69 Mustang in my future

kombi1976 · February 23, 2009, 10:33:21 PM

The 'ole "screw in the fuse holder" trick.
It works for a little while......just until the circuitry overloads and causes a fire somewhere!

recoil junky · February 24, 2009, 05:08:21 PM

Yeah, there was also another fuse that was wrapped in tin foil, but there was no damage there. Every wire in the part of the loom from the fuse panel to the junction where the trouble ended (about 3 ft) was damaged. I have quite a soldering job ahead of me.

I'll have to bring the micro torch home from work and spend a good 4-5 hours cutting, soldering and heat shrinking wires. It's enough to make a sow eat her pigs. :hanged:Then, I'll have to find out the cause and reason for the screw. I'll get a 5 amp auto-reset breaker to throw in that circuit until I find the cause of the short. Hopefully it will be in an easy place to get to and repair. I'm really glad I put in a battery disconect switch!!!

RJ

recoil junky · March 24, 2009, 12:30:12 AM

The wiring is all done, finally!!!!!!!!!!!!! All I have to do now is mount the new fuse panel and put new bulbs in the dash. I'm going to replace them all so I don't have to take it put again for a long long long time. I spent $650 at Mustangs Unlimited. today. I bit the bullet and got a new dash pad. I was going to recover the old one but decided it would look tacky. Also picked up some door panel clips AND a new 240 watt AM/FM radio that is ipod compatible. Should go really well with the Rockford Fosgate 6X9's that I already have

I tried to get tires today at the local tire shop and Tim said the sizes I was looking for were very hard to come by and my best bet would be to go online and do some shopping. He could have ordered some, but beings as how he's are not a BF Goodrich dealer it would have ended up costing me another $100 for him to get them in for me. I was very lucky and did manage to find some that are the same size as what's on it now and they are both BF Goodrich. The tread pattern isn't the same but it's so close it's scary. Finding 14" tires for a muscle car is not easy let me tell ya!!! Tim said what ever I came up with he'd be happy to mount for me. He was a big help in giving me ideas on where to find tires and after a bit of shopping I found a smokin' deal at tirerack.com. All four tires came to $380 with shipping.

I'm going to "use up" the old rear tires before I get the new rears put on, if'n you know what I mean. The fronts I'll get put on right away. Now I'll have to get another can of Mother's aluminum polish for the wheels.

There's still a lot of things I want to do to the car but right now it's about getting it ready so PFC RJ Jr can drive it when he gets home in 2-3 weeks. :D

RJ

kombi1976 · March 24, 2009, 06:43:36 AM

I saw some here in town for that sort of car.
Oh, wait......the postage would kill you!
R14 tyres in general are difficult to get.
My '77 VW Bus had R14s and all we could get was light truck tyres a lot of the time.
They don't allow for great handling, I can tell you.

recoil junky · March 24, 2009, 09:54:57 AM

Yeah, there's always a catch. Freight is going to be $60 as it is. Getting them from OZ might be bit more than that :D.

RJ

JaDub · March 26, 2009, 09:40:17 AM

Gotta love the screw!!!!!!! That takes the cake. Be very afraid of the previous mentality..... er, gene pool. 8-)

recoil junky · March 26, 2009, 11:55:30 PM

Well, I've not had a chance to work on the old girl all week. Twelve hour days at work replacing the engine in one of our field lube trucks has put a damper on a lot of projects, mostly the Mustang.

As for being a mechanic for a living and then coming home to work on the Mustang? All I can say is it's good therapy and a lot cleaner.

RJ

recoil junky · March 30, 2009, 06:28:26 PM

Well after an eight hour day that was a typical Monday, I managed to sneak out of work at 15:00 and got home in time to do a bit of work to the old girl. Here's a pic of the old nasty burt up wiring.

Here's the "new" loom installed after repairs.

Here's the new fuse panel.

It's not OEM but it was way cheaper doing it this way than buying a whole new wiring harness that may or amy not have been right anyway. It seems there are three serial number breaks and I didn't want to take a chance on getting the wrong one and not be able to return it. I even left a couple extra holes to put fuses in for something else later down the raod. way I won't have to splice into a wire and make another connection. One is hot all the time and the other comes is hot when the key is on.

Looking at these pictures now, it looks like I should have painted behind the dash a bit. Might have looked a bit neater.. Oh well.

The new dash, radio antenna and other parts from Mustangs Unlimited should get here this week as they were shipped today. Hopefully Tirerack has shipped the tires as well. So far there is no tracking number available to see where they are. :undecided:

RJ

gitano · March 31, 2009, 08:51:04 AM

Quoteit'll be in the neighborhood of 325-350 hp

[/SIZE]

QuoteI'm going to "use up" the old rear tires before I get the new rears put on, if'n you know what I mean.

I'm pretty sure I do...

Paul

recoil junky · April 02, 2009, 06:33:17 PM

I got the much awaited package from Mustangs Unlimited today. The new radio is already installed (no electrical yet) That will come tomorrow. I found some "old" Pioneer 5 1/4 " speekers in my collection to put in the front under the dash. They are good for 150 watts so the 240 watt system (40 per channel) shouldn't overload them. I'll replace teh existing speeker wire with new and reroute the wiring to the rears. Hopefully PFC RJ Jr. won't need a subwoofer.

The new dash pad is almost too pretty to put in but the old one is hidious to say the least.

I was talking to RJ Jr. today and he was looking at some Mustangs online and there is a good chance ours could be a Shelby GT. Ours seems to match all the desrciptions, even the side louvres and hood scoop. Wouldn't that be something if it was!!! The 351W had two different factory HP ratings. One with 250 and the other 285. Either could have been in the Shelby depending on the serial number break.

Looks like I'll be doing some more research to find out for sure.

RJ

kombi1976 · April 03, 2009, 12:08:42 AM

Wow, sounds amazing, especially about the Shelby GT stuff.
I expect to see some stuff on this.

recoil junky · April 06, 2009, 11:09:31 PM

So far no news on whether it's a Shelby on not. I haven't delved too deaply into that yet.

I've been busy getting the sound system installed and the speakers hooked up. The bad news is the Rockford Fosgates I was hoping to use are junk. The suspension is ripped in both of them, so I'll have to invest in some new Pioneer 6X9's to match the 5" Pioneers in the front. ZZ Top sounded pretty good even with the bad speakers in the rear. The little Mrs. said she could hear it in the house!!! At only 60 watts per channel it can really crank out the tunes!!

Took the new tyres in to get mounted today. Got a phone call informing me that they were having a devil of a time balancing the cast aluminum wheels. I'll have to stop in and see what is going on there. I thought eveybody had stick on wheel weights these days along with the old pound on kind.

RJ

kombi1976 · April 07, 2009, 01:12:10 AM

How come you're going those rims?
Are they OG?

recoil junky · April 07, 2009, 07:50:30 AM

As a rule cast aluminum American Racing brand wheels are the best there is when it comes to ease of balance as they are usually balanced at the factory to within a gram. These are the wheels my brother-in-law put on the car before he got killed so we're kinda keepin' them on there for him.

As for the tyre shop having trouble balancing them, Tim will be back today, so he'll get them on the right track. When most of the employees speak mostly Spanish with a bit of English thrown in, conflicts will arise.

RJ

kombi1976 · April 07, 2009, 11:53:15 PM

I'm sorry to hear about your brother-in-law's passing.
What happened there? Car accident?