Baby's First Bath

Brian was down this Sunday with a big batch of parts.  First on the agenda was installing the new gas tank, fuel level sending unit, and fill pipe:

Air wrench



Next, the rear disk brakes:

Speed wrench



Still need to hook up the hydraulic lines and parking brake cable

One of the items he brought down was a new under-dash wiring harness.  This will keep me occupied for a long time, I think.  On the left is the new harness, and on the right the old one.  I will have to clean up and transfer various knobs, ignition switch, light switch, etc. from the old one:

The car was getting pretty dirty just sitting in my shop for half a year since it was painted, so we decided to give it a bath:

If it wasn't for those ugly wheels and tires it would be looking pretty good.  Still riding a bit high without an engine to load the front suspension.  There is a chrome rocker molding strip coming which will add a bit more bling:

And then we end the day with the traditional shootout:

Foursome

Usually when guys our age form up a foursome, it's to play golf.  Not us........we ride.  Orv led Mike, Ross, and I on a ride up the Columbia Gorge yesterday, with all the good side roads included.  It was supposed to rain in the late afternoon, but I got home with only a few drops on me. 

This was at a stop just before lunch in Glenwood.  We had lots of great views of Mt Adams and Mt Hood on this ride. 

Orv took us to a viewpoint I had not seen before.  It was a view of the Klickitat river canyon off the Glenwood Highway.  We had to do a little off road riding to get there, though:

Not a great photo of the view, but it was pretty spectacular.

Another photo at the viewpoint; not so spectacular.

Further on we came upon another view of the Klickitat further downstream, near where it joins the Columbia. 

It was great to get all of us out together on a ride again after a long winter.  The weather was great for this time of  year, but the roads were sort of crap due to all the fine gravel in most of the corners.  It is put down during the winter to provide traction in snow and ice, but takes awhile to clear off in the Spring.  Doesn't matter........it was still a good ride on good roads with good friends.  





Finally, a riding post

Spring is not far off, and we have had some nice weather.  Mike called for a ride to Astoria to eat the famous Albacore Tuna fish and chips at the Bow Picker.  No way was Carolyn going to miss that, so we rode double over there and took some "good roads" back.  Here are some pics from the day:

The "restaurant" is a walk-up converted fishing boat.  The type of fishing they did with it was off the bow, rather than stern trolling, thus the moniker "bow picker".   At one time there was a whole fleet of them in Astoria, but no more.  Anyway, it has fish and chips to die for, and unfortunately, it is well known.  At no time when we have gone there has there not been a line of people.  The only things lacking are indoor places to sit and beer, but we make do. 

They have a couple of picnic tables around the place and it was warm enough with our riding gear on (for Carolyn and I), to enjoy the outdoor dining.  Mike's daughter Amanda rode along with him and Mike enjoyed his first street ride since late last year. 

Before we headed back, we stopped at the Astoria Column.  Amanda had never been there, and she and I climbed the many steps to the top.

 The views from up there on this perfectly clear day were fantastic!

On the way back we took scenic and curvy roads and stopped for a late' in the little burg of Birkenfeld.  It was a real kick-back ride, but the kind Carolyn and I excel at. 

However, with the late start because of the cold morning, and the dawdling around, it ended up getting late and cool by the time we got home.  A hot bath in the jet tub was a perfect end to the 216 mile day. 

It has not been full stop on the car, though.  Brian and Colin were down last weekend, but since they didn't arrive until late Saturday, what we mostly accomplished was a trip to Del Pro on Sunday to buy parts.  We took a break from what little work we did to do a little target shooting. 

Colin is fascinated with guns and I think it best that he learns to become familiar with them and learn to handle then in a responsible way.  And anyway, it won't be too long before the gov'ment yanks them away from my cold dead hands (ha ha).   I bought the rifle he is shooting with my own money when I was 14 years old,  just a little older than Colin.  When I was in college I used to leave my dorm early on a weekend morning and walk across campus with the rifle slung over my shoulder to go hunting in the surrounding farmland.  Times have sure changed. 

But, I digress.  Remember the seat belt retractor that I was not happy with because it was too far from the car body?  I made my own bracket that placed it where I think I want it, but I will not be sure until the carpet pad, carpet, and rear seat are installed. 

Before

After

Brian and I also put in a new parking brake cable and clutch actuating mechanism.  The zip lock bag contains parts that will be attached to the engine, when we get one. 

Also, a turn signal switch:





Three Point Seat Belt Install

I got the aftermarket seat belts from the shop up near Brian, and I was not happy with the way they said to install them.   According to the instructions, the highest attachment, the one that you pull the seat belt through when extending it for latching with the lap belt, was supposed to be mounted just below the quarter panel window.  In my opinion, this is too low because it would be at, or below, shoulder level.  Every vehicle, even the Miata, has this point above shoulder level for two reason; one is safety......in a collision it would impart downward force on the neck/shoulder area rather than a dispersed force across the chest.  The other reason is that it would be difficult to reach back and grab the seat belt after entering the car.  I have seen Mustangs in car shows that had an attachment point welded into the roof rail, but we can no longer do that without damaging paint. 

Brian had asked the guys at the Mustang shop in Auburn how they do it, and they said they said they use a hole in the "C" pillar (the rearmost roof support) to gain access to the interior roof area.  The seat belt kit had some nuts and large washers that could have been inserted through one of these holes, but that would put the attachment point too far back.  I came up with the following solution:

I bought a piece of 1.25 x 1/8 flat steel from Ace hardware and some nuts that matched the size of the attachment bolt, and then drilled the following holes: 

Then I spot welded the nuts over the big holes:

Then I cut the flat stock between the two nuts to get the following two pieces:

Next, I drilled matching holes in the "c" pillar:

Using the length of the flat stock, I could feed the welded nut through the hole in the pillar to get it quite a bit further forward.  I then pop riveted the piece into place:

You can just see the end of the flat stock through the hole that I used.  Any further forward than this I was afraid I would run into problems interfering with the headliner. 

The next step was to install the anchor point for the belt retracting mechanism.  The instructions called for attaching this to the floor, and I used some supplied anchors:

Underside of car



Interior

After attaching the seat belts, things looked pretty good from the this viewpoint:



Note how much higher the attachment point is than if I had used the top of the quarter panel. You can also see there is some interference between the belt and the quarter window crank, but those windows were seldom rolled down, and a rear seat passenger could always pull the belt out to crank the window down.  (Lets face it, most people now don't even know what a window crank is.)
What I didn't like was how far away from the car body the retractor sat:

This looks pretty clunky to me.  I've got some ideas for how to make this better, but that is far another day. 

Steering woes.....some fixed, some discovered

I got the new steering box installed.  It came from a business in Illinois called Chockostang......how cool a name is that?  It definitely solved the problem of excess play at the steering wheel; there is essentially none, now.  The new box:

It is at the other end of the steering column that I am now having problems.  The turn signal "cancellator" is broken and as I got into taking that out I discovered another broken part in the turn signal stalk and a dry, worn bearing.  I will be looking into fixing these problems in the days ahead. 

Mike suggested in a comment to my last post that we consider a rack and pinion steering conversion for the car.  This would bring the steering action up to modern standards, but the conversion kit costs $1400.  It has also been suggested that we convert to power steering, especially because Brian intends to use wider, radial-ply tires which will add to steering effort.  I did some research on the Vintage Mustang forum and found that some say power steering is a necessity while others say the steering effort is only an issue in slow manuevers like parallel parking.  Also, it's a $900 kit and adds complexity.  We decided against it, but it could be added later if it turns out to be a real problem. 

In the meantime, I have been working on other under-dash installations, starting with the fire wall insulation pad:

The driver's side fresh air vent, parking brake tube, and steering shaft housing:

The heater and defroster plenum and ducting.  This is the complete heater and plenum ready to install: 

This is a two-person job and I got Carolyn to help by attaching the nuts to the blower motor on the engine side of the firewall.  This is what it looks like installed:

On the engine side, I left the heater hoses in a loop that I will cut later when I know the exact length I need to connect the hoses to the engine:

The windshield wiper motor and control arms were installed:

Ready for the wiper blades:

And lastly, the clutch control bracket and clutch and brake pedals were assembled:



And installed:



This was another two-person job, with Carolyn starting the bolts from the engine side:

Next up will be installation of the three-point seat belts, which were ordered before we went to Florida.  Between the seat belts and the steering box, we have gone over budget for this past month, so things may slow down a bit.