Took a lazy day Sunday

Instead of working on the mustang, I chose to go see Resident Evil 3D.  3D has come a long way since the cheap glasses with the green and red lenses. It actually looked like 3D. Movie needed more zombies though, never enough zombies. Saw previews for Saw 3D. That looks like a must see.

Have to get back to the Mustang tomorrow. Have a shopping list for the last of the parts I need. Want to change out all the heater hoses. This car is old enough, the hoses go through the firewall into the heater core. I am going to take heater box apart and hopefully not damage heater core in the process. New one is only about $35 so if it breaks, not out too much.

Exhaust on

Managed to dig the workbench off enough to organize tools and make room for welder. I broke it in by welding ear back on exhaust manifold. I also managed to get the exhaust manifold and system hooked back up. I also found another source for welding gas. Seems Rural King has a trade in system like propane tanks for welding gas. I can buy filled tank and trade it in as needed for full tank. Price is substantially cheaper than Air Gas and Rural King is open on weekends. The battery tray inner fender part is ready to weld in place. I will pick up tank tomorrow and get it taken care of. I am going to install radiator and hopefully start car tomorrow, so it may turn into a decent day.

Mig welder worked pretty nice. First time I used a mig welder. Alot nicer than Stick and acetylene like I have done before. Trigger controlled wire feed is nice. Need to practice on some scraps of sheet metal tomorrow to get a feel for how it welds before starting on real panels.

Found it

Made some progress today. I ordered gaskets for the carb Monday and they came in yesterday so I was able to get it mounted and the linkage back on today. I cleaned up the drive shaft and repainted it. Need to go to store and get new u-joints on the way home tomorrow so I can reinstall drive shaft. Need to pick up some new heater hose as well. I figure the blue hose will go good with the engine.

I looked everywhere I could think of for the exhaust manifold, and I finally found it. When I had problems with the breaker blowing and ran a new power line for the garage, I was sand blasting. I left it in the blast cabinet. I also found the ear that broke off of it that had been welded on by the previous owner and came off upon removal from car. I will try re welding it tomorrow and hopefully get the exhaust remounted. Hope to fire it up on Saturday if I can get radiator back by then. Everything else should be together tomorrow. I got an e-mail from the place I ordered parts for the car, and the last of the parts should be here tomorrow, including the alternator mounting bolts.



Most of accessories back on

I managed to get some time in on the Mustang today after catching up on some house chores. I mounted the alternator with new harness extension. I have it in place with a stud temporarily while waiting on bolt kit to come in. I found some more damage in one of the wiring harnesses and got a price on changing out the whole section of harness. I will take it out during the week and see if I can replace one nasty wire or if more of them are damaged. It is a pretty long harness as it feeds the headlights, voltage regulator, alternator, starter relay and turn signals.

I also installed the water pump, thermostat with housing, coil, spark plugs, Distributor, spark plug wires and the missing freeze plug. I pulled the valve cover and found top dead center and set initial timing. I also put in an electronic ignition conversion kit. I bought a new z-bar for the clutch as the old one was unsalvagable. It was used off e-bay and needed some modifications as the previous owner welded up worn holes, but failed to drill new holes to accommodate the linkage. Once I found my 1/2 drill and chuck key (which was a job in it self in my nightmare of a garage) I managed to get holes in and get it installed. Ford did not allow much clearance between z-bar and steering shaft. Had to adjust height of z-bar bracket to clear the shaft. Now if I can only remember where I stowed the exhaust manifold, I can get the exhaust back in place. Rebuild kit did not include gaskets for carburetor, so I will have to order some from the parts store. She is just about there. I will try and get radiator dropped at shop during the week. I keep forgetting about it. It is in good shape, just want to have it hot tanked and have a new hose fitting installed as old one is bent.

Sharp pointy things

I went to the club today to check out their second gun show. They had more attendees than the first one, but nothing worth bringing home. They had one poor mangled Krag that I should have bought and buried to put the poor thing out of it's misery. The guy had hacked the barrel back quite excessively and had a jammed it into a small stock that had been hacked up poorly to accommodate what was left of the Krag. They only charged a dollar at the door, so that wasn't too bad. Bumped into the guy I bought my Garrand off of. He reminded me of the gun show at the armory next month. He usually has a nice layout there. I keep drooling over an Enfield he has that has never been shot. Several years back, they sold off an inventory of Enfields that had never seen service at all. They are referred to as mummified Enfields. They shipped in the cosmoline they were dipped in at the armory and wrapped in cloth. It comes with matching accouterments including matching bayonet. I love the look of the Enfields, and this thing is mint. If he brings it this time around, I may have to buy myself a present. Don't think I can bring myself to firing it seeing how it has made it half a century without anyone doing so, but I wouldn't mind having it around to polish and enjoy just for the sake of preserving a piece of history.

I went to Whitaker Gun store in Owensboro Kentucky after the show at the club. They advertised a couple Krags for around $500 each. One carbine and a rifle. After looking through their massive inventory, I could not find the Krags and had to do what no guy likes to do, ask the clerk for help. Yes, that is almost as bad as having to stop along the road and ask directions. While the clerk looked around, I went back and grabbed a Winchester 1917 that I found that was in pretty decent shape. It has the original barrel and stock and came with a bayonet with sheath (but no frog). Bayonet is marked Remington, but the rest of the rifle is all correct. Now my Remington 1917 won't be so lonely in the safe. The clerk made it back and wasn't having any luck when the store owner hollered over that he had sold the rifle yesterday, and the carbine had been put on layaway by someone earlier that day. I proceeded with the paper work for the 1917 and had a few people checking it out wondering if there were more of them on the rack. Probably could have sold it to one who was quite interested in it while I was waiting on papers to clear. I still want a P1914 Enfield to round out the Enfield collection, but have been unable to find one yet. The friends of the NRA show had a beautiful restored one in their raffle, but I did not win. I would have been happy to purchase it if they would have allowed. Beautiful gun.

Tomorrow, I will put the motor accessories back on and try to get the dash put back together. I still need to get my welding tank to finish up on welding. They don't make it easy with the hours they are open. Sure do wish one of them had the smarts to be open on Saturday. Would like to start the motor and hear it run. Might head to the range tomorrow for a while too. It has been great weather out there. Not too hot, not humid, perfect weather.

Motor and trans are in : )

I installed the transmission to the motor this morning. Wasn't too bad getting it together.I picked up a couple 7/16 bolts and lopped the heads off to use as guide pins. Worked great.

Next up is dropping it in. I had the car on rollers and it made it nice rolling car into position. I had hoist at angle in corner of garage and rolled car into 45 degree angle under hoist. Gave me more room around car and hoist. Install went pretty good. Would have been a lot easier with another set of hands. I borrowed a load leveler from a buddy which made putting engine at an angle to allow for trans to enter a lot easier. Once it clears part of firewall, you can start leveling motor out as you drop it in.

After I lined the engine up, I put a bolt in on each motor mount to allow swiveling. I then was able to jack the trans up level and install new trans mount and cross member.Old trans mount came off in two pieces. Forty year old rubber tends to do that. I will try and get the water pump, plugs, coil, wires, thermostat and miscellaneous brackets on tomorrow. If I get off on time, I can get my welding tank and start doing some of the welding. I still need to get the alternator bracket off old alternator. The old bolt is in love with the hole in the alternator, so I will need to take to work and use the press. I need to install  freeze plug shop missed as well. Would be nice to fire it up next weekend. I want to replace the u-joints while shaft is down as well. Lots more to do, but I am getting there slow but sure.

trans going back on

I finally got back to work on the car. I put the flywheel back on and installed the new clutch, pressure plate, throwout bearing and pilot bearing. I also got the old seals out of the trans and installed the new ones. I will repaint it the same color. My year is the last year to use old ford blue. The shop painted the motor corporate ford blue (which actually looks better) , so I am going to paint trans to match engine. It is not going to be a show car anyway, so I will paint it the newer ford blue.

 Still have not done the welding. I priced the tank, and am now trying to catch the place open to pick it up. Anyone I talk to says not to use flux core wire with body panels due to burn through and contamination. I found a place that has the Argon/Co2  mix at a very reasonable price. The only problem is they are closed weekends and not open late (4:30) during the week. The place a couple blocks down from work (AirGas) has the tanks, but they want three times what the other place does for the same amount of gas. They are one of the big companies, but their prices are a lot higher than their competition. I am going to try and get the motor and trans back in and run the lines tomorrow. I will try and get floor welded in during week. If they let me out on time one day, I can get the tank. Still need to get carpet ordered, but I can always bolt a seat and run without carpet until it comes in. Will be nice to get engine in and break down cherry picker to get some room back in the garage again.