Tag: photos

Slight change of plan

Sun’s out for a change!

I need to ask a question. Why is that when I was re-routing a brake line for my dual Master Cylinder I managed to knock the brake line flaring tool case with my elbow. My own fault for balancing it on the cowl, but I did managed to catch it. Of course everything went everywhere, I was standing there looking like I lost £10 but found £5 if you know what I mean, but no I was holding an empty plastic case. I heard that dreaded clink clank again of various bits rattling down the engine. The flaring dies that make the double flares are quite small and I found four out of the five pieces. My question is where do the bits go that you can’t find. I have looked for hours and I mean hours. I have a torch with a Blue Point mirror tool looking in all places. I know that my started motor teeth are OK and not rusted up. I know that I have missed a little bit with my rust treatment on the left hand side of the chassis just under the steering column. I now know that I have a bolt missing on the bottom part of the exhaust manifold on the left hand side. What I don’t know is where that little mushroom-shaped bit went. Do the gremlins come along steal it, and run off before I see them. If I catch the disruptive swine, will his pockets be filled with thirty plus years of car bits I have lost? It drives me mental. I have rocked the car, I have put my hands in every tiny gap that I could, I have even used my magnetic pick up tool to probe places that I didn’t know existed. I have had bits of grime and rusty bits  drop into my eyes and hair when I bang under the engine, as if it would make a difference! I swear it’s not there. Is this just me and my bad luck or does it happen to anybody else? This is not the first time it has happened to me, I have lost nuts, washers and clips. I have still not found them. Perhaps there is miniature version of the Bermuda Triangle that is currently located under that Ford small block v8 in my garage, the Mustang oblong maybe!

Blue Point telescopic Mirror

OK, so I was going to get the car out and start her up and use the brakes to drive her in and out. I have half bleed the brakes to the rear with the new dual master cylinder from Mustang Maniac and all was well. I was going to do the fronts but other things side tracked me a little on Saturday and couldn’t finish it off. So as today was a lovely day I had a change of plan decided my time would be better spent in the garden, it was time for some bodywork action. I have already removed the damaged paint and the pitted filler from the front valance and the grill valance here in part 1. I have taken some more pictures of the Valances for part 2 and updated the pages, or just click here for the quick link. I have applied a total of three applications of the filler and rubbed down each one to make it a level as possible to smooth out the low spots. The hot weather has made application of the filler a bit of a race against time as the drying process was pretty quick in the warmth. I can bleed the rest of the brakes when it is raining next, that’s an inside job, where as sanding and getting caked in filler dust is not an ideal man cave job in the rain!

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Ford Capri our UK Mustang?

Comparison Of  the Ford Mustang and the Ford Capri

The history of the Ford Mustang is well-known, and I have a few articles on this blog about the years and specifications. During a recent walk around the Classic car show I was taking some photos and spotted a similarity or two with the Mustang and Capri around the 1968 mark. The Capri was finished for a special preview in Bonn, Germany on 21 January 1969 and went on for a press release on 24 January at the Brussels motor show. The car was on the forecourts 5 February 1969. Was this car destined to be the UK Ford Mustang? I have been trying to find details of the designer but not much luck so far does anybody have any information I can add to my Article?

Ford Capri was a name used by the Ford Motor Company for three different models. The Ford Consul Capri coupé was produced by Ford of Britain between 1961 and 1964. The Ford Capri coupé was produced by Ford of Europe from 1969 to 1986. The Ford/Mercury Capri convertible was produced by the Ford Motor Company of Australia from 1989 to 1994.

The Capri name was also used by Ford’s Lincoln-Mercury Division on six different models which did not bear the Ford name. The Lincoln Cosmopolitan Capri from 1950 to 1951; the Lincoln Capri from 1952 to 1959; the Mercury Comet Capri in 1966–1967; and three different generations of Mercury Capris from 1970 to 1994.

I have created an Article for the Capri History and the Mustang comparison under the Articles section of click here for the quick link which was compiled from various web pages.

Anybody seen these side vents before? The center line running down the side of the car? Shape of the back section, replace the upper side vents with glass?

Mustang ’67 GT 390 side vents
MK1 Capri

The wheels being different on the Mustang as a 5 Lug design and the Capri 4 Lug design, but they look pretty similar at a glance. The Capri front wing or Fender badge is in the same location as the Mustangs too.

5 Lug Mustang Wheel
4 Lug Capri Wheel

Am I imagining this or is there a definite link or coincidence? I can’t track anything connecting the Mustang and the Capri from Ford. Who designed the Capri was he on the Mustang projects as well?

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What a rocker

Another productive weekend on the car

The sun was out when I got up, thanks to the inconsiderate neighbour who decided that revving his engine up would be an ideal way to warm it up. Don’t you just love those people? Anyway I was all excited to get the last brake set on and the drive shaft back in. True to form out to the man cave got all my tools out and lined up the parts like a load of soldiers on parade. I assembled the brakes in record time, and came up with a little tip. If you have the drum brake spring removal tool there is a one end of the leg that will allow you to slide the spring onto the center pivot, apply a little grease or oil on the leg and the spring will just slip straight over onto the pivot. Simple, but effective! So the brakes were with the drive shaft now out in the garage with me. Everything assembled fine, nuts done up fine and the drive shaft went in no problems at all. You can see the whole process here or go to the Photos section Drive Shaft. The last part of the jigsaw was the hand brake. This was missing off the car so I need  a new one. Thanks to Adam at Mustang Maniac again, he provided me with all the parts I needed when I was there last. The cable was fitted into the backing plate and the cable was bent a little to make the route correct. Assembling the front end linkage was a breeze. I have now written up the process and posted the link in the Photos section under Wheels and Brakes, Hand brake replacement or click here for the quick link. During this work it had started to rain but I was unaware of that as I was sort of wedged under the car again. Once I got out from under the car my next job was going to be postponed. So while I had all the tools out I decided to the rocker covers of the engine, they were going a little surface rusty and didn’t look to pretty. So like a man possessed I took the bolts out and removed the rockers. Then it hit me, the mixture of engine oil, fuel, metal and old car. That’s the smell of a classic car, or is it the smell of something leaking? I have mentioned it before, Eau De Mustang. I cleaned up the rockers and they have been rubbed down, treated, primed and painted, I’m not sure if it will work or not, but I will give it a go. I have pics and I will post them as soon as I have sorted them out, hopefully this week sometime. My postponed job i mentioned earlier, I manage to start today (Sunday) which was the inside of the front valance anti rust treatment. Again I have pictures of that little project ongoing as it stands at the moment, click here or go to the Photos Body Work section.

On another note, my new back gate. Yes it looks nice, but now it does not shut properly, it does if you push it at the bottom. The reason is it has warped badly at the bottom part. There is the thickness of the gate that it has moved about two inches. So if left on its own without shutting it properly via the latch you can see through the gap. I am not happy about it. I can’t complain as it’s wood and a natural substance. Does anybody have any ideas on how to get the gate back into shape? It’s gutting as the gate was perfect for about three weeks, then all of a sudden it has moved which is probably a result of the rain. Give me a classic Mustang any day to work on.

I just thought I would post a pic picture of the old set of shoes from the drivers side rear brakes, they say a picture speaks a thousand words. I had only three: OMG!

left rear damaged shoes
left rear damaged shoes
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The Yin and Yang effect

Good & not so good

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
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!

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Hat trick…

So its Sunday night, and I am thinking about work again. What prodded these dark thoughts? The weather again. Saturday was a good day as the sun was out, cold but the sun was definitely there. Today it has been raining, this stopped a fair bit of play on the car as the wind chill made it feel positively Siberian. But the hat trick this evening, it’s snowing! I couldn’t believe it. It had been locked in my own little world tweaking my blog and responding to a few emails that I had lost track of time. I hadn’t looked out the window, I hadn’t gotten out of my chair or moved from my screen.  At work you are supposedly to have a five minute break every hour from your screen. At home do we? Nope, not me. I was to busy preparing my next review or news on what I have been up to, the time flies by and I’m getting tired. Now I have realised the time, I started to get my stuff ready for work and look out the window, that’s when I noticed the snow is starting to settle. I dare say that the journey into work will be chaos, there will be idiots on the road who think that their 4×4’s are invincible. I have news for you people, the car you drive has rubber tyres like mine, if you hit ice you will skid, just like me. I’m starting to get stressed about it already. This is not a good sign. I need a holiday, a month after Christmas and it seems like half a year ago.

The car, this weekend I have taken the brake drum off and posted pics of that under the photos section, or you can click here. I have sorted out the man cave again as it was getting in a mess. To cold to use filler, to cold to spray and with the amount of rubbing down I have to do I can’t have the door shut with all the dust flying around. So a bit of a non event Sunday. I mentioned earlier I was doing a review, that was for a Snap On torch I have. You can find it under the Accessories section, or click here for the quick link.  I also put a real quick review of some soft jaws for my vice, that can be found under the Tools section by the Stanley vice, or click here.

Lets hope the weather improves here and also the USA gets over their bad weather too. Then we can all get on with doing what we like doing, in my case working on my car. The worlds climate has just mental, I just can’t remember it ever being this mad.

Thanks to everybody who has left comments this week on my blog, it really does make it all worth while to think that somebody has enjoyed a read with me. I appreciate it.

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Snowed in (again)

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!

Mustang-in-snow

The fact I have posted for the third time this weekend shows just how frustrated I am, in an automotive way of course.

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Moving Home

My car comes home!

This a wordy looking post but I think it’s worth the read for the fun and games we had!

My car has been down the drive just round the corner from me, where it has remained for the last year and a bit, I can work as and when I wanted to on it so there was no real issues.

As I normally do, I lifted the bonnet to make sure everything was OK and I noticed that the Tuff Stuff chrome alternator is not so Tuff after all! The Chrome has a little pitting on it and I ‘aint happy about it to be honest. I am going to review this alternator soon, and I’m not convinced it going to get full marks, or great marks come to that somehow! The damp has started to cause a few issues so we decided that the will have to go in our garage. There wasn’t a great deal in there to be honest just my old stuff from years of collecting rubbish. The charities had a great day as they got books, pictures and old clothes etc. Hopefully they can get some money in for their causes. Anyway, the car was taken of the axle stands and lowered down, left side tyre has a slow puncture that I will have to sort out. A friend of mine Pete came round in his new car which he has only had for a few days and offered to tow her round to my garage. The reason we decided that it should be towed is because the drive is on a slope and there was no way that with me in the car doing the hard work of driving, (OK, steering the car) that the two hired hands were going to push it without booking a visit to the hospital emergency unit to have a couple of hernias sorted out. Mark was playing lookout to start with to make sure that any would be Nigel Mansell wouldn’t meet two and half ton of American Muscle in the middle of the road. After pulling her to the top there is a slight dip down to the road, bearing in mind I have no brakes at the moment so everything had to be done with care and be legal to push it the rest of the way. We managed to stop the Mustang quite well by using the back of Pete’s nice new shiny new car. Oops! Sorry about that Pete I reckon a bottle of your favourite tipple could be arranged for the trouble. Before you ask yes the car is fully comprehensive insured even though it doesn’t go on the road. I think the fact that I got out to check that there was no damage to my car first was like rubbing salt & vinegar into the wound at the time. The car was not to bad weight wise once we got her rolling of course. As the road is a no-through road we weren’t expecting any traffic, but you can never be too sure. A couple of minutes later we were pushing her onto my drive and into the garage, or so we thought. The garage was wide enough by about 3 inches each side, it will even tighter once the mirrors go on. We managed to push the car in inch by inch, Pete was directing the car to the front, Mark was doin’ the donkey at the back pushing and I was on the wheel now and again sweating buckets panicking that I may just have measured up wrong. Pete found out that car was cold as we pinned him to the wall with the bonnet while trying to clear the trunk into the garage. The garage door was lowered down, very carefully and I have about 4 inches to spare with the door shut. It was close if it was going to go in. There is no way a ’67 on would fit in there. But I was happy, she fits and she is tucked up each night now. Just need to get a nice cloth cover and a heater now to make her snug. Perhaps I should ask the wife if I can have some, perhaps not!! 🙁

So there you have it, my car is at her rightful home at long last, gentlemen I thank you for your help. Ooh, I nearly forgot Staci who collected Mark to take him home before his next shift!

The car was in the garage, so the next thing was to rig up an extension to the solar trickle charger for my battery. (A review for that bit of equipment can be found here.) Hole through the garage wall and it was job done, that’s after we spent after we spent the best part of half an hour looking for the clips to the battery so that we could use a length of good quality speaker cable to extend the wire.

A big day for the man and his Mustang it has to be said. I was out there today having a little fiddle around, as you do of course, to see what the next job is going to be. I have a feeling it will be to revisit some of the work I have already done. Such is life, but she is home! 

The next installment I doubt will be as long.

Handin' out the orders
Handin’ out the orders
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Redesign of website!

Blog improvements?

Before you panic and say “he’s broke it” I haven’t.

On the right hand side there were menus that were getting longer and they looked a little messy. I still had people ask me where the photo’s were!

So, I decided to split things up a little for the better, at the top under the header there are now, 7 buttons; Home, Forums and Discussions, Best Mustang Ever, Photos, Tool Reviews, Part Review & Consumable Reviews. If you click on them they take you to the places or the will drop down into menus and subsections. This means everything of importance is at the top now, so no excuse to not find anything. The book reviews I have still left on the right, there are now menus that tell you what is coming soon for each section.

I hope it now works better for you and more natural to look at. The site has got bigger than I expected a lot faster too. I have added a Tags section, click on the words and should show the posts that mention it, or just do a plain ol’ search.

Please let me know what you think, leave it or change it back – I hope not anyway 🙁

Cars

At the weekend I hope to do a little work with Bumper Stone Guard and see how it goes. I intended to take some photos for the review of the Dinitrol filler as well, two birds with one stone and all that! Still not decided on the final colour of the car and the interior colours, I have added forum here or go to all the forum sections and let me know what you think on a number of subjects. .

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More pics added and another book review

Another update to the blog, I have added the wiring photos of the car when I got it. When you see the photos you will understand why it was not running. Go to the button for the pics or click here. I knew how it was when I bought the car, but when you look at the other parts under the dash I didn’t quite realise what an epic journey I was about to undertake. American Autowire was the way to go over the Painless wire kit. I will review the American Autowire kit soon and explain why them. I have added a personal favourite of mine in the book review section and find out why I like it so much.

Please keep coming back and let me know what you like or don’t like, leave a comment. Leave your email address and be sure never to miss an update.

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Picture requests

Due to popular demand (OK, it was only a couple), I have uploaded a few more pictures of the day the Coupe arrived. Go to the button for the pics or click here.

It was on the back of a low loader and by the time I got my camera ready it was unceremoniously dropped onto the drive. The car was locked and the driver presented me with the docs for the car but no keys! It turned out that he had dropped them in the gutter outside, about a foot away from a drain. At the time there was one set of keys; needless to say I was not a happy chap at that point. We found them shortly after, so all was well in the end. As the car was dead; no brakes, no wiring in it and no steering wheel fitted, it was an interesting hour or so to move her about- out of the way. The car was stuffed with parts in boxes so I had to find the steering wheel in order to move her. Ever tried to push a car when the steering wheel comes off in your hand? I wouldn’t recommend it.

So I missed the big moment of the delivery on the truck I’m sad to say. But, I do have plenty more where these came from and I will upload them as soon as I get the chance.

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