So, who's working on what these days?

Project?

This Poor little pony will live again

I'm hoping to have my '78 Ghia Sport running again in a few months. I'm planning for it to be more Sport and less Ghia when done (basically a coupe with handling improvements). Its a bit of an oddball...a Ghia Sport with 2.3L, manual trans, no power steering, but power brakes and air conditioning.

Right now though, I literally have a "bucket of bolts"! I have about 100 nuts, bolts, etc. in various stages of refinishing. I even have the fuel lines and brake lines off the car refinishing them. (Yes I know that new ones are availble...I actually broke down and bought a replacement for a crushed brake line).

I've already stripped the bottom of the car from firewall back of dirt, rust, and undercoating, and have refinished it as best I can by hand. Most of it looks gloss black like the day it was new, only a few limited areas have a rough texture due to rust pitting.

I only have one rust-through in the driver's side rear wheel well that I cut a patch panel for from my old '76 hatch before it went off to the crusher.

So, when I finish the brake lines and fasteners, I'll start reinstalling the rear suspension and fuel tank and hopefully drive it to have the patch panel welded in.

It may not get more than a satin black paint job for this year though...kind of "RatRod" meets "Mustang II"...

I've been putting a ton of time into my King. After two years of work, including a complete high performance rebuild on the 351W, I got it running in November for the first time since spring 2000. Now I'm driving it whenever the weather allows to work out the bugs and break in the motor. 240 miles so far, and I've had to readjust several of the rocker arms, re-seal the power steering pump, and play with wiring issues. Up next, I have to change out the axle assembly. When I put the 3.80 gears into it, I discovered a nasty crack in the housing. Since I'm going easy on it anyway, I left it until I could get a replacement. Last weekend I picked up a complete axle (with a wicked bonus: 3.40 gears that will go into my '77) and I'm cleaning that up now. Interesting point: this new axle was actually manufactured the week before the axle it's replacing. Bizarre. I'm also getting new rear springs, e-brake cable, and I'm going to replace all of the brake lines as well as the master cylinder, which keeps leaking. I also have a wide-band AF meter and controller that I'll be installing. I already had the bung welded into the exhaust, I just have to wire it up and figure out where to mount the gauge. I want to do an a-pillar mount on this one but haven't committed to cutting/modifying my t-top specific a-pillar cover yet. I did a dash top auto meter gauge pod (modified 94-98 clock pod mount) with an oil pressure gauge and vac gauge.
I'm modifying a bolt on cowl hood scoop that runs the full length of the hood and will be enlarging the hole I had to cut in the hood for clearance. Then I can run a bigger air cleaner...

When all of that is done to my satisfaction, and I have enough miles on it to really feel the power then it's time to take it to the body shop. Current plans call for a complete media blast, some body massaging to take out 30 years worth of dings, and then a thorough coat of '69/'70 Calypso Coral.
Final step will be carpet and hundreds of dollars worth of weatherstripping. Worth it if the t-tops will stop leaking...

Hope to be ready for some car show action by the end of May!


Oh, and I'm going to squeeze in some time to install the long tube headers in my GT 500.

Been gathering part to start the restro/mod of my (the wife)`76 Cobra II. It been sitting since 82 or 83 and in sad condition , blown motor and all (drop a valve way back when). Bought the car new back in Nov. of 75 for the wife. Hopefully it want be sitting much longer. Will try and get some pictures up in the next few days.

working on a bunch of things right now. EFI swap for a motor I just discovered to be an 86

not to mention hammering out my fender and hunting for a header panel from that accident a few months ago

"So, who's working on what these days?"

I am takin' a small II vacation to the dark side LOL I am putting a 200HP MX-6 V6 into a Mazda 323. Ford owns 33% of Mazda, so it's O.K

I'm working at keeping my ass from freezing.

Damn, 3 degrees. Not cold by some standards but frigging deadly to someone of my advanced years.

With the unexpectedly warm weather this past weekend, I finally made a little progress on my "bucket of bolts". I have a batch of them (nuts and bolts) cleaned and ready to paint and more soaking in mineral spirits. Cleaning each nut and bolt with a wire brush and mineral spirits is a drag. Where is AMK with a collection of new MII fasteners when you need them!? I bet a bunch of the '73 and '79 fasteners cross over...

Having a car with under coating is a mixed blessing...it does provide some protection against rust over the short term, but eventually the rust gets to the metal here and there anyway, and then you have to clean all of that undercoating off of everything during a restoration. Even the nuts and bolts you remove.

It is fun to clean some undercoating off of something from time to time and to find bright shiny metal or paint though.

I finished cleaning and painting my fuel line this weekend. For anyone else even vaguely considering this exercise, I strongly recommend a call to Mustangs Unlimited for a complete brake and fuel line kit! The lines just have so many twists and turns that it's not time efficent to do it yourself. Plus I'll probably just scratch it up reinstalling it.

If you are really picky about the nice clean ones that you bought, you can clean them and coat them with clear poly so that they won't rust.

The good news is that once all of these lines and fasteners are done, I can finally start reassembly...

I'm getting a bit further along on the '78 coupe...
http://www.melangdesign.com/photos/78coupe/pipes2.JPG

Currently sidetracked with 50 sheets of sheetrock, a drywall lift, and a 50X24 garage ceiling to attach it all to...at a pace of about 1 sheet/day since I have to clear a spot on the floor prior to putting each sheet up. Figure it'll be done by mid-spring. Hauled off 4 tons of steel/car parts since I started doing the cleanup for this too.

For the '78 Coupe, I now have a megasquirt, all the underhood wiring re-completed, most of the under dash wiring done, the instrument panel done for now, a pretty good idea how I'll get the 1/2" fuel lines ran and attached to the tank. Biggest hurdle to get past at the moment is the upper intake manifold I need to build to squeeze the throttle body between the alternator and the radiator overflow bottle.

Currently doing an AOD swap in place of the C4 that is there now. The I've built and upgraded the AOD internals and did a low ratio gear swap in it. I've got most of the minor issues wrapped up just need to install it and then build headers around it.

Transmission Specs:
93 T-bird 3.8 V6 AOD case (with the top to bell bolts counter-sunk in to the case.)
4R70W low-ratio gear set
(stock AOD ratios)
2.40:1 1st gear
1.47:1 2nd gear
1.00:1 3rd gear
0.67:1 4th gear
(New ratios)
2.84:1 1st gear
1.55:1 2nd gear
1.00:1 3rd gear
0.70:1 4th gear

"Stamped Steel" 6 friction Direct drum w/"Hi-Energy" frictions
"Stamped Steel" 5 friction Forward drum w/"Indy Red" frictions
"Stamped Steel" 3 friction Reverse drum w/"Indy Red" frictions & "mechanical diode" one way clutch
4 friction Intermediate Clutch w/"Hi-Energy" frictions
2" Wide carbon fiber OD band
Sonnax AOD A++ Overdrive servo (largest O/D Servo made for the AOD)
2" Deep cast aluminum pan
Several of the lube modifications detailed in the "clickclickracing.com" AOD forums
TCI "Street Fighter" AOD convertor


Tim

$50COBRAII said:

This Poor little pony will live again

Click to expand...

Good Gawd.. Appearantly you enjoy working with sheetmetal. And I thought i was ambitious!



Me... seems as if I'm working on everyone else's crap but my own. Had to dump a new 460 into my '78 Supercab last year.... that hurt me hard in the pocketbook. Put a freshened up 318 into my '73 Duster couple months ago and right now putting a 360 i built into my friend's '74 Duster.
I became Bob Villa over the course of last fall/winter and helped a friend completly gut and remodel his house from end to end. The place was a total dump and should have been condemned... to give you an idea of what we were working with. And between all of that watched over the daughter who is just about to turn 1 year old (Apr 1st). My boy is 7 and I forgot how much work it was to raise these little ones!

As for the II... nothing's changed. I opened the hood on it the other day when another local II guy came by for parts and it looked like total hell. It just sits under one of those Costco auto-tarp/tent. Rust has attacked anything that was exposed metal and now all the aluminum is coroded to beat hell, even with the side kit installed on the tent. Decided to start it up but battery was bone dead. Disgusted, i shut the hood, pulled the dust cover back over it and zipped up the front door to the tent. Decided that i wouldn't mess with it until i could devote 100% time and effort tward it.

Seems the older I get the less time I have to play with my toys......

Currently working on stuffing a Tremec 3650 in my II. lot of work mounting a 4.6 tranny to a 5.0

Just thought I'd poke in the ol' II forum and see what's up...see a few familiar names here...good seeing them still in or back in the II game. Though my II experiences have been non-existent over the past, oh, 7 years. My '77 Ghia sits in my parents garage, slowly accumulating random boxes and other junk piled on top of it. The folks sort of don't mind it's there, but at the same time they do. I've toyed with the idea of selling it but never quite followed through. If someone has an interest in picking up a '77 Ghia that could use some work, I'd consider some offers (I wouldn't be asking anything outrageous though, no worries). Otherwise it's still probably gonna sit as I just don't have the resources to get it back on the road.

And my daily/current 'stang is a 2003 GT which is actually at the body shop right now awaiting to hit the booth. Something locked up in it at the end of January while I was doing 60 on the highway, got spun around, and slammed into a retaining wall. Darn near totaled the thing.

Just wanted to say hey and good to see some of the "veterans" still around!

Hey Frank! Good to hear from ya. Sorry to hear about the GT. Any idea what locked up?
Did you see that Sergio is giving away his coupe? I wish I could take it, but I just have no where to keep it out of the weather, and it would be too long before I could get to it to have it sitting up here in the NW rain.

My '77 has been slumbering quietly in one garage or another for over 10 years now, but I just got the King back on the road for the first time in almost 9 years, so I'm regularly driving a II again.
Life certainly gets in the way of our hobbies, kids especially. But, hang in there.

It's been some time since I've posted on this forum, but I'm still hard at work plugging away. The II is in the heated garage all winter, today I changed the tubes to heavy racing tubes, the stuff you get in town isn't able to stand up. So I may actually start it tomorrow if it's nice out and back it out of the garage. I have another II that I am going to start after my mutt project, I have a mexi block, a rotating assembley, and a T5 for it. I plan on a blow through setup for it, and for it to be more of a road car. Currently I'm working on the fonova. A '79 nova with a 460 ford in it. I'm working on the headers now, and placement of the turbo, so far it's gotten a 9inch rear, sumped rear tank 5/8 pickup and return lines, semi freshened engine, lots of little custom crap. The funny thing is that with the fox body swap pan the engine pretty much fell in the car like it was meant to be there. Then I realized if I actually cut the crossmember I can move it farther back than a 454 would be (no distributor in the back) so I got crazy and did that.