Ponies in the Mountains

The Blackall Range in the Sunshine Coast Hinterland is a beautiful place. Perfect for running the Pony in fresh air and winding roads.

Today we took a ride up past wita behind Maleny and discovered glorious views and absolute peace and quiet.

Took a few snaps of the beast with the mountain backdrop then came across some Clydesdales who seemed really interested in our Pony ;-)

More than one pony under that hood!

Mustang Restorations Project Tail Lights for 67 Convertible

The quality of this video is not so good, but you get to see the way the LED Tail Lights work on the 67 Mustang convertible.

If anyone runs up the bum of the Austang, they're just frigging blind!

Red Pony in a rural setting

Up on the Blackall Range in the Sunshine Coast hinterland



Take a ride down the range in a convertible 67 Mustang!

Putting Aussie blinkers in a Mustang

Check the tail lights on this '67 - look different? Yep that is a yellow lens where the outside red lenses should be and yes, a yellow blinker is flashing on the left side!




Good old Ebay led me to a new blinker set up for Mustangs to give a new Australian or European tail light arrangement. The set I purchased is from a mob calling themselves The Mustang Project and replaces the blinker unit and the tail light set up completely. Instead of bulbs it uses LEDs which are brighter and more reliable.

I pulled the tail lights and put in the new system, but found it gave spurious results. AAAGH why why why?

Pull out the schematics, what a bloody nightmare . . . after a lot of research I discovered the brakes and the blinkers run a signal up the same wire to the same filament. This is because the Yanks used the same brake light as a blinker. Little wonder so many Mustangs have been shunted up the back, in modern traffic it is very difficult to be sure whether the blinkers are on or not.



The power for the brake lights is routed through the blinker switch. When the brakes are on, the blinker switch disconnects the brake light power to that side and applies the power from the blinker unit.

The Mustang Project lights are set up to work on that wiring arrangement. Problem is, my car has been rewired so a separate brake wire is used, thereby creating two independent wiring circuits for blinkers and brakes. This really screwed me , because I paid a heap of dough for the units and it appeared they could not work, unless I worked out how to the rewire the car's tail lights. Quite frankly, having already replaced the blinker switch in the past, a journey back up the steering column filled me with dread.

Unperturbed I told the guy who sold it to me and he referred me to the Americans who made it. I asked them if it could be modified to suit a separate brake wire set up. They were very helpful and told me that they could rewire it to suit my configuration if I paid the postage. So I sent it away and they did the deed.



This afternoon me and the boy (yes Mother I know it is bad grammar), fitted the new units, after testing they would work of course!

The result is great! We now have yellow blinkers in the tail lights and both the blinkers and brakes are much brighter than the original.

Here's a tip for you, if you buy a set and get them to change to suit your wiring, that has been modified like mine. They don't tell you but the long black crossover wire becomes the brake light wire and needs to be fed through a new hole in the tail light unit, which you need to drill.

The units do not blink with the same rhythm as the old blinkers and they do some strange brake flicking as you change the from left to right. But these idiosyncracies aside, the result is very good. The lights are very bright and unmissable, well done Mustang Project!

Holley 4150 and sealing fuel lines properly

I spent all week thinking about what the hell is wrong with the new Holley set up . . .
In the meantime decided to get rid of the hard chrome fuel pipes and buy a braided line unit which would not be so rigid and fussy to seal.

A scrounge around the internet forums left me confused as to how to seal the fuel lines properly. There were all sorts of peculiar answers and remedies including using teflon tape on the threads (a total waste of time if you know anything about how they seal), putting little zinc washers into the end of the pipe to squash for a seal to putting little thing fuel resistant O rings in the brass fittings.

All of these "fixes" are supposed to have worked for those who spruik them, but what troubled me is the total lack of reference to anything like them by Holley. I refused to believe the people who make the carbs would not supply a washer/tape/O ring if you needed one to stop leaks. So I had a chat to a racing mechanic who suggested I grease the lines before tightening. "I know" he said, "the fuel will melt the grease, I just have always done it and it always works. I do not know why"

So I had a good think and used the technique to stop the fuel leaks. It worked!
Here's how I stopped the fuel line leaks at the carburettor.

Undo the brass fitting in the carb, put it gently in a vise and then you can screw in the fuel line. Being in the vise you can get a good look at it and be sure it is going in straight. Put a little grease on the thread and on the end of the pipe before you screw it in. I think the grease enables the hard metal edges to slide together tightly without distortion of the metal where they meet.

Once the pipe is tightened nice and straight, you can pull it apart and check to see if you have a nice even score around the seat or if there are breaks. If not happy, just regrease and tighten up again, back it off a tad and rotate the pipe to score a micro lip.

When happy with the connection, undo and refit to the carby. Make sure they are going on straight and don't forget the grease.

I pulled the carb off and checked the seal around the phenolic spacer. It appeared to have leaked so put new gaskets in and tightened it up . . . the book says 5 Ft/Lbs but I reckon that just is not tight enough. So I cranked it by hand till I felt it was tight, in a cross pattern.




After some fiddling it finally started and ran very rich. I leaned up the mixture and got it running quite well. The stang is a new beast with this high breathing, big squirting Holley, it has loads more acceleration and jumps from 70 to 90 MPH in a heartbeat.

Still is a bugger to start when it is cold, backfires and carries on, till it starts and then runs flawlessly. Think I better go have a carby expert look at setting it up using the right gear to get the mixtures right.

Holley Transplant

You know, paying people who are supposed to be experts and tradesmen to work on your car, is like playing black or red on roulette. The Port Macquarie mustang restoration expert who converted the beast to right hand drive, did a crap job on the throttle control. The adjustment was never right, it was impossible to maintain full purchase on WOT and correct idle. I perservered with this for the last decade until I spotted an alternative on some rods at the Wintersun this year. A click around ebay found me a bright red one for a hundred or so bucks.

Meanwhile the stang seems to be getting harder to start when cold, backfiring and carrying a fair bit, plus it was developing a drinking problem. I am guessing the power valve was busted.

So I began to dream about a new carbie, after reading thru the Holley site, I found an alternative at . . . yep, Ebay! I always have wanted to try a DP Holley with mechanical secondaries, so bit the bullet.

I bought the new HP series 4150, 650cfm double pumper along with a dual rail chrome fuel pipe, complete with pressure guage. In addition I bought a phenolic half inch spacer.

Shane and I spent half Saturday and all day Sunday setting the thing up. As a t 6pm, the bloody thing is still not sorted.

The whole setup came together okay, but just would not fire. In fact the only fire I got was caused from a bakcfire, which set fire to fuel in the carb's throat, twice. Plus the fuel lines leaked like a seive. So out came the piptes and the carbie fittings, Inspection showed they were not seating properly, so I whacked the brass fitting in a vice and crimped up the lines nice and straight and seated them properly. Then I refitted them in the carb and stopped the leaks. Cranking again only brought about another fite in the carby! Have I stuffed up putting the pugs back on? Check the firing order, all is good there!

Once it became clear the thing was not going to run and there was nothing obviously wrong, I began to suspect the spacer. It was a bugger to fit and very brittle. My suspicion is the thing just is not flat.

So I pulled everything off yet again and placed the carbie down on the manifold. But, now the damn fuel lines woul not fit and the throttle fitting either. To make things worse, the heater hose now interferes with the throttle linkage. AAAggh! Stuff this.

I am going to buy a Holley fitting instead of this piece of crap hard pipe fitting which does not fit. Then I will tackle the other problems once I can be sure the fuel feed is sorted. I had a problem with spacers in the past, think I would learn . . .

Just hoping this is the cause of the lack of starting. It looks like there was a leakbetween the manifold and the spacer but cannot be sure. Guess I will find out next weekend.

The carby does look pretty speco in place though :-) I will sort this, Carburetors are always a pain when first installing.

Gold Dust Red Mustang

The body restoration is pretty much complete! The job is outstanding and the car looks stunning in the high gloss red and gold pearlescent mix.

We took these pics after a drive up to Montville, fairly late in the day.

The car was parked ready to go at the panel beaters but had picked up a fair amount of dust waiting in his yard and by the time we got it up the mountains there was a fine coat on the horizontal surfaces.

All the same, the mustang attracted long looks where ever it went and lots of smiles inside and out.

The colour looks very different in changing light, if you take a close look at the rear quarter of the rear end shot, you can see the gold fleck. If you click the pic, you get a bigger version.

I think I shall call it the Gold Dust Mustang.

The next job? Getting the cooling system sorted, better start with a fan shroud to get more air through the radiator.

Fiddly things

You know, it is the little things that seems to hold the restoration process up the most. Getting the badges straight, the chrome mouldings on, the tail lights back in with the new gaskets. The Austang is painted and just awaiting the little important finishing bits. Windows are to go in, door rubbers to be fitted . . . that sort of stuff.
The bonnet latches look sensational with the new Shelby bonnet. Took some video today, I am itching to go for a cruise!

You've come a long way baby!

It was a long long time ago, in a world where steering wheels and driver's seats were opposed . . . the Mustang was a plain Jane. From the fake wire hubcaps to the tattered Nauga Hide upholstery, she was a standard C code Mustang from the shore of California.

Still, she was a sexy dream waiting for someone to wake her up and realise her potential.
This pic shows how the Austang looked when I first brought her home.

Red sun shines on, sees no tomorrow!

The colour has been applied to the Austang and it looks like a fire on wheels!
Out of the sun, it is a blood red and in the sun, a burning beast.

So far, the colour is on, the gold pearl over the top and 3 coats of clear layer over the top of all that.

Next job is to sand and polish out any orange peel or imperfections in the clear coat to get a mirror finish. At least that is what the painter told me. Man it looks like a shiny peach as it is.

When you get the light on the angles there is a gold line that traces the highlights.

Scope the scoop! Now is that sweet or what? Put a lump on a jellyfish man ;-)
Click on a pic to see a bigger view . . .

There comes a time in the restoration process, where the whole mess starts to resemble the machine you were expecting to see . . . that time is getting very close!

The guards are mounted and adjusted for gaps, I helped Martin get the bonnett in place and lined up.




There are a heap of little bits that need finished sanding and painting, still to be done. eg the beaver panels, the rear corner bits and blinker retainers. That will slow the job down some.

The next job is to position and drill the holes for the bonnett pin latches.

The red with pearlescent is an interesting paint job. Looking at the under surface of the bonnett, which has paint applied, the paint just looks dark red, the gold fleck is virtually invisible without direct sunlight.
Have a go at this rear quarter and compare it to the shots of the original "repair". The panel is very straight and back in the correct shape.

This is a credit to the skills of Martin the panel beater.

He tells me that tomorrow, paint will be applied!!

Woohoo!

Colouring my ride

Okay, the door shuts across the back and the front cowl has copped some colour. The pearlescent paint looks amazing!

When you see the without direct sunlight, the colour looks like a strong dark red.

Not the hot rod red that it used to be painted in, but in Rover Red, a juicy scarlet.

A high gloss coat or two over the top really sets it off!



Here's the way the gold fleck appears when the sun hits the car then hits your eye.

Man, I can't wait to see the whole thing covered in the glossy coat.


There is still a bit of work to go on the fiddly bits, around the lights etc.

The bonnet has received a lot of attention and is looking outstanding, even in primer.

Look at the way the scoop works into the lid, doesn't it look great? The bonnet is like the visual entrance to the look of the car and so has to be perfect.

I have a set of bonnet pin latches with billet aluminium bases that will set this off nicely.

Austang is in her prime (well. . . so to speak)

The Austang is starting to look more like a gorgeous beast again! Panels are being put in place and the bonnet scoop is getting the right shape.

The Shelby shape is starting to work wonders for Mustang's lines. Now I am wondering if I should put a chin scoop across the front.

Taking a look down the left side, it is easy to see the value of paying attention to the shape of the wheel arches!

The car looks sensational just in grey primer, am getting excited now about seeing it in glorious candy apple red.

Still got a fair way to go, may have paint on it in a couple of weeks.

Martin lent me a pile of swatch books, from which I have to somehow pick a red.
Man there are so many!

Sooo close!

Ooh baby! it's getting closer to being finished!
A bit of work to be done on a door and the guards.




The beaver panels are geting a good going over, removing the excess bog and repairing the old dents properly.







The bonnet will be getting some more atention too, lots of plastic required to build up the butchered scoop.

There are a few dips and uneven spots that need to come out.

Beneath the skin

The torture test was quite successful on restoring the door gaps and getting some of the bulge out of the rear left guard. Now it is a matter of shrink, hammer and file. It is getting straight but still needs a heap of work. Looking at how the car sits, I may have to get the springs reset again to level out the rear end.

The metal is a bit thin but it will be straight and have a much better finish than that which the previous panel-slapper provided (hey, triple alliteration).





A fair bit of work is going into this quarter.

Still a way to go!

On the rack of torture

Martin decided to whack the beast onto a big puller to see if we can straighten up the left rear quarter. The left door never sat properly and the gaps were not even.

The crease in the boot floor/ subframe and the unnatural flare in the wheel-well needed to be removed.

The procedure is pretty straightforward. Hook up a big chain to the subframe, bolt the car down to a level plate and give it a huge pull. Bit like torture on a rack I suppose!

After pulling the back, errr . . . back, he put a ram inside the wheel arch and applied pressure.

Then heating the metal, proceeded to belt and shrink the arch back into shape.

Well! What can I say? We knew there had been some dodgy work done on the rear left quarter but after the sandblaster finished, we finally got to see what the restorers of yesteryear thought was acceptable.
Looking at the images you see a peculiar dimpled effect. like lots of little holes drilled into the metal over which copious quantities of bog was applied.
The strange holes are possible a type of "key" to enable the large amount of plastic filler to hold on.

We just are not sure . . .


But on the bright side . . .

All the sills and edges have been cleaned off with great outcomes!

There appears to have never been any rust in the sills or front behind the guards or in the firewalls. The car is in pristine condition in the places where rust tends to develop. My suspicion that the vehicle has hardly ever seen rain, seems to be correct.

Around the back of te car the story is as expected, she has attracted rear prangs, at least two in her life, but we can rebuild and make her look as good as new (maybe better).

It is a bit depressing looking at my beautiful mustang in such a grotty condition, can't wait to see the result.

Have placed a sizeable order with Mustangs Unlimited in the US for a bunch of new bits including bumpers, rubbers and mirrors.