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Dad's stang...

I was just uner the car--laying there and looking and what you stated is the first thing that I thought of. "damn I wish I could rip the whole front susp apart and redo all of that"

"Damn that real axle looks awful--I wish I could redo that"
..

I stopped by last night and he was under the car with a 1/4" wide paint brush touching things up

The pics don't do it justice,,,, Mike has done a great job
 
I was just uner the car--laying there and looking and what you stated is the first thing that I thought of. "damn I wish I could rip the whole front susp apart and redo all of that"

"Damn that real axle looks awful--I wish I could redo that"

Believe me I wish I had more time--and later on down the road I just might tackle another portion of it--or a second build/major upgrades.

But for now its just get it done so my dad can enjoy it..

The nice thing is a complete front suspension kit is cheap, and easy to install. Also, if you decide to go that route, you can do the frontend, rearend, and swap to discs and 5 lug all at the same time.
 

hmmmmm...

I stopped by last night and he was under the car with a 1/4" wide paint brush touching things up

The pics don't do it justice,,,, Mike has done a great job

Thanks Charlie

The nice thing is a complete front suspension kit is cheap, and easy to install. Also, if you decide to go that route, you can do the frontend, rearend, and swap to discs and 5 lug all at the same time.

Definitely something down the road. My dad is just about tapped out for the project and I have spent more than I was anticipating to help.
 
well if you do ever decide to change it over to 5-lug, let me know... I will try to keep a few items i have (like the rear end) and I might still have all the 5-lug front stuff (drum brakes though)...

I will be cleaning up around my place some more and getting rid of a lot of stuff, I will keep some of this stuff from disappearing if interested...
 
Definitely something down the road. My dad is just about tapped out for the project and I have spent more than I was anticipating to help.


Just keep your eyes out for stuff... I got my disc brake stuff off of a Granada for $50. Bolts right in, you just have to buy 2 new tie rod ends... and a used 8" or 9" rear is usually cheap... I may have one this summer as I am swapping my 8" in my Cougar for a disc brake 8.8 from an Explorer. If you wanna do the whole front suspension, I think my entire kit w/ new upper and lower a-arms, coils, bushings, etc.. was around $300 bucks???

The car is beautiful... I wish my Cougar had that much time and $ put into it! :awesomework:
 
well if you do ever decide to change it over to 5-lug, let me know... I will try to keep a few items i have (like the rear end) and I might still have all the 5-lug front stuff (drum brakes though)...

I will be cleaning up around my place some more and getting rid of a lot of stuff, I will keep some of this stuff from disappearing if interested...

Whatever ya don't want let me know...... :awesomework:
 
Damn--I am running out of things to do,lol..

Well I am kinda bummed as one of my plans won't be able to be done. I was going to take the mavrick air cleaner and the stock stang air cleaner and graph them together to make the stock one work. Well due to the depth of the mavrick air cleaner, the choke and how tall the carb sits I was unable to mke it work. So for now I chose to just paint the air cleaner. Later on down the road we can do something different. At least the blue doesn't look tooo bad.

dad483.jpg


I also found the correct vented fill cap.
 
Next on the list--washer system. The poor nozzles were pretty rough. So I hand sanded and polished the copper tube. The of course some paint.

dad484.jpg


One thing I could not believe I had a hard time finding and that was 7/64 hose for the washers. Not a single parts store had it--but I had it at work, go figure.

So I ran the hose to the nozzles and down to the pump.

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I can't believe how much fluid this bag holds---I was rather impressed.

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I ran the system and well--the pump is weak but will work for now..

So what does that leave in the engine bay to be finished---just throw a set of points in the distributor and set the dwell--and I can scratch that off the list.....

Damn...........
 
Well the last few days have been very trying as I am pushing to get the car ready for this saturday's big event.

Well I started by running the motor hot since everything under the hood has been done. Well I was looking and found coolant on the grill--WTF. I looked and found a leak on the front core/drivers side.

dad488.jpg


No biggy and I pulled the radiator and soldered it up.

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This is where the tailspin starts. Found another small pinhole and fixed that and the upper rad hose goes to twice its size--screw it and ordered coolant hoses and threw them on.

dad491.jpg


At this point I am thinking its gotta get better now--right..

Sitting here and steam starts coming from under the hood.

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Ya coolant ALL OVER. I ended up having to pull the rad 3 more times with the last I redid about 3" of the rad.

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So I ran it again and damnit--there is a seep on the passenger side down in the middle of the core to where I would have to remove fins---crap. I guess we will have to add that to the needed replacement here soon list..
 
So to add to the frustration. I had a bad feeling about a noise I heard(suspected the trans) when I first drove it.

Well I have drivin it about 5-6 times to get the brakes adjusted and figure the noise out. Its a loud thump(sounds more like an engine knock) in first gear and you can slightly hear it in reverse. Looking at the manual(I have a factory manual--old skool) and the powerflow it looks like its coming from the countershaft and more than likely the bearings in the shaft. I drained the fluid that I replaced like 4 months ago (And with .4 miles on it) and the magnet is full of metal and the fluid is nice and metalic--crap...

So now I am---well ya...
 
sadly at this point I would look at replacing the radiator...

with that many pin-holes starting, there are more to follow...

now... with the prices of the brass/copper radiators so darn high, look into the aluminum replacements..

just did one for a buddy's show car (chevelle)... and another for a friend's jeep... they were like $169 + shipping on ebay...

and they work well and bolted right into place...

the replacement for the jeep was priced at $600 for the brass/copper (4-core) and the one for the chevelle was just over $450...

so the aluminum was quite a bit more cost effective...



just a thought.....


:D
 
So pushing forward pass the "bad" stuff I am hitting the trunk full bore.

Don never got the upper edge of the quarter panels sealed up. Well I didn't realize it was all the way up to the door jamb. Great. So now I can either pull the interior apart or get crafty. Well I can see all the way down the edge from the trunk so I made this little wonder.

dad494.jpg


So I crawled into the trunk and shoved my face up against the inner of the quarter panel and gooped the stuff in. I ended up doing 2 good heavy coats and I got it all. Heck I even got the back side of the door jamb. Ya I can fit comfortably in the trunk.

dad495.jpg
 
So again I learned more good stuff. I didn't realize this panel went in the spot. It made sense with the holes in the trunk and I had to notch it for the wiring and ran it down under the panel.

dad496.jpg


I cleaned the insert/cover. Man the colors back then really gotta make you laugh. Its really in good shape and I didn't realize it was contoured to fit the trunk like it does (only been a number of months since I removed it).

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I also found the hardware that holds the spare tire in a box of stuff. So cleaned it up and painted it. The only think missing is the factory sizer jack. I had to search for pictures to see what was in there and how it was setup and found the jack sits under the tire to keep it horizontal.

dad499.jpg


So getting closer. Throwing the car on the trailer in the am and taking it to work to put it on the alignment rack.
 
sadly at this point I would look at replacing the radiator...

with that many pin-holes starting, there are more to follow...

now... with the prices of the brass/copper radiators so darn high, look into the aluminum replacements..

just did one for a buddy's show car (chevelle)... and another for a friend's jeep... they were like $169 + shipping on ebay...

and they work well and bolted right into place...

the replacement for the jeep was priced at $600 for the brass/copper (4-core) and the one for the chevelle was just over $450...

so the aluminum was quite a bit more cost effective...



just a thought.....


:D

Thanks for the input :awesomework:

Ya once the dust settles we will figure something out.
 
So I crawled into the trunk and shoved my face up against the inner of the quarter panel and gooped the stuff in. I ended up doing 2 good heavy coats and I got it all. Heck I even got the back side of the door jamb. Ya I can fit comfortably in the trunk.

I guess its a good thing your a twig, makes fitting in a trunk easier.
 
Just an update..

I took the car to work and we got it aligned (just a toe set). My parents took me to lunch and they got tabs for it so its 100% legal. So of course I took it for a cruise around town--my dad is going to love this.

I had a problem with the starter--Bendix would not engage 1/2 the time. So I pulled that and tore it apart and polished it up and it seems to be wroking perfect now.

I had a problem with the outside(driver) door knob getting stuck in the open position. I was able to pop the upper door plug and get some grease on the sliding portion(push's against the swivel portion of the handle) of the knob and its working good and much smoother. I also did the same with the passenger.

I got a little bit of the interior cleaned.

The rear window trim came in today and my dad is going to drop that off tommorow so I can move forward.

I still have not heard from Don on the splash shield so I am getting nervous about that.

But its getting closer every day..
 

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