Jimjific

Well the issues continue. Here is an image of the sensor that was currently on the engine. Here's the one I bought from e-bay with discription: 1969-1973 Mustang Water Temperature Sending Unit WITHOUT TACHIOMETER That is their spelling of tachometer not mine. They say in the add that it is a Scott Drake unit. Well anyway, it didn't work. I had a feeling it wouldn't since it looks different and the threaded tip is smaller too. I had to pinch the connector that pushed on to it. I'm not sure why this is such a pain in the you know what. It's not like ford didn't make millions of 302 motors. Jim

Thanks for the advice. Unfortunately, I read it this morning and last night I ordered a cheap one. If it doesn't work, I will get the Motor craft one. Last night when I was doing some research on it, I found a message board that was discussing it and it said that when the engine is hot, the sensor should read ~25ohms and a way to test this is to get a 25ohm resistor and see if your gauge goes to the middle. I didn't have one on hand but I figured I'd see where I was at with the sending unit. I had driven the car earlier so it wasn't completely cold and the sensoe read ~100ohms. I started the car and let it run and get hot and the sensor only went down to ~65ohms. So it moved but just not enough. Jim

Need some help on this one. - The temp gauge has never read since I've owned the car. - I have tested the gauge by shorting out the connector and the gauge pegs to hot and then goes back when the connector is "open". - I took out the temp sensor and hocked an ohm meter to it and the value changes when I put a torch to the bottom of the sensor. I tried another sensor that I found on a spare manifold. I have no idea what it is off of. It was quite different though (It had two connections and it went deeper into the manifold). This one pegged the temp gauge when I wired it to the the one terminal that responded to heat. So I took that on out. and put the original back in. Any ideas of why this sensor would respond to heat yet not work? Thanks, Jim

I converted to factory disc and installed a rack. I couldn't be happier the way the car drives with the old power steering gone. I put all of the original stuff in a storage box and it still leaks and handles like crap. Jim

Here's another image that shows the arm engaging the lever that actuates the rod. As you can see, any notch in that arm will cause slop. Jim

Here is a better image from a handle I found on e-bay. You can start to see the notch starting to develop on this part in the arm that points upward. Mine was more severe than this thus it caused play in the opening of the door. Ford used crappy metal on this part and the softer metal will lose after years of use.

I recently went through this on a standard interior. I put on new door panels and armrests and my drivers side wouldn't open from the inside. The new armrest wouldn't let the handle pull far enough. I couldn't find any adjustments. What I did find out was that there was slot in the linkage. When I would pull the handle, I could see that the linkage didn't move at the beginning of the pull. I took the handle off the door, which is easy to do and I noticed that the arm on the handle (the highlighted area in the image below) had a notch worn into it. They are only pot metal so you can't weld material back on but you can JB weld in the gap or buy new ones. This of coarse assumes you have the notch. Jim

Yea, I applaud the effort but I always get annoyed that anything built today that seems cool is always priced so only a few can actually get them i.e. viper, vette or prowler. I will never understand why car companies don't realize that the reason Ford sold 2 million Mustangs by mid 68 was because they were cool and priced for the common man. I agree about the ends of the car although the tail end didn't bother me as much as the front. Jim

I'm not sure if this has made the rounds yet. Looks a lot like something we drive. http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2013/09/26/new-american-muscle-car-company-launches-retro-modern-coupe/ Too bad they are making out of the price range of the many. Jim

I finally am getting around to show some progress of doing some interior upgrades. List of things I wanted to do: - Sound deadening. - New door panels. - New Radio and stock style door speakers and grills. - New package tray and speakers. - Fix instrument cluster light issue, upgrade to LED's. - New sill plates and use original type screws. - Fix drivers side window guide. - I added power brakes while I had everything out. - Finish reupholster for back seat. Here are a couple of images of the gutted interior. Floors were already done by a previous owner. I had a couple of weird issues by the rear shock access areas. Here on was cracked. Here is a puncture. I'm not sure how this happened. I welded both areas. For the sound deadening I took the advice on this site and did the cheap method of using Material that you can get from Lowe's. I had extra Ice and water material from a roof repair I did. This stuff is so awesome. I call it duct tape for houses. Super sticky and it works into the contours well. I forgot to take more pictures so I don't have the whole process captured. I put it on the floor, rear wheel wells rear quarters and door skins. Here's a shot of it on the floor. Zooming ahead, Here is a shot of the back after I got the next layer of sound deadening done and started reinstalling the interior. The material was from Lowe's and cost about $20 dollars. I cut the pieces out and fitted them then used spray adhesive on both contacts surfaces. I also used duct tape to help hold the seams. This material was surprisingly easy to use and form. all in all, if you were to do this yourself, it would cost about $90. After everything was done, I am pretty happy with the results. The car does seem to have a more solid feel, but some of this might be psychosomatic since it's really hard to quantify the true results. This is why I didn't want to spend a ton on this. Next Post, I will go over the other stuff. Jim

I used 10" tubes from speedway. I have had no problems. I also used a modified clevis that I put on the lathe to clean it up. If I ever get off my ass and get my mill running (Need to buy a three phase converter) I will make my own clevis/washer part. I posted a short video on my gallery page that shows me moving the left lower arm up and down with the sway bar connected to both arms. You can see the right arm moves with it. I was trying to demonstrate how the jointed strut frees up the suspension. Here's a link that should work if you are interested. It's a little dark, but it shows the concept. http://www.1969stang.com/gallery/Suspension?page=4 Jim

Remember, that every time you brake you can think of the wheel coming to a complete stop and the car wanting to still go forward. This means that when you brake, the wheels want to go towards the aft end (rear) of the car. The only thing stopping the front wheels from doing this is the upper control arm mounting and the strut rod. So the strut rods end up in tension. acceleration is also a tension situation too (although a lot less) since the front wheels aren't powered so they want to lag behind. The original design attached to the lower arm in two spots that spread the load across the arm and add stiffness. I can pretty much guarantee that only attaching to one side of the arm you will twist the lower arm during hard braking. The upper arm will be stiff and the lower arm will want to rotate around the ball joint. We haven't even gotten into the fact that the heim joint not being captive. If that swivel end ever pops off of the ball, game over. Remember too, that heim joints are only good for a certain angle and your suspension travel might exceed that angle. I would NOT use this. Cut your old one and thread the end. Put a chamfer on the transition to the smaller diameter to reduce stress concentrators. Jim

I guess the issue is when people use silicone that has an acid in the curing process. It looks like automotive silicone's don't have this. Here's a link I found with a little discussion on it. http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/showthread.php?t=556208 Jim

I recently read some bad stuff about using silicone to seal sheet metal. Collects water and will rust it out. I wish I could find the link. I would use something else. Jim

I am running the "J" car rack. I got my brackets and spare parts from Larry on this site. There is quite a bit of miss-information going on regards to this rack set-up. So hopefully I can shed some light from someone who is actually using this rack. One, I went through the Randalls rack and it was a disaster for a couple of reasons. The Randalls rack uses a MODIFIED "J" car rack and is NOT EXACTLY THE SAME. He does not use the rack as it was originally designed since he puts the rack in front of the steering linkage which means you have to flip the center link to face backwards. So, it you have an issue, you can't just go to NAPA and get a new one, you are subject to dealing with him and in my experience, that wasn't pleasant. Randalls rack set up also removes the lower cross member tube and is replaced by his bracket. Two, I have zero issues with return to center. Three, there is a loss of turning radius. This is the only down side of this conversion. It is minor though and doesn't really bother me. I will address this eventually when I have time though. Four, cost. True enough, the Randalls rack solution is unnecessarily expensive. Although I didn't buy a complete kit from Larry, I couldn't see this costing me more than $1000. As it is, I probably did it for about $700. Kris, I agree with you that I would just get one from NAPA vs. a junk yard. Mine cost ~$100 and it came with new bushings. Larry supplied me with nice new tie rods and threaded tubes that you can get out of a Speedway catalog. Here are a couple of links to posts I did for my suspension. This one is the start of my steering mods. http://www.1969stang.com/mustang/forum/showthread.php?t=12922 This one goes over the rack install. http://www.1969stang.com/mustang/forum/showthread.php?t=13559 As for why a rack? Well, if we are honest, the original design plain sucks. I've never had the power steering ram setup with it's endless hoses not leak. Ask yourself, how many modern cars are copying a 1969 Mustang steering system today? there are plenty of improvements that can be made on these suspensions. I started with solid mount jointed strut rods. I understand if you have a perfectly restored car you would want the old setup. My car is a plain Jane fastback and I wanted to make it handle the best I could. Plus, all of this is just bolt on stuff and I have all the original steering in a box. All I can say is, I drove in this morning and taking on ramps and corners sure is a lot of fun. Like I said in the post, I went from the worst handling Mustang that I've ever owned to the best. Jim

Just checked e-bay. One guy has it for $40 and another for $60 plus $13 shipping, ouch! I think I will just keep a flashlight in the glove box. Jim

I have a master cylinder for a MANUAL DISC brakes that I bought new from Mustangs Unlimited that I replaced since I moved up to power disc. It only has a few hundred miles of use and the typical light surface rust from being bare cast iron. There was nothing wrong with it when I took it out. I'd rather it get used than sit on the floor. Jim

Thanks for the reply. I had a feeling it was an ashtray light. Does anyone know where you can get a glove box light? Jim

Hello All, I've almost got the Mustang all buttoned up after doing a bunch of fixes/upgrades to the interior for the last couple of months. It always takes longer than planned does it not? Well I at least can drive it now. The onlt thing left is re-cover the back seat, install the console and figure out some wiring by the glove box. While I had the lower dash apart I came across this light with pig tail and I can't figure out where it goes. I figure it is either a light for the glove box or the ash tray. My car originally didn't come with a console. The wire looks to be blue with a red stripe. I couldn't find any ash tray light on the schematics and it if it is the glove box light, it doesn't make sense since the switch, which I have, goes to ground when the glove box door is opened and what is the pig tail for? So, does anyone know what it is? Thanks, Jim

HF Press here also. This is a mandatory tool to have. It has bailed me out many times. The hardest part is reminding myself I have it after I struggle pounding on something for an hour. Jim

Danno, Success!!!!! So I went to work on the car and figured I'd do something I knew I could get done to get some positive vibs. So I got the inside quarter panels back in. With that done, I switched to looking at the dash lights again. I re-read your last post and said to myself, I will look at the clock wire. I previosly hadn't looked at it since I don't have a clock. Well wouldn't you know, the previous owner had the glove box light switch plugged into it. I unplugged it and checked to see if the down stream fuse terminal rang to ground and it didn't! So I plugged it back in and did the same check and it rang to ground. So that was shorting out the circuit. I put a new fuse in and plugged the headlight switch in and no blown fuze. I just plugged the instrument panel in and it all works. Victory feels good. Thanks for everyone's thoughts on this. I am a way more mechanical guy than electrical guy. Jim

Danno, Yes the instrument cluster is disconnected as well as everything else that I can tell from the schematic. Jim

My car is has AC so I must have gotten the wrong one. I wonder if I can just use the one to do the heat and cut the other off. Thanks, Jim

My car came to me with the heater cable missing so I bought one from Mustangs Unlimited. It came with two cables connected with a molded "H" piece of plastic. But I only see one control on the heater assembly. Does anyone know what the other cable is for? Am I supposed to cut it off? Thanks, Jim

The frustration continues... - I've isolated the wire that supplies power from the switch to the fuse block and all seems good there. Pulled the light switch out. - I've also tested the gauge cluster lights using the battery and there is nothing wrong with the flex circuit. - So I put a new fuse in (With the gauge cluster removed as well as the heater light and I have no clock) - As soon as I turn the light switch all of the way to max, the fuse blows. I Had another switch and tried that one and got the same results. - I assume my issue is between the down stream fuse terminal and the wiring that feeds to the gauge connector. - One weird thing I can't understand is with the fuse block pulled from the fire wall I checked continuity between the down stream fuse terminal and the contacts on the back side of the fuse block and it rang out when I touched the 12V main source pin. I'm getting really tired of spending what little time I have on this. I am getting nowhere on the car so it just sits. I'm getting to the point of cutting out the instrument lighting wiring circuit and making my own. Jim