A new game called “you dare!”

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.

one side wall covered, the marking up is coming along nicely

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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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:

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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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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Pond life…

Lets just say I am a little hacked off. Why?

It’s simple, a few days ago I started a sister blog on Tumblr, I posted a little while ago the link to it. That blog has now been deleted. The fact that some loser with an IQ the same as his shoe size posted garbage on it, has not installed any faith in that blog. Perhaps I should have waited. But, it was gonna happen it would be my blog. I trust that the said individual doesn’t damage their laptop by spilling their baby formula milk all over it, obviously the baby milk is there to help them grow up. Perhaps the laws of evolution hasn’t filtered down to that part of the pond life! Sorry to mess you all about, but I was trying to help the request I had to post on Tumblr. Next time I must research more.

Enough of me moaning about the single-celled plankton that seems to have mastered a keyboard, tomorrow is Friday, that means I need to think about tasks for the car over the weekend. Brake booster out or start on the front valance? Difficult choices, maybe I will get that pesky slow puncture off.

Now I have calmed down a bit its off to bed!

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Back on track & Check lists

Lots of updates in one go this weekend.

At long last I have been able to do something worthwhile for my car. The snow has gone after heavy rain overnight. Due to the sun being out and no rain I decided to go for the Bumper Stone Guard part 2 repair. This was to de-rust the top side, fill the dents and a factory stamp mark that almost came through the metal itself, and then spray it. So there I was in my working tracksuit bottoms and a t-shirt. I’m a real man I can take it. Snap-On tool box keys, Check. Man cave lock and padlock keys, Check. Stupid grin on my face, Check. Trainers with no grip, Check. I opened the door, and the fresh air hit me, stupid grin still there? Slipping, but confidence is sky-high. Stepped outside of the patio on to the grass, speeding up as I went to the man cave to save face and not admit I was cold. All my plans went up in the air, as did I. Trainers lost traction and the mud bath was beckoning to my back side, I looked like a spider on acid skating on ice. It was arms and legs everywhere. In fact it reminded me of my classic dance moves when I used to own the disco dance floor. Ok, perhaps I wasn’t that good but I thought I was. Thinking about it, I got more dates when I didn’t dance, especially when I unleashed a few well rehearsed special moves on floor. Well, in the films it obviously impressed everybody, it didn’t impress any ladies enough so that I would get a date though. That John Travolta film has got a lot to answer for, that’s all I can say. Anyway, I managed to stay on my feet, like a baby giraffe trying to stand for the first time. Grin still there? Checking, nope, it’s a grimace now. I came straight back in and changed my shoes to work boots, putting on a jumper and fleece on as well at the same time, just in case it got cold of course. My next venture to the man cave was more dignified to say the least.

As a result of doing the Bumper guard I used the Dinitrol 6030 bodywork filler. I have had quite a few hits on my Dinitrol page which was under construction for a while. Yes, I had used it before but had no pictures to go with what I had in mind. So being the bright spark that I am I had a brain wave, do them both at the same time. Yeah, see where I’m going with this?

The results were great. One day rubbing it all down and filling. Today rubbing down and spraying. I managed to take photos of the bumper guard being repaired and also for the review the Dinitrol filler too. The Bumper Stone Guard part 2 pictures are now in the Photos section, or click here. The Dinitrol review is under the Consumable Reviews section, or click here. From what I can see, this is the first Dinitrol review in depth on the net. You read it here first!

Results all round then, photos, review and a finished bumper guard.

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Snowed in (again)

Losing valuable Mustang time.

Another weekend with rubbish weather. It’s snowing pretty hard today so there is no way I was going to get to do any thing either on the car or in the man cave. I wanted to get that wheel off and get the slow puncture fixed. I could push her out to get access to the wheel, the problem would be trying to push her back in again in the snow. One false slip and the trunk would have a new rear spoiler in the shape of my two front teeth. Not good!

I did get out to the man cave for a little while to have a tidy up again. I decided to have a rearrangement of my tool chest with the new tools I got for Christmas. They all have a new home now and lined up like soldiers. Am I the only sad person that does this to make their tool box nice and neat, or do I need help? While in my man cave I noticed some birds looking for food and not having much luck. I must admit I tend to spoil my little feathered friends, I do an extra slice of toast in the mornings and break it up for them if I have toast before I go to work. Given the choice of plain bread or toasted, the toasted bits always goes first. As it was so cold I came in and done a couple of slices of toast, broke it up and put it on the bird table for them. It soon went, I do worry about them, as we have this little understanding, I feed them and they don’t try and use my cars for the local avian cesspit, sometimes they breach this understanding, so the next day they go hungry, they know the rules!

As I couldn’t do much I decided to finish up my heater plenum work write-up. I had taken some photos but that was before I decided that I was going to do this blog. The pictures still shows what a bad way it was in and then the finished results. You can see the process and why I had to do it all under the “Photos, Heater Core Issues & Repairs” or click here for a quick link. There is also a mini review in there for the heater case seal kit.

Lets hope the weather improves so I can get out there and do some worthwhile work on my car again. If I hadn’t of got my Coupe in the garage when I did it may have looked something like this!

The fact I have posted for the third time this weekend shows just how frustrated I am, in an automotive way of course.

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Articles

Articles Idea

I was surfing the net looking for pictures and I stumbled across a web site that had some good articles and background information on a variety of cars.There was nice article on a 1965 Shelby GT350. I have added a new menu called Articles on the right hand bar. I have placed the article in there, or click here to read it.

I will keep an eye out for more good stuff and acknowledge its source, I’m not that bad a person to claim others work as my own. However it deserves to be read, if this gives them a couple more links then I hope they will be pleased.

The basic principle of this site is my journey with my Mustang, the good and not so good. If I come across good outstanding articles that take my eye I will share them with you. But I don’t intend on making this a library of articles, that has been done to death on other good sites. Enjoy the read and I expect there will be some more. If you want me to add some specific pages to my site let me know via the “Contact me” on the home button. I always try to respond asap to all emails.

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Redesign of website!

Blog improvements?

Before you panic and say “he’s broke it” I haven’t.

On the right hand side there were menus that were getting longer and they looked a little messy. I still had people ask me where the photo’s were!

So, I decided to split things up a little for the better, at the top under the header there are now, 7 buttons; Home, Forums and Discussions, Best Mustang Ever, Photos, Tool Reviews, Part Review & Consumable Reviews. If you click on them they take you to the places or the will drop down into menus and subsections. This means everything of importance is at the top now, so no excuse to not find anything. The book reviews I have still left on the right, there are now menus that tell you what is coming soon for each section.

I hope it now works better for you and more natural to look at. The site has got bigger than I expected a lot faster too. I have added a Tags section, click on the words and should show the posts that mention it, or just do a plain ol’ search.

Please let me know what you think, leave it or change it back – I hope not anyway 🙁

Cars

At the weekend I hope to do a little work with Bumper Stone Guard and see how it goes. I intended to take some photos for the review of the Dinitrol filler as well, two birds with one stone and all that! Still not decided on the final colour of the car and the interior colours, I have added forum here or go to all the forum sections and let me know what you think on a number of subjects. .

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I need a little help!

It’s been a busy weekend and a productive weekend at the same time, I don’t get to many of those to be fair. I have made space back in the man cave as the fenders have gone back on the car., Ok, so they are not aligned up yet properly though as I want some nice new bolts to go in the top and the hood rubbers I also need. I have managed to treat the Bumper Stone Guard on the inside (part 1), and completed a nice power tool review. But first,

I need some help:

Yesterday when I put the fenders back on I noticed a little bit of surface rust creeping back onto the top of my rocker covers, I intend to replace these with chrome ones anyway but for now I wanted to keep the natural buffed steel look. Does anybody have any ideas on how to seal them from the elements and keep the natural look? If so can you give me some ideas on the forum pages or click here for the hyper link to go straight there.

My manager has been saying that I have needed help for well over a year now, *shakes head* LoL.

Thanks for that Alli. 😀

Secondly

Anybody got any hangover cures? If so go to the Forums and Discussions page to leave me some tips or others who may need them this Christmas! Or click on the link here for hyper link straight there.

Thirdly

I have published a tool review of the Dewalt Orbital Sander D26453 which is a really great piece of kit. Check out the review here or go to the tools review section.

Last but not least

I have tweaked a few little bits on the blog too,I have put the Forum and discussions link at the top next to the “home” button. Hopefully that will make it easier to get to the sister site.