Just about the worst luck ever......

beanplant

Founding Member
Jun 25, 2002
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KC MO
Well, after 3 months of long hard work, and 4 thousand dollars later, I got my car running Saturday. Ran like a champ. I took it to a local muffler shop who built me a custom exhaust from the headers back to an x pipe and out dual 40 series. On the way home that monday....... My head gasket blew.....

We think the cause was a crappy head, so That night I had to strip my whole upper end of my brand newly rebuilt motor. To say the least, I was a little pissed. The High school drags are this Sunday, and my car is in pieces.

To boot the fact that my head gasket blew, and I needed a new set of heads..... I ran into another problem. I found another set of used E7s for $40. I took them up to a VERY well known and prestigious auto shop in town wednesday. He told me the heads will be rebuilt completely by the next day. Well here we are, 3 days before the race, and I've got no heads to put on my car. I've got a homecoming football game to go to, a homecoming dance, and a MAYBE squeeze in a upper-end rebuild in there. UGGGHHHH Sorry for the rant, but I'm feelin' a lot like crap right now......

-Shaun
 
It happens to all of us. Once, when I had my 65 coupe, my buddy and I were going to take two great gals night clubing and my clutch broke. Not wanting to miss any night action, we changed out the clutch in the driveway of the girls apartment, sure we didn't get the flywheel surfaced, but that clutch lasted two more years until I sold the car! Good luck.
 
Dude, sorry to here about your dilemma. It happens, just try and keep your chin up and look forward to when you will get her running again. i am sorta in the same boat you are, thing is my car is my daily driver. Sucks when you are used to driving the stang and now for a month I have to switch between my dad's Work truck or the family E-150 to get stuff done. I am hoping to get started on the build this weekend, if I get paid and the weather stays on my side.
 
2nd Mustang said:
It happens to all of us. Once, when I had my 65 coupe, my buddy and I were going to take two great gals night clubing and my clutch broke. Not wanting to miss any night action, we changed out the clutch in the driveway of the girls apartment, sure we didn't get the flywheel surfaced, but that clutch lasted two more years until I sold the car! Good luck.

So lemme get this straight. Not only did you swap out a bad clutch in some girl's driveway prior to a date, but you also actually had a spare clutch with you?

You, sir, are "hardcore."
 
gt/cs said:
So lemme get this straight. Not only did you swap out a bad clutch in some girl's driveway prior to a date, but you also actually had a spare clutch with you?

You, sir, are "hardcore."

I wish I could claim that title, but no, we called another friend who shuttled us to the parts store. I did have my tools with me though and used the input shaft of the tranny to line up the clutch plate. To this day, I still carry tools in my cars, even my 2003 Toyota truck! You never know when you might need them.
 
2nd Mustang said:
I wish I could claim that title, but no, we called another friend who shuttled us to the parts store. I did have my tools with me though and used the input shaft of the tranny to line up the clutch plate. To this day, I still carry tools in my cars, even my 2003 Toyota truck! You never know when you might need them.

I agree, tools in the car is just good sense. I have some hoses, belts, ATF, oil, chiltons, ford repair manual, and my socket set in the back of mine. You still get credit for swapping the clutch in her driveway though :nice:
 
Carrying tools is a must, especially in a classic. I remember when i got caught off guard and my Altnernator belt was about to give so I went to autozone to replace it, no tools though. When I asked to borrow some, they made me leave my DL. And the tools sucked, the sockets only fit on this one really long stick and not the shorter one. needles to say the fender kept getting in the way, and so i could only loosen the bolt on the bracket like 1/2 a turn at most and then had to repositionthe entire socket. :mad:
 
UPDATE!!!! My luck actually did get worse lol. Get this...... After rebuilding my entire top end after a football game, the next day, i put the intake, carb, and all the connections on, and started adding water.... It leaked out from where the intake meets the water outlet. So, I reached over and tightened the bolt. Not hard at ALL. BAM my intake split. I had to buy another RPM manifold. Luckily I work at O'reilly, so we sent a driver to the warehosue and got it within the hour lol.
So after that, a couple guys came over, and started puttin everything back together for me while I was at dinner for the dance. They got it running and ran AWESOME. I drove it to the dance. Aftera long while, went to mcdonalds that night to get some ice cream, and it died in the line. pushed it to a parking spot and opened the hood. I had a wire melt all the way through. Melted a couple others in the process. So needless to say, I had no ignition.
But other than that!!! She runs great! She purrs. All I have to do it re-wire it now. Also needless to say, I didn't get to take it to the drags. Oh well, I know she'll run no though. Thanks for lettin me rant again lol

-Shaun
 
Quick question. Will Summit warranty my intake manifold? Because I did not over-torque the SOB anyway. I figured it would of just been a bubble in the cast from when they made it.

-Shaun
 
Looks like you need to change your sig now, beanplant. LOL j/k

I usually find out when I have ongoing problems with something, I am rushing it too fast and not doing it the proper way. "ghetto-rigging" it you might say. I'm not saying your car is "rigged", I'm just saying that *may* be the reason as to why you have so many ongoing problems. Well, when you get it all running correctly, hopefully it won't give you any trouble. Good luck man.
 
charlies said:
maybe you should find a good mechanic

Unfortunately, those are getting harder to find. I even have trouble with scheduled maintenance on my new Toyota at the dealer. This last time, they couldn't find my wheel locks after I told the service manager where they were, so they were going to try to pass it off as being rotated, then during rotating the tires, they cracked one of the hub caps. I had a Nissan shop tell me I needed a whole new throttle body, but all I needed was to have the injectors cleaned. If you can find a good mechanic you are very fortunate to find one. Sorry for the hijack.
 
No, that's what took so long. I haven't been ghetto rigging at all. The guys that had it before me rigged everything. We basically kind of re-did the car, one thing at a time. Oh well, worst luck ever..... I think I'm parking it for the rest of the year and doing slow restoration

-Shaun