Clocking Alternators

When I first started the restoration of my car back in 2011 I had no working electrical parts at all when I bought the car. Firstly there was a fire under the dash were the nutter who owned the car before me had wrapped a fuse with tin foil for some reason. Secondly the original alternator had rusted up and I didn’t trust it. So the only option I could see was a replacement wire loom from American Autowire for the Ford Mustang. Their recommendation is to use a one wire alternator. The choice was limited at the time as a result, so the best option I found was Tuff Stuff. I purchased a standard v belt in chrome with a 100amp rating at the time.

Tuff Stuff Rear connections

Tuff Stuff Alternator

However there was a problem with the terminal for the single positive wire. The stud it connects to sits about 1/4″ away from the block even at the maximum distance on the standard alternator bracket. These pictures of the stud in the normal position for Tuff Stuff alternators.

Initially I had my alternator bracket custom-made to move the alternator much further away from the block with a longer belt to make it work and be safe.

This was fine at the time, but the step for the belt clearance was now in the wrong place which meant that the bracket was just a millimetre away or so from the edge of the belt. This occasionally rubbed as you can see below. I kept a very close eye on the belt for signs of fraying or any damage to the belt. None of which has happened as a result of this modified bracket I might add.

Later on while browsing the net I didn’t realise that the case on these alternators could be adjusted by ‘Clocking’ or ‘Indexing’. Basically this means that you can move the body case around to where you want the stud to be by moving the front fittings. Nowhere could I find a step by step guide on how to do it.

Note: not all alternators can be ‘Clocked’ and you should check before you try doing it.

The only thing I found was these instructions from Tuff Stuff. Note ‘point 7’ mentions the use of torque settings for tightening the centre pulley nut. Interestingly Tuff Stuff use both terms ‘Clocking’ and ‘Indexing’ in the same document.

Nowhere is this ‘torque’ setting documented on the Tuff Stuff website, so I contacted Tuff Stuff for their ‘help’ and advice via their message process, for what good it was. Their automated response said I would ‘get a response within twenty-four hours’. After a few days nothing, so I tried again with a different email address. They responded the next day where they just sent me the instructions above with no words within the body of the email. My response was immediate back to them, stating that I already found the document on their website and asked again specifically for the torque settings. Their response with the following:

On 4 Oct 2018, at 14:12, Matt Oliver <matt@tuffstuffperformance.com> wrote:

We use an air wrench to put on all of the pulleys here. Thank you for your business. Have a great day!

Matt Oliver
Tech Manager

Hardly helpful when they say you should “torque to settings” which they obviously don’t do themselves. Not exactly confidence inspiring by any shape of the imagination, not to mention poor documentation.

So, with the lack of information I decided to do it myself!

As I had already fitted the alternator, the process below also shows the removal. If you have a new alternator you can skip these first few steps on removing the alternator and go straight to the ‘Clocking‘ process below.

First things first is to disconnect the battery.

Disconnect the single wire from the back of the alternator. Remove the tension bolt for the alternator which fits inside the bracket’s slot gap. Then loosen the hinge bolt at the top for the alternator. Unhook the v belt and remove the hinge bolt fully, taking the weight of the alternator remove it to a work bench.

Figure 1

My research and a warning;

If you read some of the forums out there on this subject, they say that you can undo the four case bolts and move the back around then retighten. This saves the hassle of undoing the rotor nut. WRONG. This could damage the springs and brushes internal components within the rear housing. You should only clock/index the alternator by moving the FRONT housing part of the case only.

‘Clocking’ process – also called ‘Indexing’

With the alternator on its side we will need to lock the cooling fan in place. I used a long-handled probe between the fins and resting on the bench surface. A screwdriver could also do the job.

The fins are not evenly spaced, and you will need to find the best place to wedge your locking tool in place. This should be on the same side (left) looking from the front of the alternator when you are undoing the rotor nut counter-clockwise.

The best way to remove the rotor nut is to use an impact wrench. I used my cordless Snap-On 3/8 impact driver with a 15/16ths impact socket. It’s for this very reason that people incorrectly move the back part of the case around, just because it’s easier.

Holding as much of the unit still as you can, buzz the nut until it’s undone. Once the nut has been removed take out the locking bar you have used.

With the nut fully removed depending on your pulley type, (remove the parts one at a time, taking note of how they fitted together). Remove the spring washer next, then remove the v pulley from the face plate, followed by the polished face plate.

The final part is to slide of the fan itself. You will notice it has a key way cut out, but there is no key way on the rotor shaft itself, just a plain round shaft as shown. You can clearly see the uneven fan spacing here that I mentioned earlier.

notice the uneven fn spacing

There are four case bolts 5/16th which need to be loosened from the back of the case, I used a ratchet to break them free before using a cordless screwdriver to undo the rest. The bolts are quite long seated into the front half of the casing.

Once the four bolts are removed, hold the case together while resting the alternator on its back with the rotor facing up.

Gently separate the top from the stator (the black plates between the top and bottom half of the case). Lift up the top part of the case to a max of 1/4″ without disturbing the stator. Turn the front case by 90deg increments to where you need it to be. The pics I have marked below showing the gaps between the case during the indexing process.

Re-align the two halves of the case again and lower the top part of the case back down.

With the top is in place, hold the case together to stop it moving and turn the alternator onto its side again, finger tighten the four long case bolts back up. Spin the shaft to make sure that there is no snagging and spins freely.

Check that he rear stud is where you need it to be, perhaps do a dummy fit to the engine if required. Once you are happy with the location, tighten the case bolts back up. Do not over tighten the four case bolts, I recommend using the manual ratchet for the final tightening.

Spin the shaft once again to make sure it’s all still free spinning.

While the alternator was apart I took the opportunity to clean the case and the front sections. I was not happy to find bits of the chrome flaking of. I used Auto Finesse metal polish to remove the marks on the chrome and then Auto Finesse mint rims wax to seal the chrome.

I didn’t clean the spring washer or the back of the locking nut too much. The simple reason is that friction is required for the hold all the components on the rotor shaft.

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

Refitting The Parts

At this point you could replace the pulley style if they is your intention to change the look or function to a Serpentine setup maybe.

Replace the fan onto the shaft first making sure the fins are facing backwards.

Next make sure the cover plate is fitted the correct way round with the dish section fitting inside the fan recess.

Next is the v belt pulley that will sit flush onto the face plate, again the raised section fitting into the recess of the face plate now.

Slide the spring washer into the shaft and into the v pulley recess. Finally the nut is fitted and finger tightened for now. Spin the rotor to make sure all is free and not snagged anywhere.

Now insert the locking tool you used earlier on the other side (right) between the fan blades to hold the section still once again. Now re-impact the nut clockwise back into place securely.

Remove your locking tool and recheck that the whole section spins freely again.

Refitting the alternator

Place the long pivot bolt and washer into the pivot section of the alternator and through any spacer required to align the pulleys up correctly to the lower crank pulley. Finger tighten the bolt for now into the engine block. See ‘Figure 1‘ above.

If you are mounting the alternator bracket for the first time, lightly tighten the bolt above the main crank pulleys to hold the bracket in place, but movable to locate the tension bolt.

Next insert the tension bolt and spring washer through the bracket slot into the alternator case. Slip the v belt over the pulley. See ‘Figure 1‘ above.

Pull the alternator to tension and tighten the tension bolt just enough to hold the alternator in place for now. There should be 1/4″ to 1/2″ movement up and down on the belt. I prefer the twist method for the belt, twisting the belt 90deg in the middle between pulleys.

Once you are happy then fully tighten the tension bolt, Pivot bolt and the bracket bolt if needed.

At this point I took the time to clean up the cables up before refitting them. Connect the one wire back to the alternator stud and tighten up. Reattach the battery connection.

Start the car and make sure that you are charging correctly and that the belt is not slipping on the pulleys.

At this point I tidied up all the cables around the solenoid, the battery cable to the alternator, the cables for the engine block and starter motor so it all looks neat and tidy again.

That’s it, all done and took three hours in total which included the cleaning, rewrapping of cables, photos for this walk-through and tidying up of cables. I also have to clean all my tools after I have used them. It’s all part of my OCD problem regarding my tool box. I intend to get the proper bracket and belt shortly, but it’s not important right now as it still all works.

As far as I know, this is the only guide for a Tuff Stuff alternator clocking. I hope it helps somebody else out there. Apologies for the more tech styled post, but I had to share it. 🙂

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Back On The Road

Now that the weather in the UK has changed from pretty dismal to a sunny week or so. It was time to get the Mustang out and get it all ship-shape and road legal. Since November last year my car has sat in the garage just waiting for a nice day out. The car’s MOT had run out at the beginning of December, which means that until my car passes an MOT I can’t get any road tax to allow it back on the road, all be it that the road tax is free as it’s classed as a historical vehicle.

Earlier last week I arranged with Adam at Mustang Maniac to get my MOT booked in on Saturday (just gone). Friday evening the car was given a check up, to make sure fluid levels were where they should be and that I had no leaks. There shouldn’t be as I check my car every other week at least.

Saturday morning had arrived and it was starting to get sunny as I backed the car out the garage. It was a strange feeling being on the left hand side and it took a few minutes to get used to it again. The drive was great going to the Mustang Maniac yard, dual carriageway and some country roads to enjoy. The worst part was the pot holes or should I say craters in the road that had not been fixed. I spent most of my time totally focused on tarmac, when there was some rather than the traffic. I arrived at the yard after a ninety minute drive and sat in the office chatting to Adam for a while. I “borrowed” this pic from The Mustang Maniac blog Park & Pic section.

I was given verbal instructions on how to get to the MOT centre along with my faithful Sat-Nav. I was given some banter by Yogi warning me that the “Test centre closes at three, best you get a move on”. So off I went to the test centre fifteen minutes away, I parked up and waited for the guys to take my little lady into the testing bay.

What seemed like hours later (but it wasn’t), the tester came out with a clean sheet MOT pass. It’s such a relief to know that all was OK and safe with the car. Walking out to my car there was a couple of admirers looking at her and asked me a few questions about how long it took to restore and where was it done etc. I noticed a tiny drip from the water thermostat housing that needed a little tweak with a spanner to reseal again when I got back to the Mustang Maniac yard.

Now I can look forward to the dozen or so car shows I have in mind this year. My journey home was not so nice due to nutters on the road that got me nervous, so much so that I intended to make a little fun post shortly about it. Anyway I got home safely and parked the car up ready for a clean on Sunday. The car was dusty from the dry weather so I decided to get the Snow Foam on the car for the first bubble bath of the year.

Of course a rinse, snow foam, wash, rinse and dry is not enough, so I needed to give her a little wax top up to keep her shiny. Oh and polish the chrome wheels, and the glass, and the chrome trim etc. I must say that she didn’t look any different after the wash to be honest, but at least I know she is clean again.

I’m ready and waiting to get to the car shows now.

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Protecting The Chrome Jewels

On a recent visit to a good friend of mine who also owns a rather nice and rare coloured Mustang Convertible I was shown around his latest collection of Mustang memorabilia where I spotted in middle of his (man cave) garage a dehumidifier. He went on to explain the benefits of it and I could feel the air was different to mine at home. that was it, I was sold on the idea and set about getting one. So I done a little research from various places and found these points where I have collated them and made them a little more readable, I hope. I have since seen references to classic cars with lots of chrome like mine as the “Chrome Jewels”. I quite like that sying in fact. Many storage companies of classic cars all have climate controlled environments.

Rust will form where the surface of the steel has air and water. The first step is to stop the elements reaching the steel, paint does the job pretty well, but even better is wax or similar coatings, or Waxoyl etc. Chrome is surprisingly porous and normally underneath the chrome plate is steel so it needs protecting. A covering of wax, ordinary car wax or Gibbs, will do the trick, it looks invisible, adds shine and protection. Don’t forget that a chrome cleaner is generally abrasive and removes any wax coating, by all means use it to clean, but it doesn’t protect the chrome.

Don’t get to hung up about the temperature vs humidity, as it’s often being mentioned to keeping humidity below 50% to stop rust, but it’s a bit more complicated than that and one of the keys is understanding about “dew” points. All air contains water and as the temperature drops that water tries to change back from a vapour to a liquid, that’s what causes rain, warm moist air pushed up by the weather cools and the water in that cloud becomes a liquid which is heavy and falls out of the cloud – rain. In your own home you see it as condensation around bedroom windows on cold mornings. It is around the window because that is normally the coldest part of the room.

There are 3 ways to fix condensation:

Heat the room so the air inside can hold more water.
Open the window (ventilate) in the hope that air coming in from outside will be dryer and therefore hold more water.
Use a dehumidifier to reduce the percentage of water in the air.

The theory of condensation effect is to take a can of cold drink from the fridge and put it on the table or work top. Even in a warm house you immediately see condensation on the can as the water in the air rushes to the can and condenses back into a liquid. This is the same principle as how a dehumidifier works, you present a cold surface to the air, the air in turn gives up its water which is then collected in a container. The fan in the dehumidifier keeps an airflow over the cold chilled surface so as much air as possible reaches the cold surface.

Back to my Garage; heating the space to about 20c works well (in fact any heat helps) because the higher the temperature the less the water has a chance to condense back to a liquid. This is why I fitted a radiator in my garage, much to the bemusement of my wife! unfortunately it’s not the complete answer though. Another example of the condensation is that you get condensation in a bathroom after a long hot shower even if the air temperature is 25 or even 30c. You could indeed heat a normal garage to 20c, the car would sit in there and not deteriorate, but even with insulation that is expensive way of doing it. Hence why the US “dry State” cars are so popular in UK as there is not much chance of the rust taking hold in the past.

I have done all the usual things; The heating and water boiler is in my garage and gives of heat to the room as the hot water passes through the pipes. I have insulated as much as possible, the walls are cavity filled, the ceiling has plenty of insulation up there and the all important plastic floor to stop the cold coming up through the concrete. The up and over door has brushes to keep the draft out and the back of the door has heat insulating sheets. That way I should then be able to keep the space at least 9c throughout the winter with no additional heating and that is obviously a big help.

On the other hand, when you open the garage door the same thing can happen on a warm moist day, the air rushes in and condensation forms on whatever is coldest part in there, that is mostly going to be your prized possession, your car. I found this rather good chart to show the relative ranges of humidity and what I am trying to explain:

So I have bought myself a dehumidifier. I have reviewed it here and is also under the accessory menu on the main bar. I wanted two things from the non-negotiable options. An option for constant draining and the low-cost of running it over 24/7 scenario. The options were a little limited for my modest budget. I managed to pick up a well rated PureMate PM412 for a modest cost of £120 reduced by sixty pounds from the recommended retail price. I also purchased a digital humidity gauge and left it in the garage for a couple of days to get a reading. There is a max and min scale for both the temperature and the humidity. The gauge is on top of the car in the middle of the garage.

The unit is compact and neat looking with a capacity of twelve litres a day. There is a digital read out and super simple to work and set up. The gauge above shows the first night was 45rh to a max of 50rh which I was super happy with.

The unit has a castor wheels and a recessed handle which is so easy to move around. There is a one meter length of tubing they even supply for the constant drain should you need it which I will of course. The ease of movement makes it ideal to shove out-of-the-way in the corner of the garage when working on the car.

The collection tray can hold one and half litres of water, and over night I think it was up to about a little under a litre. So I am having to empty it morning and evening now until I plumb it in. But, that is the unit settling the environment down then they should reduce considerably after a few days. It doesn’t matter if I forget to empty it as the unit will shut down when the tray is full.

removing the tray

some water collected over night

The power consumption os a max of 245w on full power, but as I only ran mine on a low setting it should work out quite economical to run especially as it will be on all the time. Has anybody else got any tips or tricks they would like to share storing their car over the winter? Please post a reply and we can all share the knowledge.

Roll on the spring so I can take the car out for a drive. I have an itch I can’t scratch when I can’t drive my car.

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My Misplaced Post

I have to confess that I scheduled a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year post to be scheduled for the relevant big day so I didn’t forget. But, as I kept thinking 2018 to myself in my mind so that I didn’t make a mistake as I was scheduling the post, the opposite happened and I actually set the year for 2019 thinking that was in fact the next year. So my resolution for this year is; learn how to work the calendar function on WordPress. I appologise for that.

Resolution completed! Apparently I just have to put the correct year, simple really. Obviously not for a doughnut like me though! So I had time off over the Christmas break and went back to work on the Tuesday as did most people and by the afternoon I had filtered out the emails and got myself back to where I needed to be – thinking that I needed a holiday and asking myself; just where did the time go?

For christmas my wife spoilt me rotten and bought me a vast array of lotions and potions for the cleaning and maintaining of the Mustang. The selection was taken from a list that I had made for her in order to pick something from it. As she didn’t know which one to get so she bought them all, as well as an Auto Finesse Crew Bag to fit them all in. I must say that the “Crew Bag” is like a black hole with handles, it has so much storage space and easily the best bag I have, and I have a few now, trust me.

I will be reviewing them once I get to use them on here under my “Car Detailing Reviews” menu above. However the biggest surprise was the fact that my better half had listened to a conversation I was having with some retailers here in the UK for a classic looking fire extinguisher. Not any old fire extinguisher, oh no. I wanted one that looked old school but also did the job without additional damage. CO2 extinguishers can freeze electrical components with thermal shock, powder gets everywhere and creates a huge mess, water you can’t use on flammable liquids etc. So over the later part of the year I had been doing my homework. The best seemed to be HalGuard which is made in the USA, unfortunately not readily available over here in the UK. If anybody knows any different can they please let me know? Some of the benefits of this fire extinguisher are; no thermal shock, liquified gas gets to hard to reach places, no mess, rechargeable, recommended by aviation and many motor sports governing bodies, five-year warranty, oh it also comes in chrome! Nobody in the UK stocks or makes anything similar that has such good ratings or looks remotely like it should be from the ’60s. In the end, due to costs, I had all but given up on the idea. My wife had other ideas and picked up where I left off and ordered one from the USA. Inevitably there were all sorts of issues trying to get it past our wonderful HMRC customs people who obviously had nothing better to do other than check on fire extinguishers, maybe the could concnetrate on illegal immigrants a bit more like the ones hiding in the back of lorries maybe? Anyway, import duty, standard charges, handling fees etc. were a joke which added significant costs to the item. They had it impounded for a couple of weeks before they eventually released it to my wife mid December, by which time she was starting to panic a little. But, she got it and all credit to her. Once I had opened it and I asked “how?” I was told all about the horror story and the customs episodes.

Between Christmas day and the New Year’s day I wanted to fit it. There are additional brackets you can buy like, roll over cage mounts, under seat, quick release flat mounting etc. I already had an idea where it was to go; in the footwell on the passenger side. I waited for a clear dry day and got my car out into the cold air where I started to look for the best place to mount the new (essential) accessory.

The extinguisher needed to be off the floor, but low enough for the fresh air vent door to be fully opened just under the dash. The kick panel is made of a fairly thick plastic and the bracket has lots of holes for various mounting positions. I decided to use them all in order to spread the weight of the extinguisher so the screws don’t pull out of the plastic or distort it. Using the larger slot I held the bracket in place while I finalised the position and made sure it was straight.

The Dremel was the tool of choice as it was small and neat in order to create a small pilot hole ready for the screws, two larger style ones at the top that are also polished which would be seen, the remaining screws were smaller headed ones also polished. Once the holes were marked up I could fit the bracket properly.

The extinguisher was put into place and the belt clamped up then I took a step back to admire a fire extinguisher that I think looks good and will do the job should I ever need it, which I hope I never will.

The car was cleaned up, the mat was put back down and then I polished the chrome extinguisher to remove any finger marks and refitted it. I think the look goes well with the car, it can be easily accessed, it’s easily seen from outside and I can relax a little when I’m out on the road now.

Something that I hadn’t considered which is an added bonus, it looks good when the interior lights come on too.

I hope you all had a good well-earned Christmas break and I hope you all have a prosperous New Year.

P.S. Another resolution: I must blog more regularly!

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Social Media Reflections

I should start with my head held in shame for not posting for two months. I apologise and I know it’s a bad way to treat your followers and readers. To my own self defence though, there hasn’t really been much to do on the Mustang over the winter that I can write and tell you all about it. I would like to say a “Thank You” for the emails about the look of the new blog, they have been very positive to date and I appreciate all of your comments. In the mean time I haven’t t been sitting around doing nothing over these last couple of months, oh no. I have started to spread my wings or is it; drift my tyre smoke, into other areas of Social Media. Now I must admit I am not a great fan of Facebook and all the waste of time posts along the lines of “share this post if you have dark hair”, “share this post if you write with your right hand”, “so and so is playing ping-pong and wants you to send them the golden ball” or “I have just got up and I am eating my breakfast”, type of stuff. It drives me mad in fact so I tend to keep away from that side of it. But, I do realise that it’s an important tool to keep in contact that just can’t be ignored. My reflections on Social Media have now prompted me to jump in rather than dip my toes as it were. As a result in that thought logic I have started my Instagram account which can be found here, or cut and paste this link into your browser: https://www.instagram.com/onemanandhismustang/?hl=en. Search for “onemanandhismustang” if you want to find me that way on there.

If that wasn’t enough, I also started my Pinterest account which can be found here, or again cut and paste this link to your browser: https://uk.pinterest.com/onemanandhismus/ Search for user “onemanandhismus” if you want to find me that way on there too.

You will know the accounts are me because the Gravatar (Logo) badge I use is the Mustang Tribar on the blue background that matches my car.

The Instagram account should (in theory at least) allow me to post pics that I like from the car shows or other places that I attend, providing I have a signal of course. The Pinterest account on the other hand will be more of a save and share pics type of account, for all things Mustangs and the other female in my life, the legendary Marilyn Monroe. Please feel free to follow me on the accounts and I will follow you back, it’s only fair of course. Message me or do what you do on these platforms as I am a little new to it all at the moment.

In the mean time I have been making regular trips down to Mustang Maniac to see what has been going on down at the yard and enjoy the company of the guys while getting dirty and helping out where I can. Adam very kindly got me a surprise gift, he managed to track me down a rare almost mint condition 1966 Mustang Sales Brochure. I have scanned it as well as created a PDF document and shared it above in the menu “Articles/1966 Sales Brochure”, or click here for the hyper link. I have been after one of these brochures for a long time and this is the real deal and not a copy. I was so chuffed with it that I couldn’t speak for a while. Thinking about it – maybe that was the plan? Seriously though, it’s amazing and has now been stored away very carefully.

When the weather has been nice I have rolled out the Mustang out of the garage and given her a much needed clean to get rid of that pesky layer of dust on the paint job which is hiding under the dust cover. Why? Because I can and it’s a tenuous excuse to wax it again and see glorious reflections in my paint job. I also wanted to build up a nice few layers of wax as much as I can before the new car show season starts. Well that was my excuse and I’m sticking to it. A little while ago on the blog heading menus, I started a new section called “Car Detailing Reviews”. This is going to be used for the products that I use, or have used with my personal reviews on those products, which I have purchased with my own hard earned money. Some have been amazing while others not so. The recent additions that I have finally gotten around to writing up about are; Meguiar’s “Gold Class Carnauba Plus” wax, click here for that review. Here are a couple of pics to tease you a bit on that review.

roof wax on

roof wax some off

I also have been looking for a good quality product for my Magnum 500 chrome wheels to keep them in tip top shape without damaging the polished surfaces. I found a product called “Mint Rims Wheel Wax” by Auto Finesse, click here for that review, with a couple of pics to get you going.

The wheel wax was on a special offer at the time, so I purchased another of the Auto Finesse range “Mercury Metal Polish”, for that review click here to see what I think of that product. A pic or two from the review.

Finally a question.

I have had a couple of requests to be a guest writer on my blog. Nothing wrong with that of course, and it could be good. But, when I responded back via email they didn’t want to give me any details and just wanted to post on my blog. Is it not courtesy to let the owner of the blog know what you are going to post about or not? I appreciate this blog has a limited appeal as it’s (mostly) about Mustangs, the last thing I want to do is have a post on the there about the latest Nike shoes or the benefits of whistling with one finger in your ear! Any thoughts on how this “guest blogger” process works? I would be grateful to know.

Hopefully my next post won’t be so long a wait!

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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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Getting a Handle On Things

A scorching hot week at work and I’m glad to say that he weather was gorgeous at Mustang Maniac. I arrived to find that the guys were shunting cars to a local school where they displayed old in the shape of the Shelby GT500KR and new being the UBB Mustangs, their F350 truck and the Falcon pick up were also on the list so the kids could take pics of them sitting inside the trucks. When Adam had a chance to breathe we discussed the plan of action for my car. A bit of a no brainer really as we wanted to get the glass in. First of we needed to connect the remaining door bars up, all of which you can’t see and are inside the door. So I’m afraid it’s another short post from me, but all you can see is two handles fitted and it took all day! Some days things go well, yesterday was a slow day.

The door locks were back in place previously and we opened the doors by pulling the latch inside the door. So now we wanted the door handle connected to the bar. The mechanism on the driver’s door had to be replaced as the spring had broken. Not a major problem as it didn’t take long. Previously the fittings had worn so the prior owner had bent rods in order to make things work. The down side is non of it was now working. Adam was helping with the adjustments and we locked the door only to find we couldn’t open it again on the driver’s side. It turns out that in straightening the bars out now showed the issues on the door catch itself. We had to dismantle the bars inside the car and manual move the levers around to unlock and open the door. We took the inside of the door mechanism apart again and had close look.

It turns out that the spring had been bent out-of-the-way for some weird reason on the locking side of the catch, then the cams were all bent out of shape too. This all meant – new door catch. Epic! We fitted the door catch and could see just how much things had been butchered inside the door with regards to the operating bars. The new lock was an incredibly tight fit for the new door lock to be fitted, with some “enthusiastic” persuasion it eventually fitted into place. We straightened the bars out, then put the correct curves back in them and refitted the lot back together. Perfect. The bends to the cams on the old catch were hardly noticeable, but it was enough to jam up enough to stop the tumbler turning as the bar had not returned to the correct position.

inside lock

handle

The next job was the door handle itself. One screw and a stud with a nut in place to hold it to the door. We fitted the handle and started to do it up only to find out that the metal on the new moulding was catching on the inside of the door. So when it was tightened up it was being pulled upwards of the door instead of backwards into the door for a tight fit. The gap was a bout 2mm that needed to be sorted out, we moved the door housing over a fraction on the screw and it still wasn’t enough. So out came the handle again. This time we had to get ingenious, we re-aligned (OK, bent) the housing inwards a fraction and the button hinge mechanism by a corresponding amount. This actually sounds worse than it was, the clearance was greater on the drivers handle than the passenger one when we compared them side by side. So once the gaps were made the same all worked perfectly with the rods connect back up.

The passenger door had its own issues. There was a bar missing for the door handle button release, so Adam let me go and rob a bar from the inside of a one the cars in the Graveyard. This was no easy take as the years of weather had rusted the clips to the bar and took some patience to tease the clips off. The door catch itself was missing the spring grommet so Adam got a new one of those and we had to take the door catch out to fit that again. Once all the parts were back in place the handle screwed on no problem and took only a quarter of the time from the driver’s door.

So now I have a car that can be opened by handles and can be locked. All slightly irrelevant as there is no glass so you can climb in any way.

That’s it for this post, so much work that took ages and nothing to show for it except a couple of handles. Next week we should be able to get the glass in as everything else in now in place. Hopefully there will be more visual updates, but the adjusting of the doors and glass can be painfully slow as well.

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Bright Lights & Chrome

After a long week at work I didn’t think the weekend was ever going to get here. I had the car packed the night before to get to Mustang Maniac without any delays. Well that was apart from me dodging, rabbits, pheasants and any other form of livestock that decided that it wanted an early death by car! I managed to avoid all of them and my horn got used more time on that trip than the previous ten trips I reckon! Anyway I arrived to sea of people at the offices with Adam’s desk surrounded by customers at one point. I waited my turn to even say hello and discuss my plan of action. The plan was simple, rear bumper! This sounds like an easy task, but they can be a real pain if the bumpers are out of shape or don’t fit to the light panel. As the rear end of the car had been rebuilt this was going to be a moment of truth. I decided to take some pics of the process as I went along. I did get a helping hand from Yogi and Adam who popped in to see how I was doing. Apparently I was being a bit of wimp when it came to tightening the bolts up. The chrome bolts were sitting slightly proud and looked OK. The guys said that is not good enough and give it proper tightening up which pulled the bolts into the bumper and sat flush. The second side was a bit easier as I knew what to expect. I call it a learning process for me.

The whole set up comprises of a set of deluxe chrome bumper bolts, bumper irons (which I never had), mounting bolts and set of mounting pads to go between the bracket and the rear light panel.

The rear number plate fitting was screwed in first and only held in by two self tap screws. The wire will need to be long enough to get through the rear light panel to be connected to the rear side lights part of the loom.

Next up was the bumper irons, these will only fit one way and are shaped to the bumper itself with the angles.

The bolts are pushed through the squared out holes and the sprung washers are fitted over the bolts. Again these will only fit one way up due to the collar on the chrome bolts.

sprung “wave” washers

bolt

washer in place

The bracket has to be massaged into place to fit the irons and to try to get the bolts to sit flat. This a bit of an art that I didn’t have before. Yogi loosened it all off and readjusted the positions and cranked on some pressure, this was to collapse the bumper washers to the irons forming a good fit, and to also pull the bolts down into the bumper itself. Both sides are exactly the same and there is no left or right hand sides on these parts. The mounting bolts are put through a large washer pushed out the light panel, a mounting pad made of dense foam goes over the bolts. The pads are tight around the bolt and will hold it in place to the light panel. The two-man job to align the bumper to the bolts goes without question, and the top bolts are tightened finger tight to hold the bumper in place. At this point Chris was extra set of eyes sitting further back behind the car to advise, “up a bit, down a bit, over a bit, wooo – too much” etc. This turned out to be a great help. We needed to move the bumper over a bit as it wasn’t exactly central so Yogi give it little nudge to adjust it up before the final tension on the bolts was done up. From underneath the bumper you can see the bolts into the irons. The two bolts each side are able to move inside the slots for the bolts to allow some movement to align them up. A trick of the trade was used to help align the bumper, but I have been sworn to secrecy on that one. I will say that it’s a great trick though.

The down side is photo’s couldn’t really be taken as we were holding the bumper. The result was brilliant, a fantastic fitting bumper, as good as I have seen anywhere. Well chuffed with it.

The rest of the day was involved in me completing the wiring at the back of the car and wrapping it with loom tape. As the LED light board had its own wires I soldered the connections in place to remove any opportunity for a poor connection. Heat shrink tubing was used to seal the soldered wires and then the full loom wrap. All of which you won’t see because it hidden out-of-the-way. Just a minor detail that nobody will see or notice except for the people who know, such as the MM guys who won’t let me get away with shoddy workmanship! Adam wanted to check out the rear loom was working fine and he used the Power Probe to make the LED boards in place.

Back up lamp.

Side Lights.

The indicator lights never seem to show up as amber very well on these pictures, but trust me they are bright.

The Brake lights are very bright too, so a huge upgrade to the standard Mustang lights.

All in all a great day as a major part was fitted and it looked like I done something. Next week I’m not so sure what I am up too, but I have some more under hood tidying up to do. It’s all part of the adventure of bringing the car back to life. Waiting for next week already! That moment of truth of was talking about earlier on – no need to worry, it all fitted up without any major issues.

Thanks to the Guys, Adam, Yogi for the extra pair of hands and Chris for the extra pair of all-seeing eyes. 🙂

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Exhausting Work

So glad to get last week out-of-the-way and looking forward to a long hard days work down at the Mustang Maniac yard. My car was loaded up to the brim to take stuff down there, more so than usual this time. There was four tyres, two front seat bases, two front seat backs, rear seat base & back, tools, a change of clothes and not forgetting my all important nosebag (lunch). Two pairs of tyres strapped together, I thought I was going to get them both in the boot, but no. I had two in the boot and two on the front seat next to me. The weight of the tyres set the seat belt warning alarm of so I had to plug the seat belt in. I got some strange looks going through the little villages by MM when they see tyres strapped in.

What are the tyres? 205/60 R15 BF Goodrich with raised white lettering, I wanted the old school muscle tyres look.

All last week when I got home from work, I got changed and went out for two or three hours manual work into the evening on car stuff. I was busy stripping of the old seat covers of down to their frames and cleaning them up again. The seats were covered in glorious ’70s velour upholstery with buttons. It may have been all the rage thirty or forty years ago, but it’s certainly ain’t my taste. The fabric was torn, rotten and smelt of damp dogs and doesn’t go with the image of the car now.

front seat back

Rear back

Rear seat

The first step was to remove the old covers, the hog rings which were rusty and sort of gave me an idea of what I was getting myself into. This was a job that I wasn’t particularly looking forward to and I have been putting it of for a while, but it has to be done of course, and Adam was looking to have them soon for the upholstery guys to get going on them with my new interior.

Tip:

When pulling out old hog rings, use the best quality pliers you can get your hands on. Cheap ones slip of all the time and cause your hands to ache, they are more trouble than they are worth. I used a sort of good set for one seat base, then promptly went and got my Snap On pliers, it seriously made life so much easier and took half the time – trust me!

The front seats were the first job and the velour was the first plan of attack. I cut down a corner and started to peel the covers back as I went along pulling out the hog rings every few inches or so. After a couple of minutes I got the right hump, the simple reason was the seats were covered on the cheap, in other words straight over the top of the old original vinyl covers, the original seat covers were torn, so a re-cover was probably the option at the time to make the car look trendy. What that meant was that I had to remove the velour hog rings then do it again for the original covers, doing the job twice over in effect.

front seat back

original seats

When peeling the corners back at the bottom I got the smell of dampness come through and the foam fell apart on touch. Under the foam was a soft covering of padding laid over the hessian. Of course this was all stitched to the springs at the rear to hold the buttons in place and pull the covers tight.

seat wires

button stitches

padding

hessian

To get the shape of the seat there are wires that are also hog ringed into the seat foam to give it shape. These have to be removed as well. The padding was marked up with water stains and rust from the wires. When this was removed the hessian was exposed with wires to hold it in place with hog rings as well. The hessian disintegrated and sent dust clouds everywhere. My shed now smells like an old potato storage shed by the way. The hessian irritated my skin which wasn’t very nice to say the least, as a result I decided to change plan and remove the hog rings for the hessian and try to remove the hessian and wires as much as possible in one go.

The frame itself was now exposed and I could see the extra seating shape wires and the rusty ends of the wires that had discoloured the material. The process was repeated for the other front seat both backs and bases.

The rear seats were going to have to be done in the garage due to the size. Exactly the same process was used again but this time the seat back corner was particularly bad at one end on the passenger side.

The hessian again was held in place with long wires this time, some of the hooked ends had rusted away and so some could be pulled straight out. The rear base smelt the worst of all of them, and peeling the velour and vinyl out of the way you can see why.

The padding was rotten though and rust was everywhere, I suspect that the car had water in it at some point as the under dash was also rusted to a similar extent. The hessian on the seat was in three parts, the larger wires for the seat area and the smaller wires for the tunnel section in the middle. This took forever to take of In sections. with the hessian now removed from all the seats it was time to remove all the wires that I could, some were broken in the middle which were no good, some had broken ends. I collected them all up and kept them in their piles for later. The exposed frames were wire brushed to get rid of the loose rust and sprayed with rust encapsulator to stop it, once dried a couple of coats of satin black to make them look like new again.

The seats are now in Adam’s capable hands ready to go of to the fitters to re-upholstered with the new interior. Do you want to see a sneaky peek at the colour scheme? OK you talked me into it!

Saturday:

I must apologise at this point if some of the pictures look familiar if you have been reading the Mustang Maniac blog, I have used some of their pictures as I wasn’t there at the time of course.

I arrived excited as I was going to put the radiator in. Adam had other ideas and told me about the dry fitting of the exhausts. The pipes had come back from a mate of his who bent the pipes to what was mapped out for my car being a bespoke setup from my 3″ headers we fitted back on last week.

The pipes they were using was the largest recommended size of 2 1/4″ on a classic Mustang. The special order Flowmaster Series 40 Delta Flow boxes had arrived and I was told it was final dry fit time and to help Yogi.

The exhaust pipes need to hang from two large brackets from the seat back panel, so holes had to be made to take the stud fixings.

The pipes have been bent as I said before and I wondered to myself do you really need all these little bends? When it is all dry fitted up you can see that you do need it.

The pair of mufflers have an inlet and outlet ports as the baffles inside are designed to soften the noise, create an area of low pressure inside the box as well as accelerate the gas from the pipes as quickly as possible. The mufflers were hung from their brackets in order to make it easier for the tail pipe fitting.

At his point we discovered that the fitting of the mufflers here meant that the hand brake cable would be resting and possibly rattle on the top of the boxes. Yogi made me up some brackets and fitted them in place for me to stop that problem.

The dry fit was going well, but as I was holding pipes I couldn’t take pictures at this point. Yogi measured up the location where the turn down exhaust tips would need to be fitted. Then we took the whole lot of again. The end sections were taken to Adam’s work shop where the exhaust cutter was kept. Like a giant plumbers tool in some ways I was shown how to use it then I could have a go to cut down the excess pipes.

yogi

With the pipes cut the turn down tips needed to be test fitted. They were too tight and needed to be expanded, like a swaging tool this specialist tool expands the end to allow it to slip over the exhaust pipe final section.

That was the exhaust done for now until the step down has been made for the headers. Amazing to watch it all take shape like that. During the week the guys had sprayed the main hanging brackets as they were bare metal and didn’t want to take them of from rusting.

My next job was to clean and paint the exhaust clamps along with the smaller mounting brackets.

As these were left in the afternoon sun they soon dried out and should be fine to use by the time they want to fit them.

What I thought I came down to do was my final job of the day, the radiator. I gave it a bit of a clean over and got the bolts out along with the cowl bolts. As I was on my own not much chance to take pictures again trying to hold it in place needed two hands. But basically there are four bolts in each corner that go through the front panel opening into the corresponding holes on the radiator with a nut to hold them all in place.

My fan was re-sprayed again a while ago as it got a bit damaged moving it around, but this time I detailed it bit with the chrome tips. This should also give a visual guide that the blade is turning.

The radiator sits nice in the black engine bay and I am pleased with the look. The pressure cap on the top is a generic rubbish one and I will replace it. But for now I sprayed that black while I was at it with the brackets just to make it blend in.

Lastly last week I forgot to take pics of the fuel filter and the fuel sender unit in the fuel tank. So as promised here they are.

slimline fuel filter

Stainless sender

Next week I have no idea what I am doing. But I should image it will be brilliant what ever it is. Thanks again to Yogi for the crash course in exhaust fabrication and to Adam for storing all my stuff short term of course, now he can’t get a couple of his cars out.

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Pretty Bits

The car was loaded up Friday night, full tank of gas and I was ready to rock. The weather was supposed to be nice so it wasn’t going to be a case of layers on layers again I’m glad to say. The trip to Mustang Maniac was uneventful and I couldn’t settle on a mood of music for the radio. I arrived and was greeted by Adam walking through a new gate that he has just had put in to make it easier to get to the yard from the offices. It has only just happened this week after a couple of years of nagging to get it done.

Anyway, I knew what my task was I was chomping at the bit to get going. The wires and dash need to be tidied up and the pretty bits fitted to the dash. Yes, I say pretty bits but what I meant was the essential bits. The wiper and light switches, ignition switch, cigarette lighter and heater controls. The first part was the lights as a big block that clamps on the back of the switch so it needed to be located and fixed in place before fixing it to the dash.

Dead simple to fit as the dash ring locates into a groove and the light switch is held to the dash by a centre screw in part. Once that part is fitted the long bar with the knob on the end just pushes in and clicks into place.

Next up was the windscreen switch, now this is an aftermarket switch and had to have an extra fitting screwed to it make sure the spacer cup was in the correct position and the knob didn’t stick out from the dash by about two inches. Again the dash ring is screwed into the middle to hold in place via the lugs at the bottom. While fitting the connections to the rear I remembered that there has to be an additional wire that runs to the washer pump from the switch. The Newport Wipers kit does not come with the wire nor did the AutoWire kit except for the washer connection due to the many configurations that there could be at the time of manufacture. To get round this I found a wire for a Variable Speed Sensor that would not be used for my car. I reallocated that wire to the washer pump and followed it back to the inside of the car. The VSS wire runs to the dash gauges so I cut the wire and again rerouted it to the wiper switch. A female spade connector was fitted and pushed in place on the back of the wiper switch, job done. The wiper switch is a pain because unlike the lights that have a large cross in the middle, you have to tighten wiper switch centre tube up with a pin in the way. To get round this I made a tool that fits over the top with two legs that twist the locking centre tube into place thus holding it to the dash. The pics here are outside the car to make it easier to see.

on the main switch shaft

close up of the pins in place

The tool was made from an old wiper blade not the cheap aluminium ones now days, but a real old solid one I had laying about. Anyway it worked although I bent it a bit still. The knob for this was a tiny 5/64ths Allen grub screw, having the correct key is important not to damage the fine flats inside the head.

The next part was the heavy wires for the ignition switch. This is again held in place by a spacing cup behind the dash and a set of locating lugs for the dash ring. There is a special tool that holds this in place while you locate the back of the switch. But I found that by thumb wedged in the hole and then twist the back to the dash ring via the spring, it clips in nicely with a reassuring click. The plug from the wire loom pushed onto the back and the tiny nut to hold the accessory feed and the plug in place is tightened up. The final part was simple cigarette lighter. This is a twist into position effort with a female bullet connector for the thread at the back for the live feed.

Now for the heater controls, this plate is located via two holes in the dash and two clamps at the back. The trick is to thread the control cables through the opening and direct them to the top of the heater box. Clamps at the top of the heater box hold the cables in place so that the levers can pull the wire freely in and out to operate the flaps on the box. This was a much quicker process that I thought it would be and was fitted in about fifteen minutes flat.

The ash tray was is slightly broken and if you pull it to hard from the mount then the it will come straight out. But, as I don’t smoke I wont be using it, so it’s there just to fill a hole and still be part of the original car. Two bolts on the side of the recess holds the bracket for the ash tray and two at the top hold it flat. Again another ten minute job. The ashtray slid in and looks a awesome colour matched to the dash. I will take it out and fix it at a later date when I have nothing better to do.

While I was inside the car I took the courtesy light wires to the door jam switches and pressed them into the A pillars. A bit of a fiddle job making the wires disappear, but I will tidy that up a bit later once I know all is well.

That’s the inside done for now at least anyway. I decided to fit the washer pump into place with just two self tap bolts, but not connect the wires up just yet. I must say it looks quite good against the satin black.

While I was at it I thought I would screw a voltage regulator onto the inner front panel where they are supposed to be. Those that have been reading my blog from the beginning may remember that the American AutoWire kit requires a One Wire Alternator so the voltage regulator is not needed. As this is blown one that Adam had lying around he gave it to me. Just for show of course and the wire loom pig tail that goes with it will be a dummy set of wires into the main loom to give it that more stock look, all be it polished chrome. But shhhhh – don’t tell anybody as it’s a secret!

Time was drawing to a close so I fitted the two horns to the front of the car, just to free up some more space that don’t have to laying around in the way anymore.

I know I have more to do under the hood, that can be tidied up later as there is no rush right now. Next week I am not sure what I will be doing. All of a sudden the car seems to have moved on a big step forward. Perhaps it’s just the chrome going on blinding me for just how much work remains to be done. But for now I am well chuffed. 🙂