A 67 Mustang - The Assembly Process Begins, slowly!!

[67xr7cat]

I'll be heading to the local pick-a-part next weekend to look at the Explorer rear disk brakes. According to Google searches, they will fit on the small bearing housings by elongating the holes.

Edit for gear ratio

The rear discs from a 92 and up crown victory or grand marquis same as the explorer, but uses the small bolt pattern. You may need a spacer ring for the bearing. Are a few places that sell them.

[Bolted to Floor]

I'll be heading to the local pick-a-part next weekend to look at the Explorer rear disk brakes. According to Google searches, they will fit on the small bearing housings by elongating the holes.

Edit for gear ratio

The rear discs from a 92 and up crown victory or grand marquis same as the explorer, but uses the small bolt pattern. You may need a spacer ring for the bearing. Are a few places that sell them.

Thanks for the tip. I spent an afternoon walking around a pick a part taking pictures of rear brakes and saw those. It seems like the bolt pattern was rotated 90 degrees from the 9 in and would cause the caliper to rotate also. At least that's what I remember, but its been a day or two. 

Seemed easier to buy Mustang Steve's brackets.

[Bolted to Floor]

I have been working on the car over the last 6 months and have made some progress. They have been trying to stress me out at work, so I've been trying to get in as much garage therapy as I can.

I used a piece of Swagelok tubing to route from vacuum port in the intake runner toward the brake booster. 

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Went back to wiring so it can be complete before I drop a battery in to crank it. The interior is mostly complete for routing and some end device connections. Thanks to Bullet Bob for the list of Terminal Supply part numbers

 Wiring to the rear is complete with the sending unit for the gas gauge connected. Front running lights and headlight pigtails are in. Relays for the headlights are installed by the Duraspark box on the left fender apron. I got the Painless harness to the Duraspark harness I bought figured out, I think. I got a 3 prong weatherpack connector to connect the power feeds and a tach signal wire from the Duraspark harness to the Painless harness.

  The gauge cluster wiring took some more thought and digging. The Painless harness is set up for an ammeter and oil pressure gauge. My car has a tach and idiot lights for the oil and alternator. The 67 shop manual shows diagrams for gauges or lights in the charging section, I just had to merge the two. The 3G alternator adds to the confusion.

I started with tracing the wiring diagrams for the gauges to see what wires went where. Next, I traced out the wires in my factory harness to compare what was different. Then I started on the Painless harness to see how they did it. I made several sketches before I finally decided on what I thought was right. A few calls to Painless Tech support and the guy agreed that it should work, I started cutting and splicing wires. 

Since I didn’t buy the Painless kit for a 3G alternator, which took me a little figuring too. This is another one I think I got right!

Alt and Oil Light Model

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When I bought the Painless harness about 6-7 years ago, Jegs gave me the wire loom kit. I didn’t care about it then, but I have realized I really like it. Thank you Jay Brown for telling us the same stuff can be bought a McMaster Carr for a lot less money. After adding the extra wires along the normal path that Ford took for the Aux fuse block and ground, fog lights, the AC switch for low pressure, and a head light feed I had to change to a bigger size loom.

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I bought Type GXL/TXL, depending on the size, colored wire in various sizes from the Wirebarn in 25 foot coils to do the things I needed above.  The first spot on the Aux Block went to the headlights.


I cut out a flat plate from sheet steel that’s been around the house forever to hold 3 MIDI fuse blocks and tapped holes to secure them. I used some red insulating board pulled from a moth balled piece of switch gear as an insulator to the steel. Had to buy some fuses, 150A for the alternator, 70A for the Painless block, and a 40A for the auxiliary block. Got some spares to keep in the glove box too.

A #2 in red goes from the battery to the solenoid then to the starter. A fused #6 goes from the alternator to the battery. The top side of the smaller fuses are tied together with #8. #2 black is the engine block ground. A black #10 goes from the negative battery post to the interior for a ground block and a #10 for a chassis ground. There is a bond wire from the back of the head to the chassis too. Lugs from Grainger, my crimp tool, matching colored glue lined heat shrink and I was in business. I bought late model battery clamps from Ford after I noticed them on my company truck. I liked the way they bolted down on the battery post and have a stud for securing the ring terminals.

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[Bolted to Floor]

The exhaust system is a 2 ½” Flowmaster bolt in kit. I was surprised how well it went in. With the slip fitting elbows near the header collectors, I got everything to line up nicely with at least a fingers worth of clearance where ever needed. The ball sockets for the header collectors was butt welded to the end of the elbows. No cutting was required on the kit to get it in my car. The Flowmaster mufflers will be gone when I hear a drone. The next set will probably be Dynomax.

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[Bolted to Floor]

I sway bar I got years ago from PST, turns out to be for a small block car!  Another one of those things I didn’t know 15 years ago. So, I bought a sway bar and Bilstein shocks from Opentracker. The back shocks are installed, the front shocks are half installed and the sway bar is back ordered!! The tops won’t be bolted in till I have everything in place so I don’t have to work around the export bar.


Mounted the reservoir to the firewall and got the hose connected then bent up a bracket to hold the lines to the throw out bearing away from the pressure plate.

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[Bolted to Floor]

I have laid under the car on many occasions looking at a route for power steering hoses. I didn’t want to come up over the shock tower like the typical hoses from Borgeson. I used some swagelok tubing to make hard lines that start near the oil filter adapter and go back toward the bell housing. I cut up 4 11/16 electrical box covers to make the first set of plates for securing the hard lines. I used rubber hose to mock up on both ends for connections and made some reference marks to determine lengths and took it all to Katy Hydraulics for real hoses along with pictures of how it would be routed. He suggested steel braid since I would be about 3/4” away from the headers. After looking at my tubing, he suggested using silver solder to attach AN fitting. It would be more cost effective than him recreating the pieces!! Back home under the car, I’m tweaking one of the tubes when I broke a fitting loose.  I did have the box end of the wrench on the fitting trying to tweak the tubing. If you’re gonna be stupid, you gotta be rich……….I wish I was!! I left that hanging and I went on the other stuff. It’s the Friday before Easter and I trying to get the car started before the end of the weekend. I did get the fitting repaired the next week and all installed. It's full of fluid and made turning a lot easier.

This is what I took the guy as a template
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This is what I got back

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[Bolted to Floor]

I installed the steering shaft only on the car. The tube was painted a while back along with a few other pieces and for some reason, the paint doesn’t quite match the rest of the interior pieces. Body shop guys suspects the paint went bad from sitting. It was several years between parts. Anyway……I was surprised that it was relatively easy to get to the rag joint to tighten the bolts. You may notice in steering wheel moving around as I turn it in the video.

My wife assembled the condenser, mounting brackets, dryer, and hoses to get it back into the engine compartment. She got it bolted into the car and I checked to fittings to make sure they were tight. I bought a 4 core Champion radiator, factory fan shroud, an 18” replacement type fan blade from Summit, and the Hayden 2711 fan clutch to hopefully keep the car cool. It’s a HUGE radiator. The shorter fan clutch is a “have to”. There is just enough room the pull the fan clutch off the water pump with a piece of cardboard between it and the radiator. It’s been 25 years or so since I pulled the motor. I have forgotten how much of a puzzle this thing is to put together. Plenty of parts on and off as I figured it out on Saturday. The last time out for install, the PS pump & AC compressor came off, fan shroud set over water pump, fan & clutch on, radiator goes in like a diamond then rotates into position and everything else gets bolted back on.

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I taped up the rest of the wires under the dash that I didn’t need to start, mostly lighting stuff. Connected the gauge cluster pig tail and installed the starter switch. I watched about 3-4 videos trying to figure out how to get the tumbler installed. Connected the battery and I saw one little spark as I connected it. Pull back and look around, then reconnect, no spark this time. I saw the door lights come on. Never seen that before, WOW. Look around the car and watch for smoke or burning wire. Nothing. Turn the key to the right and keep watching….the oil and alternator lights came on. Things are looking up. Twist it a little farther and it starts cranking over. WOO HOO. Roll it out of the garage, pour gas in the tank and look for leaks. Pour water in the radiator and look for leaks. I haven’t changed anything since it came home from the dyno, so it should run if the wiring is right. Prime the carb and hit the key….it coughs and sputters and tries to start. More gas in the carb and hit the key and it comes to life, about 10:30 on Saturday night. I was smiling like a kid at Christmas. Walking around the car with a flash light looking at stuff, grinning from ear to ear, holly crap there’s a big puddle under the car and its growing. Fuel coming from around the fuel pump. Kill it and grab a wrench. Yep, the line up to the carb has a loose fitting at the pump. Cranked it up again and let it run for 15-20 minutes. It’s a happy day for me. Poke fun if you like, I was excited. This fall will be 30 years I’ve owned this car, its never ran till now.

It started, so the Duraspark wiring must be right. Not sure if the Tach will work. The oil light went out after firing up, so that must be right. The alternator light is still on, looks like I missed that one.

New list of thing to look at:
Charging system
Temperature gauge pegs while running
Gas gauge does not register
Car pops and backfire when I idle it down
Vacuum module is ruptured
Time to start tuning. We will see how much I bug you guys with questions.


Went for a short test drive on Easter Sunday.

https://youtu.be/YtcTRW0d7zI

[Stangman]

Looking good John should be really nice how long has it been since you drove it

[Bolted to Floor]

The front sway bar is now installed.

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Test fit the AC hoses and cut to length. Indexed the crimp fittings and marked for reference when I go back to get the PS tubing repaired.

Back on the PS hoses and tubing, I made some brackets to secure the tubing and tightened all the connections. If I had to do it again, I would get one end of the hoses crimped and let the others run long and make the final cut on the car and make the extra trip for crimping.  The hose I used for make-up didn’t act or lay the same as the steel braid. The crimped connectors made a difference in how the hoses would bend. Installed the belt, filled the pump with fluid and lifted the front of the car to reduce weight when I started turning the wheel. It took a quart of fluid to fill the system. It was making noise at first, but after 5-6 turns lock to lock, its easy and quiet.

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IMG_6860 by JOHN DIXON, on Flickr

The A/C hoses are now installed, but not connected to the compressor. Export bar is on.

The top side of the shocks are done too. It wasn’t as easy as I thought it should be. Had to file on the upper shock mount to get the turned through it. The cross piece that the bolts go through may come out of the other shock, but it didn’t look like it was going to come out of these. Had to pull the shocks back off the car to test fit, then bolt the upper mount to the shock before bolting back onto the car.

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[Bolted to Floor]

Looking good John should be really nice how long has it been since you drove it

Thanks Stangman. Bought it with a locked up motor in 1988. Easter Sunday was the first time I've ever drove it. Even with it idling way too high. Oh what a feeling......wasn't that a car commercial way back when?? 

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Ok, the head lights should be easy??? Breakout the voltage tester, let’s check for voltage at the head light sockets.


Head light switch on, no voltage, huh. Pull a relay, no voltage there either, what? OH yea, install the fuse. 
Power at the relay for the lights, no coil power. OK, power to the dimmer switch, yes. Away from the switch, no. Trying to unplug the wire from the switch and the switch falls apart in my hand. Time to throw that away. Dig in the box with the old wiring harness and find the old dimmer switch. It’s a Ford piece, Wow. And it still works, so in it goes. With voltage for high and low beams at the sockets, headlamps are installed. 

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[Bolted to Floor]

It’s time to start trying to tune this thing. Idling it down wasn’t helping and it was kicking back on the starter while cranking when warm and back firing through the carb. Car is way rich from just smelling the exhaust. Using an infrared temp gun and shooting the exhaust ports, there is a 40-50 degree temp difference between some of the cylinders. When I changed the plugs, a couple of them were decent looing but most were black. New plugs didn’t help to even the temps across the cylinders. Decided to follow the Dyno guys advice and get some new plug wires. The MSD’s made it sound better when it started and got the temperature within 15 degrees of each other.

Broke out the timing light to see where this was sitting. Used some blue painters tape to make shift my timing marks so I could see them. Had to pull the timing way back to get it to 12 degrees BTDC. Pulled the carb back off to make sure the transfer slot looked right. All the idle screws were sitting at ¾ turn or less out. Turned them out to 1-1/2 turns and called it good for now.

Don’t have a working tach yet, so I bought one of the infrared tuning tachs from Harbor Freight. Testing on the wife’s car showed 600 on her tach to an average of 618 on the HF gizmo box. Played with the idle, the HF tool says 850 RPM and it sounds a lot better than it did in the first video.

https://youtu.be/DpcqGQ7NwVE

Installed the body of the steering column, now I need some seats. Started with the plug on the back of the alternator to see why it’s not charging. Turns out I pushed the wires into the connector wrong. I swapped the outside wires to get the battery charging. One more thing of the list.
 
This air cleaner is temporary. I bought it from a guy on a Facebook Bump Side page. I really had my doubts that the hood would close.

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Years ago, when I was still working on floor boards, I lowered the seat pans about 1” and scooted them back about ½”.

Now to mount the seats, I started with removing the stands from the seat tracks by drilling out the rivets. With a piece 3/16 X 2” angle, figured that would have a little more strength than a flat bar, I cut one side down to ½”, then laid out holes for drilling. The seat pans are on 14’ centers and the seats are on 15’s. The angle is just wide enough to make it all work. The bolts to hold the angle to the seat pans are drilled and tapped to 5/16 x 18 with red Loctite. For attaching the seat rails to the angle, I cut some small pieces of the 3/16 angle and had my buddy at work weld them in place to provide 3/8” of material for bolting down the seat. Those areas are drilled and tapped to 5/16 x 24 for pan head Allen bolts. This will allows the seat track to pass over the bolt head.

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Bolted the tracks on tonight and got them in the car. Moving the seat pans back made it a little difficult to get the nuts started, but it wasn’t too bad. The driver seat is power and it goes up, down, back, & forward with no issue. With the seat all the way down and positioned were I want for reaching the pedals, I have about 3 1/2” of clearance between my head and a bare roof. I will lose a bit more with carpet, but I think I am good for now. If I’m not once the carpet and headliner go in, then back to the drawing board!!

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Now to make sure the steering column is where it’s going to stay. 

[Stangman]

Sounds sweet and looks great, your getting real close