Jimjific

Just saw this one on e-bay http://www.ebay.com/itm/Ford-Mustang-Boss-429-1969-boss-429-/171219468169?forcerrptr=true&hash=item27dd79bf89&item=171219468169&pt=US_Cars_Trucks This has always been my dream car including the color. It's even built just 3 days after I was born. Well, until I become a multimillionaire, I'll have to stick with Ol' Blue. Jim

Cool car and cool color. I've always liked the jade colors. Someday I'd love to have a Jade Black car. For now I've got a Med Winter Blue. Glad to see you haven't thrown on a rear wing. Just not a fan. As for resizing. Just open your image in microsoft paint and there should be a re-size icon in the tool bar. Use the percentage and make sure you have the "Maintain aspect ratio" turned on. Then most importantly, save the file as something new since you don't want to overwrite your original. Jim

I run 15 x 7 Magnum 500's with B.F 235/60's on all 4 corners and have no issues and am happy with the stance/look. Jim

Here's what I went with from M.U. http://www.mustangsunlimited.com/itemdy00.asp?T1=COC3+01&catkey=65-73$srccode=MUEMVWEB I've been pretty happy with them. I couldn't see paying the extra money for the double adjustable. As it is, you get 16 settings to choose from. You can definitely tell the difference between 1, 8 and 16. One nice thing about coil overs too is that when you need to work on your suspension, they make it easy to tear it down since you don't need a spring compressor. I did replace their upper mounting plates with my own so I could attach a home made Monte Carlo bar. Jim

Not trying to start an argument here, but there is nothing "magical" about a rack system other than they are better. Show me what modern car uses a recirculating ball steering box? It sounds like you had a bad rack experience due to a bad design. I have no bump steer in my system since the tie rods are mounted on a plate that locates them perfectly. Besides the superior design of a rack, one more thing to consider is that in my quick count, a rack eliminates 4 joints/pivots (Idler arms and such) that can wear and cause more slop. Jim

I used the TCP 1 inch drop upper mounting coil overs. As far as rack's go, to me it is the single most noticeable improvement that you can make. Steering boxes old or new always have a dead spot and it only will get worse as they wear. The rack I use goes for ~$100 from NAPA. True, I worked with Larry to put my system together, but I would say on the high end I might have spent $800 for my conversion. Yes there is some turning radius loss and although I have some thoughts on how to get rid of it, it really hasn't bothered me after a year of driving the car. Jim

Here are a couple of links of what I did for my suspension. http://www.1969stang.com/mustang/forum/showthread.php?t=12922 http://www.1969stang.com/mustang/forum/showthread.php?t=13559 The main difference between upper and lower arm coil overs is that you can use a lighter spring on a coil over that attaches to the lower arm. This is because they mount further away from the arms pivot or attachment point. The lighter spring will equal a nicer ride. One thing to remember about coil overs that I got fooled by because I didn't think it through is that you CAN NOT adjust your ride height with them. People think that if you adjust the spring perch it will lower the car. It doesn't since all that does is increase the pre-load on the spring. Some day I will switch to the lower arm mounted coil overs. I'd like to make my own so until then, I went with the upper mount. Hope this helps, Jim

Merry Christmas to all. Thanks for all of the help over the past year. Jim

Congrats on the purchase. These cars were my first love as a kid (I am not kidding when I say growing up in the 70's that one of my big fears was that they would all be rusted away before I got to drive.). My first car was a White 66 coupe I6 with a 3 spd stick. I got it before I had my license. I picked up 2 more for $500. One was a 66 I6 with an automatic and the other a 64 1/2 with a 260 auto. I had two more in my car life both 66's with 289 auto's and one was a convertible. All since long gone. Maybe someday I will get another first gen. Have fun and enjoy! Jim

Below is a post that I put on a Chevy Truck forum that I belong to when this idea of condensation came up. "Condensation only occurs when the temperature of a given volume of air drops below that given air's dew point. Heating up an engine is the exact opposite for causing condensation. Any condensation found in an engine was already there and has nothing to do with starting it. Now the reaction of burning gas plus the existing water vapor that is already in air (depending on humidity) can produce condensation in a cool tailpipe due to the cold pipe cooling the exhaust below the exhausts dew point on the surface (Like a cold drink in summer). You also might see water pushed out due to condensation that was already present from weather temperature cycles inside the exhaust system. This goes away fairly quickly when the pipe heats up. Most condensation in an engine is going to happen due to temperature/humidity fluctuations from weather (Again, think of your cool drink) and has nothing to do with starting the engine. Think of your engine as a large cool sink. Daily air temperature can change faster than your engine and if it is severe enough, the temperature on the engines surfaces will be lowered below the dew point for the air resulting in condensation. Last year in upstate NY we had a fluke 50 warm humid day after several below freezing days. I am not exaggerating when I say it looked like it rained in my garage. This is why a garaged car will still rust. Last note on condensation: When was the last time you saw condensation accumulate on the sides of your coffee mug? The best thing you could do when storing your car for the winter is to heat the garage with low humidity air." Jim _________

Bob, I'm surprised with all of the mods you have done that you haven't put a rack in this car. Is it in the plans? Following your thought that anything you do is better than stock, a rack is worlds better than the slop box that came with these cars. Jim

I'm a fan of all four the same. To me, it reduces any chances of things looking awkward. Jim

Hope you all have a safe and happy Thanksgiving. Kick back and take a day to relax and enjoy your life. Also like to say thanks to all of our members in the military. Your sacrifices do not go unnoticed. Stay safe. Jim

I also put in a grant wheel and have had no problems. Jim

Just a thought. You might want to look at just getting another block. Sleeves add unwanted stress to the block and 390's are cheap. I had to get one for a Cougar and I got the whole engine for $100. I brought the heads and intake that I didn't need/want to a scrap yard and got ~$30. So I basically got my block for $70. Check out this link of a guy building 427 by stroking a390. It has lots of good info. http://thefactoryfiveforum.com/showthread.php?1215-Engine-Build-Thread-427ci-FE-Big-Block Jim

Good one. I can't believe I even got that far. Jim

I have Scott drake ones for the hood but not the tail lights. I bought a clicker to slow them down. My only disappointment is with the clicker. I thought it would be more adjustable. I have cranked all the way to the fastest setting and it blinks a little slow. It's acceptable though. Jim

I just happened to be looking at this site today. http://www.smedingperformance.com/ford/427+Cobra+Special+560+Horsepower.html Jim

I made mine from Home Depot materials. I've used if for over 15 years and it's never failed me. Jim

Just a thought outside of the box, but is it possible to take the .250" diametrically off of the hub? If so, if you know someone with a lathe they could machine it down for you. It would open up your wheel options. Jim

Not to sound like an old fart, but I just can't get into the new Mustangs. When they first went with the "retro" look I was interested but there was just something about it that made me not want to go out and get one. Then the Challenger came out and it dawned on me. The new Mustangs just don't look tough. I think it might be that they are too small or something. But compared to a 69 fastback, the new ones look like a toy and each version they keep coming up with just seems to get worse. Just my opinion, Jim

If you use a Monte Carlo bar, make sure it is a straight one and preferably mounts to the shock towers and not the fender aprons. Jim

I finally got the temp gauge to work. After getting one off of e-bay that didn’t work, I went with Larry’s advice and got one from Autozone and it worked. Here is a write up of how I tested the sensors and gauge in case someone else needs to go through this. Things that you will need or really help to understand what is gong on: - Volt meter - 22 Ohm resistors (not 22 kOhms, I made this mistake by not reading closely.) - Wire leads with alligator clips on the ends. (Not mandatory, but they make life a lot easier.) - A way to boil water. (I had a hot plate so I was able to do this in the garage. Always makes the wife happy if I can keep car parts out of the kitchen.) The first thing to rule out is a faulty gauge. This is easily done by pulling the connector off of the sensor and put the connector to ground. Check the gauge in the dash and it should be pegged to the hot side. Mine did this so I knew the gauge worked to that point. The next test for the gauge that will let you know that it is “calibrated†somewhat is to test it again with a resistor between the connector and the ground source. I got these resistors from Radio Shack (Yes, they still sell some electronic components, but nothing like they used too) for about $1.60. Here is a quick diagram of how it should look hooked up. Check your temp gauge again and it should read about half. This lets you know that if you can get your sensor to read ~22Ohms in hot water, it will read on the gauge. I did one more quick sanity check by putting two resistors in series giving me 44 Ohms and checking the gauge again and it didn't move. This means that the gauge range is somewhere between 0-44 Ohms. Next I tested the various sensors that I had. You will need a Volt meter that can read resistance. Put the setting to read Ohms. I got the hot plate out and put some water in a pot. You should hook everything up like this. I took the lead that connected to the threaded end and wrapped it around a screw driver that I had resting on the top of the pot so the sensor would hang in the water without touching the bottom. You want to make sure that it doesn’t touch the bottom since you want the sensor to read the temperature of the water, not the pot or hot plate since they will be hotter than the 212 degrees of the boiling water. I had three sensors to test: - Original one that was on the car. - One I got from e-bay. - One from Autozone. Here were my results: - The original one started at ~400 Ohms and came down to 92.8 Ohms in boiling water. 92.8 is to much resistance for the gauge to move. - The e-bay one bounced around in the milli Ohm range and went to open when put in the boiling water. This suggests that this sensor is only for an idiot light and not a gauge. This by the way is not how they advertised it. - The Autozone one started above 100 Ohms and came down to 32.4 Ohms. So it looked like we had a winner here. So I installed the sensor and ran the car. It's always fun to have another excuse to take the car out for a drive. The sensor worked great. The gauge crept up to about half and then you could tell that the thermostat opened since the gauge settled back down to about a third. Now I can drive with a little more confidence. I know it was a long post, but I figured it might help some people out there. Jim

A power rack system. Hands down the best thing you can do to these cars to make them more fun to drive. Power disc brakes and some front coil overs. These things all keep your car on the side of reliable while improving the driving experience. Plus, they are reversible. Take your old parts and put them in a box in case someone cares down the road. I've looked into the carb fuel injection systems and the reason I can't pull the trigger is that I'm not confident that Holley or whoever can make a reliable electronic system that will run for years. I have put a Petronix ignition in mine, but the good thing there is, everything I took off (Points and such) I put in a baggie that sits in my glove box in case the module blows. I can easily put the points back in and get home. Jim

I just bought another one from Autozone and it showed ~45ohms cold so I was hopeful. I did a quick test buy hooking it up with leads and taking a torch to the sensor and the gauge didn't move at all. The gauge still pegs when grounded. I might have to take Print Dad's advice and get the Motorcraft one. I just have to find a source. Jim