After a wait to see how the products performed, I have some results.
Well the weekend is almost over and I have been busy rubbing down and doing little bits in the car. One of those little jobs is the wrapping of the the under dash wires with black insulating tape to make it look stock. I find that job therapeutic, just like some people find gardening or painting as a therapeutic activity. Am I weird? Any other strange therapeutic stuff people do? Anyway, my other cars have been feeling neglected and so I just had to wash, wax and valet them. As a result I feel as though I have been arm wrestling with Arnie – The Terminator. I ache, and before you say it – I know quit moaning.
The main point of this post is to say that I have some preliminary results for my rust comparison tests, they are a little controversial I think. I had taken the two big guns and put them in a head to head just like Practical Classics magazine did. But this was my own money that was funding this and I wanted them both to be exactly the same. But, my results are the exact opposite so far of Practical Classics results. The two main contenders are Rustbuster – fe-123 and Granville – Heavy Duty Rust Cure. They cost pretty much the same, look the same and even smell similar. But do they perform the same? Simple answer is No. Practical Classic magazine stated that the Rustbuster fe-123 was the winner. However, they were incorrect with their details on how they applied one of the products for their tests. I have explained this fully in the comparison test, the quick link is below for the Practical Classic test and my tests. I had previously purchased from Frost Auto Restoration Techniquesthe Granville Rust Cure and wanted to see what this new “winner” was all about. So I found an old inner fender splash guard from my Mustang that was really rusty. I applied the products at the same time on the same material. The video was then uploaded to my YouTube channel, One man and his Mustang. This weekend I have taken another video, part 2 and posted that on YouTube as well. The results are very clear that the Granville wins hands down. The Rustbuster was flaking up, peeling and shows signs of the rust reappearing after only a few months. I am very disappointed with the “winner” and its surrounding hype. I have various videos of the Granville in action too on the YouTube Channel.
I bet there will be people out there moaning and complaining about my results. But I have photo evidence and videos of the tests and results. As yet I have not seen any results from similar tests or company. I was going to review the Rustbuster as a separate product on my blog, but I don’t think I will bother now as the results are here. Anybody else like the Granville Heavy Duty Rust Cure? Or is there something even better. I know about POR15 but that is not recommended for the outer bodywork that is ready for spraying, and that came from the POR themselves.
Rustbuster fe-123 close up
On another note does anybody have a good primer they would recommend preferably available in the UK?
Bank holiday is here it’s Friday afternoon and it’s raining, typical. As it seems to be a story of my life being married to a teacher, part of the job they didn’t tell her about is that you get to take home all sorts of germs and bugs the kids decide to spread around at the school. As a result I get my fair share too. So guess what, I have not got man flu but a much more dangerous strain on from that – Bloke Pneumonia. Yep, it needs TL Car parts to make me feel better. None of this, pop two pills watch Fast & the Furious 1- 17 (or what ever they are up to) and you will sleep it of lark. Nope – I want a sniff of Redex & Carb cleaner to sort me out! Seriously though, I hope to get down to a Classic Car show in Enfield, armed with a pocket full of Aloe Vera soft tissues I might add, not. My tissues will be Wet & Dry soaked with Super Plus Unleaded petrol. The Enfield Pageant (click here for the web link), has an autojumble of over five hundred stalls, a central arena of attractions and of course cars, lots of cars. I have spoken to Mustang Maniac who tell me they will be there as well, possibly bringing the fabled rare Indy 500 Pace Car with them. Pop over and say hello to the guys and say that Mart sent you from one man and his Mustang blog. You may even see me standing there coughin and splutterin’ too. I will take some pictures and post them when I get a chance. Just a quick note to say Mustang Maniac have changed their blog to http://mustangmaniac.org sounds a lot better, but don’t worry you can still get there via the old .wordpress.com page as well.
I have been busy with my reviews and finished one off now, I have posted a review of the Stanley FatMax Deep Pro Organizer under the Reviews – Tools – Stanley Tools section, or click here for the quick link.
There is a new button “Rust” on my menu bar for a little experiment I wanted to try between two products directly. My “Rust Comparison Test” will be between the Titans of the rust world: Granville Rust Cure & Rustbuster fe-123. Much has been said about these products and I have both. I like the Granville and I like the Rustbuster, but who is the best? I certainley don’t know. To try and answer that I have posted my first video of the test on my YouTube channel, “One man and his Mustang” or click the YouTube icon below for the quick link. I have been reading up on the various tests, reviews along with their results. But there are no pictures, so I am trying to put that right and people can see the tests now. I plan on making a few quick videos in a time lapse sort of style over the next few months along with taking pictures for the blog as intermediary updates as it were. See what you think of the video article idea and please let me know. Leave a comment or email me. I will always try to get back to you.
Rust Comparison Test for “Granville Rust Cure” vs “Rustbuster fe-123” quick link to the my write up click here
I worked a long day on the car over the weekend and I managed to complete a project that I wasn’t planning on. My original master cylinder produced a leak during the bleeding process. So to cut a long story short I upgraded to a Duel Master Cylinder System. Ok, my car is not concours original anymore, but I intend to drive and enjoy it not just show it, clean it and be unable to enjoy it because of the spec of dust on the exhaust. It has taken me most of the evening to write-up the process and pictures, but I am pleased with the results and wanted to share it as promised in my previous post. I have now posted the project under Photos – Engine bay – Dual Master Cylinder Upgrade, or click here for the quick link. This is no ordinary upgrade though, this kit includes a rear proportioning valve, built-in rear pressure valve and an inline pressure valve for the front brakes. Disc brake ready!
Next weekend I hope to bleed the brakes or at least try again.
Dual cylinder and fittings
front pressure valve and rear proportioning valve
The only side effect to my long day on the car was I felt like I had my legs run over by a bus. All that stretching and leaning over the fender took its toll on my hamstrings. Is it that I am getting old or should I have done some stretching exercises first? Yeah, like I wouldn’t look like a doughnut doing exercises in my garage to change a master cylinder! Us blokes don’t do that sort of thing, but I might just do that behind closed doors next time. 🙂
Rust
The recent bad weather has been doing wonders for the Rust test that I am still performing. The comparison is between the Granville Rust Cure and the FE-123. I will continue to run the experiment a while longer then I will post some pictures and results so far. I intend to do a long-term test and keep coming back to it with updates.
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
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
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.
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 end of the larger storage room
The other end
one side wall covered, the marking up is coming along nicely
second storage room
other end
wall to wall goodies!
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.
5.4 modern v8
bespoke independent front suspension
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.
The weekend started of pretty poor, I had a bug which started Friday morning and stopped me in my tracks for 30 hours or so, as a result I have been busy behind the scenes with the blog, more of that in a bit. I managed to get out into the man cave on Saturday mid morning to start the cleaning of my front brake drum. This time the sun was out, and that made me feel better for a start. The birds were singing and I had time to do what I wanted. I started the ritual tidy and clean up, I looked to my side a caught sight of a tame blackbird just by the door, showing no signs of fear. Not only was he just starring at me but looked like he wanted some food, he obviously changed his mind and flew away. Do they sense you wont hurt them? Back in the man cave I spread out the shower curtain to get my make shift spray booth ready. I mounted and sprayed the brake booster on my home made jig. The results were exactly what I was after, that almost natural metal look with a little character of old age pitting showing. I have posted the pics “Photo Menu, Engine bay, Brake booster part 2” or click here. A real good days work was had and it was only and late afternoon, time to get a quick blue ray in too, this is turning into a great day. Coming back in I went to get changed and heard the toilet running, strange, as the wife was out it couldn’t be her. On lifting the lid to the cistern the float mechanism had got stuck open and over flowing back into the bowl. So now my great day was now startin’ to go down the pan literally. Now I’m not happy, I had to get the household DIY tools in to fix it as they are now locked up in the man cave. I found the spare float valve unit that I bought ages ago, but never used from another kit I had. So off came the cistern from the wall, water spraying all over the place from the remains of back pressure in the shut of valve all up the wall of my freshly painted bathroom. The contents of my tool bag now all over the bathroom floor on a damp towel. the cistern parts mixed up amongst them. Reassembling the inlet float valve didn’t take long to be honest. The front door opened and in comes my wife in a great mood and comes upstairs to see what I was doing, I think the odd naughty word slipping from my lips gave it away. Then comes my favourite question in situations like these, “What are you doing?” The fact I have half of plumbing world all over the floor should have been a clue. Avoiding, my more obvious choice of a sarcastic remark when I am in a bad mood, I settled on explaining what had gone wrong and needed fixing. I expect we will probably get a bill big enough to fill a small swimming pool as a result just to make me feel even better about it. At this point she left me to get on with it. But she had bought me a nice cake while she was out. Once the job was done and adjusted for the water levels I took the tools out and locked up again. That cake was well and truly deserved, why? Because the spray job still looked good when I went back to the man cave!
Now here is a thought; is there such a thing as the pleasure & pain thing or Yin & Yang? I found this petrol head spin on the idea, brilliant, I just had to post this:
Yin & Yang Mustang
At the beginning I mentioned that I had been busy behind the scenes for the last couple of weeks. I have tweaked the blog a bit to make it a little more user friendly and added a couple of photos for the brake drum clean here, brake booster treatment and spraying here and a review of Granville Rust Cure here.
I have also started a YouTube Channel “One man and his Mustang”, (clever that huh?) where I will post videos, clips and reviews of what I am or have been up too. There are two videos, one for the products that I am using after I was asked that question, so it made sense to show them. The other is my Granville Rust Cure process. Please subscribe to the channel if you like what you see. or give me some feedback on what you want to see. I have moved the “Contact me” button too in order to make it easier to email me.
I have added a couple of good articles as well, on specifications and options for the 66 Mustang for all body shapes. In fact lots of stuff has been added, I hope you like it.
The best thing about my YouTube Channel? You can see a marked improvement in my video editing and techniques that took a leap forward. If only my car would move along that quick!
