1982 Mustang #50

[Basement Paul]

I'm going down with the ship in both cases... car and wife! Although the wife will outlast this car.

8800 miles... allegedly. On the flip side, it is still 32 years old and a lot can happen in that time. Maybe it was wrecked and the rack was replaced with a used one. The car might have had manual steering to begin with and someone "upgraded" to power steering. OR, the car has 208,800 miles on it, but was the original owner for a LONG time so the title still looks good. I'm also not sure what sitting for long periods can do to a rack. My understanding is this car sat on more than one occasion for over 5 years without moving. Tough to say really.

I also looked a little further into the headers and it looks like they're closer to $400, which is an acceptable amount. He makes them both in 3/4 length and full length. I'm going to call him and discuss clearances for both around the motor / starter / steering before I decide. I'm leaning toward the 3/4 length and having Paul Carson bend me a set of duals tight up against the body so I don't have to worry about scraping. I might have to get a different crossmember though, with dual humps. I don't think mine has that and it's pretty cut up because of the Cleveland / C4 transplant anyway.

-BP

[Basement Paul]

Yesterday was a great day. The sun was shining, motors were removed, friends stopped over, and I had Taco Bell. Does it get any better?

32V and I started our day pretty early as I was at his place at 8am to pick up the engine hoist. From there we went to breakfast and on to my crib for the teardown. He took the task of removing the headers and most of the stuff under the hood, and I was crawling around under the car mostly. Long story short, we had the motor / trans out of the car by about 3pm. This included a trip to NAPA for jack oil for the engine lift, and a break for Subway (I get advertising money to mention their names in my posts). There were no major surprises, just a lot of oil and coolant to clean up, but otherwise it came out pretty easily.




I learned after removing it that the bellhousing on the trans is cracked in many places, so I'll have to replace it. It is removable luckily. The torque converter would lead you to believe that it is a 3000 stall Hughes unit based on the color and the part number had written on it, but the size of it (looks to be a 12" converter) tells me otherwise. That, and the fact that it's activating as soon as the car goes into gear at idle... I'm betting one of the previous owners bought it at a swap meet and got taken by someone with a red can of paint and a magic marker. All the 3000 stalls I've seen are 10" converters.

After all that fun, I cleaned up the garage, and put all the tools away. Then I sold my old Bilsteins shock I had on Craigslist, tiresmoker and his better half stopped by on their motorcycles, I drank a beer, and then ate Taco Bell.

It was a good day.

-BP

[Basement Paul]

So this morning I was making up a really long list of things to do and purchase for this project, and I realized by removing the power steering, I no longer have a way to drive the water pump... I think I can modify the alternator bracket to make it work, and it would under drive the water pump / alternator about 20% in the process but I am going to search to see if there is a bracket configuration for a Cleveland that will work correctly.

Just one more thing to tackle.

-BP

[Basement Paul]

Here's how I decided to modify the alternator bracket:

http://www.cvfracing.com/Ford-351-Serpe ... ne-alt.htm

-BP

[Basement Paul]

This week the pulleys showed up. They're still in the box.

Saturday AM 32V and I had breakfast and headed to Summit with a C6 torque converter in my trunk, and a pocket full of cash.




On this cart is a new 11" x 3.5" K&N Chrome Air filter assembly, an aluminum transmission pan, a Flaming River manual steering conversion kit, a (totally) tubular transmission crossmember, a Summit XL Hoodie, and a Flowmaster American Thunder 3" exhaust system for a Fox Body Mustang. At least Summit called it American Thunder. I think it's really this:

http://www.flowmastermufflers.com/?page ... ry=Exhaust Kits&kw=

The part number and price look correct. I bought it out of a crappy looking box in the closeout area for $200. It's a complete 3" system of which I should at least be able to use the x-pipe and mufflers. If Paul Carson thinks he can run me a complete exhaust out the back, I might be able to use the tailpipes too. I can't wait to hear how this will sound with real Flowmasters. I'm thinking pretty bad ass...

Now I'm waiting on the header guy to call me back so I can order those, and I'm still looking for a bell housing.

More to come,

-BP

[Basement Paul]

Still no headers. I've never wanted to give someone $500 so much, and they didn't want it. I think I found another company to buy from. I'll try calling them tomorrow and hopefully I'll get what I need.

In the meantime, I spent most of the afternoon yesterday removing and installing the new steering rack assembly from Flaming River. I have to say I'm a little disappointed in the directions, or lack there-of. That and the fitment left a little to be desired. So after reusing my factoring mounting bushings (thank goodness they're still nice) and cutting 1 1/2" off the main steering shaft, it's mounted correctly and seems to be just fine. I gave it about 1/4" of toe in for now, and I'll take it in and get it aligned correctly once it's back on the street.





I spent some time this morning modifying the frame where it was hitting the oil pan. I'm pretty confident I shouldn't have any issues, but won't know for sure until the engine is reinstalled.

-BP

[Basement Paul]

I got in touch with George from Accufab Racing this afternoon. I sent them an email yesterday, and wow! he actually responded and sent me a picture of the header I was looking to get. Another $500 down the toilet... Unfortunately I can't seem to pull the picture from my email to post here, but it's an 1 7/8" primary into a 3" collector, mid length or 3/4 length style. Sadly I'm looking at about 5-6 weeks to get them. So in the meantime I can make sure everything else is completely finished so once I get them, I can put it all back together right away. The only good thing is that I don't have to be in a big hurry now. My goal now being August 1st to be running / driving. And I'll still need to get the exhaust done.

-BP

[Basement Paul]

My torque converter showed up today. I also ordered a new water pump gasket, oil pan gasket, valve cover gaskets, and crankshaft seal from Autozone. I'll have those tomorrow after work.

Last night I pulled the harmonic balancer off with my new Craftsman puller. This weekend I think I'll focus on getting the motor ready to go back in with all the seal / gasket replacement, new pulleys, and I'll probably polish up the valve covers too.

I think the last piece of the puzzle to order is the bellhousing. I would like a new intake, but that will have to wait. Now it's just a bunch of work to get it back together. No problem.

-BP

[Basement Paul]

Yesterday morning after breakfast 32V and I went back to the garage and started by dropping the car on it's wheels and rolling it outside. I got the foamy engine brite and sprayed down the inside of the engine bay. Seems to look nicer all over. While we were out there, I put water to the heater core which up until now was not hooked up and in question. Initially everything seemed OK, but after it sat for awhile, it was leaking on the driveway. What's nice about the A/C cars is that there's a drain coming out the firewall for the heater cores when they leak instead of all over the carpet. So add a heater core job to the list.

What we did accomplish though, is 32V went to town on the stained aluminum valve covers to get them back to life. They don't look brand new, but they look 20x better than they did and you can actually see yourself in them.

While he was polishing, I pulled the front crank seal and the water pump. Cleaned up the water pump and gasket area, got some new bolts in some cases, and cleaned up some others, sealed it all, and put it back together.

While we were reinstalling the valve covers, I found on the drivers side a cracked out U-shape in the mounting lip for the valve cover. I believe someone had since JB welded this back into place, but about 1/8" higher than the rest of the smooth mounting surface. The valve covers are aluminum and IMO not really ready to flex that much to create a good seal. I went to work with a nice long flat file and got it ALOT closer to level than it was. I think at least enough for the new rubber gasket to compensate. Plus I put a little black shit on the two small crack areas on top, just in case.

-BP

[Maverick]

Those valve covers are DEFINITELY worth saving.

These are amazing products for deoxidizing and polishing aluminum and other metals.

http://www.amazon.com/Purple-Metal-Poli ... tal+polish

I picked them up from a guy in the all Ford club here and was really pleased with them after trying several other things.

[Basement Paul]

Thanks for the tip. Hopefully there will be no more polishing for awhile. Thank goodness the wheels are already shiny.

-BP

[Basement Paul]

Last week was vacation week and I was out of town (LV!) and loving it. Over the last couple days I finished getting the oil pan and block cleaned up, and reinstalled the new gasket and old pan. I was going to flip the motor upside down on the stand to do this, but being by myself, and having only a 3 point stand, I thought the better of it since this motor looked really top heavy and I was worried about either dropping it on it's head, or never being able to turn it right side up. So, I just laid on the floor and did it. No problem.

Then I spent a little time yesterday, and another couple hours today getting my pulley configuration figured out and installed. The pulleys and brackets are high quality stuff, but the instructions and hardware leave a lot to be desired. Ultimately I got it all finished and installed and it looks like a pretty solid set up. I think the crank pulley sits back probably 1/32 or so from the water pump / alternator pulleys, but they all seem to be running parallel otherwise. I could try to shim a little, but I really don't think with 8 ribs and a large lip on the pulleys that it will be an issue. The belt doesn't seem strained at all even when tightened.




This week I think I'll buy the heater core and hoses. I just got another speed points coupon from Summit so I'm up to $70. I'll use this to get the bell housing. Maybe this coming weekend I'll take a road trip to Mecca...

-BP

[Blue_69_malibu]

BP: That motor looks REALLY nice. Very clean and tastefully done. A+.

[Basement Paul]

I even polished the chrome alternator. You know what they say, if it don't go- chrome it!

-BP

[Basement Paul]

I got the new heater core installed this weekend and made a cover plate for the no longer existing A/C evaporator. It wasn't a very fun or exciting job, so I didn't take any pictures. On the flip side, I'll have heat when it's cold now. Tonight after work I bought longer rear seat bolts (metric, stainless) so I can next work on mounting my subframe connectors. It will make sense later.

-BP