Another good weekend on the car and I managed to dodge the household jobs. Or as the women out there know, I was let of doing some jobs around the house! This weekend has been a bit of a gamble with the weather. Saturday I was looking at the sky trying to predict if it would rain, so I put of the job I wanted to do on hold until today. Why am I banging on about the weather? Well, the job I had in mind was to replace the door hinges as they have play in them and you can feel the movement, plus the door doesn’t line up properly. As the garage is narrow for a Classic American Muscle car I would need to push the car out of the garage ope nthe door wide and then take the door off. If it rains it will get the inside wet and it would could end up with a wet puddle on the floor under the carpets. I did manage to get the left hand side (drivers) door off and replace the hinges at least. I will post pictures on a guide a bit later once I have done the other door, but I was pleased with the results. Again the parts were from Mustang Maniac, which were the replacement pins and the brass cups for the guides. I was treating things a little bit to gentle to start with and the pins were not moving at all. I got the Gibbs Brand on it, got the club hammer out and give it some therapy. A few beatings with that soon got the pin out and job done. The top hinge pin was the worst to get out of the two, it took a fair bit longer to get the whole thing clear as the top brass cup had split in it. All I can say is that when I put the door back on to my previous markings of the hinges, I was a little bit out, OK they were a lot out. The door would not shut at all. In fact the bottom of the door caught the sill about two-thirds away along the bottom of the door. It looked like clowns car if I am to be honest. Not good, but it did show me the level of adjustment that I could achieve. The next two hours made sure I knew what adjustment did what to the alignment. That door got progressively heavier and heavier with each adjustment. Now the door lines up fine with the rear quarter panel. I am happy the back muscles aren’t.
Saturday was spent in the man cave rubbing down the valance with very fine wet and dry paper on the primer. I had to refill a couple of tiny blemishes again but it all looks good now though and smooth. In the afternoon I decided to finish my review of the Gibbs Brand Lubricant. I have posted the review under the Reviews Menu – Consumables – Gibbs Brand Lubricant, or click herefor the quick link. Again supplied by Mustang Maniac, If you have not tried this stuff, you need too! You just got to read the review and buy some. Buy it for the wife around the house, then pinch it back! 😉 (No I am not on commission before you ask! It’s just really good gear.)
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 is upon us again, and I hacked off with the weather, again!
We are predicted snow yet again, ok it was fun for a few days but not any more. The country grinds to a halt and the food goes up in price. It never goes down in the summer though, funny that. Petrol goes up, the oil companies make billions and the complain they are hard up, yeah right.
Enough off me being grumpy, I can’t roll it out of the garage if it snows or rains, but on the other hand, I can work in the garage out of the rain. It just goes to show how spoilt you can get in any situation. A couple of months ago I had to stand out in the rain to do anything on the car, now I can stand in the dry and do it, and I moan again. I’m lucky I have somewhere to put my car and I must keep that in mind. I am luckier than a lot of others, I own a classic Mustang and it’s in my garage.
What do I do this weekend? It’s to cold to spray anything again, unless we have a major breakthrough of sun, according to my weather apps that is just not gonna happen. I may do a bit on my blog if its to bad, and catch up on a review or two. I do need to get my brakes drums off and measure the shoes, this is holding me up to get things moving. Once these are a confirmed size I will order them and get them fitted along with the I hope to use my new tools and see if they do make the job easier. I feel a review coming on for these tools what ever happens. Speaking of tools, I ordered a copper hammer with first class post delivery from eBay, that was on Tuesday this week. Guess what? It ain’t turned up, and this man is not amused. I do suspect that Monday some poor person is going to have a bad morning once they pick the phone up if it’s not delivered tomorrow. If we don’t complain to these people they get complacent, and it becomes the norm. I’m looking forward to the weekend itself, it’s just a shame its not nicer weather.
Frost Auto Restoration Techniques have put a link to my Dinitrol 6030 review. I’m well pleased with that of course, hopefully it will expand my visitors and followers too.
You get a link to their site here or go to http://www.frost.co.uk
As I have cleaned out the garage to my car in stuff has been moved from there into my man cave. Now my man cave is 10 x 8 foot so it’s not to bad size wise. The down side is it has rapidly filled up with stuff I didn’t want in there, garden tools, seat cushions for our swing seat, hose pipes, ladders etc. I appreciate we have to store them somewhere as a compromise for my Mustang taking over the garage. Over Christmas I was treated to my front and rear bumpers. They were stored safe and sound in the garage. As we moved stuff out and dumped stuff the bumpers were moved to the shed, aka – man cave. This wasn’t a problem until A) I wanted to work in there but there isn’t room to stand. B) the bad weather arrived.
So in the minus 300c or what ever it is outside and snowing, I decided I needed to sort the bumpers out. Earlier in the week I purchased a set of six wall mounted screws £1.57 from eBay that hold bikes etc. bargain. I have 3 bumpers now, the original, which has virtually no chrome, rusted and pitted. Then the two replacements for Christmas, front and rear. I drilled the holes where the bolts go and screwed them in the wall. Lifted the bumpers onto the hooks, job done. They have plenty of room and don’t need tying as the hooked end holds them in place. Now they will be dry and out of harms way. 🙂
Bumpers on the wall
At home
The Bad,
While I was at it I thought I would check the transmission leak. Although it has definitely slowed down, there was about a desert spoon full in the drip tray. This sort of put me in a not so good mood shall we say. I could go and tweak a bit more to see if that helps. Perhaps her nose runs like mine does when I am freezin’ my dip stick off. I’m not to sure what to do about it now, if anybody has any ideas give me a mail or post a reply here. I have a direct email now which is under the Home button. I will have to put her back on axle stands and have a good look again. I got a Blue Point inspection mirror & magnetic pick up set so I will use those to a better effect I think when the weather goes back to normal and not arctic. Also my left front slow puncture has gone down again, I guess I will sort that out when she is back on axle stands 🙁
The Ugly,
The weather is certainly ugly, tiny flurries of snow all day, but nothing major yet. That is to come tonight. Anyway, as I was putting the brackets on the wall a neighbour was walking past with his wife and their old-timer of a dog who didn’t seem phased by the cold at all. The guy stopped to look at my car and started asking me questions about her. I love talking about it so we struck a good conversation up. He told me while he was in France a couple of weeks ago for a wedding, the groom turned up in a 66 fastback which was his fathers pride and joy. He told me that it was the first time he really heard one for real and has since fell in love with the v8’s. How nice was that from a real nice bloke too. The flip side of that was another woman who was going out came past, she couldn’t help but stare at us and gave me the most filthy and ugly look, just like a mole that had burrowed its way into a sewage farm! What was that all about and why? 👿
Once I got back to my man cave I tidied up and made space again. Now that I can work in there again, I just need to work out a way to sneak the garden tools into the utility room and hope the wife won’t spot them, yeah right! If I did that I reckon I might get a rake stuffed somewhere that the sun don’t shine. Perhaps that not such a good idea after all, reason being I am after some wheel cylinders next. Lol.
The weather has taken a mental turn for the worst.
I tried to get a train this morning and nothing running, so I came home and worked from there. Before I done that I had to check on my car to make everything was OK. I opened the garage and I swear I saw her shivering in the cold, to be exact that was -9deg C, to be fair it was more like teeth chattering, sorry, crashing together rapidly that gave the illusion of everything moving. That temperature is mental cold for round here, and I can’t remember the last time it was this cold. I am a little worried, in my shed there are two chrome bumpers I got for Christmas and I don’t want them ruined due to the freezing temperatures. To help with that, I ordered some hooks for bikes to be mounted on the wall but I will use them to store the bumpers on. Looks like the bumpers will be a bit big for them though, as they are only going to be on there temporally, I will tie them to make sure they don’t come off. This weekend I will put the hooks up as a number one priority. While I was in the garage I checked the fluid leaks under the car, nothing so far. Brilliant, but as its so cold everything could have shrunk and there is no gaps to leak from. Fingers crossed and I will double check the weekend. We are expecting blizzards this weekend and 10 inches of snow so I have been told. Will it be that heavy? Only time will tell if I will be able to open the garage door or not. I can’t begin to tell you how pleased I am that she is tucked away in the garage before this lot hit us and ground the country to stand still.
I have also added my review of the Draper 5 piece circlip pliers. You can find them under the tool review button, or click here to go straight there.
It’s freezing, and small flurry of snow flakes which didn’t come to a lot, but I know it was cold. The down side is that the work I wanted to do more work on my bumper stone guards, it’s looking like I will have to wait till the slightly warmer weather. I doubt that the Dinitrol body filler will set very well in -2degrees let alone trying to put rust treatment on or spray some undercoat. The tins of spray were sold cold the balls inside didn’t want to move, I know that feeling all to well today. (Sorry ladies, but it was cold). Nevertheless I still went out to play cars. I took a selection of sockets out with me and opened the garage. Then it hit me; Eau de Mustang. That unmistakable odour of old metal, slight hint of super octane petrol (due to the fact I have no exhausts at the moment) & underseal coating. Perhaps I should approach these plug-in air freshener people to create a mans version, Mustang, BBQ, Fry Up and Pub. I’m sure it would be a big hit. That classic car odour is the smell that all petrol heads love, it’s loved almost as much as the delicate smell of perfume from a loved one once they have left the room. (Did I really just say that? Note to self: Must man up on these posts!) It also means that I have to put a ventilation brick or three in my garage wall in the summer and nicer weather decides to arrive.
I digress, I went out to look under the car a tighten up anything and everything that looks like it needed tightening around the transmission without going mental of course. The garage floor was almost as cold as me, I managed to find a couple of nuts that needed quarter turn to nip up properly. There was the return ATF connection coming from radiator that needed a turn as well, that was after I had to go and get some spanners.
Yesterday I posted that I had a new oil/drip tray, that was put in place as well under the transmission to see if there are any more episodes of my Mustang scenting her ground. Time will tell. My slow puncture has slowed a little, but it will need taking to me ol’ mate Will to have a little look for me.
I have posted my swaging tool review here (or look under the Tools Review in the header bar). From my stats on this blog, I have had searches for, how to use swaging tool and review of swaging tool etc. So as it was cold and I had done what I wanted to do today on the car I thought I would write-up the review. Hope you like it or find it useful.
Things have been busy over the Christmas and the New Year holidays.
Most of last week the garage has been emptied and space has been made to get my classic home. I have measured the space and it’s gonna be TIGHT. The weather is bad and the damp is causing issues on the work I have done so far, so some of the work on the polished steel needs to be done again. Not best pleased but that’s what happens when it’s outside. Hopefully it will be in the dry and will be lot happier. I will be able to work on it in the garage till late as there is a light. Not much room around her but I will have to get her mobile and be able to move her in and out of the garage on her own. Saturday will be a busy mental day. Will I get her in? I will let you know!
Gonna be tight!
Christmas Poll Results:
This make very interesting reading, OK so it’s not a massive countrywide or worldwide poll, its only the people who voted. The holiday is supposed to be the celebrating the Birth of Christ, but it has become so commercialised and the world we live in has become so stressful, are these results unexpected?
I was surprised a little but not shocked. I will let you make your own minds up!
Time of Work = 38%
Being with Friends and Family = 25%
Giving & Receiving Presents = 25%
Food & Drink = 13%
Religious Celebrations = 0%
Thanks to all those that took time to vote. I will leave the best looking Mustang running as there is no need for a time limit along with the best car chase ever.
Keep up the New Year resolutions – or have they all been dumped already? 🙁
