Tag: brakes

Before & After

I have had some emails saying why don’t I do a before and after photo set of the restoration? Then I got to thinking as to why I hadn’t up till now. There was no reason, so this post may be cheating a little as there is nothing new here. But what is new is the fact they have never been compared side by side before.  As I didn’t start my blog until a year after I bought the car, some of the earliest pictures don’t exist as such, during that time I had re-wired the car for the first time, managed to fire the car up, got the locks working (sort of), painted the trunk section and interior floor pans. Obviously if I had of known I would be doing a blog at that time, I would have documented it all much better than I have done. However my early work was re-done once the car had got to Mustang Maniac. Under their supervision and help it would be done “Properly” as Adam told me. So in effect you are indeed seeing the restoration from scratch, all be it not as bad as it was. I suspect that I would be playing catch up to keep on top of the car all the time to keep it looking good, especially with the original route I was going to take, ie; the amateur way.

Body Work:

 Rebuilt Back End:

left quarter
no lights and fuel tank out.

Underside:

This was the old underseal, dirt and what ever else was squirted on there. Welded, ground down, filled, sanded down, painted with red oxide and painted with proper underseal and satin black paint.

from inside the trunk

Doors, Roof and Sides:

new door
right quarter
rear glass removed
daunting start

Rebuilt Front End:

battery tray plate
new door

Interior:

Inside was originally treated with POR15 for rust protection. This was later removed and proper sealant applied at paint and then primer and top coats. The last step was the Dynamat sound proofing, before the carpet that is.

left different angle
Rear back
left side with prep sprayed

Engine:

The story here was that I wanted to go sort of modern with the silicone look. As I knew I wanted a blue look to the car I went for the blue silicone and the blue spark plug leads. I went of the idea and eventually swapped them for the revised black and chrome look. The spark plug leads were changed at the last month as was the valve covers. The cable routing went through a number of variations until I was happy with it at that point. Rewire of the car was the first job as I had to see if the engine started, which it did on the second turn of the key after twelve years of standing years. Pretty impressive.

Brake booster in location at the very back right hand corner
prep for intake removal

Transmission:

unable to even see the grease nipples.
box end

Steering and Suspension:

finger tight fittings
steering box end of column
old shock right side
right

Brakes:

Even the brakes look as good as the outside of the car. The front drum brakes were replaced with disc brake conversion for stopping power and safety. The brake servo was original from the factory but was upgraded to dual system, again for safety.

Drum before treatment
Black caliper
drive shaft removed with back plate in place
brake set and inner gasket on (awaiting additional sprng for the seperator bar under the cylinder
Booster surface rust

Electrical:

All electrics have been replaced and the bulbs converted to LED where I can.

Original burnt out wire loom
lens and bulb out
LEDs located on the housing

Glass and Bright Work Trim:

rubber seal cut away and left on mastic
frame in place
frame Insides cleaned
right inside before clean
right inside cleaned
Original state

Paint Process:

There are hundreds of photos I could add here but I have kept it to the more key stages of the process.

Transportation:

These were some interesting shots of the car coming and going to different places.

ramp up

Driving Her:

Special Thanks:

I have mentioned this before, but none of this would have been possible without the help and moral support from Mustang Maniac and their associates; Adam, Al (Yogi), Paul (Lob Monster), Chris (Careful), John, Paul (the paint), Lance (OCD from Marketing). I have learned so much from them all, above all I have gained some great friends who have all helped me realise a life’s ambition and dream come true.

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Open and Shut Case

A great weekend for weather and lots got done on the car. To start with I finished replacing the other door hinge pins and re-aligned the doors again. After that I adjusted the hand brake so it now works properly instead of dragging just a little bit! I replaced the steering ram rubber gator that was split and ripped in half. Then on top of all that – I treated the inside under dash with a little more anti-rust treatment. I have placed all the pictures for the hinge pin replacement in the “Photo Menu – Bodywork Section” or click here for the link. Again all these things you will not see but have to be done. I just thought I would share this picture of Mustang with virtually no body work that is totally open the elements, hence the good weather means a day of this sort of thing!

do1

I am going to have a little rant now; If I offend anybody it’s obviously not you that I am referring too. There are a very small percentage of lorry drivers out there who drive dangerously and think they own the road. Before any lorry drivers start getting on their high horse let me explain. The vast majority of lorry drivers are great drivers, it’s a difficult job I appreciate that, it takes a lot of skill and I dare say can be quite boring driving hundreds of miles on motorways all day and night. But boredom is one of the things I want to investigate here. I have to use a main dual carriageway road to get home. To get onto that road it’s via a main down ramp onto the main road with a little slip road. This week coming home there was not many cars on the road and it was just getting dusk, I was on the slip road accelerating up to speed and the lorry was coming up beside me, I was indicating and my lights were on, his were not I might add. Now he didn’t move over to allow me out, there were no other cars the other side of him. He just sat beside me until I almost run out of slip road, I even hooted at him, in the end I had to break and let him past. I should have swerved as soon as I could, that way I would have been in front of him, but that is not nice etiquette for the road. When I pulled out from behind him, still there are no cars close by. I gave him some horn treatment to express my displeasure and indicated via a hand gesture it was not a kind thing, or accepted thing to do. What did he do? Yep, horn back at me, flashing his lights and then started swerving in both lanes! He left his lights on full beam even though other cars were flashing him coming the other way. What was that all about? Now this has happened to me in the past as well and I get really annoyed about it. OK, so it not usually as bad as this performance from this individual who has an IQ the size of his wheel radius, but the not letting me out part I mean is just pathetic. There is a new law that has been passed in the UK that makes it illegal to tailgate now. But, when In slow-moving traffic the lorries sit so far up my ass I get imprints of the number plate on the back of my seat, it’s dangerous so back off! So I have a few points to make 1) My brakes are better than yours for stopping quickly. 2) If you have to stop that quickly the trailer will be out of control and cause an accident. 3) If you don’t react quickly enough you will slam into me, causing an accident. 4) If your tired and don’t notice the traffic you will have an accident. 5) Your forty or forty-four ton lorries will pulverize anything that they hit when you have an accident. 6) You don’t have to swerve out at the last-minute to overtake another lorry that will take you ten minutes to get past, just because you are going a quarter of a mile an hour faster. 7) If my car misfires and slows suddenly you will go into the back of me and cause an accident, probably killing me. Get my point here? Do these bad lorry drivers play these games to give them something to do? I know for a fact that lorry drivers do not want to change gear or slow down, a good friend of mine is a lorry driver and he has told me this many times as it effects the mpg figures. He also admits that there are some very poor drivers out there that give them all bad names. Most of the time if I am slowing to turn off I will flash the lorry in to allow him in front of me, to which I get a thank you back. That is how it should be. But, why do these people do it and make life dangerous? There are eighteen gears in most lorries, if you don’t want to change gear – don’t be a lorry driver. If you want to play life and death – join the army. There are always reports of lorries killing people in accidents, just as there are cars killing people. But with that amount of vehicle and weight, the consequences are that much more dangerous and carnage usually follows. Please give as car drivers a little room, your lorry is not a weapon. I do all I can do avoid you guys and let you get on with your jobs. Don’t get me wrong, there are thousands of lorry drivers out there who are great drivers, let me out fine and I have no issues what so ever. Perhaps the drivers I have issues with are non-UK drivers and their standards are not up to the UK standards. I don’t know, but I am sick of having to play “Road Roulette” with lorries. Apologies to all the good lorry drivers out there, but I just had to get it off my chest. Yes, car drivers are probably just as bad and it could be said about them too. Rant over.

As a result of this I am thinking is it just me? I have created a little poll to get your opinions. Please vote, nothing but the percentages will be displayed.

Quick links:

Door Hinge Pin Replacement – Photos – Bodywork Section – Door Hinge Replacement, or click here.

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Actions or Words?

So here we are in the UK and we are in the grip of a heat wave and we are not happy. People I have spoken to are moaning about the heat, a few weeks ago they were moaning about the fact our summer hadn’t started yet. Now we have some glorious weather I am trying to make the most of it but don’t understand why people moan so much. This sunny weather has  allowed me to be sanding down my front valance, my radiator valance etc. all outside without having to stand in a dust cloud in the man cave. I have been in the garden with the new flower bed and watching the bee’s enjoy life as much as I am enjoying doing bits on the car outside. I have found a patch in the garden where the wind is hardly noticeable and the sun is not directly on you. This area is perfect for spraying car parts with primer and rust treatment. I was using this area to its full potential over most of the weekend much to my satisfaction. The only down side is the wife don’t like it. The patch which looks like deformed Olympic rings again in grey and black, is unfortunately directly in front of the kitchen window out the front of my man cave. When the wife returned home to see how much I had done with my spray job she didn’t look happy. When I moved the parts to show her workmanship, the attention rapidly moved to the now multi coloured grass. That look (again) was flashed in my direction. All I could think of to say was “That will go when you next cut the grass”. I’m glad I wasn’t hungry that night; I think she forgot me! When I mentioned the fact that there seemed to be a meal missing I was greeted with, “You can make some toast if you cut the bread”. I have now found another shower curtain to spread on the grass so that I don’t make a mess. Sometimes no actions can speak louder than words. Babe, you win!

Over the weekend I went down to see the boys at Mustang Maniac and got a few bits and pieces.  I was talking about the fact I needed an exhaust system and Adam asked me about the headers on the car. To cut a long story short it turns out that the headers I have are so close to the steering ram they have damaged the rubber gator. As a result I was told I should replace the original bracket with an extension bracket that moves the ram out of harms way. I fitted the part on over the weekend and placed a photo guide on how to do it under the Photos menus – Steering. It really has made a difference.

buffers and plates in place
bracket and steering ram in place

Recently I have had a couple of nice emails asking about the brakes on the car and if I had a guide. Well yes, I have books that I have reviewed and I also have a few diagrams I keep in plastic wallets for reference of the bits I need. I even coloured in the black and white diagram with the colours of the springs and where they should be, it took me all of about one minute in Photoshop. All of the various diagrams I used can be found under the Articles menu – Front & Rear Brake Diagrams.

Drum Brakes spring guide

Enjoy the weather while you can and keep up the sun screen.

Quick Links:

Steering and Header Spacing click here

Front and Rear Brake diagrams click here

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She Moves!

Epic news from the garage.

Today was a great day. I pushed the car out of the garage and poured yet another gallon of premium unleaded into the tank. Turned her over for thirty seconds and let it settle. Turned the key again and she fired up. I let the car run for a few minutes with a little blip of the throttle now and again as you do. It was great to hear the sound again. The car has had the all the brakes done, the single master cylinder converted to a dual system and bled twice. I got in the car nervous, I put the foot on the brake, now it wasn’t as hard as it was. I Put the auto into “R” the revs dropped and I released the brake. She rolled backwards under her own power. Foot on the brake and not a lot until it was almost on the floor, but it stopped. I put the car in “D” and the revs dropped. I released the brake and she crept forward a few feet and sort of stopped going up the kerb onto the drive. A touch of the throttle and the rear wheels snapped into action and off we went. Ohh sh….t, I hit the brake and not a lot. I pressed hard and knocked into “N” I stopped. My heart was pounding and my heart was thrilled and my head was a little sad. I would like the brakes to have been a bit more, but, the brakes are new & not run it yet, rust on the faces of the brakes and the pedal probably needs adjusting a bit more. All these things will get better as time goes on and I guess I am expecting too much to start with. The car is just an animal to take of like that, I loved it! After I pulled up and got out with a smile I was pleased to see that the usual petrol heads had come round to see me while she was running. We had a catch up on the latest bits gone in and the next project to do.  A new neighbour who just moved in down the road followed the noise and came up to me to say hello, another petrol head likes the car. A quick hello to David – a pleasure to meet you and talk cars for a while. 🙂

Over the course of time I have told people about this blog and they say they will look it up. When I bump into them again the first thing they say is “What is that blog address again as I forgot it by the time I got home?” This prompted me to do something a little fun, I got some business cards made up with the details on of the blog, email, Facebook and Twitter. The people seem to like them and I have had a few more hits after I gave them out. What do you think?

business card

I am delighted with the day so far but I still can’t find that stupid brake flare adaptor! I was hoping it was going to drop out, but no that was too simple.

Today was a small drive for a  classic Mustang, but huge step for the project.

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It’s in the can

Keepin’ the stock look

What is he bangin’ on about? Yesterday I spent a few hours down at Mustang Maniac where I was talking to Adam about my next project and what I needed, that project being my wiper motor. It turns out that my two-speed motor is like trying to find mermaid tears in the ocean. It seems a total nightmare, but Adam is on the case so I will just have to wait and see what happens. While I was down there I also took my power steering pump and we had a look at the issues, the main one being that the pump is more interested in squirting fluid out the seal than it should be pumping out the back into the steering ram! It turns out that the last Air Con version pump was fitted to another car and I was going to be without. But that wasn’t a problem for Adam as he said “I will swap the “cans” over for you, it will be better than a new one.” This entailed taking the old case of my pump, and putting it straight onto the new upright filler tube version.  The correct pump was found with the in line fittings and we went off to the workshops with a couple of pumps and the usual escort of guard dogs. I was told that the fitting for the pulley was an “interference fit”, this was new one on me. It turns out that interference fit is where the bore is microns smaller than the shaft and so its a real tight fit, no key ways are used.  The special tool was found and I was shown how to do it. There is no way that any of my tools would have done it without damaging the pulley wheel or damaging the case. Watching intently the process took no more than twenty minutes which included me saying “hang on, I want a picture of that”. The cans were swapped over, an I still have the original case and tag under the hood from the original factory fit and not a reconditioned one. How’s that for customer service? I have added the full process to the existing guide, click here, or go to the photos, Engine bay – Power Steering Pump project.

Fitting the tool in place
Fitting the removal tool in place

As we were walking around I was shown around the new additions to the yard. I was shown a customer car that was a complete nightmare that was purchased in good faith, but turned out to be a mess and was in need of some serious TLC. Speaking to Adam he will post his set of pics on the blog when he gets a few minutes. There is also some news he will post about a car he has just bought. I was going to spill the beans but you will just have to wait and see on his blog what it is. It’s a little bit special shall we say.

I got round to bleeding the front brakes today and I can say – I have a pedal. Ohhh, yeah baby! I press the pedal the drums stop, the fluid don’t come out. The pedal don’t go all the way down to the bulk head now and there is resistance. I started off with the Sealey vacuum tool, (review to foloow very soon), then when the final air was out the tried and trusted pipe in a pot method was to be used. All I can say is thanks to the wife who sat there pressing the pedal to command. I did say it will only take two minutes, but as I have a clock in the garage I was constantly reminded of how many minutes had elapsed since she got in the car. The funny side is that as I have no seat in the car, all I could see was a pair of eyes looking over the top of the door sill when I got back up to top the reservoir up again. I wasn’t laughin’ much, honestly darling. Next Weekend I will put more fuel in the car and reverse it out of the garage and drive it back in.

That will be a big day for me if it works, I may just have to get a beer out to celebrate or I will be crying in my beer!

Quick links:

Power Steering Pump Project, click here.

Just in case you need the blog address, I have the link to the right or click here:  http://mustangmaniac.org or go to my Mustang Links Tab.

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Slight change of plan

Sun’s out for a change!

I need to ask a question. Why is that when I was re-routing a brake line for my dual Master Cylinder I managed to knock the brake line flaring tool case with my elbow. My own fault for balancing it on the cowl, but I did managed to catch it. Of course everything went everywhere, I was standing there looking like I lost £10 but found £5 if you know what I mean, but no I was holding an empty plastic case. I heard that dreaded clink clank again of various bits rattling down the engine. The flaring dies that make the double flares are quite small and I found four out of the five pieces. My question is where do the bits go that you can’t find. I have looked for hours and I mean hours. I have a torch with a Blue Point mirror tool looking in all places. I know that my started motor teeth are OK and not rusted up. I know that I have missed a little bit with my rust treatment on the left hand side of the chassis just under the steering column. I now know that I have a bolt missing on the bottom part of the exhaust manifold on the left hand side. What I don’t know is where that little mushroom-shaped bit went. Do the gremlins come along steal it, and run off before I see them. If I catch the disruptive swine, will his pockets be filled with thirty plus years of car bits I have lost? It drives me mental. I have rocked the car, I have put my hands in every tiny gap that I could, I have even used my magnetic pick up tool to probe places that I didn’t know existed. I have had bits of grime and rusty bits  drop into my eyes and hair when I bang under the engine, as if it would make a difference! I swear it’s not there. Is this just me and my bad luck or does it happen to anybody else? This is not the first time it has happened to me, I have lost nuts, washers and clips. I have still not found them. Perhaps there is miniature version of the Bermuda Triangle that is currently located under that Ford small block v8 in my garage, the Mustang oblong maybe!

Blue Point telescopic Mirror

OK, so I was going to get the car out and start her up and use the brakes to drive her in and out. I have half bleed the brakes to the rear with the new dual master cylinder from Mustang Maniac and all was well. I was going to do the fronts but other things side tracked me a little on Saturday and couldn’t finish it off. So as today was a lovely day I had a change of plan decided my time would be better spent in the garden, it was time for some bodywork action. I have already removed the damaged paint and the pitted filler from the front valance and the grill valance here in part 1. I have taken some more pictures of the Valances for part 2 and updated the pages, or just click here for the quick link. I have applied a total of three applications of the filler and rubbed down each one to make it a level as possible to smooth out the low spots. The hot weather has made application of the filler a bit of a race against time as the drying process was pretty quick in the warmth. I can bleed the rest of the brakes when it is raining next, that’s an inside job, where as sanding and getting caked in filler dust is not an ideal man cave job in the rain!

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Late night on the car

Today was a mental busy day, the sun was out the birds were singing and I was bashing and clanking in the garage. I have spent all day and few more hours into the evening doing my upgrade. I have taken out the old leaking master cylinder and replaced it with a new Dual Master cylinder. Yep, last week I went down to see Adam at Mustang Maniac and got myself a new set up. The parts took a little while to find amongst the organised chaos there of the massive delivery of stock. I was a little worried about the fact there was a single cylinder that does all the brakes. If the single cylinder leaks then I lose all braking, not good. So it was a no brainer really to get this in. OK, again it’s not concourse for the car I know all that, but it’s safe or will be once its done. I have taken lots of photo’s for the project and what had to be done, I will upload them and write them up this week sometime, watch this space. All I am saying is I needed more copper pipe, lots of it!

Why didn’t I do it yesterday? Simple, remember that rotten ol’ (OK, it’s new but I don’t like it because of the hassle it gives me), summer-house I was having fun with? Well I finished it off yesterday. It was a total nightmare to say the least. The glass was cracked when I opened the packets up and the latch had the bar missing inside to go to the inside handle. Just what I needed, NOT. I put the rest of the glass in that I could and panel pined the beading on. Now to me, hammers and glass don’t go well together and I was so carefull not to break any more glass, hardly ideal. Give me metal to sort out anytime!

But, next weekend is a Bank Holiday, that means I will be doing car stuff only, no sheds, no fences, no summer houses, no weeding, no patios, no nothing except my car. That is unless the better half decides I need to do a few jobs to make up for the money I spent on the brake cylinder. I admit it – I dare say one of the days will be me doing jobs for her. I may wear the trousers in this relationship – but she gets them out for me to wear! 🙂

I have attached a picture of the finished Master Cylinder as a little teaser.

dual MC

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Brakes stop play

It’s been a bad weekend for the part-time mechanic…

I’m back on the blog again, do I hear cheers? Ok maybe not then. The last couple of weekends have been mental and I have not had a chance to update the blog properly, for that I apologise. Last weekend I had to put up a Summer house that was going cheap from B&Q  (that’s a big DIY wholesale for those who don’t know who they are over the pond). Well it turned upand was unloaded from the lorry, there was no book of words (instructions). Now I do know that being a bloke it’s mandatory to throw away the book of words as we don’t need it. But, I wanted to check that everything was there this time. To cut a long story short the wife was on the phone giving some poor geeza a hard time. I keept asking for the phone to sort it out, but I was declined my kind offer to have a word with somebody and get it sorted. It turned out that the wife tactics of being upset and complaining worked over my method of having a major rant and losing my rag! We work well – the good cop / bad cop thing! In the mean time I am preparing the car for the brake bleeding I wanted to do. No bits means I can’t put it together, I can do my brakes. I was getting out the Sealey vacuum bleeder ready, the spanners were ready, the fluid was ready, and then the car turned up with the bag of bits and the book of words as a special delivery. I thanked him through clenched teeth, and he spent a while looking at the car in the garage. He liked the car so I decided he wasn’t so bad after all. I had to make out how grateful I was at receiving the bits as I could now put all my car bits away again and go build the wooden hut, sorry Summer house! Oh yeah – like I was well chuffed. NOT. So I started to check the bits and they were all there so I started to build it. I followed all the instructions, I worked out where all the bits were to go and it was looking OK. The sky was getting dark and race against time before it rained on the untreated roof was on. The rain held off which was good and I got to the point of getting the doors on. Well they may have been dolls house doors as they didn’t fit. They will need a router on there to shave about half-inch of the hinge side to enable them to fit in the gap. The lap of the boards was concave in the middle, the doors meet at the top but had a gap I could get my hand in at the bottom. I just so love flat pack. Why was it cheap? Now I know why the doors were from a garden shed and two different ones at that. Now with the right hump, I downed tools and declared that the darkness stops play and the now darkening raining cloud was now hanging over my head following me around.

This weekend was my time on the car and was going to blog it. So Saturday morning I went to the garage and got everything ready. The Vacuum tool was out, the spanners were out, the fluid was out, the wife was out! I decided to check the inside of the brake Master Cylinder and it was a little rusty so I got my 2000 grit sandpaper out and removed the loose rust. The bottom of the bore had a little pitting in there, but it wasn’t bad, so I decided to go for it. The reservoir was filled and I pushed the brakes a little. Checked, all was fine, no leaks. Pressed it a little more, checked all was still fine. I went to the rear of the car and got the bleed kit ready and started the vacuum. Nothing coming through so I give the pedal a little nudge to get the fluid moving down the pipes. Then I went to check. There it was, fluid dripping out of the gap between the master cylinder and the power booster. So I slung a load of rags under the now larger forming puddle over my nice paintwork in the engine bay. I had a little syringe that I sucked out the fluid and decanted into the plastic bowl near me. I didn’t know what was coming out faster, the drips from the brake cylinder or the tears from my eyes watching the brake fluid going to waste. I locked of the bleed nipple and killed the vacuum. A quick call to my Mustang hotline Adam, he said, is it doing this? Yep! Is it doing that? Yep! Conclusion – the master cylinder was indeed faulty, well I am sure that was what we decided it was at the time. So now I have to decide, replace the single reservoir, or upgrade to dual reservoir. I know that a dual is not the original but then again I will have a separate system if one side of the master cylinder went wrong. I slept on it, I read up about it and made my mind up. Dual reservoir is the way to go. Also when I upgrade to discs, I will be ready there that side of it as well. So when you read this Adam, get me a dual master ready! 🙂

Brake bleeder connected to the rear wheel
Brake bleeder connected to the rear wheel

Today I have been sulking a bit as I can’t do a great deal,  so I decided to catch up on the blog. I have updated some pages and added a new page.

Updated:

Front Valance (Part 2), or click here for the quick link

Rear Brake Drum Rebuild, or click here for the quick link

Rocker Covers, or click here for the quick link

Hand brake Cable & Hardware Replacement, or click here for the quick link

Added:

Brake bleeding and issues, or click here for the quick link. With this page I will be updating it as I go along so it will be a running guide if you like. Once I have got to use the Sealey VS402 I will post a review of it, but at the moment I has been used. Not through the lack of trying I might add.

I am in the process of doing a rust comparison between the Granville Rust Cure that I have reviewed (click here) and the FE-123 treatments. I started a few weeks ago and have been watching the results so far. I will keep you updated and start a review once I have a little more time to go and results to hand.

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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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Neglected blog and subtle hints

Don’t worry I am still here.

OK, I admit it I havent posted properly for a little while, two weeks actually. The word “post” is not in my good books with me at the moment. Let me explain, I have had the past week off as holiday, and I do use that term “holiday” very loosely in this update. I have been promising to replace our broken fence for the last 2 years now. But, I have had important things to do since then, like do my Mustang up! But my wife loves her garden as much as I love my car, the fact her prized climbing Hydrangea were getting damaged due to the fence being broken as it was swaying more than front row of a Barry Manilow concert. When the wind blows, the fence moves and bits break of, I get it in the neck and I promise to fix it, then I go on the car. I have been getting plenty of subtle hints though, let me take you back to Christmas just gone. When I was asked what I wanted for Christmas the standard response is, “bits for my car” or “tools”. Come opening prezzie time at Christmas I got some car bits, brilliant. Snap On vouchers, awesome. Then I got given few extra goodies that “I may like!” given to me in order; All Fat Max tools, hammer (OK I can use that on the car), small spirit level (can’t see how I can use that on the car, check the stance of the car? Nice thought though). General purpose hand saw for wood, (definitely can’t use that on the car, but I can change it, I will have to be careful how I phrase it!) Fine toothed wood hand saw, (now I was wondering what was going on.) Then came a long heavy object, yes, a 1″ Snap On breaker bar, Nope, it was a massive sledge-hammer. Now I can’t use that on the car, then the penny started to drop with the final little prezzie gardening gloves. OK, I had been saying that I need a sledge hammer to break the old concreate, I need spirit levels for the posts, I need saws etc. Last Friday we, or should I say, “I” had delivered nine panels, eight concrete posts, one wood post and a gate, three trellis, oh and post mix. Great, not. Saturday I was greeted with “we can paint the panels before we put them up”. To be fair it was a nice(ish) day and we had a laugh. So Saturday was a write off. Sunday, Mark came round to help put up the fence. He’s a good man, he works hard and is better with a shovel than I am. Well I am getting on a bit now, that’s my excuse anyway. We had fun getting the old spikes out, trying to work around the plants that can’t be dug up or it will kill them and trying to avoid tree roots. Sunday was a write off. Monday, Mark came back to finish the last two panels with me. It didn’t take too long. (Thanks to Mark for help on the fence, grand job mate). That left me with a part fence to cut down and gravel board to fit in the space. Then we had to go into town, on the way back we got some door furniture for the gate. Monday was a write off. Tuesday was about cutting the trellis to fit inside the concrete posts and hang the gate. Tuesday was a write off. That evening the wife was printing out some lesson plans and my printer decided to produce a collection of drive rollers and cogs out the front with half the paper. This was greeted with panic as the lesson plans needed to be done. Wednesday morning we checked the net and found a printer we liked. So off we went to get it. We got to the store which was empty and we were pounced on like a lion that hadn’t been fed for a few days. I brushed them away and looked at the printer, not bad, but the replacement cartridges were only £10 cheaper than the poxy printer. Are the manufactures having a laugh or what? Do they fill the cartridges up with mermaid tears or what? Anyway, we found one we liked and took it home. I went on the car when we got back to prep ready getting the drive shaft out and backing plate off for the brakes. Two hours later it was out and the brake plate as well. that evening the printer works well after a lengthy performance to set it up. Thursday I went to see Adam at Mustang Manic, I had a great laugh with him and got a complete hand brake kit for the car and a couple of drive shaft oil seals. A great day. Friday I spent all day cleaning up the plate and drive shaft with anti rust treatments. Great day. Today I put the backing plate and brakes together, put the drive shaft back in and got some of the Hand brake or Emergency Brake in place. Epic day.

So as you can see I have been busy, the wife is pleased with her fence and has been in the garden pottering about. I have been on the car for the last couple of days and will be again tomorrow. I will post a photo set of the drive shaft and rear brake build. I have added a review of my Metal Works tap and die set, which can be found under the Tool Reviews or click here for a quick link. I will post again very soon.

Am I forgiven?

Heres a little teaser of what I have been up to!

drive shaft being removed
drive shaft being removed

Note: I used all the tools I got for Christmas putting that fence up, these women are cute, but I don’t do subtle I just need to be told. oh, she did! Come to that I have used my tools from Snap On too, I don’t need to be told to use them though. 🙂

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