The Engine Is Back In

During the week I was sent a teaser picture by the guys from Mustang Maniac. What was that picture? It was of my engine. Now there is nothing new about that, as I have posted (quite) a few of them myself, but this was a little different. The engine was sitting at the front of my car. The guys were happy that the engine was ready to go in. It was going to be a weekend for me as it was my first engine refit and I couldn’t wait.

On arrival the brake lines were finished and Yogi has excelled himself yet again. Now I love doing the brake lines, but I must admit, Yogi does them better than me. The brake reservoir was in, connected up to the three way splitter box and not the four way original and the pipe work to the disc brakes are now in place. It’s a different car already to look at. I would be happy with the drum brakes and they would work if it was only me on the road. However I am worried about other nutters on the road that do stupid things in front of me. I know I can stop the car where I want to when I want to, but I can’t cater for the excellent braking capability of modern cars, and in comparison my drums were not going to be able to stop me as fast in an emergency. I always drive with plenty of space between me and the car in front, but you just never know. My new disc conversion will give me that extra stopping power should I need it and safety peace of mind. The brake reservoir now has front and rear split for the brake lines. Should the pipes leak or fail on either the front or back, then I have would have the other independent half to stop me, at some point that is. The original brake booster set up was a single reservoir for all four corners of a drum brake distributed by a three way splitter, so if one corner brake cylinder leaks, then the whole lot gets dangerous. With a brute of an engine like the 289ci you need it to stop as well as get of the line. Drums are notorious for fade when they get hot, on England’s roads the inclines can be quite step, so constant braking down a long hill could cause issues. But in the USA everything is pretty much flat, apart from a few places like San Francisco of course, so it wasn’t so much of a problem then.

Mustang Maniac had ordered me in a particular disc conversion kit that I was after for my car, and it arrived at the end of last week. Yogi and Adam wasted no time in bolting the parts to the car.

The discs are vented and slotted along with four pot calipers for superior stopping power assisted by the new brake booster reinstalled last week.

Once the discs were in place the steering bar, steering ram, tie rod ends, idler arm etc. fittings were all bolted into place. The tie rods were just finger tight as the geometry has to be completed at some point before the road testing. Due to the full three inch opening of my powder coated headers, there needs to be an extended steering ram spacer fitted. I have covered this on a previous photo set, click here for the quick link or look up Steering Ram in the search.

With all the brakes fitted and piped up and the performance springs now in place, the outer shock tower covers could be fitted. This was pretty much the underside of the car completed apart from gearbox, prop and exhaust etc.

Engine Fitting:

The engine was attached to the crane and aligned up to the front of the car. John, Yogi, Chris and Me were all there ready and waiting to put the engine in. I was on crane duty listening to the instructions to lower, push forward or back etc. The guys were either side of the engine bay to guide the freshly refurbished engine in place and trying not damage the fresh paint work. There is a secret to getting the engine in with the hood still fitted and is a closely guarded. Shhh here is some of it! The engine is moved into the engine bay sideways just under the hood, then lowered a little, twist it quarter of a turn so it’s the correct position and lower down again. But I didn’t tell you that! Anyway, as I was on crane duty I still managed to grab a few pics of the process.

With the engine almost in place, the long mount bolts were slotted through to take the weight. I have a few pics here of the engine mounts after their refurbishment, not that you will ever see them, but I will know of course.

The nuts and bolts were finger tightened on and the crane disconnected from the engine. There she was all sitting pretty and ready to go. The tape was still in place over the carb inlet and the old rockers cover still there for now. We will test fire the engine and then replace the rockers with the ones I want a little later. The distributor cap is an old one and will be replaced so it’s only there to keep the insides of the distributor clean too.

With our hard work and with no damage what so ever, John decided to photo bomb a picture for me! 😀

Just to keep the silicon pipe work fresh and the engine clean the Mustang Maniac logo heater pipes were just pushed over the water fittings before the final trim ups as they are much to long at the moment.

So there you have it – a major milestone was completed, the engine was in, the heart of the car ready to start beating in the near future. The rear wheels are on the car and the fronts will be on as soon as the steering column gets fitted in place. Then the car will be ready to roll where ever it’s needed to go. I am so chuffed with the results of seeing the painted engine in the engine bay, the brake pipes, the steering and suspension, I can’t find the right words to express it, and that’s a true first for me!

I may be a bit biased here, but I think it looks great even with the old bits still on it. Thanks to the Mustang Maniac guys, yet again.

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A Big Splash Of Paint

I expect you know what this post is all about – yep, Paint! The guys at Mustang Maniac have been brilliant this week with guidance on what I need to do on my engine and Adam has sent me photo’s of my car in the paint shop. There are a lot more pictures that I will post of the paint shop, but as yet I haven’t had a chance to edit and upload them yet. So without any more words here are the pictures I have dreamt of for so long now and it’s only in primer. A big picture post but you gotta see it all!

Bodywork:

Arrival at the paint shop

The car was taken apart and covered for each panel to receive the final filler skims.

The car was taken back to bare metal and all surface rust was removed.

Any spots that needed treatment were either treated or a small plate was added, as was the case on this A post here.

The car was then masked up and all the panels were laid out ready for a skim of filler. The panels have a dye coat lightly sprayed over the primer to see the high and low spots for the filler.

The next stage was the etch primer to eat into the metal to hold the base coat or primer. This was done very quickly to stop the creep of rust back again onto the surface.

The next steps of the process are to spray with primer, add more filler and block down. This will be repeated three times with ever-increasing fine block papers so there is a mirror like smooth finish to the primer.

The car in the first phase of primer, the hood is to be completed at this point obviously.

I am so excited to see these pictures, you have no idea just how much!

Engine:

While all this was going on the next major item will be the engine. This will be mounted into the shell as soon as we can as the drive train and the suspension will need to be fitted. The engine was obviously caked in all sorts of road gunge and old oil from various leaks. The technic is to degrease it and then use the Mustang Maniac steam jet wash to take the debris off. I attacked the deposits with a good soak with Jizer and then I brushed in another coating into all the little gaps.

before a clean

first degrease

second degrease

Steam cleaner taking the debris off.

The engine dried out pretty quickly and the nice weather helped. The intake manifold was unbolted to expose the inner workings of the push rods.

prep for intake removal

intake removed

intake manifold

The engine was inverted again and dried out once again overnight. The remaining flakey paint was brushed off and a small air buff tool to make life a bit easier. All the facing surfaces that have a gasket need to be cleaned and a buffed to a shine ready to take the gaskets at a later date.

ready for paint

With the engine block dry the final part before the painting is to degrease the surface fully before any paint is applied. Before anybody says you have painted too much here is a fact;

The engines were block painted once they were assembled. so to see the engine all one colour is actually correct. There were various colours for various years. The colour painted could also depend on the factory that was assembling the engine or the car, in my case the home for Ford – Dearborn.

The engine was given two coats working around the engine. In order to make the paint dry a hot air gun was used to take the tack of the paint ready for a second coat.

First Coat:

The second coat incorporates the water pump and front of engine. once that was completed I was able to work around the engine block and headers for the final coat. By the time I had completed the block second coat the front was ready for its final coat. Spark plugs were lightly screwed in to keep the bores clean while in storage. Some small detailing will need to be completed but I will take pics soon.

The final step will be to rebuff the face plates again to get the over paint off so there is no high spots for the gaskets.

Another big post but it’s worth it.

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Raising The Standards

The weekend was a strange experience for me as I didn’t get to walk into my garage and see my car there. It is of course in the safe hands of Mustang Maniac in their panel shop. I got up and got ready to go in record time, packed some overalls and tools and took myself off to see the guys. All the way down there I had a silly grin on my face knowing full well I was going to get covered in various lubricants that were leaking from my car if any was still in it that is. On arrival I was speaking to Adam and catching up with all things Mustangs, I was shown new parts that I decided I was going to have along with other parts I was going to get a bit later on. I just have to get this minor detail cleared with the accounts manager, my wife first though. I would like to point out that I was given permission to work with the guys and this is certainly not a normal practice. I just wanted to help get the gearbox, and/or engine out, just so that I can be a part of it all. Adam knows about my blog and has made the kind concession for me. I got changed and ready to go. I was told the procedure to remove the main parts of the car; the prop shaft, gearbox and then the engine, not forgetting all the other attachments between them.

I set to work straight away by getting the car up on some nice big high axle stands, I got my tools out and started to remove the radiator, alternator and starter motor.

Next up was the prop shaft which I have started a renovation guide here, or can be found under the Photo Menu – Gearbox & Prop Shaft – Prop shaft renovation.

clamps in place

clamp removed

exposed braket to diff

shaft disengaged

prop in back of gearbox

full prop removed

Working on the engine I was to remove the headers to make room for the next part I wasn’t looking forward too, the transmission cooling pipes that run from the gearbox to the bottom of the radiator. The headers were not bolted in correctly to the block and the dark black soot on the header pipe end itself proves the point. The gasket fell apart as the pipes were removed as well.

The radiator, starter motor and cooling pipes removed, the transmission pipes are now scrap due to the poor amateur installation of the gearbox. You can just about make out the rubber hose on the ends on the transmission pipes.

Terry told me what to look for and a gave me the specialist tool to get to the connections. But what I found was a common botch job, the pipes had a hacksaw taken to them and fitted with a bit of fuel pipe hose and a jubilee clip each end. The botch job is to make it easier to remove the gearbox and refit it, obviously these people didn’t know what they were doing. This saved using the specialist tool as the rubber pipes had perished and now I could see where the leaks were coming from. All the cables, such as the speedo, kickdown throttle linkage, shifter rod, neutral safety switch, hand brake etc were all removed to allow the gearbox freedom of movement. The flywheel and torque converter were undone and the converter was bushed into the bell housing to make the separation easier. The bell housing bolts and support brackets for the gearbox were removed once the weight of the gearbox was taken up underneath as the gearbox and engine were separated. The gearbox was lowered down and moved to the side away from the car.

torque converter

chassis bracket bolts & gearbox

gearbox out from the car

I have a renovation page for the gearbox process too under Photo Menu – Gearbox & Prop Shaft – Gearbox Renovation or click here for the quick link. All sounds so simple or so it seems, what took me all day takes the guys a matter of hours. I think I held them up a bit!

I would like to say a big “Thanks” to Adam, Terry, John and Al for helping me out and their invaluable guidance. It was an experience and I am grateful for the knowledge overload that came my way. This type of work I couldn’t do at home as I simply don’t have the heavy gear to do these jobs. I was right about one thing though, I was smothered in all sorts of grime, so the intentions to take photos of all process didn’t really happen from the transmission lines onwards as I didn’t want to drop my camera. But, I have taken some photos under the Photo Menu and I am sure there will be many more to follow. The next time I looked outside it was dark so I reluctantly called it a day, in fact, I called it a very good day. I drove home feeling as though I had achieved something big from my point of view. I am sure there will be more days to feel like I’m sure. I was a happy chap knowing the work I was doing was being aided by the guys who really knew what they were doing.

Oh, remember that daft silly grin I had on the way down there? Well it just got a whole lot bigger all the way home. 😀

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Have I missed the point?

A little confused by what is being achieved!

Everyday I drive to the train station and I get on public transport to get me to work. Most of the time the trains are late according to my watch. But in their book they are only late if it’s over 30 minutes. I don’t know who agrees this is the definition of late but they need to sort it out, as all they are doing is falsifying the figures. Every month I have to sell body parts to raise cash for the unfair fares they charge. Get people off the roads and into public transport say the government. But the fact it is so expensive, late, dirty and overcrowded is not an issue for them, how comes they never travel on it?

On to my main point, I was walking to work from the station and I spotted some kid who thought he was the dogs dangly bits. Now he had a baseball cap on sideways, a t-shirt on while it was snowing, a pair of jeans that didn’t seem to fit or he needed a belt. The jeans were around his thighs, the jeans were so tight that he was walking like a penguin in a plaster cast. His underpants were on show, I dare say they were from a Wal-Mart own brand and to top it of with a pair of trainers with the biggest tongue ever. I watched as he was having a conversation with his gangsta mate on the other end of the phone that was stuck to the side of his head. His other hand being used to give it the “massive like innit” hand signal, you know the one, where the flick of the wrist as if they are trying to free their fingers from the contents of the freshly cleaned nostrils. Anyway he waddled to his car and unlocked it. No central locking but it did have a large set of rims and a rubber band wrapped round them for a tyre. The car was the good old 10 year old Vauxhall Corsa 1.0 12v It only has 3 cylinders and 59bhp & top speed of 96mph, (I looked that bit up, figures correct when it was new). Ok, economical little town run around, but when it started up it was a treat. Firstly the white smoke signalled the engine was firing up, then there was mandatory revving of the engine to see if he could make more noise. Yep he could, the pea shooter of an exhaust was cleverly disguised as dustbin opening by the addition of the screw on tail pipe. I suspect he was running illegal exhaust as the noise was the sound of one hundred six inch nails in a washing machine. But I wasn’t to worry as the mobile disco sub produced enough noise to try and set the car alarm of behind it. Then when he had enough revs on he dumped the clutch and it sort of juddered away building to an impressive walking pace where he was now at full revs grabbing second gear, just in time to brake hard for the pedestrian crossing. Now what was that all about, dangerous driving as well? Perhaps he thought he looked cool, he did, it was minus 3 when I got out my car. Now, in my day it was how to make the engine run smooth, get more bhp and tune it up, improve the handling and give it a nice clean to look the part. Maybe evolution resulted in a newer generation of drivers that enjoy looking daft and driving like a nutter. So my question is, am I getting old (which I know I am), or is this a one off teenager that Charles Darwin would also be confused over?

Review:

I have written a review for the VHT Satin Black Caliper Paint under the Reviews menu, Consumables or click here for the quick link.

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A new game called “you dare!”

I will explain my new game towards the end but it is all relevant to what I got up to on Saturday. I usually have my little comment above where the logo sits just now, but it’s for a good reason that I break my little habit. This is a sign on one of the doors that greets you as you go in. Just a little sign that hides the Aladdin’s cave inside of automotive riches beyond belief. To somebody who has a modern car this really doesn’t seem logical, but trust me – it IS!

Saturday I took the drive down to see an important man – Adam from Mustang Maniac. This drive to my Holy Grail of Mustang offices is always a great day out for me, I get to see Mustangs, lots of Mustangs in fact, I get to buy things for my Mustang and I get to pick the brains of one of the few people I trust when it comes to my car; What more could a man ask for? If you have been following my blog and the progress I am making so far you will know that I have progressed to the brakes. Yep, the scary bit. Why scary? ’cause if you get it wrong its gonna hurt. Not only will it hurt in the wallet department to fix the damaged car, but also in the chest area. Reason for the chest pains is that in the sixties these cars came out and thundered down the roads, they owned the quarter-mile strips but not everybody gave them the respect they deserved, there were no airbags and the steering column is a metal shaft that has no collapsible sections. When people had accidents in these cars the lap belts didn’t really do much to be honest, so the result was they got what was called the “DROF” injury. I had heard this a few times before but never got to the bottom of it. My other trusted friend of mine Will, went on to explain (when I first got my car), that when they used to crash the drivers slammed their bodies into the steering wheels, if you had a particular embossed logo on you steering wheel it left an imprint with the massive bruise if you survived! What is “DROF”?? Again he said it quite simply, what is FORD backwards? Damn it, so simple and then the penny dropped. So now you know too.

Anyway, I digress, I had taken the front brake backing plate off in order to treat them and replace the shoes on them. I sent pictures to him and he said I should bring it with me so he could have a look at it with me to make sure all was OK. I arrived one hour later after I set off and parked up. I had my brake parts in hand, I went to the door like a kid going to the sweet shop. As if by Magic Adam opened the door and said “Make a cup of tea if you want, I’m just taking Ruby for a little walk”. Ruby is a gorgeous dog that sits with Adam in his office, if your lucky she will sit with you. We chatted and put the world to rights for a few minutes, all the time Ruby was making sure she had her fair share of my attention. Then we got down to some serious stuff, the brakes I had taken off. We looked and decided to go and compare with a set of drums that had come off for a disc brake conversion, they had not been touched other than that. I don’t trust anything the previous owner has done on this car. As we weren’t certain what was required for the moment, we decided to get the rear parts ready that I definitely needed, that’s new rear shoes and couple of cylinders, I already had the hardware for Christmas from the wife. We got them sorted and then I was up for a tour of the latest developments and the cars. I was shown the new storage areas that were going on, being in the middle of a move is never good, but I took the photos anyway. I’m sure it will be sorted out – funny thing is, you ask Adam for anything, he will go straight to it. It’s rather uncanny how he can make sense of the new stores even in the middle of the move around. Not all of it is even labelled up again yet.

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

We were going outside to the yard, I made sure I was walking with Adam through the yard as we were greeted by the other six guard dogs. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love dogs, I liked these ones too. But, there is no way I would even walk near the gates on my own, they sort of look at you as if to say, “If you weren’t with Adam, we would eat you”. I’m sure the dogs licked their lips when they saw me coming! Quite frankly I got the vibes loud and clear thanks guys and girls. There has been a new dedicated storage area built for the body panels, and a little further along there was a decent sized storage that could hold about eight to ten cars, Adam opens up to reveal benches stacked with engines, gearboxes, drive trains and axles. We find the brake drums comparison we were after, and then we move onto a dedicated area where there is a rather special car that is being built in its own workshop. I say being built as the engine is going to be a 5.4 modern v8 engine under the hood, with the brake horse power to rival most super cars, to top that it has bespoke independent suspension being added to the front, I have never heard of that modification let alone see it. There are no towers or firewalls in the engine bay, the metal is all being fabricated just for this car, a real one-off . Nowhere near finished yet but it will be something else when it is – lucky bloke.

We looked around at some other cars and I got the background on them too, then we wandered back to the gates along with my four-legged furry escort. We sat back down in the office and talked more cars. At this point more customers came into the office to see Adam and we all chatted for a bit, we were shown his latest design for the 66 rear lights, LED versions behind the original lenses that looked epic. I will be having a set of them when I get to that point. I also managed to get a leaflet on the Evans Coolants. As I am a little worried about the over heating issues this is perfect timing, I have a PDF version here that you can read all about the Evans Waterless Coolant, or go to my “articles” section. It’s an impressive read that’s for sure. Again I will be having this in my car too when I get her going properly, if you have a Mustang that overheats, this will cure it. I have been doing my own research on this coolant as well, it looks impressive I feel the need for a review once it’s added. Lets face it, if Adam is selling this gear with the clients that Mustang Maniac has, then it has to be good. Sadly time continued to march on, and like all good things it was time for me to go home, but hey, “I’ll be back” as Arnie would say. That you can bet my car on!

I will be producing an interview article with Adam soon that I will put in my articles section. I’m sure it will be an interesting read when I get round to editing it that is.

My Car:

Well I now have the new set of brakes shoes all round and I took the front brake assembly apart, and added the pictures here, or go to the “Front Brake Drum Rebuild (part 2)”, under the photo’s section “Wheels & Brakes”. I have treated the backing plates with the Granville anti rust treatment. During the week I will add the second coats, this will leave me in a good position to reassemble them next weekend ready for more pictures. I have ordered some extra treats to my self from Frost, some VHT brake calliper spray in black to make the drums look nice, along with some Eastwood under-hood black spray which I will review later on as well. I may even get to put the booster back in next weekend too. That is if the weather holds out. As i need to use the Rust Cure today it was to cold outside. I prepared the backing plates outside and brought them inside to finish on the floor in the utility room. My ears are still ringing from the verbal slapping I got. Apparently you can’t put dirty car parts on a clean floor. In my defence I did clean them in the utility sink, which again is not acceptable either as I got the clean sink dirty. How is a man supposed to clean car parts if he can’t use the sink? I was then gonna take them into the kitchen instead to clean them, it was at this point I was offered a game of “you dare”. I had not heard this game for a while, last time I played a variation of this game called “just you dare”, I didn’t win that one either. Bearing in mind the wife lets me have my pocket money each month for my car, I decided to finish the clean outside and not attempt to play, “you dare”. Apparently this latest version of “you dare” with car parts now starts with the slow deep voice with hands on hips. I will look for these signs next time.

Hot tip for you, if you want to play “you dare”, don’t attempt to play it after your wife buys you parts for your car; this seems to tilt the odds against you.