A Glimpse Of Colour

As each batch of photos of my car in the paint shop are sent to Adam at Mustang Maniac I get more excited. The new process for letting me get to see them, a single teaser photo, followed by the rest of the batch once Adam has sorted them out, or thinks I have sweated it out long enough. 🙂 I know Adam has been keeping a real close eye on the progress and has supplied the colour swatches for the interior paint. The preparation and speed of progress on the car is just amazing, so much so that I am beginning to wonder, will I get an early Christmas prezzie in the form of my car fully painted? These few pics show more primer and blocking work before the colour top coats are applied.

The trunk has had the inside cleaned up to remove any light rust and the bits I inevitably missed. The shiny steel almost looks to good to paint, but seeing the top coat of colour on an outside panel soon changed my mind.

Engine.

Now the paint has dried out, but not yet fully cured as that won’t happen until the engine runs and gets hot of course. In the mean time I replaced the parts I intended to: The water thermostat and chrome thermostat housing, water temperature sender unit, water heater elbow connection and new distributor vacuum advance valve.

thermostat anti airlock hole

chromo housing

vacuum advance

water sender left below distributor cap

The egine now looks like new, all except the old distributor cap and rocker covers that I put back on for now, that’s just to keep the dirt and dust out until we are sure the valves don’t need to be adjusted. Then the proper ones will go on in the car later.

I AS I have been busy behind the scenes too, I have added a couple of walk through photo sets for refurbishing the starter motor and replacing the water thermostat on the engine.

Quick Links:

Photo menu – Electrical – Starter Motor Refurbishment click here.

There are lots more photos in the above link.

main case

brushes

All apart.

Photo Menu – Engine Bay – Water Thermostat Replacement click here.

Again more photos in the link above.

engine block face

old housing and thermostat

Those sharp eyed among you will notice that the distributor looks a lot better than it did. It has of course been restored, as soon as I have sorted those photos out I will post a photo walk though of that distributor refurbishment process. Watch this space!

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Primer All Over

The week was another anticipated trip to Mustang Maniac where I was going to finish painting my engine and putting a few bits back on it ready for the car to come back from paint. Somehow I don’t think my painting is up to the standard of the paint job my cars body work is getting. I’m not sure where to start, on the bodywork or the engine? So I think I will start with the bodywork. The car is being primed and block still at the moment and any hidden metal joins are being sealed up and coated to make the whole thing look seamless. An attention to detail many don’t consider.

The hood has now been masked up and given the primer treatment now and the parts are coming of and going on the car like you wouldn’t believe.

hood ready and doors off

doors & trunk

With the car bits removed they are all treated and sprayed in exactly the same levels of details.

The parts when cured are then put back on the car for fit and keep them all together ready for more block work.

I so want to get down there to see how it’s all done!

As I was saying earlier the engine intake manifold was back from shot blasting and John kindly jet washed it all out for me to get rid of the debris left overs, after all the last thing you want in your car’s engine is sand! The intake was allowed to dry thoroughly by the time I got there a few days later. The exposed surfaces were now showing signs of light surface rust again as expected from the exposed metal and elements. The gasket faces needed to be cleaned up again and I lightly polished up the faces ready for the gasket fitting.

close up surface

part polished faces

The gaskets were laid over the intake ports and the intake was carefully lowered onto the gaskets making sure they did not move.

The head was lightly bolted down finger tight and then torqued to the thirteen or fifteen pound required to hold it in place. The pot of blue paint used from the engine block was now opened and two coats of engine enamel applied when they were cured. A cover of masking tape was placed over the carb intake holes to stop any undesirable debris getting in the engine.

We decided that the best plan here was to know put the old rocker (or valve) covers back on just in case we needed to adjust any of the springs back up again to save damage to new covers and gaskets. I also then mounted the fuel pump back on the side after it had been cleaned up along with the fuel pipe to the carb.

before treatment

rusted

heavy surface rust

bare metalled

self etch primer

silver top coat

With the pump in place there was not a lot more I could do until the paint has fully cured.

The story so far for the engine. Next week I may be able to get the senders fitted and the fittings for the pipe works. Then it will start to look a bit more like a working engine rather than the work of art that it is at the moment.

You just know full well it’s gonna stay looking like this. I have even bought the soft tooth brushes already to clean it when I get her home!

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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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A Very Big Week

I have been sent a batch of photo’s from Mustang Maniac which are of my car being loaded onto their transporter to be delivered to the paint shop where her new home will be for a number a while that could be around six weeks we are thinking at the moment. I am so excited that my car has got to this stage. The guys were on hand to make sure she was loaded onto the loader OK. As the yard was a little flooded due to the recent heavy rain fall, a plan to get her loaded during a dry spell was created. Cars had to be moved around in order for the shell to be moved from round the back. Like a parting of waves the synchronised moving and parking was all completed without a hitch. A celebratory cup of tea and a Jaffa Cake or three was in order after the well executed plan came together.

John & Terry hiding behind the car

Terry gives the thumbs up

easy does it

ramp up

tied down

wrapped up

What next till she’s back?

Mechanics for engine, drive train, suspension and steering cleaning and polishing of all the bolt on bits and pieces, pretty much the same as before but on a smaller scale now. Well smaller scale compared to the chassis at least!

The first of those will be the engine of course which has already been started this week. The engine has not been run for around a year now, and the guys mounted it onto their test rig, lightly attached the three-inch headers without the gaskets for now. The bell housing was bolted on, starter motor bolted on, fuel was piped in from a large jerry can standing to the side, a portable jump-start unit was connected then she was hot wired to start. The timing was well and truly out and the distributer needed a good twist to pull it back to the 6deg that is should be for idle instead of the fluctuating 30deg we currently had. We tried again then she barked into life. The engine was allowed to warm up and the oil pressure was checked, water temperatures were checked from the top and bottom hoses in and out of the radiator, the carb balance was initially set up and allowed to run after the timing was set. The engine was now running a little lumpy, the spark plugs were changed to the proper Motorcraft spec instead of the NGK I had previously installed. Fired her up and then she run without any misses at all. The engine was warmed up, rechecked and then given a bit of a progressive high-speed run up. At this point I took a video which has been uploaded to YouTube here, or click on the quick link below for “Ford Mustang Flaming Exhausts”. There were flames from the exhaust which was quite good fun, and no this is not a Photoshopped photo. Turn up the volume and enjoy the sights and sounds from a v8 289cid engine ran in anger!

After the engine was run for a few minutes it was allowed to cool down and taken of the test rig to be mounted onto the engine stand. In my excitement I forgot to take pictures of the engine on the stand, but I will rectify that next week don’t worry. We took all the bits of the engine such as the headers, carb, HT leads, coil, the full distributer removed from the block, starter, water thermostat housing, fuel pump, power steering pump, vacuum lines, crank pullies etc. The engine was now just the heads and block, we drained the oil and as much water as we could. We turned the engine upside down and the damaged oil pan we knew about was unbolted. This is a very common damage to the oil pan which is due to the car being jacket up via the oil sump pan. If you look you can see the circular pattern of the trolley jack.

damaged oil pan

engine code

The next job was to remove the core plugs to see how the water has been flowing around the block and if the water ways are furred up or not. We suspected that they were fine as the engine was not running hot from the previous tests.

Terry used the video scope to check deep inside the block and all looks to be OK so far. I have taken some pics through the core plugs to show the gaps are still open between the cylinder jackets and in very good condition, I even managed to get a shot of a valve through a manifold bore.

water case

valve

The oil pick up gauze was clean and no bits of metal were wedged in there.

oil pick up

oil pump

We checked the oil for any debris and again was fine apart from being very weak. We then checked the timing chain for play which was fine. the engine was cranked over by hand to watch the motion of the pistons were as they should be.

timing chain

Terry then cleaned up the gasket from the oil pan and decided that now was a good time to put everything in containers that should be there. It was getting dark and we didn’t want to lose any bits. Terry put up with a barrage of questions from me and answered all of them and even showed me where I looked a little blank when we got seriously into the engineering!

Thank you Terry for the tutorials.

Quick Links:

“Ford Mustang Flaming Exhaust v8 289ci” from my YouTube channel: OnemanandhisMustang

Click the YouTube icon for the quick link:

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Ready To Rock

I’m back!

I know I haven’t posted for a while, but there was and still are very good personal reasons why. So far it has taken me a few days to create this post on and off, that’s when I can even get round to doing it. Rest assured though, I am still here and I will continue updating my little ol’ blog as and when I can, hopefully things will slowly get back to normal then I should be posting more regularly and then back normal. Thanks to those of you that have kindly taken time to email me to ask how things are, I apologise for not posting sooner and disappearing without any warning, but the circumstances prevented me from do so, it was all rather sudden to say the least.

I could have named this post “New Shell” as the car is at a point now where she is ready to go to the paint shop within the next week or so. Compared to the original rusty or distorted metal work, this could almost be classed as a new shell. The Mustang Maniac guys have been keeping me fully updated while I haven’t been able to get down there to do my duties and help out. Thanks very much guys for the updates.

The last piece of work I had done was the hood which took an age to complete. The guys assembled the front of the car and the hood was re-fitted up. Now there was a problem, the leading edge of the hood had been bent down and was hitting the headlight buckets preventing the correct alignment and closure. The hood was adjusted but the fenders and cowling looked very strange regarding the gaps. The hood was taken off and the guys tried to straighten out the bend with partial success, and on the odd occasion it was quite brutally adjusted to align it all back up. But the hood was now sitting to high and it turned out to be quite obvious that the hood was distorted beyond an economical repair. When you are at this high level of restoration you want it to look right especially on such a large panel of metal that you will be looking at all the time you are driving. So a difficult decision was made – it was a new hood to be fitted, it’s a shame the original couldn’t be used. But I fully understand that these things happen during classic car restorations, the guys did try to rescue the hood before it was replaced. Yes I could have kept the original that sort of fitted and I doubt that many would have noticed, but it would have played on my mind knowing that it didn’t fit 100% correctly with the gaps, I just knew I wouldn’t be happy with it. Like the driver door, it was an awful lot of hard work, but at least I am happy nothing more could have been done to make it fit perfectly. Come to think of it I have seen the odd restored car with worse looking alignments, I dare say some other restorers would have been happy with it. I now have a rather large bare metal piece of scrap.

However, on the plus side it means that my car is now ready to go to the paint shop with new metal that has already been protected from rust. Adam is now just waiting for the paint shop slot to become free in order for my car to go in and be transformed over the next month or six weeks before I see her back. Such an exciting time. I have potentially got the last set of pictures of the car in bare metal before she gets her new colour scheme.

angry face?

As the car stands the filler work is pretty good, but has been left in a state where the body shop can see what has been done and what needs a final filler coat. Standard practice for the Mustang Maniac guys who seem to do just that little bit more to make sure all the gaps were correct. When the car is back from the paint shop I will then Red Oxide the inside parts that need doing over the black floor pans and the rear chassis legs before the work starts in earnest to put her back together again. I seriously just can’t wait to see her in the new colour.

Photo Menu:

I have tidied up the photo menus to group them together in order to make it more logical to find stuff.

I have added the following these large photo step by steps under the Photo Menu – Bodywork Section:

Rear Quarter Panel restoration work, click here for the quick link. (A very detailed step by step)
Hood Restoration Work, click here for the quick link
Trunk & Tail Light Restoration, click here for the quick link (A very detailed step by step)

I have also updated the Fender Work sections under a single heading to bring it all right back back up to date.