The Black Pearl - Progress Thread

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I never said I actually wanted any rain... :nono: ... only that I had caused it to appear.

Funny thing, I have this pic-a-day calendar on my desk here at work of Mustangs, and today is the engine bay to an '85 GT with the HO 4v motor - looks IDENTICAL to my CFI engine bay, aside from the label on the air cleaner ("5.0 Liter 4V H.O." instead of "5.0 Liter EFI H.O") and some weird solenoid on the driver's side strut tower instead of a MAP sensor. Maybe if I peeled off the EFI label from the aircleaner and threw on a "4V" label from 50resto, the smog dudes wouldn't even blink at it when I switch it over to a carb'ed/T-5 setup...? :shrug:
 
Where cn you buy replacement air cleaner decals?

I have the lid off an '85GT but i want to polish it up, reapply decals and hang it on my wall.

Pretty sure they're listed on 50resto, and I think maybe Year One (can't remember). Dunno if they list them online on their site, but I do recall seeing just about every underhood decal you can imagine being listed in their print catalog.
 
Yep they have all those decals in the LRS catalog, also maybe you could get the emissions decal to go along with the air cleaner decal, and then throw a little dirt on it so the decals won’t look spank brand new.:rolleyes:

Living in a state that has no inspections (or emissions anymore), I always wondered how the inspector knows what their looking for when doing an inspection? Do they have a chart or diagram they can pull up, I know they can spot some of the more obvious stuff, but they can’t possibly know what they’re looking for in every kind of car imaginable. :shrug:
 
Yep they have all those decals in the LRS catalog, also maybe you could get the emissions decal to go along with the air cleaner decal, and then throw a little dirt on it so the decals won’t look spank brand new.:rolleyes:

Living in a state that has no inspections (or emissions anymore), I always wondered how the inspector knows what their looking for when doing an inspection? Do they have a chart or diagram they can pull up, I know they can spot some of the more obvious stuff, but they can’t possibly know what they’re looking for in every kind of car imaginable. :shrug:

True dat. I would think that the only obvious thing they could find as an issue is if they check the engine specified by the VIN against what engine is actually in there. I'm not sure if they would go so far as to make the distinction between it being a fuel-injected 302 or a carb'ed 302 as much as they would worry about it being a V8 instead of either a four-banger or straight six. Good idea on the emissions decals, I might give that a go later on. :nice:
 
A '93 Cobra wing on an '84? :scratch: Not sure that'd look right, what with the old-school sailpanels, chrome trim around the windows, and four-eyed front end. Just gonna clean out the underside, wire up the brake light, and put some weatherstripping under the spoiler before bolting it back on.

Interesting finds I think I forgot to mention I discovered while cleaning it out over the weekend:

1. There was a trailer wiring harness still connected to the rear lights. Someone actually TOWED stuff with this thing! :nonono:
2. The Michelin tires on it were manufactured way the hell back in '01, and they're 195/60/R15's instead of 215's or 225's. :notnice:
3. Nearly every window on the thing has been shattered at some point. There's some dents in the passenger-side quarter window trim like someone knocked the window out with something, there were a few glass bits under the driver's side rear seat, and there's a buttload of glass bits inside the driver's side door where it looks like someone goofed while trying to service the window with it rolled down.

It doesn't APPEAR to have a 20-gallon tank like I'd originally been led to believe from reading on some other forums (I think I was getting it confused with the LTD II's with CFI 302's), so the main issue with adding a dual exhaust remains the location of the external fuel pump and filter. The pump I can get rid of by just throwing on a piece of steel line in its place, no biggie, but the fuel filter I dunno if I should just do away with it and just hook up an in-line filter up near the front when I switch over to a carb'ed setup. Until then, I don't have enough room there to hang the passenger-side muffler ... unless I rig up some kind of crazy side-exit exhaust setup, which might wind up sounding like poo and looking dumb, to boot... :shrug:
 
UPDATE: The more I'm looking into this, the less likely it's appearing to be a head gasket. This, of course, is good. Today, I fiddled with the following:

1. Pulled all 8 plugs, checked the gap, and poked 'em back in there. Everything was gapped right, and the plugs are so freakin' clean they look brand new (except for the oil goop on the outside from the valve covers starting to leak). No funky deposits, nothing fouled out, no shorted out plugs ... nothin'. Only things amiss with the plugs was that whomever stuck 'em in there before was limp-wristed (hardly more than finger-tight) and they used friggin' Autolite Platinums - those will be coming out and getting replaced with Motorcrafts or copper Autolites sometime later;
2. Rerouted all plug wires so they aren't laying all over each other and aren't laying anywhere near anything hot or anything they'll be tempted to use to short/ground out;
3. Found ANOTHER vacuum leak, but I dunno WTF it goes to. Seems to be A/C related in some way because it comes off a T-connection/check valve on the passenger side, one line goes off through the firewall (HVAC controls, presumably), and the other went up along the passenger fender towards the battery tray and then ... nothing. It just dead-ended at a broken-off plastic line. Capped it with a tiny bit of hose with a screw in it for right now. I need to attack the vacuum system hardcore someday with a Chilton manual and a buttload of various-sized rubber hoses;
4. Scraped the old nasty tint off the rear window and driver's side quarter window. Either this was some super-cheap one-layer crap with really weak adhesive or they had already peeled off the other layer beforehand, because this stuff came off sooooooo easy - no scrubbing, no PITA scraping, it just peeled off with a bit of persuasion now and then with a razorblade;
5. Cleaned off some mysterious oil-like substance that had been sprayed upon all the inside window surfaces. Yayyyyyy, I can see again!
6. Fixed the wobbly rearview mirror ... although I need to replace it, because the inside silver/chrome lining is all tarnished and spotty and kinda difficult to see through;
7. Fiddled with the rear license plate lights a bit. One needed to be super-glued together in two places (hard to explain), both had to be sanded off because some loser didn't mask them off when they painted the car, and I still need to poke a couple of new bulbs in there because both of 'em are burned out;
8. Put the new 195* thermostat back in. It's obviously not the problem if the car still overheats without ANY thermostat in place. Topped off the coolant and burped out all the air bubbles;
9. Vacuumed the car AGAIN (damned window tint pieces);
10. Re-torqued some of the valve cover bolts that had worked themselves loose. Might need gaskets later, but for right now, this should help because almost ALL of the valve cover bolts were VERY loose - not even finger-tight.

It starts up a little easier since I capped that vacuum line, but it still idles low (need to adjust the curb idle), and it runs a little funky because I'm sure I don't have the vacuum lines 100% secured and routed correctly. These friggin' speed density cars are sooooooo sensitive to vacuum leaks, and of course there's a hundred damned hoses to chase down under there... :rolleyes:

The car still doesn't smoke or anything, exhaust doesn't smell weird. I'm pretty confident that once I get this cooling issue ironed out - I'm still leaning towards it needing a new radiator - and I make sure the vacuum lines are all properly routed and not leaking, this car should zip right through smog inspection and be fine. Then I can start tearing into stuff and making more headaches for myself... :D
 
Yayyyyy, more pitchers, y'all! (Just needed an excuse to snap shots, actually.)

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Oh, and whilest farting around with the license plate lights, I got to looking more closely at the LX wing they'd added on haphazardly. Apparently, the reason why it bows up in the middle is because for some reason they didn't push the thing down and secure the middle 4 or 6 bolts with nuts - they drilled holes and all, but they just didn't line up right I guess and the losers just didn't wanna mess with it. Sooooo, if I pull the wing off, clean the crap out, wire up the 3rd brake light, and suck it back down into proper position with the needed stud nuts, I think I'll just keep this wing and it'll all be good. :nice:
 
Dark i think running NO theromstat was half the problem. I'm not too up to date on your cooling issues, but when you run no thermostat the rad has no time to "cool" the water temps down. that combined with a possibly partly clogged radiator will be the route of your cooling issues fo sho!!!

She's lookin purdy good YARRR!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Well, I've tried it three ways - with the original T-stat, with a new one, and with none at all - and so I'm positive the issue isn't thermostat-related. Pretty sure it's the radiator, and if it is, then I'll be just tickled because then I can FINALLY start driving this thing ... well, assuming it'll pass smog and such. Hafta wait n' see how much I have available this payday to throw at the car...
 
Dave that vacuume line goes to the vacume bulb behind the fender apron. Without that hooked up there is no vaccumme reserve and the vent controls wont work. May cause running issues too :shrug:
Pull off the tire (pass front) and pull the apron. Bet the bulb is in there with a broken vaccume connection.

PS I cant spell vacuume so I speled it different ways :shrug:
 
Dave that vacuume line goes to the vacume bulb behind the fender apron. Without that hooked up there is no vaccumme reserve and the vent controls wont work. May cause running issues too :shrug:
Pull off the tire (pass front) and pull the apron. Bet the bulb is in there with a broken vaccume connection.

PS I cant spell vacuume so I speled it different ways :shrug:

Hmmm ... good call. I forgot about that thing. I'll have to peek in there this weekend and see if it's hooked up at all, or if it's backwards like everything else on here (like the battery and starter relay solenoid are) and it's on the driver's side, instead. This thing is almost as much of a vacuum line nightmare as that damned '88 Honda Accord my ex had, which literally had like 40 vacuum hoses (numbered and everything). :(

FWIW, last I played with it, my HVAC controls did work... :shrug:
 
Then the line is for the vacuume controlled cooling valve in the heads. Its not working since its unhooked causeing the coolant to not flow through the heads, instead its routed through the cumbustion chamber for rapid heater heat in the winter :nice:

I would also check the blinker fluid then too :D

Dude im at a loss. I dont see a radiator causeing a car to overheat in under 10 min unless you were really getting on it :shrug:
*thinks of Pinks*

NM guess it could overheat that quickly with no water flow :shrug: Have you run it with the cap off to see if water is actually flowing through the radiator?

There is a guy in 4.6 that just traded in his stang cause it was always overheating and killing water pumps (so they thought). Turns out the heads were warped or head gasket blown. Not enough to cause a leak but enough to fock it up. Start it up with the cap off, let it run for a min or two and see if ANY smoke comes out of the rad or if any air bubles show up.
 
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