It's ALIVE!

Before I share this video, I would like to apologize to some of my dear readers.  I have learned through back-channel sources (Facebook!) that some of you don't know what the heck I've been talking about in my last few posts.  But I know from other back-channel sources (emails) that others know exactly what I'm talking about.  Strangely, the split seems to be gender oriented.  I may try to be less technical in the future, or I may not......after all, it's my blog. 

The video below should be easy to understand.  To my great relief, the Mustang motor runs in the car with the new distributor and all the other bits that go along with it.  The squeal you hear at the beginning is a loose fan belt and I have fixed that. 

Notice how smooth it runs at idle.....no shaking at all.....a good engine balance and build.

There are still some critical things to do.......get an exhaust system built, final timing of the new distributor by the engine builder, and wheel alignment.  And the shift lever boot for the console.  And the radiator.  I can't run the engine for very long without coolant, and want to be able to run it longer to check out things like the alternator and voltage regulator, oil pressure and temperature sensor gauges, and the cooling system, radio, heater, defroster, etc.  (I did see that the fuel gauge works, and that I have no fuel leaks). 

 

All these things are necessary to see how it runs, but eventually we need to see how it drives.  How will the disk brakes work?  What will it be like with no power steering.  What is the handling like on this old style suspension and steering?  I remember it being a perfectly fine car back when I first owned it, but that was a long time ago and cars have changed a lot since then. 

 

But tonight I am a very happy man because the engine runs.  

 

Engine Progress

After the distributor glitch was solved, the next glitch was the crankshaft pulley.  Here is a picture of the pulley. Notice the ridge on the back of it (top in the picture):

And here is a picture of the crankshaft harmonic balancer that the pulley bolts onto.  Instead of a recess for the pulley ridge, the balancer has a ridge also:

 

the pulley ridge and the balancer ridge butted up against one another making it impossible to bolt the pulley to the balancer.  Turns out no one sold a pulley that fit the balancer, which was only used on half of the 1969 302 Mustang engines.  I could have opted to get a different balancer, but the whole rotating assembly of the engine was balanced by the engine builder and replacing the harmonic balancer might have upset this balance.  I went to my neighbor, who is a retired Boeing machinist who has a bunch of machine tools in his shop, and he used a boring bar to hog out the pulley center, eliminating the ridge and allowing it to fit snugly on to the balancer:

 

Next, I mounted the alternator and the fan pulley to see how they lined up.  It had to be perfect in order for the fan belt to not get derailed or wear out quickly.  With the help of some 0.19 inch shims on the fan pulley I got the line up perfect:

 

About the same time I installed the new red spark plug wires.  Normally this would be a simple 15 minute plug-in job, but the spark plug wires were the "universal" type, which meant I had to cut them to length and crimp on the  connector at the distributor end.  This took most of an afternoon and I had to buy a special crimping tool, but it looks like it came out OK:

I ordered some really trick looking aircraft type fuel lines and fuel filter, but they didn't fit the fuel pump, so I sent them back and bought hard lines and bent them to fit.  I had a tube bender that I used for the brake lines, but the fuel line was too big in diameter to use it, so I bought another one for the fuel lines.  That thing next to the fuel pump is the oil pressure sending unit and I had to add the extension pipe to get it to clear the cylinder head:

 

I added the cowl braces (angled pieces behind the engine), and now things are looking a little busy in the engine compartment, but still more to come: