Busy Weekend With the Mustang

Remember in my last post about the Mustang where I said "There are still big, expensive jobs to do, but they are ....... going to be done by somebody else (carpet and headliner),...... "  Those were my thoughts, anyway, until we found out what it would cost to have somebody do the carpet and headliner.  The headliner alone would have cost over $600, and $400 of that was just to remove and re-install the windshield and rear window.  Then $225 to install the $40 headliner.  There had to be a better way, and there was.  I found online that there are a couple of shops making a one-piece textured ABS headliner that could be installed without removing the glass, and is an easy enough job for a do-it-yourselfer.  Strangely enough, the shop making the headliner that we ordered is located in my old home town of Corona, California where the Mustang spent many years.  The carpeting job we decided to do ourselves because there is an already cut-and-formed kit available for the car. 

So, this past weekend, Brian came down with his truck loaded with new parts, including new front seats and trunk carpet.  We spent Saturday afternoon after he arrived installing acoustic underlayment for the cab.  The stuff is called Dynamat, and is supposed to provide a great improvement in keeping down engine and road noise as well as providing a moisture barrier.  It had to be cut and fit to the curves of the floor, driveshaft tunnel and rear bulkhead:

 

I thought this was a pretty tedious and time consuming job, but the next day we tackled the carpet, which turned out to be the really difficult and time consuming job.  We sort of expected it to fit perfect by just laying it in, but it had to be trimmed a lot and the holes needed for the seats bolts, shift lever, and seat belt bolts were difficult to cut.  where possible, we located the holes by poking up from the bottom with an awl.  First came the rear section of carpet:

Then the front, plus the seat frame adapters:

 

The original rear seats, which were in really good shape, were cleaned up:

Then the sill plates were installed:

 

 

Then the front seats, which took a lot more bending and fitting of hardware than expected:

Note sexy floor mats, too. 

 

 

By this time we had been at it non-stop from 8 am to 3 pm.  We rolled it out into the driveway for a photo op:

 

 

And a test fitting:

 

 

That car is SMALL.  Brian couldn't even get into the back seats but I reminded him that he spent a lot of time there when he was a kid.  The side supports on the drivers seat, combined with the steering wheel, make it a bit of a squeeze to get in for driving.  Once in, though, the seats are very comfortable. 

There are two more interior items to install; the headliner and a console between the driver and passenger seats.  These are back ordered and are not to be shipped until late April, so in the meantime, the Mustang is taking a nap.  I need the shop space as my own vehicles are in need of some maintenance. 

A New Rider for the Good Roads

Last summer I made this post about daughter Jenny wanting to learn to ride; http://thegoodroads.blogspot.com/2013/08/another-potential-rider.html.  She was serious.  She took the Motorcycle Safety Foundation (MSF) Basic Rider Course and got her license.  Then a friend loaned her a motorcycle, and a neighbor with a bike went with her on some rides from her house in San Francisco.  She asked me if I would help her find a bike of her own. 

I spent a lot of time looking on Craigslist and then one weekend Carolyn and I went to look at a couple of Kawasaki Ninja 250s, which I thought would be the perfect bike for her.  I used to own one before my current street bike, so I knew quite a bit about the bike.  It was hard to find one for sale that did not have a salvage title due to minor drops which broke the very expensive fairing.  I also had to find one with more than 7500 miles, so it could be registered in California without meeting CA smog requirements.  After a few false leads, we finally found this one at a car dealer, of all places:

It is a 2006 model, the next-to-last year they made these.  The bike was very clean, but had a somewhat clattery motor, which I thought was probably due to needing a valve adjustment.  It also needed a new front rotor and chain and sprockets.  We bought the bike and I proceeded to do a complete refurbishment on it.  Since I would not be able to work on it after we got it to Jenny, I needed to make sure everything was good to go. 

First order of business was a valve adjustment and spark plug replacement:

My motorcycle lift sure came in handy for this project.  Next, I replaced the fork oil and the front brake rotor and pads:

By this time I got the new chain and sprockets I ordered and installed those.  Here is a comparison of the old and new rear sprockets:

I also lubed and adjusted the clutch and throttle cables and put in new rear brake pads and new brake fluid front and rear.  I also changed the oil and filter, cleaned the oil screen in the engine sump, and balanced the carbs. 

After all this the engine was still too noisy.  I decided to check the cam chain tensioner and found these wear marks on the plunger:

 

I ordered a new cam chain tensioner and that solved the clatter problem.  The engine purred like a kitten. 

The next step was to get the bike down to Jenny in San Francisco.  I knew from experience with my Ninja 250 that it would fit in our Honda Odssey mini van if the fairings were removed and the van seats taken out.  I got it loaded and tied down:

 

We drove down to San Francisco last Thursday, and on Friday morning I put the fairings back on and then followed Jenny to the DMV to get it registered.  I did not look forward to this for a couple of reasons.  First, I knew dealing with the California DMV was usually an unpleasant experience, but mainly I was worried about the title transfer.  When we bought the bike from the dealer, we did not transfer the title but just got a bill of sale, because I didn't want to pay sales tax and license fees in Washington if I was not going to own the bike.  So my name was not on the Oregon title anywhere, but I did have the bill of sale. 

We got to the dreaded place:

 

And found the typical waiting line:

 

However, Jenny had made an appointment, so after we got the bike inspected, I parked it and went back inside to find Jen already waiting with a number to see a DMV agent and being chatted up by this guy.

 

Then we got to the agent, who turned out to be really friendly (she had only been working there for a month, so there is still some time for her to conform):

 

SUCCESS!  The title transfer and registration went really well and we even got the new license plate.  Much relief on both our parts. 

Up to this point, Jen had not ridden the bike, so we went back home and I rode it to a nearby parking lot for her to get acquainted:

 

 

 

Oh good! She liked it.  It has a much lower seat height than the dual sport bike she had been loaned, which is just what a newby needs  (Old guys too, it turns out).  The bike seems very proportionate to her size and she looks good on it.  I just needed to convince her the twin liked a lot more revs than she was used to with the single cylinder loaner and MSF bikes. 

The next day we went for a long ride.  She had never had to deal with a manual choke before (both the loaner and MSF bikes were fuel injected), so we went over choke operation on a cold start:

I brought along Carolyn's helmet so that we could use the intercom to chat while riding:

 

My ride was her loaner Yamaha XT 250.  It was a surprisingly nice bike and would easily keep up with traffic, even on the freeway.  (Granddaughter Adena in the background)

 

We ended up riding 230 miles on Saturday, including a stop at the famous Alice's Restaurant:

 

Note that volunteer maintenance sign on the left:

 

Alice's is a big biker hangout, like the Rock Store in Southern California.  Here is the scene across the street where we stopped:

 

We rode some really Good Roads and Jen did great.......not a threat to Valinteno Rossi in the curves yet, but she goes plenty fast on the highway and seems more used to traffic than I am.  After we got back to her house it was time to celebrate the ride with PBR and pretzels:

 

The next day we went for a shorter ride of about 100 miles up highway 1 to Point Reyes and then over to 101 to return to San Francisco.  I got this shot of Jen at the Golden Gate overlook:

 

That afternoon (Sunday), I rode the XT over to Oakland to return it to her friends.  She is going with them to Death Valley next weekend where she will ride the XT on some of the unpaved roads there.......another new motorcycling experience for her.  Should be fun. 

All the time Jen and I were riding, Carolyn was entertaining the grandkids.  They went to birthday parties, soccer games, and of course, shopping. 

Monday we drove the empty van home and had good weather all the way, as we had all weekend.  It was a great weekend and I loved the chance to ride with my daughter and help a new rider get started. 

Dash Is Complete!

It has taken some time waiting for parts, and lots and lots of labor time, but the dash is finally done.  The ugly hole in the dash where the radio mounting holes had been butchered has been fixed, and the radio installed and checked out with the new speakers.  We used a radio patch plate available for these old Mustangs that should have been welded in before the car was painted, but we didn't know any better then.  Brian came up with a way to fit it onto the dash and spent quite a bit of time cutting and finishing it. 

I also had to get a new wiper switch, a new fog lamp switch, and a new ignition lock tumbler.  The old tumbler was so worn that the key had to be jiggled just right to be able to turn it.  This means there are going to be three keys needed for the car instead of two.......one for the trunk, one for the doors, and one for the ignition. 

The new wiper switch makes the wipers run, but they do not self-park.  The problem is in the motor itself, but a new motor is over $100, and more importantly, is a real bitch to replace now that the wiring harness, steering column, and brake/clutch support bracket is in.  The wipers can be parked pretty well by using the switch to turn them off at the right time.  In my opinion it would be a crime to drive this car in the rain or even on wet roads and get that beautiful clean undercarriage dirty, so no wipers should be needed.  This is pretty unrealistic for a Western Washington car, though. 

Anyway, here are some pictures of the dash:

I feel really relieved to have reached this point.  We have got past what I consider the hard parts because I didn't have much experience with many of the steps that had to be done up to now.  There are still big, expensive jobs to do, but they are either going to be done by somebody else (carpet and headliner), or they are jobs that I have some experience with (engine, clutch, trans, drive line).  I think I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. 

We Have Wheels!

Brian and the boys were down this Sunday and he brought all four wheels with tires mounted.  He also brought some rocker panel stripes that he carefully applied:

I'm impressed with his attention to getting every job he works on just right. 

The car is really looking more and more like a finished product, at least on the outside:

 

Still riding a little high without an engine or trans. 

I'm still working on the dash, radio, and instruments.  It's slow, but I am making progress.  I should have a report later this week. 

One Step Forward and Two Back

I'm in a difficult stage with the Mustang.........electrical problems, which are the kind I hate.  I figured that with the steering wheel in it was time to test the under-dash and lighting electrical systems before going any further with interior work.  I hooked up a small battery from our wood chipper to the main power circuit of the non-engine components and got most of the lights and signals working, but some lights were dim and the horns were feeble.  Thinking the battery was not putting out enough amperage, I hooked up jumper cables to our van and almost melted some wires before I quickly disconnected the battery.  I definitely had a short somewhere and had to find it. 

Big Mike came to my rescue.  Turns out that besides being a hell of a mechanic and metal fabricator, he is also an electrician.  We checked out all the easy options by disconnecting systems one at a time and measuring resistance in the main power feed.  After all the easy ones didn't solve the problem, I started taking apart the instrument cluster, dash switches, and finally the under dash wiring that I had worked so hard to put in.  After a full afternoon of deconstruction we finally found the source of the short.  It was basically due to using a 65 wiring harness with a 66 instrument cluster.  I had already had problems with this mismatch and wrote about it in this blog: http://thegoodroads.blogspot.com/2013/04/ammeter-to-voltmeter-conversion.html.  Back then, I decided to connect the two wires together that were for the 65 ammeter, and those, for some reason, were the cause of the short.  This picture from another car shows them connected and routed through the 65 ammeter sensor as they were intended. 

They had to be left disconnected.  By the time we found this, the dash looked like this:

So now I am in the recovery mode and slowly putting everything back together and testing each component.  Some things are still not working, but at least I don't have a short and can trace power and ground connections. 

Meanwhile there has been some parallel progress.  Brian bought a couple of wheels that he liked and he brought them down to verify that they would clear the brake calipers.  They do, and they looked pretty cool:

 

The old lug nuts don't work with the new wheels and will have to be replaced. 

Next are some more wheels with tires mounted so I can move the Mustang out of the shop when I need it for work on my own vehicles. 

On an earlier trip, Brian had brought down the metal bulkhead that replaces the cardboard one between the rear seat and the trunk.  This is an important safety modification.  Because the top of the gas tank doubles as the bottom of the trunk, a rupture of the tank from a rear end collision that results in a fire, would have the fire basically in the passenger compartment immediately.  I remember when Ford got sued over this on the Pinto back in the 80's.  I had painted this bulkhead and then Brian put it in.  Even Colin pitched in on the job:

 

Most of the time was actually spent working on finding a solution to the hacked-up hole in the dash where the radio goes.  I think we came up with a good solution, but I'm being delayed in installing the radio until I get the rest of the electrical system working properly. 

Give Me a Brake!

I have worked all week on getting the brake lines and master cylinder installed and the brakes bled and working.  I have not been 100% successful, but I'm working on it.  Before I got to the brakes, I put some weather striping on the doors:

 

 

Then I tackled the brake lines.  We bought pre-bent lines for both the front to rear line, and the individual front wheel lines, but because we are doing a disk brake conversion with a dual-chamber master cylinder, there was some custom bending and fitting needed.  I bought a flaring tool and tube bender from Harbor Freight, but the flaring tool was normal HF (i.e. Chinese) quality and it was difficult to get a quality flare that would not leak.  The brake fittings require this type of double flare, where the tube is first ballooned out and then swaged into a flare:

 

 

 

 

 

I must have made a dozen of these to get three or four good ones, but eventually I got all the fittings and lines connected except for the master cylinder.  I was paranoid that I would have leaks and not be aware of them until I had brake fluid leaking all over the place.  It would not be pretty to have to disassemble brake lines with fluid already in them in order to fix the leaks.  So I came up with a way to connect an air hose to the brake lines so I could apply constant air pressure.  That way I could detect leaks before adding fluid:

 

 



 

I had a lot of leaks initially, but most were caused by not tightening the fittings enough.  A few required new flares.  I tried using one of Carolyn's incense sticks to search for the smallest leaks:

But the best method was to get my ear as close as possible to the fitting and listen for a leak. 

After I was pretty sure I got all the leaks, I plumbed in the master cylinder after first bleeding it on the workbench:

 

Hooking the master cylinder push rod through the firewall and to the brake pedal and the brake light switch was a bit of a hassle, but eventually Carolyn and I teamed up to bleed the individual wheel calipers.  The results have been somewhat disappointing.  The brake pedal travel is too great.  Although brake application starts to occur as soon as the pedal is depressed an inch or less, the pedal can be mashed to within 3 to 4 inches of the floor and will not "pump up" like you would expect with air still in the lines.  It has been a long, long time since I drove a car without power brakes, so maybe this is normal.  The best thing to do would be to drive the car and find out how it works, but we have no engine.  And that has been a good thing as far as plumbing in the lines and the master cylinder because I must have made 50 trips into the engine compartment, and things would have been much more difficult with an engine in there. 

Just to take a break from the brakes, I took on an easier job and installed the rear speakers:

Tomorrow I go in for cataract surgery on my right eye (left was done last year), so I will not be working on the Mustang for about a week.  That's OK, I think I'm ready for a break.