Stop Right There

A little while ago at a car show I was told that my brake lights didn’t work. I was concerned for obvious reasons. The cars behind me can’t see me slowing or stopping, and the fact I’m running LED’s was a concern. It’s not as if I had a blown bulb or something which would be an easy fix. The guy told me that while we were in a long queue to get into the show he “didn’t see my lights come on at all”.

After he left explaining it to me my fellow Mustang mate David heard what he said and suggested I pressed the pedal so he could take a look. I pressed the pedal as I normally do when braking and the thumbs up and a “yep fine”, no problems there then. We swapped places and he pressed the pedal, no problems again as the lights came on as expected. This is now turning into a puzzling scenario. Perhaps an intermittent switch fault, or is it the fact I am very light on my brakes? I don’t pull away with a boot full of revs and I don’t jump on the brakes to stop me either. In traffic I pull away gently by just letting the idle move me forward, when I brake it’s just a light pressure enough to stop. Less wear and tear on the engine, less fuel used, it will help avoid a boil over and the big positive is there will be less brake dust on my chrome wheels to clean as well.

I made a trip to Mustang Maniac to be in the company of fellow petrol heads and I explained what had happened to Adam. He suggested a swap over of the switch for the power assisted disc version. When I asked what the difference was he told me the spring for the switch was not as strong and the wires were on the other side of the switch bracket. This translated means that the normal drum brakes need more pressure to apply the brakes with a longer pedal travel. That switch is stronger as the brakes don’t actually apply until a reasonable force is used. The power assisted disc brakes need less pressure before the brakes apply, so the switch needs to be activated a little earlier. Simple when you think about it. So with advice from Adam of course I was going to replace it.

Here the two are side by side. Old drum brakes on the left (still working when tested with multi meter) and the new one for powered discs on the right. It’s also the same switch for a 67-68 as well.

I got to work where the switch is attached to the pedal via, which is in turn mounted around the master cylinder lever, which is also attached to the pedal via the same pin. The switch and the lever are held in place by a fairly strong retaining pin which needs to be removed.

Depending on the state of the pin it could be rusted and a little penetrating oil may help with the removal. I used a long pair of angled pliers to pull it out, be careful you don’t slip and take a chunk out of your steering column.

With the pin removed the connecting bar to the brake master will be able to be pulled off the pedal to the side.

Move the brake lever halfway off the pin. This will release the closed part of the switch casing, a hole which the pin fits through in order to stop the switch from coming off the pedal itself. The switch itself can now be pulled down as the opposite side of the switch is open at the top of the casing to allow the switch to be removed. This saves having to completely remove the brake lever bar if you didn’t want to. While I was at it I decided to regrease the pin and plastic bushings. When removing the pin take care to retain the plastic bushing inside the lever bar. There are also a nylon washers on either side of the pin which don’t need to be removed, but you can if you want to. Below is the pedal push rod to the master cylinder being removed.

I sprayed the pedal pin with some white grease ready for reassembly later and also the inside of the push rod and bushings. If they haven’t been replaced for a while, replace them just for the sake of it as they are very cheap replacement parts. That would also eliminate and play in the pedal, if you have any that is.

Side by side with the closed side of the switches compared. The powered disc brake version on the right with the terminals on the closed side of the switch. The left has the terminals on the open side.

The other side of the switch where you can see the open side as it were. Notice the terminals on the left manual switch are now facing up.

Once the removal has been completed now it’s a simple the reverse to fit it. Apply grease to the pedal pin that locates the push rod bar and the bushings. I used plenty and can always wipe it up after. If you go mad with the grease you could drop or run grease onto your footwell carpet, be careful or lay some old rags around, just in case.

Place the switch up to the push rod bar which will sit between the open and closed sides of the switch. Align the holes and slip it back over the brake pedal pin. You may need to slightly rotate the switch so that the open end is located all the way up to the pin. The switch itself should sit square at the end of the brake push rod, in line at the end of the lever bar as shown here. If the switch is not located square, the lights could be on all the time or not come on at all.

The push rod lever bar has straight edges deliberately, this means when the pedal is depressed the lever bar moves on the pin’s axis and the edges press the top of the switch down to make the contact.

Check the motion of the pedal and you should here a very faint click as the switch engages. The retaining sprung pin can be located into the hole in the pedal pin. This retaining spring is quite a tough to open around the pedal pin in order to be properly located. Here just the retaining pin tip is located in the brake pedal retaining hole.

You may need the pliers on the spring a little to get it passed the pedal pin and snap it into place.

A little more spray on white grease and pump the pedal to make sure full and correct operation.

Lastly you just need to swap the connecting block to the other side of the switch. It’s possible that you may need to free up a little more cable but you should have enough slack in the loom to allow you to do this. Here the switch is fully assembled with the connector in place with the red and white wires showing, before I re-wrapped them again. The connecting block can only fit on in one direction as the male terminals are set at angles.

From a slightly different angle.

Again, check the FULL motion of the pedal and make sure everything is clear from snagging. You should now be able to check that your brake lights are now working correctly. Lastly you can either clean up the grease on the visible parts or leave it as is. I left mine for a couple of trips in order to let it all work around, then I cleaned it up, but not to much as you need the lubrication there.

The noticeable difference being that the pedal moves less now before the brake lights come on which suits my style of driving. Also even if I just cover the brakes it should give the car behind earlier warning that I am actually slowing down and avoid being rear ended.

In total it took around just over half an hour plus taking the pictures to complete. It took a further few hours for my back to recover after laying upside down in a Mustang footwell and twisting into positions that any circus contortionist would be proud off. The cost of the project was £16.80 from Mustang Maniac, click here for the link for the switch I used. A small price to pay to be safe.

Quite what the issue was with the brakes not working or just the switch playing up i don’t know. Replacing the switch is simple and like I just said, it’s better to be safe than sorry. Quite what my next project will be I’m not sure, but I will find something no doubt, hopefully without having to book an appointment with a chiropractor! 🙂

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Dual Master Cylinder Project

I worked a long day on the car over the weekend and I managed to complete a project that I wasn’t planning on. My original master cylinder produced a leak during the bleeding process. So to cut a long story short I upgraded to a Duel Master Cylinder System. Ok, my car is not concours original anymore, but I intend to drive and enjoy it not just show it, clean it and be unable to enjoy it because of the spec of dust on the exhaust. It has taken me most of the evening to write-up the process and pictures, but I am pleased with the results and wanted to share it as promised in my previous post. I have now posted the project under Photos – Engine bay – Dual Master Cylinder Upgrade, or click here for the quick link. This is no ordinary upgrade though, this kit includes a rear proportioning valve, built-in rear pressure valve and an inline pressure valve for the front brakes. Disc brake ready!

Next weekend I hope to bleed the brakes or at least try again.

front pressure valve and rear proportioning valve

The only side effect to my long day on the car was I felt like I had my legs run over by a bus. All that stretching and leaning over the fender took its toll on my hamstrings. Is it that I am getting old or should I have done some stretching exercises first? Yeah, like I wouldn’t look like a doughnut doing exercises in my garage to change a master cylinder! Us blokes don’t do that sort of thing, but I might just do that behind closed doors next time. 🙂

Rust

The recent bad weather has been doing wonders for the Rust test that I am still performing. The comparison is between the Granville Rust Cure and the FE-123. I will continue to run the experiment a while longer then I will post some pictures and results so far. I intend to do a long-term test and keep coming back to it with updates.

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Mods and Rockers

It’s midweek and time is dragging. It seems like somebody has decided that each second will in fact last one minute. I have asked my colleagues at work “is time dragging or is it me?” the response was a resounding “it’s dragging”. I have never understood this and would love to know why we think that. Yet when we get to the weekend the time flies and before I know it’s back to work. Any ideas why this is?

This weekend I am hoping to get the springs for my shoe connection springs for the rear brakes, if I can then I will put the silicon brake fluid in and see if I get a peddle or not, that will be a big milestone for me. If I don’t get the springs, it will be bodywork time and the rockers will go back in that I have just sprayed. The rockers should be Ford Blue I know that, but I don’t want them Ford blue, I want shiny metal or have Mustang Racing all over them. As my rockers were rusty again, I decided to mod them with a little silver paint to match the brake booster. This is a temporary measure so I didn’t spend too much time on the covers and in fact I was pretty pleased with how they came out. I have as promised uploaded the photos for the rocker covers work. They can be found in the Photos section under Engine Bay, or, you can click here for the quick link to see them. I will update the photo’s again once I have them in the car to see what they look like. What does anybody think, will the paint last? Do they look stupid or a waste of my time? Better than rusty looking covers?

after the lacquer but with masking still in place — Sprayed rocker covers and oil cap

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Antiques and the car

A new sideline hobby?

Thursday evening after work was a great evening but also a sad evening. A work colleague who I have worked with for just over a year and a half has moved onto pastures new within the company. As a team we have grown very close and formed some great friendships. I was sad to see him go but I wish him well in his new job. Craig has gone to our IT department, I reckon he will be doing password resets, although will be in denial. lol. During our evening with excessive amounts of alcohol we played a prank and filled his pockets up with thousands of hole punch centres. After a few beers they were being thrown around all over the place. Two days later we are still picking these little circles up, they are in the bedroom, the kitchen, the shed in fact you name it they are there. They are so annoying, I just don’t know how they spread about so much. In fact it was like indoor snow at one point!

This weekend I have been collared into doing painting for the mother-in-laws bedroom for her. It’s quite a large bedroom and I started with ceiling, walls and the satin white on the woodwork. I hate painting with a vengeance, it just does my head in. But at the same time I love the results of the finished room. I call it a little payback for getting the wife out late to pick me up after my little night out, and having to clean up the home-made confetti after I made such a lousy job of it. Brownie points were scored again as the room does look good, even if I do say so myself, which I do! What I do want to know is, why has Easter become the DIY weekend of the year, and who is responsible for starting the idea? I need to have words with him to stop these little brain storms, the result has seriouly damaged my precious Mustang time.

Saturday I was taken out for a lunch to a great farm where they do some great food, all local grown produce, and all the meat has previously been walking the grounds. The food was gorgeous and I had the best burger and home-made chips ever. On the way home I was taken to an antiques dealers, there are about three in one area under a roof near this farm estate. My new little hobby has been sparked by my recent post of Mustang ads. I am after some old metal garage signs to decorate my own little garage. I am not wanting to pay big bucks just the usual muscle car era stuff, Castrol Gtx, Michelin, Shell in fact pretty much anything automotive. The signs seem to be hard to come by, I don’t care if they are a little rusty as it will add to the character of the sign. Nostalgic look to go with the classic muscle car, am I being daft or should I forget the idea? I have no intention of spending all my money on the signs when I have so much stuff I need to do on my car, but if I see a nice little sign I will pick it up.

I will continue with my car work tomorrow, I expect I will finish of spraying some little bits and pieces and finish fitting the pipes to the brake booster. I have some pictures to follow soon. Hope you had a great Easter, and not gone to mental with the calories!

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The fitted sheet

Friday evenin’ and it started.

I of course refer to the snow, no I am not going to bang on about it again because I am to put it politely, getting a bit sick of it. Everytime I want to do something it snows. The snow has been falling all weekend, it settles then it melts, still snowing then it settles again. Global warming? I think it needs warming up round here, so I better go and start my v8 up with no exhaust and let it tick over for a while! Only joking, so I won’t dwell on the fact its cold, but my man cave looked like a log cabin at one point today with the snow all over it, and it did get worse than this. To prove it I have a little picture of it. I’m sure there are a lot of people worse of than me out there, I hope you are all safe and have had not issues with the “S”. Don’t forget to check on the vulnerable elders, even a pint of milk for a hot cup of tea can help.

Saturday I sprayed the VHT brake caliper spray on the left side front drum which went well, I keept the can in the house overnight in the warm along with the drum itself. I only took it out to the man cave when it was ready for the spray. I pointed my new light at it to keep it warm during the drying phase. It worked a treat. After it was dried to touch, I took it to the garage and put it onto the spindle and packed it with grease. I will allow it to cure for a week before the wheel gets bolted back on. I have already done a review of the VHT Caliper paint under the Reviews – Consumables or click here for a quick link. I also went to fit the brake booster, it was going in OK, but as I was so cold the fingers were having issues holding things properly. I got a bit annoyed at this point and decided to take the hood off so I could get right into the corner. Oh boy, I forgot how heavy that hood was, trying to hold it in place with one hand and undo the nuts with the other was not an easy task. Thankfully nothing was damaged and it came of with a big sigh of relief and a lot of effort. I did remember to put some heavy towels onto the cowl under the hood corners so it would suddenly drop metal onto metal. The hood now sits against the wall ready to be treated, to top it all, hood is of course standing on a nice piece of foam. While the hood is off I took photo’s of the brake lines, (before I re-fitted the booster again), that I fabricated a while ago along with photo’s of the Brake Booster being fitted. After gaining access to the full engine bay the Booster actually went in fine, all was well with the world again. As there is no protection for the engine now from the hood, the dust from the garage could be an issue so I decided it needed covering. Did you know that the fitted sheet from a UK double bed is the same size as a 66 Mustang engine bay and fenders. Next time you play Trivial Pursuit you can maybe win on that bit of knowledge, OK, maybe not. I will be covering the treatment of the hood at a later date with pictures too when the weather gets better as it will need to be layed flat. To show you what I mean about the fitted sheet, here are the before and after pictures. Liking that? OK, Sorry then, but I thought it was a good idea! 🙂

The bits that are sticking up are the hood springs, they are gonna stay like that, due to the fact I want to keep my fingers and they are super strong springs and may have difficulty getting them up again. The scissor action on the metal is sharp and I never put my hands near them, ever! I managed to also remove and re-assemble the Hood catch, the pictures will be added to the photo section as soon as I get them done, they also came up very well. In the engine bay picture you will see the Brake booster in place and the reservoir all connected up. You can find the fitting in Brake Booster Part 3 in the Photo Menu – Engine Bay – Brake Booster Project or click here for a quick link. I have also added a review of the Autolite Group 24 Replica Battery now after a request for it and a few searches, you can find the review under the Reviews – Car Parts section, or click here for a quick link.

All in all I was quite pleased with the weekends work considering it was….. Ha, you thought I was going to say the “S” word, you know “snowing”. Dohhh!

Drive safely.

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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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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

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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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Mustangs, Religion & Yoga!

Do Mustangs and religion mix?

I am going to slightly bend a little unwritten rule I have set myself on my blog, I was never going to talk about religion or politics. The reason being I will invariably upset somebody which is not my intention at all, and I am trying to remain neutral, but this story needs to be told. Is the story good enough to warrant the bending of my little rule? I hope so, but you can tell me. Take this little story in the good nature it’s intended.

Before I get going I must say; I couldn’t care less about what religion you are or not as the case may be, and I couldn’t less care who you vote for. Your opinions and beliefs are yours, and it’s not for me to judge.

The date was a Saturday, the wife has taken the mother-in-law out shopping, and I am happy, time with my car. The weather is cold, but I have that sorted; t-shirt, jumper, coat and a Snap On winter hat (this hat looks a little like a dear stalker, or a WW2 fighter helmet). The hat is warm and even has little flaps by the ears that you lift up so you can hear better! (Make a mental note here about this hat.) Ok, so I may look like a tool, and I don’t mean like the tools in my Snap On tool chest either. But, my head stays warm and I couldn’t care less about what anybody else thinks about it. If you don’t like it – don’t look at it. Simple, yes?

So there I was I took out my tools to the car that’s in the garage and had lots in mind that I wanted to do. I was going to remove the brake booster, reservoir pot, as the bad weather has caused some surface rust to reappear again. After that I would take the slow punctured wheel off to get it repaired. As the car is in nose first and tight against the wall it’s a job to move around it. The situation was playing havoc with my mind, I wanted to push the car back, but I can’t because the tyre is flat, I can’t get the wheel off as it’s close to the wall. Not ideal but I will think of something, I usually do.

The brake booster is located in the back right hand corner of the engine bay as you look at it, directly in front of the driver on the fire wall. The sockets, spanners and ratchets were taken to the corner of the garage and I shoe horned my self between the gap of the fender and the wall. I’m not a little guy, 6′ 4″ tall and best part of 18 stone, such manoeuvres require military like planning to make sure that once I am in place everything is to hand and wont have to keep getting in and out. Spanners all lined up like soldiers, socket tray and ratchets all placed on my fender covers. An old towel was placed on the cowl to stop damage to the paint and rolling around. I undone the main brake line that comes out from the booster to main splitter, and the vacuum hoses. Two bolts hold the reservoir in place, this was removed with little effort. I was bending over and had a little torch to see what I was doing, as all good mechanics will tell you the way to hold a torch is in your mouth when in tight places. The brake booster is held to the firewall by a bracket that in turn is held in place by four screws behind it. To get to this bolts require yoga type positions where your wrist has to be virtually dislocated to get to one of the bolts at the bottom, it’s always the last one as I found out before, so I done this one first. The other three are fine to get off and easily accessible. Bolts off and stored on the fender guard. The next part is awkward. The brake pedal linkage is connected to the back of the booster via a small shaft and a safety clip at the end. This is slid between the mounting bracket points that has holes cut out in order to remove this bar and pin.

Picture the scene, I am now bend right over the car, the hood is up and I am wedged in the small gap that I can get into. The torch is in my mouth, the long-nosed pliers are in hand and the brake booster is in the other hand. The hat is on, I am gently maneuvering the booster around to take the weight off the locking pin, there is crunching on the gravel driveway. It’s the postman I assume, I am expecting a magnetic torch to be delivered for the very reason. I’m OK for now, it can wait. The pliers move in for the kill, they grip the exposed end of the clip, I start to pull it up. I’m murmuring to myself about how the clip does not have a father at this point, it was particularly difficult at the time. More crunching on the drive, the postman is going. I pay no attention. The pin is free and I am taking my time. “Heeellooooh, are you there” and a banging on the trunk of my car with a hand.

Two things I have an issue with here: One, of course I am here, I am wedged in a small place with torch in mouth. Two, somebody is touching my car, you weren’t invited to do so. I could assume, that me banging on you head with my 1/2inch spanner will not cause you to complain either. My car doesn’t look much at the moment, but neither does a Ming dynasty vase look brilliant, you don’t go round banging them either.

As I was taken by surprise I jumped, my body tells me to straighten, fine it responds. My head is now slammed into the hood by the hood spring, with the expletives that our fully flowing now, just like the blood from my left hand finger which was now jammed in the booster mount. The torch has dropped and has made a few clattering noises on the way down to the garage floor, the pliers have followed suite by lack of grip and the safety locking clip has now made a gentle tinkle to somewhere in the black hole void of the engine bay. I was not happy! In the process of me trying to emerge are as gracefully as possible I forgot the spanners were there and knocked a few of them onto the floor as well. Now I am seriously unhappy. Standing up straight I now, my hat is on the skew and almost have the ear flap covering my right eye like some sort of hairy eye patch. There at the end of the car was a bloke in his mid fifties standing on tip toe swaying trying to get a good look at me, he looked like some drunken Meerkat waving a sheet of paper at me. “Can I interest you in this leaflet, have you asked yourself some of these questions?” He got a response alright, I advised him that from thirty odd feet away I can’t read his leaflet and I don’t wanna read it. I was more concerned about stopping the blood pumpin’ out of my finger so I can straighten my hat. He did look a little bemused as to why I was a little curt with him to say the least as I was straightening my hat up. There was a cold frosty few seconds were the cold lifeless stare of man should be enough to say, time to leave. Metaphorically speaking, tumble weeds rolled across between us, he said “Oh, OK I will leave it here for you”, with that put it on the trunk, gave it a little pat like some obediant dog and scampered off. Now I am mad. He touched the car again, and I had to find the bits. The torch was easy, that fell straight down and was still on. I managed to sort of slide down the wall sideways on and reach under to retrieve the torch. There are now light teeth marks in the torch rubber, if it were a steel one I would have sent the bloke the bill to have my teeth capped, I swear I would have chipped them. So now I had to look for the bolts and most importantly the clip. I could see it, right in the corner of the engine bay on the chassis member. I couldn’t reach it so I had to go and get the magnetic extendable pick up tool. That could wait for now. So I resumed the new yoga position (that I just invented) called Mustang Forward Crane Position, this involves said maneuver before, butt pressed against a wall, bent over at the waist, arms in some weird position and your head jammed against a hood spring, but with an additional forty-five degree body twist to one side to get the locating bar out of a Brake Booster and pedal linkage. A couple of minutes later it was out.

I took the reservoir and booster back to the man cave, got the magnetic pick up tool and went back to the engine bay, only stopping to pick up the leaflet from the Jehovah Witness. To be fair if he had have been five minutes later there would be no issue. I would have politely declined his offer. I am not saying what I did with the leaflet, but I suddenly remembered that I must put the recycling bin out. The pick up tool was able to get the nuts and the locking pin fine. The tool seems like a luxury, but in this case I was glad I had one. The wheel came of no problem and the car is now sitting on an axle stand until the tyre is fixed. Erm, that also reminds me, I must give Will a call to let him know it’s on its way. Lol 🙂

So, does religion and Mustangs mix, not with me they didn’t, on that occasion anyway.

That was my story, I hope it was worth reading, as the whole thing is absolutely true. The hat? If it weren’t for my Snap On hat I would have had blood coming from my head as well, due to location of the newly defined yoga position.

Snap on winter hat - saved me from disaster — My Snap On winter hat – saved me from disaster

Review of Tuff Stuff Alternator

I have reviewed the Tuff Stuff 100amp alternator and custom bracket (link here), or you can find it under the Parts Section on the header bar. I have had a few hits in the search about this so I have decided to do review it.

If I get time I will add some pictures of the Brake Booster and it’s removal. If not I will add them during the week.

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