foothilltom

The first generation Mustang was sold in the middle of 1964, hence the 64 1/2. I am pretty certain it was the same car in 1965 but I could be wrong. I think pound for pound, the 65-68 Mustangs command a bit more dough, but it's all personal preference. The 69-70's were heavier, longer, beefier than their pony cousins, but they don't resonate with everyone. Assuming your potential 69 is relatively rust-free (there's always some), you've still got some work cut out for you base on the images alone. But like someone has already said, this is why we do this: for the challenge. Any doofus with money can buy a restored muscle car. Very few can turn that planter into the beauty it was meant to be. Good luck. Tom

The 69's did not offer a 289 so you'd have to go 68 or older to get that motor. Does it still have the 3-speed manual? At least it's a Cali car so it may not be a total rust disaster depending on where it spend most of its days. The pics are visible but pretty tiny. Hard to get a good feel. Are these phone pics? A real camera and closer up. I'd get photos of the interior, inside the engine compartment, trunk, floor pans, etc. I realize this is sitting in a field so expectations are pretty low, but the guys have already mentioned the common rust areas. I'd get pictures of these if you can. Tom

From a cool mustang decoder site: Warranty Number: 9R01F107753 Year: 9 1969 Plant: R San Jose, CA Body Series: 01 2 Door Hardtop Engine: F 302 2v V8 Unit: 107753 107753 Miscellaneous Vehicle Data Body: 65A 2 Door Hardtop, Standard Interior Color: T Candyapple Red Trim: 2D Dark Red Vinyl and Dark Red Kiwi Vinyl, Standard Interior Date: 03K October 03, 1968 D.S.O: 75 Phoenix Axle: 3 2.79:1, Conventional Trans: 1 3-Speed Manual

"Plain Jane" is American-English slang for "ordinary". It makes me wonder who Jane was. I bet she was a sweet gal.

If you wind up buying this car, you'll find this forum to be a fountain (nay, a volcano) of information, tips, and assistance. Aside from the VIN (which it sounds like you have), you really need the door tag codes stamped into a little rectangular tag on the driver's side door. If this car has been repainted, it may be really hard to read but do your best. Write down ALL the codes as they tell the story of your car (body style, motor, original color, interior, transmission, axle ratio, etc.). Post the codes here and someone can decode it for you lickity-split. If you can provide some pictures, even better. Raven has it right on price range, but the real key is rust. You can spend thousands and thousands to get a rust mobile in good shape. Best to start with a healthy car if you have the option. Good luck and keep us posted! Tom

Consider your power supply (battery). If it's not delivering the proper cranking amps, you can get "bad starter" behavior. Do you have a spare battery that is fully charged that you can swap in? You could also try running large-gauge jumper cables to a remote battery but this is less optimal. In short, rule out your battery since it can lead to all kinds of odd behavior.

It really would be interesting to know what tests you've done; especially if you've set your timing correctly. With a problem you've described (poor performance under load?), there are any number of suspects. It's best to rule them out one at a time, starting with the crucial/obvious stuff. I would advise you to not go poking around in your carb until you have "stabilized" the other stuff. The previous poster makes a great point about the Power Valve and it could very well be involved in your performance problem, but it's best to approach that systematically and with proper diagnostics. PVs are rated for a particular level of vacuum and you could introduce more problems if you don't have a good understanding of your engine's vacuum behavior, especially just before it stumbles under load. A "standard" PV may be rated for 7.5" but this may not be what you need at all. There are easy tests you can run when/if you're ready to suspect the carb, but I'd be careful not to jump the gun. Again, if you have time, let us know what you've done and what, if any, impact that had on your engine behavior.

Indeed we are, PaleRider. At least we gave similar advice! Good info about bypassing the Neutral Safety.

Well, at least it's regular :) Your neutral safety switch prevents starting while in Neutral. You could certainly disconnect this switch easy enough. I'm no expert on C4s (or anything for that matter), but this sounds like a linkage issue. If you're up for it, you can disconnect the shifter rods from your shift trunions and (using a small adj wrench) attempt to shift it into park manually. If it goes in, I'd focus on your shifter. I'm currently 3 weeks into a top-loader rebuild so I know just enough to give bad advice. :) Good luck. Tom

They are really easy to get out...just not very easy to see :) A mirror may help, but I recall just having to struggle until I found them. There is one in each arm and a small flat-blade screw driver will make short work of them. Just keep a magnet handy so they don't fly off someplace. Just pry them gently downward and it'll come right out. The wiper arm should lift straight off the hub. Good luck.

Assuming you haven't already finished the project, getting the wiper arms can be tricky as they are held in place by a tiny little metal shim that must be removed first before the arms will pop off from the hub. Good luck!

You can spend your dough any way you want, but an electric fan can leave you stranded should it decide stop running for whatever reason. I don't recall that you've modified your 302, so a stock radiator and shroud (with a clean cooling system properly filled) should keep that baby running cool. You could get away a lot cheaper by investing the $30 in a shroud and see where it leads you. Even if you upgrade your radiator, you'll want a shroud.

Congrats. Way to stay with it. Before you go too nuts chasing around your thermostat, you may want to not trust your temp gauge too literally. They don't tend to work great if they are original. Start a new thread if you want, but it's helpful to know if you're getting boiling coolant out your overflow, is it feeling really hot, etc. Thermostats don't tend to go bad in the "closed" position so I wouldn't suspect that first. Do you have a shroud around your fan, fer instance? Keep us posted.

Just a bunch of those sheet metal bolts hold on the cowl. It should be pretty obvious when you have it loose. No need to mess with any of the window molding.

Dang, if your first challenge was: Challenge #1: Post a picture of your mustang on jack stands I would have had a fighting chance to win. This sounds like a fun idea...I just wish my stang was put back together. Maybe in 3 weeks...

Hi Matt, I think it would be very unusual to remove the vacuum gauge and not hear the engine run much worse, but 16" of vacuum isn't bad at all. I'd definitely get on the timing first and see where it gets you. Avoid shot-gunning solutions. Best of luck! Tom

Congrats. I think you got a lot of car there for $2K. It'll be fun to watch it evolve. Oh, and welcome.

Can somebody clarify this? I wasn't under the impression that an EI module changed the timing specifications for the motor. Matt, for sure you need to SET the timing after the installation of the Pertronix, but when you said "you need more timing", it made me wonder what you meant. I'd set it to 8B unless folks here think otherwise.

That is interesting. This is getting over my head pretty quick now, but it could mean there are some dirty/clogged passages in the idle circuit in your carb. Remove the needle entirely and make sure it isn't broken. If it's a Holley, it should have a pointed end. You could compare it with your other one (but just remember the setting of the good one) and see if they match. I'm sure the other guys will have some advice there.

Hey Stephen, are you following panteramatt's recent thread about stalling? There's tons of good info in there; particularly some stuff about setting your idle-mixture.

You can connect your vacuum gauge at any time, but I usually wait until the motor is fully warmed up and the choke is wide open. When you pull the cap off that T, your engine should run much worse. It's interesting to observe this so you can appreciate how vacuum affects things. You can put your finger over the open port while you're getting the vacuum gauge on there. Once the gauge is attached, the motor should get happy again and a reading should be obvious. You should have a relatively steady reading (an inch or two of fluctuation is OK) at idle. If you don't have a good vacuum reading (18 in or so), you may have a leak and it's best to research that before wasting your time setting the mixture. A tell-tale sign of a vacuum leak is the inability to stall out the motor by dialing the screws all the way in. To answer your question about capping the vac advance...a golf tee works great, but anything that will plug is fine. That port is "in front of the throttle" and pulls little vacuum relatively, but it's good to plug it. Keep us posted. It will be interesting to see how it runs by just setting the timing correctly based on everything you've said. Tom

If you swapped out your old points for a EI module, you have changed your timing and possibly dramatically. Get a timing light, pull the vac adv from the dist, plug it, and get it out of the way of the fan blades. My shop manual says 6B for a 302, but folks generally go more like 8 (or even 10B) if you're reading the advice (I'm not sure you're reading all of mine). Vacuum is still a top suspect here. It's important to rule out a leak and set your idle-mixture and idle to achieve maximum vacuum. To do this, you really need a vacuum gauge and a tach but you can just use your ear in place of a tach. Unplug a port on the manifold (the one to the power booster works) and plug in your vac gauge. Your engine should run noticeably bad with an open vac port. Note the reading on the gauge. It should be about 18" of vacuum give or take depending on your setup. If it's substantially lower than this, you probably have a leak. That needs to be found and corrected before any of the rest of this will matter. Assuming no leak... Turn your idle mixture screws (quarter turns at a time on both sides is good) while noting the change in the vac reading. Continue adjusting until you get the highest vac reading. Then simply set the idle screw until you have a good 800rpms or so. Keep in mind that your engine's behavior is an interplay of many variables. When you change one thing, you need to go back and check/change other things. I would set your timing first considering your EI swap, but your timing will change if you have a vac leak, so it's kind of a circular path. Be ready to double-check everything when you change something else. Good luck.

Hey, I'm in NorCal (Sac area) and I have a pretty good feel for the prices on this grandes. I tend to work backwards: you see pretty dang nice drivers (8 out of 10 all the way around) for about $7000-9000. You just don't get the big values from coupes and grandes. Assuming this car is electrically sound, mechanically strong, has all the interior (should have the deluxe door panels but I didn't see them in the picture), then you're mostly just looking at body work, paint, and assembly of stuff. Obviously you can go crazy here, but this looks like about $3000 to get it ship-shape in my opinion. Which means I wouldn't pay more than $4K. p.s is the dashpad in good shape? That cover had me suspicious.

Are you talking about the idle-mixture screw (one on either side of the primaries) or the spring-loaded idle screw or something else? When you say it's running rich, what do you mean? Fast idle? That could be a result of improper idle-mixture, choke related, or a vacuum leak to name 3 possibilities. Perhaps you could describe the behavior at idle, the behavior at constant throttle, and the behavior during acceleration to focus us on the problem. It's hard to know what you mean by "run a little better". They are all pretty different systems depending on the answer. FWIW, messing with the idle-mixture screws can definitely impact idle. If you only messed one up, take a small screw-driver to the screw on the opposite side (the one you didn't bump) and carefully count how many turns it takes to seat that screw (be precise). Back that screw out to the same position it was, then do that same thing with the mal-adjusted one. In short, they should both be set the same. Make sense? More info would be helpful. Tom

Your idle-mixture screw settings will have nothing to do with how your car behaves with an open throttle. Think of that as a totally separate fuel delivery system that is only relevant with a closed throttle. I would get back to equilibrium before I do anything else by turning both idle-mixture screws all the way in, turning them back out 1.5 turns and leaving them be (for now). Set you idle screw to proper idle (800 rpms or so). Then tackle the real problem of stalling with an open throttle. Start by telling us what else your pal did. Any changed gaskets? Did he take the carb off? New spacer? Did he disconnect or reroute any hoses? Did he remove a vacuum cap and forget to replace it? Vacuum leaks can cause all kinds of funky behavior including stalling. Did he change the timing? Make sure you're at 6-8B with the vac advanced removed. Did he adjust the floats or needle seats? You could be running super lean and ouila, stalled. Did he adjust the accelerator pump? If that's not giving you a positive squirt on initial throttle, you'd stall. Again, tell us exactly what changed and we'll be more helpful. Tom