It's All Starting to Come Together

Except for one small glitch........the distributor was too big.  The first evidence of this was that the air cleaner Brian had bought would not clear the distributor unless it was installed so high the hood would not close.  These pictures show how the only way it would go on is if was installed sideways, which was not acceptable:

 

I found a air cleaner that looked like it would fit and sort of matched the scheme of the valve covers:

 

It still looked pretty tall, though, and before we could put the hood back on and find out for sure I discovered the deal breaker.  The return heater hose needed to connect to the intake manifold right at the distributor.  There was no way I could install the hose nipple without removing the distributor, and even then it looked like there would not be enough room for it:

 

Removing the distributor to (possibly) install the fitting would mean re-setting the ignition timing and since I had to do that we decided to just bite the bullet and get another distributor that would be smaller and lower profile.  The big distributor was an HEI unit with the coil built into it; that's one reason why it was so tall.  The new distributor would require a separate coil and mounting bracket, but still cost almost $100 less than the HEI. 

The new one cleared the heater hose fitting and the air cleaner, and looks like it will clear the hood, but it will be close:

 

 

Notice in the above two photos that both exhaust headers have been installed.  That had me worried because I had seen posts online from people who said they did not fit.  It was close, but they did fit. 

I also installed the clutch linkage, the sift lever, the speedometer cable, and the back-up light switch.  Brian was down over the past weekend and we put in a starter motor that I got him for Christmas as well as some chrome alternator brackets.  It was he and I working together that got the driver side exhaust header in.  We put the hood back on, but I haven't closed it on the new air cleaner set-up because I want to get some modeling clay or putty to set on top of the air cleaner and see what kind of clearance I have. 

There are only two parts from the original driveline that we have reused; the differential and axle, and the driveshaft.  The driveshaft had to have a lot of rust and grease scraped and sanded off:

 

And then primed:

And painted:

 

 New U-joints fitted:

 

 

 

And the drive shaft installed in the car:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Still lots to do, but I am entering into more familiar territory.  I have done a lot of the type of work coming up, and some of it on this very car. 

 



 

Mustang Has a Motor!

I took the donor motor to a local engine builder and after a couple of weeks he had it ready.  The big day was scheduled for it to be run on a chassis dyno so that we could see the power output and be assured it was tuned and running well.  Brian came down for the occasion.  Here is the motor mounted in an old race car chassis and hooked up to a Dynojet dynamometer:

 

The builder started it up and ran it for awhile at moderate speeds to warm it up. It sounded great and ran super smooth. Then he started some max power runs:

 

He had it tuned to run with mufflers, which is the way we will have to run it on the street, but just for grins he removed the mufflers and ran it with just the exhaust headers.......we all had to wear hearing protection, but it sounded awesome!  There is nothing like an American push-rod V8 at full song.

 

 

Brian taking a sound effects video

 

Here are the stats of the dyno run taken without the mufflers.  The bottom graph shows it is running a little lean without the mufflers (the dotted red line is the optimum air/fuel ratio), but the rear-wheel horsepower is about the same......slightly over 200.  The builder said the horsepower at the crank, which is the way most engine horsepower is advertised, would be about 262.  Notice the nice flat torque curve also.  The engine is basically a stock blueprinted engine but makes some additional power with the addition on an Edelbrock intake manifold and carburetor, plus higher flow exhaust headers.  It should be able to run on mid-grade gas. 

 



 

We loaded it up in my truck and brought it home:

 

 

Then brought the hoist down, hauled it out of the truck and installed the  motor mounts, clutch and bell housing.  It sure is pretty, isn't it:

 

 

Before we could push the car over to the shed to receive the engine, we had to remove the hood.  I couldn't think of a safe place to store it but then Carolyn suggested we put it in the hallway.  What a wife, eh?

 So while Carolyn steered, Brian and I pushed the car over to the shed, then lowered the engine in and bolted up the motor mounts.  It's quick to write that process, but it took us several hours because all the holes in the motor mounts didn't quite line up:

 

 

 

 

After we got the motor in we pushed the car back to the shop and jacked it up for the transmission install.  This went smoother than I expected and somewhat made up for the difficulty in getting the engine in:

 

 

Still much to do, but these were big jobs, and from now on I should be able to work at my leisure.