Mustang project comes to an end.

Posted on March 2, 2016 by dragonilia

I sold the Mustang over the weekend. After a lot of thought I felt it was the right thing to do. After all, the project was a success in that it gave me an outlet for me to place my creativity, hands and even meet some new people along the way. I love the way it turned out and I can say that this was the most I had ever done to a car. This may be the last post which is fitting because the first post was when I bought the car 5 years ago. My son was 2. He is now 7. Thanks to my pops for the help, my boy T for the support and my wife for letting me go off for hours and wrench away.

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Some Recent Photos of Mustang

Posted on August 12, 2015 by dragonilia
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New Radio

Posted on August 10, 2015 by dragonilia

Driving the car early on Sunday, you realize that radio stations are filling that time with talk, commercial advertisement and community outreach programming. All good except that I wanted to listen to music. So  I caved and purchased a new head unit from Alpine. It is a media player only meaning that there is no cd mechanism. It connects via Bluetooth and USB cables. I ordered from Crutchfield and as always am very happy with the speed in shipping and accompanying parts. Wiring harnesses and the ugly bezel was included. Call quality remains to be seen as the last call I received was a garbled mess, but the songs were coming through just fine. This radio also benefits from Alpine’s Tuneit App.

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New Clutch Quadrant – Maximum Motorsports

Posted on August 10, 2015 by dragonilia

As stated earlier. When I depressed the clutch I would hear what appeared to be the cable stretching and moaning. And due to the age of the car, I figured that in order to keep my piece of mind, I would replace the clutch cable. But since the quadrant was the stock one and is plastic, well that just wouldn’t do. I replaced the cable, quadrant and added a firewall adjuster from Maximum Motorsports. All in all, the install wasn’t too bad but there were some issues that needed additional time. After all, the adjustment went well and so far the clutch is grabbing well. And that stretching sound. Yep, still there. I think my throwout bearing and clutch fork are way overdue in terms of lubrication. It’ll have to stay together until the clutch wears.

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Seatbelts

Posted on July 7, 2015 by dragonilia

A week ago I was driving to a small car show a few miles away when I adjusted my shoulder belt as I was driving. I gave the belt a quick tug and noticed that it didn’t stop. So I gave it a faster tug and still it kept coming with no lock coming from the retractor. I reached over and pulled the passenger belt and again, no lock. This whole time I hadn’t thought to question the belts and their effectiveness. But now it seems that they aren’t much more than loose belts.

Because this is a safety issue, especially when my son is with me I stopped driving the car and ordered replacement belts. They came in along with some door sill plaques that I remember having on old 83 Mustang.

I was a bit annoyed because I had the car disassembled months ago and it would have been super easy to replace the belts then but nope, I had to pull the rear interior panels to expose the retractors and while it wasn’t too bad, still I wish I would have done this then.

I also checked the rear seat belts and they seemed to lock just fine. So now, I feel a bit safer knowing that the new belts are installed.

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Heater Core Hell

Posted on May 17, 2015 by dragonilia

I had suspicions that my core was going bad but nothing that was too regular to pull the trigger on replacing it. Well, shortly after driving the car to work, a co-worker asked if that was my car leaking. Sure it was. Coolant from the drainage hole under the AC unit. Also, that same day and on a few occasions my windshield would fog up just a little. Well after the drainage hole wouldn’t dry I figured that I would have to face the core sooner or later. Or I could just bypass the problem and wait until I needed heat. But as I take pride in my car’s condition, I figured f’ it. Just do it. Well, after working on this for the past 10 days, an hour here an hour there and a whole weekend, I tackled it. I don’t ever want to do this again. I also added the flow restrictor to the heater hose as it didn’t have that when I replaced those hoses.

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Oh no.

Posted on May 4, 2015 by dragonilia

Heater Core. I need a beer.

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Fabulous Fords Forever 2015

Posted on April 21, 2015 by dragonilia

The goal of entering my car into this show painted has been achieved. I am proud of the accomplishment and although there are a few things to address, the car at this point is pretty much complete. I will probably start winding down any more progress reports unless there is something crazy like a new Coyote engine falls from the sky and into my engine bay. Here are some pictures from the show.

Special thanks to my best friend T for going with me. He was there when I picked up the car and there when I presented a finished project.

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Bumps in the road

Posted on April 16, 2015 by dragonilia

After completing the reassembly of the car, I drove it down to my parent’s home and picked up my son from school. I noticed a sound that I was instantly dreading. There was a knocking that happened as the engine ran. At first I thought it might be my catalytic converters but thought that can’t be since they are relatively new. Then I thought, ope!, I think my engine is a goner. Then, I realized it was more of a rattle so I went under and could hear vibrations when I banged on the cats with my fist. Oh God. The cats.

After some investigating I came to the conclusion that indeed my cats may be bad. After calling Magnaflow and asking for warranty information, they told me to contact a dealer and buy a new system and send the old one back and if they find that it was defective they would credit me. This was after I had asked if I could take my car down to them to inspect. They declined. So, the going rate right now is nearly $1000 for a new cat system. I went up to Speedway Muffler in Upland. After talking to one of the guys, he said that it may take a while to get the warranty going with Magnaflow and in the end, 99% of the time, they say it is the consumer’s car’s fault. Now I know that they are in business, so I just figured, I should just fix it and be done with it. So they removed the rear cats and indeed they were shot.

Unfortunately, I don’t know how this happened as I don’t remember hitting any debris or speed bumps that might have damaged the units. One of the units had a broken brick and the other brick had detached from the housing.

The shop replaced them with new Magnaflow cats and at this point, we’ll see how long they last. I feel rather blah about it since I had a feeling that Magnaflow would not replace the set easily and I figured that I’d be screwed.

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Exterior Assembly Complete

Posted on March 30, 2015 by dragonilia

I picked up my car from Mario’s Auto Works after they cut and buffed the paint. What a difference. The paint is super smooth with a mirror like finish. I am so impressed by the paint job that I almost wish I went with a different color but in the end the color I chose was just what I was looking for. I am so glad that I was able to send my car to these guys. They are true pros at what they do and I am proud to say they are part of my extended family. All that is left to do is to reassemble the interior. I successfully reused the old headliner that came out and although it isn’t perfect, it looks way better than it was and I wasn’t even sure I was going to replace it.

Here are some pics of the car but be warned there are a lot of smudge marks and hand prints from the assembly.

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