back to my old identity?

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Merry Christmas

I just wanted to wish all my fantastic followers and guests to my little ol’ blog a Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year. In the New Year I hope to continue bringing you lots more pictures and updates on my car, even the finished article? You just never know!

Not so sure I would want to drive a convertible in the snow – but, what a great picture.

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Ready To Rock

I’m back!

I know I haven’t posted for a while, but there was and still are very good personal reasons why. So far it has taken me a few days to create this post on and off, that’s when I can even get round to doing it. Rest assured though, I am still here and I will continue updating my little ol’ blog as and when I can, hopefully things will slowly get back to normal then I should be posting more regularly and then back normal. Thanks to those of you that have kindly taken time to email me to ask how things are, I apologise for not posting sooner and disappearing without any warning, but the circumstances prevented me from do so, it was all rather sudden to say the least.

I could have named this post “New Shell” as the car is at a point now where she is ready to go to the paint shop within the next week or so. Compared to the original rusty or distorted metal work, this could almost be classed as a new shell. The Mustang Maniac guys have been keeping me fully updated while I haven’t been able to get down there to do my duties and help out. Thanks very much guys for the updates.

The last piece of work I had done was the hood which took an age to complete. The guys assembled the front of the car and the hood was re-fitted up. Now there was a problem, the leading edge of the hood had been bent down and was hitting the headlight buckets preventing the correct alignment and closure. The hood was adjusted but the fenders and cowling looked very strange regarding the gaps. The hood was taken off and the guys tried to straighten out the bend with partial success, and on the odd occasion it was quite brutally adjusted to align it all back up. But the hood was now sitting to high and it turned out to be quite obvious that the hood was distorted beyond an economical repair. When you are at this high level of restoration you want it to look right especially on such a large panel of metal that you will be looking at all the time you are driving. So a difficult decision was made – it was a new hood to be fitted, it’s a shame the original couldn’t be used. But I fully understand that these things happen during classic car restorations, the guys did try to rescue the hood before it was replaced. Yes I could have kept the original that sort of fitted and I doubt that many would have noticed, but it would have played on my mind knowing that it didn’t fit 100% correctly with the gaps, I just knew I wouldn’t be happy with it. Like the driver door, it was an awful lot of hard work, but at least I am happy nothing more could have been done to make it fit perfectly. Come to think of it I have seen the odd restored car with worse looking alignments, I dare say some other restorers would have been happy with it. I now have a rather large bare metal piece of scrap.

However, on the plus side it means that my car is now ready to go to the paint shop with new metal that has already been protected from rust. Adam is now just waiting for the paint shop slot to become free in order for my car to go in and be transformed over the next month or six weeks before I see her back. Such an exciting time. I have potentially got the last set of pictures of the car in bare metal before she gets her new colour scheme.

angry face?

As the car stands the filler work is pretty good, but has been left in a state where the body shop can see what has been done and what needs a final filler coat. Standard practice for the Mustang Maniac guys who seem to do just that little bit more to make sure all the gaps were correct. When the car is back from the paint shop I will then Red Oxide the inside parts that need doing over the black floor pans and the rear chassis legs before the work starts in earnest to put her back together again. I seriously just can’t wait to see her in the new colour.

Photo Menu:

I have tidied up the photo menus to group them together in order to make it more logical to find stuff.

I have added the following these large photo step by steps under the Photo Menu – Bodywork Section:

Rear Quarter Panel restoration work, click here for the quick link. (A very detailed step by step)
Hood Restoration Work, click here for the quick link
Trunk & Tail Light Restoration, click here for the quick link (A very detailed step by step)

I have also updated the Fender Work sections under a single heading to bring it all right back back up to date.

Reviews:

I have added a review of a Neilsen Slide hammer tool, or click here for the quick link.

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Lookin’ After The Pony

The weekend has gone and I have finally got a chance to catch up on the blog. The man cave has been my residence for the last week or so. I have run out of the consumables that I needed to finish the floor pans inside the car. A change of plan that switched my attention to the smaller things I can do in the mean time, the first was the air filter pan which is finished, apart from the final top coat colour what ever that may be. However, I did promise myself not to do any of the pretty things on the car before the basics have been done, such as paint, mechanics, rust etc. But every time I walk into the man cave there is a grill that hangs on the side with this dirty Mustang Corral on it. The grill is no good as the top part has finally broken (when I picked it up), so it won’t be able to be fixed onto the car now. So now I need a nice shiny new one, (never mind then), the original grill has had a poor spray job of black paint from the front which has also gone over the underside of the Corral, but saving the pony Corral was the most important thing to me as it’s the cars identity after all.

I took the Corral apart and noticed a broken mounting leg or support which was repaired by body filler! The outside of the Corral was cleaned up and the leg was repaired with some JB Weld. The pony was fine, just very dull and no shine so I used a mixture of chrome cleaner and Gibbs Brand to bring it back to life. The results were really good and came out better than I had hoped for, so obviously I am well pleased with it. The full process of the cleaning and repairs I have added a page to the Photo Menu – Body Work – Mustang Corral, or click here for the hyper link, there are over forty photos in total. I did however take a few arty shots of the iconic horse while it was out as I may want to change the header at a later date with my own car and grill. What do you think?

The chrome cleaner was removing the dirt but seemed to be moving the dirt from one end to the other. A different approach was required, the Gibbs Brand cleaned up most of the dirt first and the chrome cleaner done the rest. As some of the metal work was pitted slightly I didn’t want to make it worse by catching the chrome with a cloth and leaving a chromeless spot and so it was treated carefully. The brushed effect wasn’t given any rough stuff either for the very same reason, the Gibbs Brand was the staple cleaner for those areas. I could see that brushed effect would scrape off if abused and ruin the look of the two-tone finish as a few tiny scratches revealed that point after the dirt was removed.

Original state

back of grill

horse removed

close up

black paint

cleaned to half way

different angle after being cleaned

mixing the JB Weld

pressing together and supported

reverse of corral

finished

The finished result is a well-groomed pony looking forward to more open road adventures.

finished

Quick Links:

Photo Menu – Bodywork – Mustang Corral click here

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A Burning Question

Today I was in the man cave as I had a few ideas of what I wanted to do this week. One was to treat the back of the headlight doors and remove the stone chips from the front. The other job was to repair the old air filter pan that I had with the car. This particular does not fit my Holley 600cfm carburetor as I suspect it was for the original two barrel Autolite that came with the car. The air pan has been beaten up, dented, rusted up a bit and generally neglected. As I am not able to use it for myself I thought I could do it u, prepare it for sale to make a little extra money, well that’s the plan anyway. The trouble was there was so much old paint that I would need to remove it all and get down to basic bare metal and fill the dents etc. I used a product called POR-Strip, this is a product to remove old paintwork from the makers of POR15. As I rate their paint very highly and thought I would try this product out. It’s great stuff and I have done a review of the product under my consumable menu and also loaded a YouTube video of it as well. It’s not like watching paint dry but rather the opposite! Anyway, the point is that nowhere does it say wear gloves on the tin, it does say avoid contact with skin and eyes and now I know why, it burns like hell. Why didn’t they say wear gloves on the tin? It just amazes me that it’s not on there or wear goggles either. I have a few photo’s here but they are just of the stripper doing its job on the paint after I knocked the dents out. I will post more on the air filter pan work as I go along in the Photo Menu – Under the Hood – Air Filter Pan.

I did have a load of great titles I could have used for this post, but as this is a family rated blog I thought better of using them. Lets just say its a paint stripper, and I will let you think of the permutations possible for it. Not that any of them crossed my mind at all. After all, I do want Santa to call don’t I?

dented outside

dent removed before the paint removed

inside close up dent

close up inside

lid outside

lid stripped

inside stripped

underside stripped

Quick Links:

The you tube video link for the review, click on the YouTube logo

Photo Menu – Under The Hood – Air Filter Pan click here

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Friday The 13th

No, this post is not about a horror film psycho running about generally being a pain in the ass, but more about the horror of a hangover I had this morning! The hangover was from the team night out that was a real good evening and to be with work colleagues that I also call my friends. I had a day’s holiday owning to me which was just as well because the older I get the more light weight I seem to be getting where this hangover lark comes into the scenario. Alas my self-inflicted pain started to ease at about ten o’clock(ish) this morning. I decided to make good use of my time off by making some small but subtle changes to my humble little blog, this obviously meant that the car had a break just for today. As for the new blog? Well everything is still there and no unexpected changes for the style, layout and functionality, but I wanted to freshen the pages up a little if that makes sense. The blog should now be a little easier to read while maintaining the darker theme and background. The side bar has been tidied up with a few little tweaks made as well. If you can’t tell the difference but it somehow looks a little difference, then I think I have achieved what I set out to achieve, plus it also gives me an excuse to use this picture I found on the net which I quite liked. The changes were not just for the sake of it but it’s something that has been personally bugging me and just looked cramped for some reason. I still haven’t managed to put my finger on it as for the reason why it looked cramped but the feel of the blog just felt like it. during my search for the right theme many were trawled through, some even reminded me that the residual effects of the hang were lurking in the background when faced with gaudy and garish designs! I think I have chosen well from the WordPress themes.

I hope the new (more subtle) design is better, but please let me know if I should revert back or keep the fresher looking style.

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Happy Birthday To One Man…

One man and his Mustang: One year on…

I would like to say a massive THANK YOU to every single one of you who have looked at my pictures, read an article or just laughed at some of the daft situations I have found myself in. Those of you who have “liked”, followed, subscribed, tweeted, contacted me or left a comment I would like to say an extra special: Thank You so much for your time. I appreciate every single one of you.

It was a year ago today that I sat in front of this PC with a fledgling idea in mind that I wasn’t sure how it was going to go. That idea is what you are now reading, my blog. The initial point was for me to store all the work I was doing on the car for my own little online diary if you like, the pictures and words of what I had done on the car, these would allow me to look back on it all one day, or show somebody, anybody who was remotely interested in my car and what had been done. If somebody else wanted to read the blog brilliant, if not I wasn’t going to be upset about it as I had nothing to lose, who wants to read about my ‘ol Mustang? But all that has changed, I started to get emails about similar things I had done, a few questions and few ideas off people to go forward with my car project. I even got a few messages for things they would like to see on the blog. As a result my blog has evolved into a project almost as big as my car restoration so it would seem, and I am very pleased and proud to be able to say that. Now I see my blog more of as a personal “blogumentary” to get this car on the road and maybe help others while I am at it. I have reviews from my own honest point of view, articles and links that interest me and hopefully others too. I now receive “hits” each day looking at all sorts of different things, like photos, reviews, tools, diagrams or an old advert. Those views have come from all over the world; USA, Canada, Australia, Russia, UK, Aruba, Monaco, Iceland, Hong Kong, Kenya, Saudi Arabia to name but just a few, along with some countries I have never heard of before or even imagined would be interested. If I have helped a single person or given somebody an idea, or the confidence to have a go, then I have achieved my own secret little goal, not so secret now though!

Everyday I look at my stats, comments or emails I have been sent, it’s still a buzz to know that somebody has had a look at my blog for what ever reason. This little blog has now become part of my life and I hope to continue and grow that relationship with my fellow bloggers and peers online. I now follow lots of other blogs too and no, not just the petrol head blogs either, lots of photographic blogs, and some funny blogs that I have been introduced to which have broadened my outlook on life because of this site.

One day, I will post a video of the car on the road and me at the wheel with a silly grin the size of the hood !!

And I hope this little pic I found on the net says it all to the rest of the world.

A special personal thanks goes out to:

Adam at Mustang Maniac and his guys for their generous knowledge and help.

Will from Park Garage who was there at the first turn of the key.

My work colleagues who put with me regarding what I have done on my car every week!

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WordPress Family Award

Again I have been caught slightly off guard with a new award which has just started making the rounds. I am always left a little speechless that: A) I am nominated in the first place. B) I have regular visitors to my little ‘ol blog that to be fair has a rather limited market of appeal.

With pleasure I can say a big thank you to Dana from http://atlastracer.wordpress.com who kindly nominated me for the award.

As with all these awards the rules are quite simple:

1. Display the award logo on your blog.

2. Link back to the person who nominated you.

3. Nominate 10 others you see as having an impact on your WordPress experience and family

4. Let your 10 Family members know you have awarded them

5. That is it. Just please pick 10 people who have taken you as a friend, and spread the love

It’s hard to single out just 10 that I wish to award, I know that at least one of my nominations already has this award. So if you’re not chosen it’s nothing personal and the others I would like to nominate don’t accept awards. If I have nominated you and you do not wish to continue with the award, or don’t have the time to do this award thing then I take no offence at all. I just wanted to show 10 blogs that I appreciate them, it’s a shame I can’t award all of the blogs I follow. I really don’t like doing this list thing as I follow all my blogs and read them for a reason, so I have chosen the list below on the basis of interaction and the general feel-good factor of the blogs in no particular order. Yes there is the petrol infused car stuff as you would expect but a few surprises too.

1) Dana from http://atlastracer.wordpress.com/ – I know you nominated me, but if I had this from somebody else I would have nominated you.

2) Debbie from http://hoodscoop03.com/ – my blog buddy from across the pond who shares the Mustang love.

3) Ron from http://ronscubadiver.wordpress.com/ who takes some superb photos and shows me places I wanted to go from all angles.

4) http://stagownersclub.wordpress.com/ – I always wanted a Mustang, but I said if I couldn’t have a Mustang I would have a Triumph stag, I can feel the passion from these guys and their cars too.

5) http://www.rodalena.com/ – just an enjoyable varied read who has followed me for a long time now.

6) Alicia from http://aliciabenton.wordpress.com/ – I just reading this blog.

7) Karen from http://karengadient.com/ – some wonderful things with Photoshop.

8) http://f1superswede.wordpress.com/ – If I ever need info on the F1 scene here it is.

9) Jim from http://harbin77.wordpress.com/ – A genuine nice guy who owned a Mustang!

10) http://storysmitten.wordpress.com/ – A great set of snippets from stories here.

A special mention to all the photo blogs I follow too, the world becomes a much smaller place when I see your pictures.

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Category: Blog

A Freshen Up

Like this:

Videos & A Great Soundtrack

Turn up the volume & enjoy 🙂

The Workshop Move:

First Public Showing:

Like this:

Taking Some Good Advice

Spindles:

Steering Box:

Tie Rods:

My identity crisis:

Please let me know what you think by clicking on the poll below;

Should I keep the new design or go back to my old identity?

Like this:

Merry Christmas

Like this:

Ready To Rock

I’m back!

Photo Menu:

Reviews:

Like this:

Lookin’ After The Pony

Quick Links:

Like this:

A Burning Question

Quick Links:

Like this:

Friday The 13th

Like this:

Happy Birthday To One Man…

One man and his Mustang: One year on…

One day, I will post a video of the car on the road and me at the wheel with a silly grin the size of the hood !!

And I hope this little pic I found on the net says it all to the rest of the world.

Like this:

WordPress Family Award

As with all these awards the rules are quite simple:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Turn up the volume & enjoy 🙂

The Workshop Move:

First Public Showing:

Share this:

Like this:

Spindles:

Steering Box:

Tie Rods:

My identity crisis:

Please let me know what you think by clicking on the poll below;

Should I keep the new design or go back to my old identity?

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

I’m back!

Photo Menu:

Reviews:

Share this:

Like this:

Quick Links:

Share this:

Like this:

Quick Links:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

One man and his Mustang: One year on…

One day, I will post a video of the car on the road and me at the wheel with a silly grin the size of the hood !!

And I hope this little pic I found on the net says it all to the rest of the world.

Share this:

Like this:

As with all these awards the rules are quite simple:

Share this:

Like this: