Today's chosen project? The steering.
About 10 years ago, when I had my gold '76 Mustang II, it was going to strictly be a drag car, and I ordered a manual rack-and-pinion from Jeg's and gave the power steering pump from it to a friend for his '65 Galaxie. Then I bought this car, sold the '76, and the power steering pump on this one promptly took a
. I'd never actually gotten around to installing that manual rack in the '76, so it's been waiting around for me to do something with it. At the time, I thought I was going to make this car more of a "Pro-Touring" type car than a race car, so I actually put a reman pump on it, while also switching it over to using two serpentine belts instead of V-belts to solve some other problems I inherited when I bought the car (mainly, it throwing belts when shifted at the "sweet spot" between 5800 and 6000rpm). I should've bought a lottery ticket instead, because on the first try, I got a Cardone reman pump for a Ford that didn't whine, squawk, or warble. That just doesn't happen. About six months after that, the rack-and-pinion blew a seal, and I took the belt off, resolving to figure out what I'd do about it later... later, as fate would have it, is today.
Earlier in the thread, I'd linked this little guy, a flex-joint that adapts from a Mustang II steering shaft for a power steering car to a manual rack. This is pretty much the last we'll see of this little guy today.
One of the things that bugs me the most about working on stuff at the house is, I frequently miss my "good" tools from work. Well, SnapOn had this Bluepoint General Service set in a BOGO about six months back, and while I had everything in this set for work in as good or better quality, I wanted the other part of the BOGO and thought this would be glorious overkill for the house. I was right. This set is spectacular and has made a big difference over the leftover Chinese crap i usually use at the house. That ratchet is so good that it's twin has been in my work toolbox since 2008.
The power steering removal has started.The ignition coil had to get out of the way for the moment. That big cast iron A/C and power steering bracket isn't going back, so I'll be fabricating a bracket like Hadley installed on his Cobra (God I miss being able to reference his thread on MustangII.net, he even had the dimensions for the bracket there!) Even that will be temporary, as I've recently decided to go a different direction with the car overall, and this engine will have a new home in the next year or two.
I managed to snag a set of Energy
Suspension offset rack bushings in a bundle from a fellow II guy on Ebay. At the time this picture was taken, I didn't know if I'd need them, (didn't when I bought them either, but I needed ALL of the other parts he was selling!), they turned out to not be necessary, so you'll see these on Ebay soon.