Vicfreg

We had a brief chat on one of the project forums about a trunk picture, and one of the members mentioned the "trunk monkey" So, for those of you who have not ever checked this out, probably the funniest set of car commercials ever. Rated "G". Enjoy

We had a brief chat on one of the project forums about a trunk picture, and one of the members mentioned the "trunk monkey" So, for those of you who have not ever checked this out, probably the funniest set of car commercials ever. Rated "G". Enjoy

Dude, what great pictures of the kids in the trunk. That is really priceless. Also, the first time start video is awesome!. I am surprised you all did not break out some of that great local Jester King beer to celebrate! I am actually going to be restoring a 1966 Mustang for my daughter (joint project) who is now in her 30's, because of a picture I took of her on the hood of the 1966 GT I owned when she was a child. I am sure your children will always remember these times with Dad in the garage with the Mustang. I will find the picture and post it. I noted Ridge's comment about the trunk monkeys. That is a very clever reference to what is probably the greatest set of car commercials ever. I will post a link on the "garage" forum of this site, as I don't want to post that on TexasEd's site.

Ok, I will have to ask....why do you want to be able to remove the fuse block? I really like the connectors...great find!

Hey Mike, making great progress! Some ideas from my experience: - You may not need some of the wires you have pulled through the firewall. For instance, the twisted pair purple and yellow wires are for an aftermarket VSS (Vehicle Speed Sensor). If you are retaining your stock speedometer, you don't need these. Same if you are using a single wire alternator. One of the brown wires is for the old style voltage regulator.

John, I would also appreciate any pics of your convertible during your restoration, or if you have a project site on the forum, let me know and I will follow it. Mine is on this site... "1970 Convertible"... There are so few convertibles out there, look forward to sharing ideas, progress, lessons learned, etc.. Regards, Vic

Hi John. I've had this book for probably 20 years, and I went back through it one day and realized how much information it had that was useful. Lots of information. Highly recommend it for the data, facts, and figures.

Mike, good advice. Any large plugs connectors need to go in first followed by the wiring. You are making great progress. I am posting my wiring progress on my project site.

Oh, I forgot to include the heavy duty suspension charts. Interesting that 1969 1970 are so different

Hi John, based on the information I have, You’re Moog choice looks good from the load rating perspective. You should check to see what the free length of the spring is however. The application chart I’ve included shows your correct spring is a 4F, with a load rating of 1580 pounds, and a free length of 16 1/8 inches And example of where the load rating could be the same, but the spring is different, it’s with the 4S spring. This spring was used for the heavy duty suspension, has the same load rating, but the free length is different at 15 inches. It also has fewer coils which makes sense. What this results in is a car that’s approximately 1 inch lower than stock. This is what I have done on my car because that’s the look I want, and that’s what came on the high-performance cars. It may not be what you want so just make sure you have the right free length of spring in conjunction with your load rating requirement. Also matched this up with your rear springs so the car sits level. Hope this helps

Hi John, if you wait five minutes I’m actually looking at my reference material send you the original ford specs then you can decide

Oh, some of the wires coming from the F and G connectors in this picture have been modified from the stock AAW configuration. I will explain that in the next post. For instance, there are purple and yellow wires used for a speed sensor, that are wired out in the AAW harness. As I am using the VHX speed sensor, which has it's own harness, I have repurposed the yellow and purple wires for other stuff that the VHX box needs.

Continued on with my wiring stuff, this weekend concentrating on the interface with my Dakota Digital VHX box. I had tabulated all of the wiring that needed to go to the box, so now I was searching for the source from my AAW harness. To avoid lots of extra wiring, I am trying to maximize use of the existing harness and connectors that AAW supplies. First pic shows the AAW "F" and "G" connectors wired out directly to my VHX box. If you are using the stock dash, these connectors go to a special dash connector supplied with the AAW dash package that connects to the original circuit board. Or, if you have a custom dash (like Mustangs to Fear), then you can wire that out directly, following the AAW instructions. The small connector with the 2 blue wires is one I made, it is use for the "Switch 1" and "Switch 2" functions in the VHX system. These are used for toggling through the dash display and calibration functions. I think I am going to put these in my console, but for now, have a new connector ready to hook them up. Second pic is apparently the proper way to route my convertible top motor wiring from the passenger side rear window factory hole/grommet, to the motor in the trunk.

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Go look at the NPD catalog. They use the old Detroit Spring (Eaton) for their springs. They have the original prints, and use original style materials. There is a pretty good list in their catalog on the variety of options available for the front springs. I have also used the aftermarket Grab-A-Track spring package on earlier generation Mustangs with good results. I have a '70 Convertible that had original factory air and a 302, so in my pile of stuff, I have a detailed breakdown somewhere in my reference material on the exact spring used for your car.

I have a Pertronix III plug and play distributor on my 351 Windsor with a small cap and it is pretty much the same size as stock. I have a "blue plug" Duraspark on my roller cam 5.0 in my '68, sourced from a 1985 Mustang GT, with a huge air cleaner. No clearance issues there. Found a pic of a 351W with Duraspark on line. Tight fit.

I go with the Shake and Bake.... no louvers....

So, after fussing with this for a day or so, my conclusion is that to start with, it is advantageous to have the lower dash out. In my case, my car was stripped so it was a no brainer to start the wiring. This allows easy access to the firewall holes that you need to route the wiring through. However, at some point you need to put the lower dash in, as that is where the wiring harness needs to go eventually. So, I put my pedal support bracket in, and laid the AAW harness on it, keeping all of the circuit branches up to, and including the headlight switch to the left of the pedal support bracket. The rest of the harness is now laying to the right. What I will do next is to get my wiring organized so that I can route the forward wiring items (engine bay, horns, headlights, etc) through the firewall and in my case, the fenderwell. Then, install my Vintage Air vent ducts, my VHX interface box & wiring, seal the remaining firewall holes and install my lower dash. Then hook up what I can and secure the wiring to the dash. The "Osborne" orange book has several really good drawings of what the factory wiring looks like. I chatted with AAW about this, and they tell me that for the 1969/1970s, they have tried to follow the original factory wiring layout as best they can. First pic is the orange book drawing, second pic is the harness laying on the pedal support bracket. Last pic is a reminder that the 1969 and 1970 lower dash/steering column brackets are not the same, although at first glance they appear the same. I had both in my parts stash, and quickly found out that I had grabbed the wrong one. The one on the right is the 1970 bracket.

So, after fussing with this for a day or so, my conclusion is that to start with, it is advantageous to have the lower dash out. In my case, my car was stripped so it was a no brainer to start the wiring. This allows easy access to the firewall holes that you need to route the wiring through. However, at some point you need to put the lower dash in, as that is where the wiring harness needs to go eventually. So, I put my pedal support bracket in, and laid the AAW harness on it, keeping all of the circuit branches up to, and including the headlight switch to the left of the pedal support bracket. The rest of the harness is now laying to the right. What I will do next is to get my wiring organized so that I can route the forward wiring items (engine bay, horns, headlights, etc) through the firewall and in my case, the fenderwell. Then, install my Vintage Air vent ducts, my VHX interface box & wiring, seal the remaining firewall holes and install my lower dash. Then hook up what I can and secure the wiring to the dash. The "Osborne" orange book has several really good drawings of what the factory wiring looks like. I chatted with AAW about this, and they tell me that for the 1969/1970s, they have tried to follow the original factory wiring layout as best they can. First pic is the orange book drawing, second pic is the harness laying on the pedal support bracket. Last pic is a reminder that the 1969 and 1970 lower dash/steering column brackets are not the same, although at first glance they appear the same. I had both in my parts stash, and quickly found out that I had grabbed the wrong one. The one on the right is the 1970 bracket.

Here’s a close-up of my harness wrapping

I think that’s a great idea. What I’m gonna do since my dash is out is run it right above the brake pedal support bracket behind that black U-shaped thing ....

Mike, I kept the zip ties on until I got to them, and then removed and continued wrapping. Where there was a transition to one of the circuit "branches", then I left them on, kinda wrapped around them, and then cut the zip tie off, and back wrapped over where it was. I also wound up taking my harness back out to do this, and did it on a work table. Made it a lot easier. There are a lot of opinions on what kind of tape to use. I used Scotch 33. I would suggest finding the best tape you can, and using that. The downside of Scotch 33 is that if you have to take the tape off, it leaves a residue. But, that is a trade off I was willing to deal with. I also did not wrap any of the circuit branches that had "extended" wiring, like the stuff that runs to the engine compartment, or to the front or rear lights. This way I can snake the wires through where I want to route them (like the side cowl to door channel wiring). I did wrap the under-dash stuff so it would be neat and out of the way. Another recommendation is that there are wires you will not be using. So, now is the time to cut and cap them off under the dash...no need to wrap them and route them. Examples for my car would be the hood mounted turn signals,, old style distributor trigger wire, washer pump, etc. In some cases I re-used the wire for another purpose. An example is I used the 3rd brake light wire, which runs from the dash to the trunk, for my power amp "turn-on" signal, from my head unit in the dash, to the power amp in the trunk. I re-used the connector spot under the dash so the wiring would be neat. I will post how I did that on my forum soon. I also think the wiring harness needs to come "out" toward the steering wheel, and then route back to the firewall after it leaves the fuse box. This is because the first couple circuit branches have items like the headlight switch, wiper switch, ignition, etc, and all those are on the left side of the dash. I will be fussing with that later today, so hopefully will get pictures posted late weekend.

Cav....If you send me a PM, I will send you my phone number. You can give me a call, I’ve been over every inch of the harness and know where every single wire goes, I will send you my spreadsheet print out if you want and that will help you track the to and from maybe for your car

I have both style columns, and the connectors are the same. For 1970, obviously the ignition switch is mounted on the column. So AAW provides an adapter harness to fit the 1970 column. For the steering columns, the tilt does have a different turn signal switch assembly than the standard column.

Cav... my car was already disassembled so it was a no-brainer for me. I would say if you can remove the dash it’ll make things a lot easier