disassembly begins

The car is now safely inside my workshop, and the rebuilding process has begun.
I spent yesterday evening, and this evening pulling off the carb, alternator, power steering pump, intake manifold, heads, and a bunch of other random stuff. It took some doing to get the intake off, as the gasket had melted to the block and didn't want to let go. I ended up having to tap a screw driver very gently into the seam in order to loosen it up, and then use a wrench as a pry bar on the front part of the manifold, and managed to get it off. Gotta be careful not to scrape up that surface... The heads came off pretty easily. The bolts were torqued on there well, so it took some elbow grease to get them off, but other than that they came off without a fight. And next thing I knew I was lookin down on the top of my pistons. not 100% sure, but I'm pretty sure they aren't stock either. not much seems to be in this car. Here's some pics.











































The pistons didn't seem corroded, so it didn't seem that they were what is causing the engine to cease up like it has. I did notice however, that the lifters seem to be very much corroded and frozen up. I'm thinking that might be the problem, so I hosed them down with skunk pee, and they are soaking over night. Tomorrow Eddie's comin over and is gonna tell me what's what. If it's just the lifters frozen up, that's great news. without too much work, I should be able to get them loosened up, and see if she turns over. The good news so far is that everything else seems to be in moderate-great condition. The intake looks great, as do the heads/valves/pushrods/rocker arms/springs etc. The carb looks like it's in decent condition, might need a rebuild, not sure yet. but it's not in too bad shape at least, and I might even get away w/out rebuilding it for the time being.
So the next step: clean up the heads/intake, and free up the lifters. Then see if the engine turns, if it doesn't, then the engine is coming out definitely. I'm still not sure that I'm gonna pull it, but I'm thinking I will, if only so that I can repaint it and clean it up properly. But really everything is still up in the air at this point, cause I'm not 100% sure what the problem is. if freeing up the lifters solves it, then I will probly put the engine back together, and see whether I can start it up, before deciding how much more of a rebuild to do. can't wait to hear that engine growl. I'll add pics of the disassembled engine shortly.

Pictures

At last, I finally got pics! :-) So yesterday I spent setting up my workshop, building a work bench, and cleaning out the car. Here's some pics.

My workshop:

























The inside, and the workbench I made:

























The Car:














The engine: (yeah edelbrock! :-D)















The inside before clean up:














And After! looks almost inhabitable. :-P














I found some interesting stuff in there. :-P















Including this. :-)

























There's lots more pics here. Theck them out. :-)

MORE PICS!!!

That's all til this weekend.

So progress of late has been hindered as I prepare a place to work on it. Winter is fast approaching, and I don't fancy working with cold metal in 20 degree weather.
I stopped by Pep boys and picked up a "portable" enclosure. basically a steel frame with a tarp over it, or a glorified tent...which ever way you want to think about it. it's 10x20, so it should give me adequate space to do what I need to. cool, huh? Hopefully tom I'll get to setting it up, and starting work on my work bench. Then, I'm gonna start the real work.

The car stands like this: Engine is still "frozen up" though I'm beginning to suspect that it is more like an out of time valve causing a jam. So the first step is I'm gonna pull off the intake and headers, and see what is goin on down there, then I'll probly end up taking the engine out, and rebuilding it, but I will make that decision when I come to it.

I also got all the door tag info, and looked up online, and discovered that my car is indeed a cobra II. I suspected as much, and I am happy, cause it means I can shamelessly dress it up with cobra furniture. :-) But I also discovered that it originally had a manual tranny in there. Wish he hadn't changed it. I may check around with the junk yards and see if they have a manual tranny that I could steal and return it to its former glory.

Once I get it enclosed, I will take pics. And from then on you can be sure of a steady flow of pics as I rebuild it.

In the mean time...if anyone actually reads this, I am taking a poll. What color scheme should I go with. I have three options, but feel free to suggest something else.

1. Yellow with black racing strips/black interior (think transformers)
2. BLACK with black interior and red highlights (some trim, upholstery, brakes etc just for bazing)
3. Dusty blue with black interior (black strips optional)

Please let me know what you think!

That's all for now.

Baby Steps

My apologies for the fact that pictures are still lacking. I've been denied access to a camera, by certain circumstances. But a quick update here on what I've done so far.

Sat I picked up the car, and got it home. Everything went smoothly with that. Discovered that the rear brakes were locked up. After I got it home, I pulled the radiator/fan off, and gave the crank shaft a good yank. No joy. well, I figured as much, so I pulled out the spark plugs, marking the ignition cables as I went. I ran out and grabbed a bottle of Marvel Mystery Oil, and filled up the cylinders to soak over the weekend. Hopefully it will breakup whatever corrosion is holding up the pistons.

Monday: Still no joy with the pistons...but it can take some time, so I'm not too worried as of yet. I have faith in the mystery oil. ;-) Anyway, Cedric came over this afternoon and we succeeded in getting the rear drums off and the brakes out. the pads and callipers are shot, as well as part of the Ebrake system, but the drums are solid, so I'm happy with that. So long story short, the car now rolls! which means I can take the next step of locating it in the place where I"m gonna do most of the work.

I will get pictures as soon as my family arrives back from vacation and I can steal a camera from them. :-)

And So it Begins

Most of you who know me, know that for as long as I can remember, I've wanted to buy, and rebuild an old car. In particular, a classic mustang. Now, after years of dreaming, I finally have the car, and am getting ready to begin the rebuilding process. Since the way I came into posession of this car is rather an interesting story, I might as well tell it.

I had been looking regularly on e-bay, craige's list, and other places to see if anything popped up. I had pretty much resigned myself to never finding a classic mustang that was within my price range, so I was thinking I'd maybe go for a late fox body, or something like that. About a week ago, I got on e-bay, and did my regular search. But this time it brought up an ad that I had somehow missed in all my previous searches. It was for a 77 mustang, located about 30 miles from my house, the bid was at 500 dollars. Then came the punch in the gut. There were only 13 minutes left on the auction. Immediately my mind started racing. I kept asking myself, How can I decide to buy a car in 10 minutes? I called up Peter, and we went over it, weighing the options. seconds tick away. Then Sam IMed me and I started talking to her about it. seconds tick away. Finally I said, I have to bid now, or I'm gonna lose it. I decided to bid 650 firm and see what happened. I clicked the "confirm bid button". *page reloading* my heart skipped a beat. with seven seconds left I was the highest bidder at 610.

Needless to say, I took the next 15 minutes trying to reconcile myself to what had just happened; or should I say just BARELY happened.

Now to all those nay sayers out there who despise the mustang II. :-) Yeah, I know you're out there. I'll just say this. The final result will speak for itself. the mustang II got a bad rap for some things that were it's fault, and some things that weren't. I admit, nothing can beat a '67 stang. But when I'm done with it, my77project will be a machine that will make it's more highly revered ancestors proud. :-)

So I promise that from now on I won't bore you with stories of my life and such. But I had to give you the background for what this blog is all about. I will be posting pictures of everything I do along the way in fixing it up. The next post will Lord willing be sat when I pick it up, and I will post pictures of everything in the car. I'll say this...That modest hood held some very impressive surprises.

And feel free to reply with suggestions, or ideas for anything if you feel so inclined.

God bless!