Been slacking on posting...and building a car.

So much progress has been made since my last posting in February. I completed my Master's in Veterinary Microbiology in April, and having cleansed myself of that burden I began some pretty serious work. To get this blog up to speed would require some epically long post, so I shall describe my adventures in segments.

In one of the first nice days of this spring, which occurred in early April, I pulled the engine out into the driveway to get some sun and start assembly, and the pics reflect the results of my efforts.

Because of the retardation of this site, and my increasing lack of patience with it, I have significantly scaled back the extent of pictures that I am posting because blogspot makes it impossible to format pics within the text, and then they give you this little tiny window to try to do it all in. At any rate, this zippy little 302 was topped off with an aluminum Weiand Stealth intake, new water pump and timing cover, and polished aluminum Ford Racing valve covers. It's important to remember if you're using roller rockers your valve covers need to be 'tall' in order to have clearance. Since these pics were taken, I also added on the thermostat housing and oil dipstick and tube--both all chrome of course, and stuck the fuel pump back in. The oil pan, fuel pump, harmonic balancer, and engine mounts were the only parts from the 289 that made it on to this build. Everything else is new.

This will be an epic post

Because it's about a truly epic event. I have my new motor...specifically a remanufactured 302 long block built by S&J engines (www.hiperformer.com) in Spokane, WA to my specifications with my requested parts.

The block is a 5.0L 302 late model block (1985) as this is the year when the blocks were set up for roller cam from the factory. Everything was balanced and blueprinted. I also shipped them my harmonic balancer and flexplate so they could balance these with the rest of the engine as I intend to reuse them. I dropped shipped them an Edelbrock Performer Plus roller camshaft and Performer True Roller Double Roller timing chain required to go with the cam. Pistons are Sealed Power/Federal Mogul hypereutectics. Heads are Ford GT40 heads (from late model 5.0 Mustang Cobras) with 3 angle valve seat cuts, bronze valve guides, and Scorpion aluminum roller rockers. All internal parts (bearings, rods, lifters, pushrods, valves, springs, etc) are new except for the crank which is fine polished.



Long block has a 7 yr/70,000 mile warranty and was $2399 shipped.

I'll top it off with an aluminum Weiand Stealth intake, my Holley 600 CFM carb, and exhaust it with some ceramic Tri-y headers flowing into 2.5" aluminized pipe with an H pipe, and high flow mufflers. But that is for a later time.

How to make a rear end look good

Haven't had an update in awhile...this stuff takes time and the inevitable hiccups occur. Things that have happened since the last posting...

1. I sent the steering gearbox to Stangers Site (www.stangerssite.com) to get rebuilt. It's a necessity if this car is going to handle with any manners. He'll probably have it a few months since he's pretty backlogged, but he's the authority in Mustang steering.

2. I made the back end pretty. It was a lot of work, but I completely cleaned and degreased the axle housing and differential (sans the front of the differential), and removed the leaf springs and cleaned them. I painted everything up with Miracle Paint so at least when you drive behind the car it will look good.

3. While I had the back end apart, I took the opportunity to rebuild the rear brakes. The shoes still had plenty of surface and the springs looked fairly fresh, so I cleaned everything up well, painted what needed to be painted, turned the drums, and installed new wheel cylinders. I neglected to do this on the front brakes, and after discovering how cheap wheel cylinders are I begrudgingly then disassembled the front brakes and installed new wheel cylinders too. I think there are two essential parts of a good brake rebuild--replace the wheel cylinders and all rubber brake hose. I replaced the rubber brake hose on the rear as well. It was foolish of me to initially not change out the wheel cylinders; so much safety resides in a quality braking system and I was cutting corners. You just can't have it. As it turns out, the rear wheel cylinders were in bad shape, but somebody had already beat me to the punch on the fronts. I replaced them anyways. They had been sitting for a long time and it was cheap insurance.

4. The passenger's side axle looked like it may have been leaking. I replaced the seal, which created an enormous deal as I could not get the axle to function properly once reinstalled. I concluded the axle seal was the wrong size, because it's depth was quite a bit more than the original seal, even though the part numbers crossed. However, when I put the original seal in, the axle was restored to proper function. I had the guys at O'reilly's scratching their heads on this one, but we measured the dimensions of my original axle seal and they found one in their system with the exact same dimensions--to an 88 Jeep. I don't care what it's too, because when I put that seal in, everything works perfectly again.

5. I started reassembling the engine bay. I reran the wiring loom, connected with new ties and connectors I got from Mustangs Plus and started hooking up what electrical connections I could. This all happens easily with the guidance of the factory lineworker manual for Mustang wiring assembly.

6. Finished the entire brake system. Reinstalled the master cylinder (refinished with cast iron paint), and got all the lines hooked up and air out of the system. I could tell the master cylinder was recently replaced, so replacement here was not necessary. This checks off another major system completed.

For the next phase, some major body work to replace rippled panels will take place. After this things will come together quickly.

War

Tonight, while sprawled on the floor in the interior working on removing the steering shaft, I saw a shadow scatter across the firewall and dash somewhere behind the heater. The mice are at it again and have taken refuge in the warm garage. It's time for war.

Interior floors completed

Igot the car back from Bodyman Kirk, who had been hard at work replacing the nearly-rotted driver's floor pan. I spent the day Friday and today getting the new metal and rest of the interior covered up and rust-proofed. Such activities 'tis the purpose of this entry.


The new floor pan was butt-welded in (impressively well I might add) and a small patch in the toe board was also made. On Friday upon getting it home I spent the day cleaning, degreasing, and preparing for paint, and finally priming with Sikkens etching wash primer. Today all surfaces on the floor prone to rusting or moisture (toe boards, front and rear floor pans, rear seat perch) were treated with two coats of Bill Hirsch Miracle Paint (it's expensive...$34 a quart) but the stuff is an absolute necessity if you want to stop existing rust or protect against new rust. It's also identical to POR 15. Oh, and one other important note...it eats THROUGH those red plastic cups, which is what I had poured the paint into for my brush. I also hit up the outside of the toe boards on the engine bay side with several coats as well as the side of the frame rails and undersides of the floor pan on the bottom of the car. We'll let this dry and cure for a week and then patch up the seams with sealer

For tomorrow...rebuilt and adjusted steering.

In this issue: Lots of paint, and lots of caulk

My adventures since body man Kirk has been productive and successful. After doing a little more prep to the engine bay I got it where I wanted it. I put some cheap rattle can primer on the anti-missile tank paint along the firewall as it wasn't coming off and I figured the primer would be better for the topcoat to stick to than missile-proof tank paint. For the bare metal I pulled out all the stops and went with the absolute best: Sikkens Washprimer, a transparent etching green primer at the low cost of about $19/can. After letting it set for 15 minutes I gave the whole thing two coats of Bill Hirsch Black Chassis paint...2.5 cans to be exact, at the cost of $16/can. It looks pretty darn good as I have been envisioning what the painted engine bay would look like ever since I obtained the car. I'm now giving the paint two weeks to cure before I do any work in that area to avoid chipping the paint. At just about a week after spraying it's starting to harden. All I can say here is respirators are a good thing.









Moving away from the engine bay, the weekend's activity was to get all seams sealed. Again, my respirator has proven to be my best $30 investment. I covered all the seams in the interior and trunk with 3M automotive caulk or brushable seam sealer, for the low price of $66 between the tube of caulk and 1 qt can of seam sealer. 'Brushable' is quite the overstatement because it is by no means 'brushable.' The best way to apply this is to work the sealer in the can with a paint stir stick and then put a glob on a scotch brite pad and rub it onto your seam with that. You can control the thickness of the covereage with your hand by the amount of pressure you're putting on the pad, and you still get the brushed-on appearance.






Also at this time: Other things getting painted! Like, hood hinges, engine mounts, um, oh I sandblasted and painted the brake fluid reservoir with a cast metal paint...it looks very pretty again, and, just other things. There are billions of parts to paint when you pull a car apart and I will digress and not name them all.

Coming up this Friday I'll take the car to the DMACC shop and bodyman Kirk will put in the new floorpan on the driver's side.

Never stand naked before a body man

It almost sounds a bit paradoxical. Not *that* kind of a body man, I'm talking the kind of body man that will find every single flaw in you. But they can't just sit there and stare at it; they have to touch it, and rub it, and hit it, and poke it, and grind it. If you are now truly offended by these perversions, then I suggest you never take your car to the body shop. No, they are not euphemisms, these are REAL LIFE THINGS that REAL BODY MEN DO. And finally--after enough mechanical manipulation--they will want to fill it in and hide it forever. The only thing separating a body man from a plastic surgeon are calouses. So never stand naked before a body man.

This philosphical departure comes after some reflection on the way home from my latest excursion on the purple people eater (yes, regardless of the lack of updates, I've been ferverently working away and new big neat things are happening). I took a body class at DMACC this fall because I can. It is in Ames at the new Hunziker Center so the sole convenience of proximity was my ultimate persuasion. We've learned rust repair, and a billion different ways how to hit, bend, distort, undistort, and unintentionally screw up metal. We've learned dent repair, rust removal, body panel fabrication, and welding. It's taught by a very animated, super nice guy skilled in his trade, and is more anal than a proctologist but equally effective at getting his point across. We'll call this guy Kirk, because that's his name.

Most of the welding is done on the car, namely the front end work. The next, and current major product is finishing up the rest of the car between the front [missing] bumper and windshield. So...painting the engine bay. I sanded and sanded on that forever. In fact, all I've done on this stupid car is sand. I've partially stripped most of the paint off with a stripping wheel on about half of the engine bay. The other half I'm convinced was painted with a missile proof army tank tar paint that seems impenetrable by nearly every thing at this point, but I haven't tried using a jackhammer yet. It was to a point where I was about ready to spray. I was in the throws of doing my final degreasing and getting down to the nitpicky of paint prep. But then body man Kirk came out and looked at it.


If you don't want to know every flaw in your car, don't show it to a body man. Fortunately I do though, and hopefully I have a good memory too because I have about a million pieces of new information on 'things to fix.' And then he basically explained to me that my engine bay prep wasn't ready for spraying yet. This is good to know because I would have sprayed the entire thing only to strip it off because I didn't do a good enough job at feathering the old paint remains.

I took some 320 grit sandpaper, by hand, and went over and over the panel smoothing and feathering the old surface out. Once I was convinced it was where I wanted it, I degreased it twice with paint prep, wiped off with a tack cloth, and primed and painted a test strip. It came out looking super sexy, I declared victory, and have a new motivation to finish the rest of the engine bay as carefully as I did this section.





Prior to this, the car spent some time at Mike Louis Auto Body getting some welding. The radiator support, passenger side front inner fender skirt, and passenger side strut support were all replaced. On the back driver's rear quarter panel where it meets the floor of the trunk, a patch of metal was welded in as the quarter panel had completely rotted/separated away from the place where it meets the trunk.














Also during this time, my rear seats came back from the repair man sporting brand new padding and burlap since the mice did a number on the seat guts. The seats look great, have better form now, and after getting them shined up I can't wait to ge them back in the car.





This entry is dedicated to Kirk, who undoubtedly saved me from inevitable insanity. Also, the formatting of this entry sucks and I'm completely fine with it.