heater – One Man And His Mustang

It’s not as bad as it sounds though…

The weekend has been about me undoing work I have done up till now. OK, that sounds a little odd but I makes sense, my head says I needed to do it, but my heart said no. After speaking to Adam at Mustang Maniac I asked the questions “does my wire loom need to come out?” The reply was simple – “is the cowl OK?” I know there was a little issue of rust around it but it looked OK, in my eagerness to get the car wired I done the best patch up I could, deep down there could be issues. So the decision was made to take the whole loom out again so we don’t damage the loom and check the cowl out properly. If you have a dodgy cowl the rain could get in, run down some rust and ruin the carpets. Potentially every time I clean the car I would ruin a carpet, let alone being caught in the rain or use the window washers come to that. Also the dash has got to have a repair plate welded back in to look original instead of the wide gaping hole there at the moment where a modern radio was put in, ideally the area behind it needs to be clear of wires. Once the car gets down to Mustang Maniac we are going to look at sorting out the cowl, rear quarters, any chassis welding work etc. then to paint the car properly. For that it will need it to be a shell in order to make it easier for the paint and prep work. You may ask yourself why did I do all the work I have so far? The answer is simple but the answer is threefold. The first is when I got the car there was nothing in it to work, so I wanted to know it was going to work, so I wired it up to prove that it does basically work mechanically. Secondly I didn’t know the Mustang Maniac guys at the time and I was (mis)led and “advised” by other people, – it turns out they obviously don’t know as much as they think they do, those people and companies shall remain anonymous from me as they don’t deserve any mention on my blog, at all. I could name and shame but then I will be bouncing their name possibly advertising them, but they know who they are! Thirdly, it’s a learning curve, I was going to do what I had to do to get the car on the road. Many conversations with Adam made me realise that it’s a bit of a false economy and I should do it properly. yes, it will take longer, but on the other hand, it will be more reliable and last longer, it will look so much better and be worth much more, in fact should outlive me! The car was bought for me as a hobby to do up over time, which I am enjoying every minute of it, even when the car bites back and draws blood from me. In my infancy of car restoration things were done a little bit back to front in retrospect. BUT, the huge advantage is what I have done so far, I know fits and works. The last thing I wanted to do was have a nice paint job and go messing it up by doing stuff I wasn’t to sure about, scratching it, denting it and so on. One of those major things was wiring the car up from nothing, turn the key and it starts. That proved the point that the engine was basically OK and proved to myself that I can wire a car up. Other things like the brakes needed to be sorted out too. I know that I had of had the car sprayed and put the brakes on the car as I first did I would have ruined the under hood paint. The original brake booster looked fine, I checked it and cleaned it up, and when I filled it up with fluid it was fine, but when the pedal was pressed it squirted brake fluid out all over the place, like a kids water pistol in fact. Without a question of doubt it would have ruined the paint and I would have been gutted more than taking the loom out again. The brake booster and dual cylinder upgrade on there now works and should be a simple bolt back in job. So you see it’s not such a bad idea after all. Yes I took two steps forward, the one step back should only be a temporary loose of momentum though. In fact there are things I will do little differently when I put the wiring back in again. So it’s not so bad in the end after all.

The inside is just as bad!

The American AutoWire loom was on its way out, and it all looks like a mess again. The advantage that I cling onto is that I can wrap all the wires back up again with insulation tape once in place. The engine will be coming out, so will the gear box, drive shaft etc etc. in order to spray the engine bay properly.

Inside the car with the main loom out, only the heater control loom and the rear link loom is still in place. The car is almost back to how it was when I got it! In a way I’m a little sad, but on the other hand it will be a better job than before. (I must keep telling myself this to keep the spirits up). Short-term I will not hear that bark of my v8 again for a little while anyway.

Review:

As it’s winter and it can be cold the good lady wife took pity on me and bought me a heater for the shed or garage while I am working out there on my beloved Mustang. The only thing is wanted something that was in keeping with what I had, retro in other words. There are these horrible plastic boxes out there that do the job, but I just don’t like them. I mentioned that I liked a particular style made by Honeywell and I was lucky enough to get it. Women have this knack to store things in their heads for ages, in this case it worked for me. Most of the time it’s evidence used against me when I am after something. Know what I mean guys? I have reviewed the Honeywell Heater HZ-510E1 under Accessories Reviews. Is it as good as it looks?

Quick Links:

Accessories Reviews – Honeywell Heater HZ-510E1 or click here for the hyper link

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Losing valuable Mustang time.

Another weekend with rubbish weather. It’s snowing pretty hard today so there is no way I was going to get to do any thing either on the car or in the man cave. I wanted to get that wheel off and get the slow puncture fixed. I could push her out to get access to the wheel, the problem would be trying to push her back in again in the snow. One false slip and the trunk would have a new rear spoiler in the shape of my two front teeth. Not good!

I did get out to the man cave for a little while to have a tidy up again. I decided to have a rearrangement of my tool chest with the new tools I got for Christmas. They all have a new home now and lined up like soldiers. Am I the only sad person that does this to make their tool box nice and neat, or do I need help? While in my man cave I noticed some birds looking for food and not having much luck. I must admit I tend to spoil my little feathered friends, I do an extra slice of toast in the mornings and break it up for them if I have toast before I go to work. Given the choice of plain bread or toasted, the toasted bits always goes first. As it was so cold I came in and done a couple of slices of toast, broke it up and put it on the bird table for them. It soon went, I do worry about them, as we have this little understanding, I feed them and they don’t try and use my cars for the local avian cesspit, sometimes they breach this understanding, so the next day they go hungry, they know the rules!

As I couldn’t do much I decided to finish up my heater plenum work write-up. I had taken some photos but that was before I decided that I was going to do this blog. The pictures still shows what a bad way it was in and then the finished results. You can see the process and why I had to do it all under the “Photos, Heater Core Issues & Repairs” or click here for a quick link. There is also a mini review in there for the heater case seal kit.

Lets hope the weather improves so I can get out there and do some worthwhile work on my car again. If I hadn’t of got my Coupe in the garage when I did it may have looked something like this!