Mint Condition

In my excitement of fixing the carburetor yesterday, I decided to do a rather needed oil change. I picked up 6 quarts of oil and a new filter, and proceeded to drain the oil pan. I had to pick up a filter wrench to remove the old filter, then I replaced that with the new one. However—yes, always there is a problem!—when I went to put the drain plug back on the oil pan, it would not tighten!

It would appear that the pan threads have stripped somewhat, because the drain plug looked fine. I went down to the auto parts store and got a self-tapping drain plug. It turns out the drain plug was already an oversize self-tapping plug, so I got a double oversize. But I could not for the life of me get it started in the hole! So I went back down hoping to get a rubber drain plug at least as a temporary solution, but they didn’t have any. The guy gave me a single oversize drain plug—same size as the one I originally removed—and that worked a little better. It still didn’t get as tight as it should, but so far, it seems to keep the oil inside the pan. I’ll be checking tomorrow to make sure.

The other bit of news: I had picked up an exhaust manifold shroud to draw hot air into the air filter pan about a month and a half ago. Finally ready to install it, I realized that it was, in fact, the wrong shroud for my engine. When I bought, the man at the store wasn’t sure which one was for my engine, and when I took it back today, he graciously swapped it for the right one free of charge, even though the right one was ten dollars more! Such nice people.

So a few days ago, I decided to change the fuel filter. Well, I learned the hard way that you’re not supposed to tighten fuel filters down all the way, and the threads broke off inside of the carburetor! So I figured it wasn’t such a big deal, just use an easyout. So I picked up some easy outs, followed the directions, and just my luck, the easyout broke off inside the broken fuel filter! My grandpa and I spent the next couple days trying to work the easyout out, but to no avail.

However, my grandpa managed to procure a new (well, from another old carb) front bowl for the carburetor. We got that installed with a new gasket, put on a new fuel filter carefully this time, and started up the car.

She ran! But we hit another problem: now the bowl overflowed and gas spilled out of the vent. After much tweaking of the needle valve, float, and float level today, I managed to fix that problem, and she purred nicely. I ended up using the old needle valve and the new float in the new front bowl. I’m not sure exactly what was causing the overflow, but I’m thinking it might have had to do with the needle valve seal.

So in summary, my carburetor is now in good working order and everything’s hooked up!

Yesterday I picked up a choke tube kit from the Mustang store, and today I installed them. The previous choke tubes were missing, so the automatic choke couldn’t function properly. The installation involved removing the exhaust manifold on one side of the engine to remove the old bits of tube and hook up the new tubes. I used a 1/4″ drill bit to remove the old tube ends, went over the whole manifold with a wire brush, and blew it out with compressed air. Then I tapped the tubes in place.

Putting the manifold back in was a bit more challenging, though I finally managed in the end. It wasn’t as hard as getting off the old manifold to inlet pipe gasket though; that thing was rusted in place and I ended up have to break it apart with an assortment of knives, screwdrivers, and pliers. So anyway, I got everything back together in one day, which was an accomplishment in itself—without a garage or the light of day offered by a house and the summer respectively, it’s increasingly difficult to work on my car. The choke still seems to be sticking a bit. Although my grandpa already lubricated it last time he was out (maybe a month ago), perhaps the coil mechanism needs to be cleaned. We’ll figure it out.

Also, while test running the automatic choke, I discovered that my license plate light works! It’s the small things that make me smile

I neglected to mention that about two and a half weeks ago, I took out the driver seat and did a little rust removal. Water had been leaking onto the floor pan, and there was a really nasty rust spot festering behind the driver’s seat. Using some Naval Jelly, I managed to clear it up pretty good and then proceeded to coat it with primer to seal it.

Due to the oncoming winter season and subsequent rain, I needed to seal up the quarter windows—or lack thereof. And I did it yesterday, none too soon: it rained quite generously today. There’s one small part of my seal on the driver’s side that needs to be patched, but otherwise it’s holding up quite nicely.

I also purchased an aftermarket tachometer, mainly for adjusting the idle (which I’ll hopefully get to soon). I hooked this up yesterday too, along with my CB radio and antenna. I’m trying to get my neighbor to install his CB too. It’s just something fun to have in the car. I made a bit of a mess with all the extra wiring, but it gave me a chance to wire up the lights for my aftermarket temperature gauge, which had been in the dark until now.

Last night, poor Nugget was having some sort of engine trouble. I couldn’t figure out what it was, but after checking the tranny fluid and letting it sit for a minute, she was working well enough to get home. So she’s really not ready to be my school commuter car yet. I need to get the engine and everything tuned up in the next couple weeks.

I was also thinking about body work. Nugget is kind of an eyesore right now, what with the bondo, rust spots, and other body work to be done—not to mention the color. It’d be really nice to pull everything apart and sandblast the chassis and sheet metal, prime everything, and paint it. I have no idea how expensive sandblasting is, but I’ll definitely need a garage to work in to disassemble everything. I haven’t settled on a color yet, but right now, I’m thinking white with red detail and interior would look really cool.

I calculated how many miles per gallon the Mustang gets yesterday. It gets about 9.7 mpg. Yippee!

A bit depressing, yes. But at least I have closure.

Today, I hooked up the parking brake control. The cables were all in place, though they don’t retract terribly easily when I release the brake. The parking brake will need to be adjusted at some point, but the nut that adjusts is pretty stuck, and I don’t have the tool necessary to test it.

While I had the car up on the ramps, I also adjusted the transmission manual linkage. The shifter was a bit off, and I think I may have been driving in 2nd gear this whole time thinking it was Drive. So now that’s all cleared up and working fine.

The transmission is still pretty rough though. I’m not sure what the problem is; my dad suggested I get the bands adjusted. We’ll see. It’s not urgent, but I’d like to get it sorted out at some point.

Well my oil cap mysteriously disappeared. My guess is that it rattled loose and fell out along the road somewhere. In any case, I bought a new one today, and she’s a beauty.

In the next before school starts, I’ll be tuning up the engine to get it in good running order. It’s still getting hot, and today it got all the way 220 ºF and overheated a little—the hottest it’s gotten since I bought aftermarket temperature gauge. I’ll be replacing the thermostat soon to see if that helps with the heat issue, as well as hooking up the automatic choke and air filter. I may just need to buy a new radiator though.

So on Monday, after getting insurance (almost $200 per month, yeesh) I took Nugget out for a drive! Two drives, actually. She still has a slight overheating issue, however. I’ll need to look into why the temperature gauge isn’t working, and it looks like I might be replacing the radiator. But she drives!

The backup lights are now installed! I had to drill a hole on either side to feed the wire through, since the previous owner had welded on new sheet metal and the holes were absent.

The passenger light is missing a screw post. I have the post, but it won’t feed through. On all the screw posts on both lights, the nuts are rusted to the posts, and the posts themselves unscrew, so it’s a little broken. Those will need be replaced someday, and preferably someday soon, lest my lights fall off!

On Thursday I went to the DOL with my dad and we transferred the title into my name (since I was only 15 when I got it, the title went to my dad), renewed the registration, and got new plates. Then I installed the rear bumper and valance best as I currently can (some body work needs to be done, but it holds sturdy for now).

I still need to put on the rear bumper guards (you can see the discolored paint where they’re supposed to go), but everything holds in place, and that’s what counts. Now that the plates are on, I just need to get insurance and install the backup lights, and I can drive it!