Ships Log: Fat Aircraft carrier war games

UtahJoe

Team Workhorse
Team MTBNJ Halter's
Mustang update....

I was going to do a whole write up about the kingdom trip, but we covered it in so many other places I decided to skip.

Despite limited time, I have been getting things done on the mustang. 8 weeks since I last posted....When I left I had mostly finished the brakes...I have since finished the brakes. This was not super simple. When I started to bleed the system I found some leaks and had to cut and reflare a couple of things. But everything is good now, brakes are bled and working now.

Steering is also done

So the next big thing is to get the motor into the car. finally....Its been about finished for more than 2 years now, just sitting on the stand. Its not too difficult to put the engine back into the car, but there is a good deal of prep that you want to do in the case of a 67 big block mustang. As I have mentioned before, this engine is impossible to work on once its in the car, so you want to have any many things on it as possible before dropping it in. The headers for example....390 "GT" engines were not like regular 390s, they used 14 bolt heads and the front and rear cylinders had 4 bolts......good luck installing these once the motor is in the car. I suppose its possible, but even on the stand I need a 3/8" wrench cut in half to get to a couple...heres Bob helping me

IlGrhRH.jpg



After the headers I put new plugs in since that also sucks doing with the motor in the car, few of them anyway.

Next I needed to get the engine off the stand in order to put on the flywheel, clutch, bellhousing and starter motor. In the past I have done this step with the engine dangling from a hoist...It really sucks doing it this way, in addition to it being dangerous...So I bought an engine cradle for this part, it was cheap and would allow me to set the engine on the floor, problem is that the headers interfered with the rear bolts...So I had to turn it around and brace it with some wood. Not pretty, but the engine is now off the stand and onto the floor.

1EkcIUv.jpg


After this, I got out my new billet steel flywheel and got that figured out. It had been since ~2001 since I had to do this, so I did not remember that the flywheel bolts are indexed....meaning the pattern looks symmetrical, but it will only go on one way...so 15-20min of rotating later and i finally got the bolts in
ce1xfY6.jpg


So tonight ill get this torqued down, then start putting the clutch together (after I clean off all of the red grease)
 

Patrick

Overthinking the draft from the basement already
Staff member
when I bought it I took it out of the box and noticed that it had no coating on it of any kind.... so to make sure it didn't get covered with rust while sitting in my garage I put some grease on it

where does the torque converter bolt on ;)

i had a a bolt break with an engine dangling. it flipped, landed on the carb - adios holley 650dp. but i was glad it wasn't part of me that got crushed.

did you decide on an ignition system? or do we have to wait.....
 

rick81721

Lothar
Mustang update....

I was going to do a whole write up about the kingdom trip, but we covered it in so many other places I decided to skip.

Despite limited time, I have been getting things done on the mustang. 8 weeks since I last posted....When I left I had mostly finished the brakes...I have since finished the brakes. This was not super simple. When I started to bleed the system I found some leaks and had to cut and reflare a couple of things. But everything is good now, brakes are bled and working now.

Steering is also done

So the next big thing is to get the motor into the car. finally....Its been about finished for more than 2 years now, just sitting on the stand. Its not too difficult to put the engine back into the car, but there is a good deal of prep that you want to do in the case of a 67 big block mustang. As I have mentioned before, this engine is impossible to work on once its in the car, so you want to have any many things on it as possible before dropping it in. The headers for example....390 "GT" engines were not like regular 390s, they used 14 bolt heads and the front and rear cylinders had 4 bolts......good luck installing these once the motor is in the car. I suppose its possible, but even on the stand I need a 3/8" wrench cut in half to get to a couple...heres Bob helping me

IlGrhRH.jpg



After the headers I put new plugs in since that also sucks doing with the motor in the car, few of them anyway.

Next I needed to get the engine off the stand in order to put on the flywheel, clutch, bellhousing and starter motor. In the past I have done this step with the engine dangling from a hoist...It really sucks doing it this way, in addition to it being dangerous...So I bought an engine cradle for this part, it was cheap and would allow me to set the engine on the floor, problem is that the headers interfered with the rear bolts...So I had to turn it around and brace it with some wood. Not pretty, but the engine is now off the stand and onto the floor.

1EkcIUv.jpg


After this, I got out my new billet steel flywheel and got that figured out. It had been since ~2001 since I had to do this, so I did not remember that the flywheel bolts are indexed....meaning the pattern looks symmetrical, but it will only go on one way...so 15-20min of rotating later and i finally got the bolts in
ce1xfY6.jpg


So tonight ill get this torqued down, then start putting the clutch together (after I clean off all of the red grease)

Calling @Carson - overspray on the valve covers!
 

Santapez

Well-Known Member
Team MTBNJ Halter's
You still have the stock distributor? If so a Pertronix internals look more OEM and probably more reliable than a Unilite.

It was good for 5mph top end on my Falcon over points...
 

UtahJoe

Team Workhorse
Team MTBNJ Halter's
You still have the stock distributor? If so a Pertronix internals look more OEM and probably more reliable than a Unilite.

It was good for 5mph top end on my Falcon over points...
No it died 20 years ago I put it on eBay and got 200 hundred bucks for what was left of it...It was a 427 dual point set up...worthless garbage, but the concourse guys have to have them bc numbers matching. There are so many better options out there now. But the unilite has been running for 20 years now without an issue.

There is always some issue, last night I ran into one while putting the clutch together. New flywheel, new clutch disc, but im reusing the mcleod pressure plate I bought in ~2001 since it has like 5000 miles on it...no reason to spend $300 on a new one.
Mo4IakH.jpg


Im looking thru my bag of hardware I took off a few years ago.....no dowel pins. hmm ok. Not TOTALLY unusual, not every clutch uses them. But if you dont have dowel pins in the flywheel, usually the pressure plate bolts have a shoulder that acts as the dowel pin....My new ford bolts, nor my old ARP bolts have a shoulder. I last put this clutch on around 2000-2001....Im assuming at that time I just glossed over this and put it together and it worked for 15+ years....But now, my engineering brain cant let this go. Called David Kee just to make sure I wasnt going insane, and he confirmed that yes, you need these. Without them, the pressure plate can possibly shift around due to the loose tolerance of the bolt. So I had to get some on order, thank god for summit/jegs.

While I was going to stop here, I did want to make sure my new starter fit and worked with the headers. I bought a powermaster starter which is an original style, but made with all new components....sort of like mini starter guts in an original housing....but a new fully machined original style housing. After reading countless horror stories about big block fords and mini starters, I decided to get one of these. This is hard to get in while the motor is on the floor, you should see doing this with the motor in the car. Fits good tho thankfully.
KWZsAO2.jpg
 

Patrick

Overthinking the draft from the basement already
Staff member
Anyone feel like there should be a boot over that connection?

nice pilot bearing alignment tool!
 

UtahJoe

Team Workhorse
Team MTBNJ Halter's
Mustang update...omg...its been exactly 1 year since I brought the car home from the body shop.

So where are we after 1 year?

Well considering that I get to work on this car if im lucky maybe an or two hour out of my day....and only after 9pm...im happy with where its at right now.

Things i have gotten done in the past year:

-Completely replaced 100% of the suspension
-all steering components have been replaced or rebuilt (steering box), reassembled...minus the new steering wheel
-hyd clutch conversion mostly complete
-trans torn apart, all gaskets/seal replaced
-rearend has been totally rebuilt, new everything minus axles...converted to rear disc and posi
-100% of the brake components replaced with the exception of the break pedal...lines, master, etc...
-new fuel line
-all wiring replaced
-tailights done (this was a much bigger pain in the ass then it sounds I assure you :) )
-new fuel tank installed
-engine and clutch installed

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UtahJoe

Team Workhorse
Team MTBNJ Halter's
So whats left? Well like only 3.6 million more things...god its amazing that ford ford built 472,000 of these cars in 1 years...thats almost 1300 per day...like 53 per hour lol.

Anyway....

The last pic above is of my instrument cluster. For years now the original tach hasnt been working....These are crazy expensive to replace since the tach is unique to a 67 and they were an option, so they are actually fairly rare...most cars didnt come with them. So I started to look into how to fix this thing and I found this guy....Gary...aka, the Tachman.
Gary2.jpg


So when you are looking to have something like this fixed...this is EXACTLY the person I was looking for.
Is this not the most PERFECT website for a man who fixes old car instrumentation? I mean this might turn some people off, but to me...im like YES...this is the man for the job!
http://www.tachman.com/

These are the old school guys who are dying out but have forgotten more stuff than I will know in 10 lifetimes. While I didnt need this part yet....to be honest, I dont know how old gary is and how much longer he might feel like doing this stuff...so I figured I better get it done. Despite what Garys website might look like, he's an old electrical engineer and technician from back in the day and goddam did he do a professional bit of work on this cluster.

So gary fixed the broken tach, removed and calibrated all of my gauges, reassembled everything with my new lenses

tw2.jpg

gauge cal.jpg


done
lens.jpg


So something else interesting...if you notice my odometer reads 40,821 miles. So as long back as I can remember, early 1980s...it read 25,000....I remember my dad telling people the car only had 25,000 miles on it. I just assumed my dad was wrong and it was 125k...but since I cant do a title search in this state, i cant REALLY confirm this. But as gary told me....he has taken hundreds, maybe thousands of these apart in the 30+ years he has been doing this...He said that the gears on the trip meter and odometer were perfect on mine, the red paint on the needles is not at all faded, he was 100% convinced that this cluster only has 40k on it. Which probably makes since....I mean my mom found the car in a gas station in ~1974, it was dented up and who knows how long it had sat there....it was owned in Bayonne or surrounding area...so from 67-74...7 years...~25k, im guessing it just didnt go very far, then it got rearended. Probably explains why so many things...such as the suspension were completely untouched original. After my dad bought it, it certainly never went very far....from the early 80s until he died it went from 25,000 miles to 29,000 and that included at 2100 mile drive to utah.


So what else to do?
Finish setting up the trans and install...im pretty close here...stopped by harbor fright last night and bought a trans jack...I have bench pressed this thing before, and fuck that noise.
Starting to get some of the interior sorted out...starting with the biggest ass pain, the doors.
after the trans is in, ill finish putting the engine together and hope to hell it starts
then the glass, headliner, interior, trim, lights...man...see you next year
 

rick81721

Lothar
So whats left? Well like only 3.6 million more things...god its amazing that ford ford built 472,000 of these cars in 1 years...thats almost 1300 per day...like 53 per hour lol.

Anyway....

The last pic above is of my instrument cluster. For years now the original tach hasnt been working....These are crazy expensive to replace since the tach is unique to a 67 and they were an option, so they are actually fairly rare...most cars didnt come with them. So I started to look into how to fix this thing and I found this guy....Gary...aka, the Tachman.
Gary2.jpg


So when you are looking to have something like this fixed...this is EXACTLY the person I was looking for.
Is this not the most PERFECT website for a man who fixes old car instrumentation? I mean this might turn some people off, but to me...im like YES...this is the man for the job!
http://www.tachman.com/

These are the old school guys who are dying out but have forgotten more stuff than I will know in 10 lifetimes. While I didnt need this part yet....to be honest, I dont know how old gary is and how much longer he might feel like doing this stuff...so I figured I better get it done. Despite what Garys website might look like, he's an old electrical engineer and technician from back in the day and goddam did he do a professional bit of work on this cluster.

So gary fixed the broken tach, removed and calibrated all of my gauges, reassembled everything with my new lenses

View attachment 101263
View attachment 101264

done
View attachment 101265

So something else interesting...if you notice my odometer reads 40,821 miles. So as long back as I can remember, early 1980s...it read 25,000....I remember my dad telling people the car only had 25,000 miles on it. I just assumed my dad was wrong and it was 125k...but since I cant do a title search in this state, i cant REALLY confirm this. But as gary told me....he has taken hundreds, maybe thousands of these apart in the 30+ years he has been doing this...He said that the gears on the trip meter and odometer were perfect on mine, the red paint on the needles is not at all faded, he was 100% convinced that this cluster only has 40k on it. Which probably makes since....I mean my mom found the car in a gas station in ~1974, it was dented up and who knows how long it had sat there....it was owned in Bayonne or surrounding area...so from 67-74...7 years...~25k, im guessing it just didnt go very far, then it got rearended. Probably explains why so many things...such as the suspension were completely untouched original. After my dad bought it, it certainly never went very far....from the early 80s until he died it went from 25,000 miles to 29,000 and that included at 2100 mile drive to utah.


So what else to do?
Finish setting up the trans and install...im pretty close here...stopped by harbor fright last night and bought a trans jack...I have bench pressed this thing before, and fuck that noise.
Starting to get some of the interior sorted out...starting with the biggest ass pain, the doors.
after the trans is in, ill finish putting the engine together and hope to hell it starts
then the glass, headliner, interior, trim, lights...man...see you next year

So I might actually get a chance to drive this thing before my 80th birthday??
 
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