RPM

It needs a spam post somewhere inconspicuously located...*G*

Nobody wears white T-Shirts, you would sell more if they were black.

Oh the memories! Plenty of towels, gloves and clothing gets trashed after that. Is that house home in the background and your shop is detached? Cool neighborhood!

Bought this M code 351W, 4bbl, FMX, San Jose built Mach I daily driver in 1989 for $2,500. It had rust thru on both lower rear quarters. Put in 2 lower 1/4 panels and did a $2,000 paint job.
Drove it little over the next few years till it jumped into reverse one day while warming it up without the parking brake on. Ran over a concrete mixer, and stopped at an 8"x 8" gate post. Gate post won. Did the rear panel repair, farmed out the 1/4 repair and paint. Drove it little after that mainly because of a leaky and slipping FMX. In 1996 I stripped the car down to a shell, had it soda blasted, and took it to the body shop for body work and Porshe Indian red paint.
Bored the block .030 over and stroked it with a Scat 3.85 stroke crank. AFR 185 heads, and a Stealth intake up top. Located a C5 trans to swap for the lite weight FMX. A 9 inch with 3.50 gears and traction lok bring up the rear. 13" 02 Cobra disc up front, and 84 El Dorado 10" disc in rear. Making tube front and rear control arms for coil overs.
Built a 900 sq ft shop/pool room addition for the stang. Met a gal in 02, got married, did nothing on the car, just got divorced. Bout ready to get going on it again. Got the bug.

Dang, am I the only one here with a small block? Welcome to the forum Bill, your new Mach 1 looks pristine in the photo. Congrats and welcome to the club, Mustang club that is.

Jeff brings up a good point.  The retailers in the name of efficiency seem to be going the generic route as in one size fits all   When i got the, M1929, MC from NAPA I think it was a $5.00 core charge.  I just kept my original and compared the two before leaving the store.  I got my replacement Bendix 6954 booster replacement on line, no core charge, and still have the original FORD Midland service replacement.  They live together in the garage.  They don't eat much and don't fight.  
     Mach 1;  I did not notice any size difference, front to back, between the two boosters.  Maybe 1/4 " clear after install at the shock tower and MC for both models.  Did not loosen the booster but did install the MC with an approach that was at an angle.  Tight but went together just fine.  I suggest you try to get a correct MC.  You never know how many times you may have to re-visit this area.  Brian

Elongating the slotted holes on the hinges sounds sound like the All-American way to solve the problem.  See the problem make the fix and move on.  Brian

Prayers, I've been looking at welders too and don't usually find good things to say about Eastwood:
This from The Garage Journal, Re: Eastwood MIG Welder 135 Amp Item #12011 I bought an Eastwood with the idea of "Teaching myself how to weld" I wasn't at all happy with it. It wasn't this exact model, it was a 220 Volt machine. The build quality wasn't great and performance was pretty poor. Erratic wire feed speed, ground clamp was pretty week and the gun just felt pretty cheap in my hand.

What I thought was just my inability to weld and inexperience was proven wrong when a good friend who is an experienced welder broke a bracket on his utility trailer while at my house and he attempted to use my welder to fix it. He had a hard time just geting a quality weld with it.

I will say that Eastwoods "No Hassle" return policy was exactly that. They took it back with me only saying I didn't like it. 

I bought a Miller 190 and found out that you do actually get what you pay for. If you can wait until you can afford to spend more I would strongly suggest waiting and buying a higher quality welder.     Many people rate these as best: Miller, Lincoln, ESAB, Hobart (and from the price its easy to say you get what you pay for).

Hopefully just thinking about your car can give your mind some ease from your Dad's condition. You can always spend time with your car. Enjoy the time with your Dad. But you already knew this. Best wishes to your family.

Hey, I finally agree with Barnett :)

A cleveland is not "much better" than a built windsor. it depends on how both engines are built.

A vacuum pump https://m.summitracing.com/parts/sum-760152
 
Or you can just convert to manual disc's as I'm doing.

It's too late now...might as well add in some ice cream to even things out.  Ask me how I know...

You will be happy to know we all took turns driving your car while you were gone ,just to keep it up .And ...i didn't make that dent ...that was RPM .

Dang, am I the only one here with a small block? Welcome to the forum Bill, your new Mach 1 looks pristine in the photo. Congrats and welcome to the club, Mustang club that is.

Measure the pilot hole depth in the crank, then go measure the Pilot Hub length on the converter.
If the hole in crank is not at least .010-.015 deeper than the length of the converter pilot hub I wouldn't run that converter personally.
The stock converters for AOD/AODE/4R70W usually all have short studs on them instead of bolt holes.
 
When you think you have the converter seated all the way in the transmission you should not be able to stick your hand into the area between the converter and bell housing at the top, that is ONE Indication you got it all the way in.
Now take a straight edge and lay across the bell housing and measure from the mounting pads on the converter to the bottom of straight edge...for an AOD it should be 1" or a little more. AODE 1.030" but distances can vary up to .050 plus or minus and you are good.
If you do indeed have it seated, go ahead and install trans and converter on to the motor being sure the trans is seated all the way before tightening up the bolts, don't use the bolts to pull the trans up.
If your converter has studs be sure they are lined up with the holes in the flex plate because they may or may not go into the holes.
Now once its bolted up be sure the converter is seated into the trans still by rotating and pushing it backwards as long as the studs didn't go into the bolt holes. If they did go in slightly that is okay.
Now get a set of feeler gauges and measure the distance between the flex-plate and the mounting pads on converter.
If the Gap is between .060-.185 your good to slide converter forward and bolt the converter up.
If however the converter mounting pads are already in contact with the flex plate, your converter is either slid out and not seated OR you will need another converter....
You should always have some converter pull out...
The converter exerts a forward pushing FORCE on the rear of the crank, and I am not talking about converter ballooning either, its got something to do with hydraulic pressure created by the trans and transferred into the converter that pushes it out, and that is where the flex plate is supposed to absorb some of it and FLEX, hence the name Flex plate.
Now if you have no pull out on the converter you have eliminated the air gap and effectively removed a large margin of the flex plates Flex thus pushing it past what it is designed to handle and THAT is when it gets transferred into pushing on the thrust bearing to excessive amounts.
 
So you see it could be Several factors that can cause Thrust failure.
1. converter not seated.
2. Converter Pilot hub bottoming out in crank pilot
3. No pull out on the converter.
 
Essentially if the hole in crank isn't deep enough and you bolt it up its already a no win situation.
The hole should be deeper and there should be converter pull out because as the flex plate flexes forward, the converter pilot hub moves forward, and if it bottoms out in the pilot hole before the flex plate can do its job, you just killed a thrust bearing.... Now Ask me how I know all this wonderful information LOL

Years ago I had a 3 speed manual car, and did the swap to a toploader 4 speed. It was very straight forward, and made the car much more fun to drive. Not sure that originality is of huge value when it comes to base transmissions, but if I owned your car, I would take this opportunity to upgrade to a 4 speed. Most parts will interchange.

There's no time like the present. Sounds like you want to do it but just need a little reinforcement :)

It just goes to show you can't trust what most people say. Finding an honest seller is harder all the time.

Even new these cars weren't build to handle 500 hp.  The 428 CJ's with North of 300 hp, probably around 400 hp, got the extra shock tower wraps.  FWIW Brian 

I'm not afraid to take it above 100mph......conditions permitting. Most times I'm coming off expressway on ramps @85+
:)
Drive them like you stole them......but not all the time.

I say we infect them with Zika!  Turnaround is fair play...

And to think the people who built that car and drove it all those years had no idea it was destined for such a glorious rebirth. 

yes, but I prefer this version instead
 

Based on where you got it from it is likly correct, however to check it you will have to remove it and measure the piston bore.
 
Be sure that the calipers are on the correct sides so you can bleed all the air out, I have made the mistake before.
 
What is new or verified in your system? Brake hoses? Hard lines? Dist block?
Anything that has some sort of blockage or restriction can be the cause.
 
I'm assuming your pads are good? What kind of pads? I put ceramics on the truck and hated them. I had to push a lot harder and it still felt like it was not going to stop. I swapped them for semi metallics and the brakes went back to like they were originally
 
Bob