Getting the Mustang Ready for Summer vacation

The car makes a great winter project, but with the prospect of good weather, I don't want to spend time indoors in the shop.  I also want my shop space back for working on motorcycles and property maintenance equipment.  So I have made a push to get a couple of projects done on the car and then I will put it away for the summer.  There is also a sort of deadline to get things done, as next Sunday Carolyn and I are leaving for a 19-day trip to Ireland and the Isle Of Man.  My daughter and her SO Jon are going also.  The big draw with the Isle Of Man is, of course, the famous TT motorcycle race. 

After a run of really nice weather, it has turned rainy and so I have been working on the car.  The main things I wanted to get done is the rear disk brakes and the instrument cluster.  The brakes were a bit tricky since I had to cut the stock brake line across the axle and make new flare end fittings because the disk brakes use flex lines at the calipers.  Nevertheless, I got it done, and this is how it looks:

Next, I tackled the instrument cluster.  In my last post about the car I was installing the under dash wiring and converting the ammeter to a voltmeter.  Now I have connected the instrument cluster to the under dash wiring and also installed the speedometer cable to the back of the speedometer, the backup light switch to the backup lights wiring, and the brake light switch to the brake pedal. 

The wires under the duct tape are for the backup light switch.  This switch is activated by the transmission under the driveline tunnel. 

This last photo reminds me that I also put in a new ignition switch and light switch and new bezels for the lights and wiper switches.  Oh, and I also put in the engine bay wiring harness for the gauges and starter solenoid.  Guess I have been pretty bush since the last post. 

Snow Check

We have had a warm and dry Spring so far and I thought it might be a good time to check the snow levels on the mountain roads.  Joe and I took a ride up in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest to see how far we could get.  We tried three different passes and got this:

and this:

On the third pass, I thought we were going to make it, but no go.  Snow levels were around 2700 feet on my GPS and most of the passes are around 3500, so it is going to be a couple of weeks yet, and maybe more if it cools back down.  Last year we didn't get over the mountains until July. 

On the ride we encountered some helicopter logging:

Quite an operation, with lots of men working and expensive equipment.  I've read that the value of timber is up, and everybody seems to be taking advantage of the high prices. 

We took a side trip up to the trail head for the Silverstar Peak trail and found that to be snow free even though the trail head was at 3100 feet.  I guess it all depends on the amount of sun exposure the road gets.  I took this picture from the trail head with Mt St Helens in the distance:

So, the ride was somewhat abbreviated, but we took advantage of the extra time after we got back to do some work on Joe's new (to him) bike.  The back roads take their toll on things that are not fastened down well, and Joe had lost a few critical screws and had a rear fender flopping around.  After we found what we needed, we stopped in the local hardware store to buy stuff......much cheaper than official Kawasaki parts. 

Spring Road Ride

Another stretch of great weather and Joe, Mike, Ross and I took advantage of it and did a little jaunt to the Oregon coast.  We all meet at a Krispy Kreame in Vancouver, but nobody eats the donuts anymore:

We have done this ride several times and the first 50 miles or so are not a lot of fun because it is through the western Portland suburbs with a lot of traffic.  Mike thought he had a way to avoid some of this, so he led us, and his Garmin GPS led him........around and around.  It seemed we were going in circles or zig zags, with a lot of neighborhood streets.  Eventually we got thorough it all, though, and got to the good stuff.  Since Mike was leading, he gets in the go mode and doesn't stop much for pictures.  Here is one I took, only because there was a log truck in front of us that was impossible to pass, so the motorcyclist solution is to stop and let the slow vehicle get ahead a ways and then gas it up until you catch up. 



We were riding through some beautiful coastal forest in its springtime glory, but I have no proof.  I do have proof that not all of the route was paved:

We stopped for lunch in Tillamook at this funky roadside taco stand that had outdoor seating.  The food was actually quite good.  Here Ross is inspecting the wear on Mike's rear tire that only had 1600 miles on it, but was getting closer to the wear bars than one would expect. 

The rest of the ride was a brisk run over some of our favorite roads leading back to Washington via the Longview bridge and then a short stint of Interstate 5 to Woodland (for Joe and I) and on to Vancouver for Mike and Ross. 

Joe stopped in at my house and we had a refreshing end of ride PBR:

The next day I made a purchase that I wish I had made a long time ago.  Harbor Freight Tools had a sale on their motorcycle lift, and I bought one along with a wheel chock that will allow me to load the bike on the lift by myself.  No more kneeling or laying down on the concrete floor.  It is going to make oil changes, chain maintenance, rear wheel removal, and detail cleaning a snap.  I also expect to use it as a parts/tool tray when working on the Mustang, and as an assembly table when doing woodworking. 

Ammeter to Voltmeter conversion

There were two  wires I just couldn't figure out in the under-dash harness, and they were different from the rest in that they were much heavier gauge.  They also looked like they could connect to each other, but I didn't understand why they would have not just made a single wire if that were the case.  The picture below points them out:

They were not included in the wiring book I had, so I finally took the wiring harness to my local parts guy, who is a real expert in vintage Mustangs.  He immediately identified the wiring harness as a 65 GT harness, and the wires in question were for the ammeter.  The base Mustang had an idiot lite to show charge, and it was the GT that had an actual ammeter gauge in the 65 model year.  The way it worked is that these two wires were plugged together and carried the full output of the alternator past a sensor in the ammeter that measured amps by the force of the electrical field in the wire.  In 66, they did away with this method and used a "shunt" to reduce the current so that the wires could be connected directly to the ammeter.  Since we had a 66 gauge cluster, that meant the ammeter could not be used.  Hooking the two wires in the 65 harness above to the 66 ammeter would have caused melting of the instrument panel and perhaps a fire.  After some online research I decided to convert the ammeter to a voltmeter.  This actually is better than an ammeter as it shows the status of the battery, which will loose charge if the alternator is not outputting current, and will show an overcharged condition if the voltage regulator is not regulating flow from the alternator to the battery.  I bought a voltmeter from Autozone and gutted it for the working parts.  Here is how it looks:

I think I may make a further modification and black out the "Sunpro" brand barely visible at the top of the gauge.  The back of the gauge is a simple hook-up to a 12 volt source from the battery:

Note the new look of my blog.  My friend Mike has started a blog using the same Google program and, being the computer whiz he is, has figured out how to change the template and photo size.  (My daughter Karen set it up for me originally so I didn't learn to do it myself.) 

Under dash wiring

As I mentioned in the previous post, Brian brought down a wiring harness for the instrument panel and dash switches and lights.  We had a stretch of good weather, so I haven't been working on the car much, but the last few days have been rainy, so I got to work on the harness.  The first job is to identify each of the leads as to what it's function is and what it connects to.  For this, I had the following publication:

Inside are schematics with drawings of the various knobs, switches and gauges.  This defines the connections for the color coded wires:

So, after I figure out what a wire is for, I tag it and move on to the next.  After three or so afternoons I have tagged all but two or three leads:

It seems like a fairly straight forward job, but it has been a giant puzzle.  Part of the problem is that some of the leads are not used and it took me awhile to figure that out.   There are some options that the car doesn't have, like a clock and rear courtesy lights, for example.  Another problem is that we have changed to a 1966 model instrument cluster that has gauges rather than idiot lights, and even though we bought the 66 wiring harness, there are other changes in the 66 models (windshield washer, for example) that cause the harness to be different from the publication.  Edit: It's actually a 1965 GT wiring harness. 

After I get all this figured out, the next challenge will be to fit the harness behind the dash.  I hope I don't have to remove some of the stuff that I have worked so hard installing, like the pedals, parking brake, and fresh air vent. 

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.