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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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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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!