1982 Mustang #50

[MostMint]

I've seen your financial report. You've got plenty of money... so let's do the deal!

[wxo]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cm7vjbHKN4c[/youtube]

[Basement Paul]

That's great... EVERYTIME.

I have his number. I'm thinking if it's around this weekend, I may try to lowball him...

What's killing me right now is that I haven't even driven the car and I'm looking at superchargers. I'm not sure if that's cool or stupid??? OK, it's cool.

-BP

[Basement Paul]

I broke down tonight and sent the guy an email about the supercharger... I hope he doesn't respond.

Tuesday after work I was going to drive the Mustang up to the body shop for an estimate and it was really running like crap. Backfiring, popping, missing, etc. So I drove it around the block and back into the garage. I was bewildered. I messed with the carb adjustment with no luck. Eventually it started stalling, so I gave up and went in the house to do other stuff.
Later in the evening I was talking to Amy about something completely unrelated and it popped into my head to check the plugs (once the conversation was over, of course). They were black as can be. I think all the starting and shutting off, and the cranking and cranking we did trying to start it in the cold with no choke did a number on them. Not to mention it had those weird E-something plugs that cost a lot but IMO don't belong in this old school hot rod. I like Autolite spark plugs anyway, and the Cleveland forums agree and recommended a plug for a similar combination to mine. I installed them tonight and the car fired right up and sounded much healthier.

There's also overspray ALL OVER the car. I got out the rubbing compound and just messed around on one little area and with very minimal effort, the paint is smooth as can be. So I'll probably just hand rub the car and then go over it with a good cleaner wax.

I've also decided to just paint the hood and trunk myself. I have the paint code, and there's pretty minimal prep too. I don't think it needs to be perfect, just all one color. And it will most likely save me $500 or more, so what the heck. If it was nicer all over, I might make the investment, but it's really just a nice driver so I don't think I want to go crazy.

-BP

[GMJohnny]

I'd consider a satin black hood..... or maybe just the raised portion of the hood in
satin with the balance of the hood in blue.

GM

[Basement Paul]

I thought the lifted portion might look cool in black too. I'll probably just paint it all right now and see how it looks. Maybe some Cleveland badges on the lift might look cool too.

-BP

[Basement Paul]

Yesterday I bought a bunch of sanding / painting supplies at Harbor Freight, I also borrowed some saw horses and a portable workbench from 32V to put these parts on during the sanding / painting portion of this project.

The supercharger guy got back to me. He's at $1600 on it. I politely told him his price was good, but just not good for me and if he got down around $1200, I'd be a player. I hope he sells it.

This week I'm going to try to get the paint / primer bought from somewhere. I'll probably also finish rubbing the overspray off it as the week progresses. So far I only have one fender done...

-BP

[Basement Paul]

Today after work I stopped at the local Napa store and bought a quart of enamel, primer, some filler puddy, reducer, a puddy smearing tool, and a lifetime supply of wax and grease remover.

This weekend looks like I'll be able to get some sanding and prep work done outside. I don't really want to dirty my garage up with this nonsense. Maybe paint in another week or so after that depending on the temps. I can make my faux paint booth in the garage, but would still like the outside temps to be around 50 or so since I'll still have to have a window open and the small garage door open slightly.

More to come.

-BP

[Basement Paul]

After being laid up for almost two weeks with the flu, I'm working my way back to normal. Tonight I pulled the pass rear wheel and axle off to learn that I'm running a 28 spline set up. Looks to me like this was a truck rearend narrowed (based on the HUGE drum brakes). It also seems like a posi, and not a spool or locker set up. Either way I'm going to get a more streetable gear. Looks like my options are 3.89 or 3.50. With the looser torque converter, I'm leaning toward the 3.50 so I can still buzz down the freeway and drive this thing wherever I want.
I also measured the fuel cell, and that seems to be a 12 gal tank, which is a usable size. Except the pickup is in the front of the tank... so I'll just have to keep it pretty full when I go to the track.

I measured the backspacing on the wheels to see if I could get a set that would stick out toward the quarter panels just a little more. Nope. The ones I have are as good as it gets, and they're already 15 x 15 so I can't get wider either. I guess it will just have to be.

This weekend I'm going to try to get the hood / trunk painted if the weather holds. We'll see how that goes.

-BP

[Blue_69_malibu]

The Accountant recommends the 3.50 gears. Might as well make the car as streetable as possible so that you can drive it as much as possible.....thereby lowering your per use cost.

The Accountant also needs to sleep....but that's still several days away.

[Maverick]

I would use one of the online RPM calculators to choose a gear that will lets you cruise at around 2500 RPM. The Maverick had a 3.00 gear with 235X60 15 tires and turned 3000 running in the low 70s MPH. It always sounded like it needed to shift again on the Interstates.

That setup should let you do tiresmoke with any reasonable gear so why go lower than a reasonable highway gear??

If you want good highway driveability, the converter stall should be at least 500 RPM below your cruise RPM. Tradeoffs and compromises. If the stall is higher than 500 below cruise RPM, you'll need a big trans cooler and your cruise RPMs will be higher due to slippage.

[GMJohnny]

If you get a whole new rear end, we can use the old one to make one of these. The lower
the gear, the more fun you will have.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuKHmgS5gNg

GM

[TireSmoker]

If you get a whole new rear end, we can use the old one to make one of these. The lower
the gear, the more fun you will have.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuKHmgS5gNg

GM

HAHAHAHAHAHA, thats great!

-Dave

[Basement Paul]

This is not what I'd call a "highway cruiser" so I'm not really looking to be able to travel for extended periods at 70mph. I really just need to keep the RPMs around 3000 or so at 55mph. The converter I'm putting in should stall around 3000, but from past experience with the same converter in my Trans Am and Caddy, it stays reasonably tight until you put some power to it and it loosens up quick, so there's not a ton of slippage while cruising. I had a 3.73 gear and a shorter tire on the Trans Am and I could run 60mph with no problem around 3000 rpms. The Caddy had the 3.50 gear and it was fine too.

Turns out a guy at work has a friend with a 3.89 pumpkin with a locker set up that he's willing to deal on. I'm going to give him my 4.56 assembly, the old Caddy turbo 400, and $100 for it. I think this is a fair deal since I don't think the 4.56 is worth much since the race car guys want a lot steeper gear and the street guys want a lot taller gear, and a long tailshaft turbo 400 is a hard sell. I plan to pick that up on Sunday when I go to Summit for my tires and other misc stuff. He lives about 5 minutes from there. So tomorrow I'll pull the rest of it apart and maybe get to work on some paint stuff too if there's time.

-BP

[Maverick]

Sounds like you have it figured out. If the converter were loose at 55 you can always run a little faster to tighten it up.