SHE RUNNNNSSSSSSSS

i am smiling so much!

got out to my dad's late friday night. me and cassy stopped at in n out and got loaded on so cal goodness. we woke up saturday and got to work!

as you can see below we got the radiator back in, and the hoses on. we also got the transmission cooler mounted:







we cut a hole for our transmission lines to run through:



next we ran copper line in for the oil pressure gauge:





i also hooked up the gas pedal as you can see.

my dad ran the copper line through a clear plastic tube for protection:



next we started playing around with the fuel lines:



we custom bent a bit of brake line for a fuel line (not sure how well this is going to work, as it leaked later on):





we also bent up some more brake line for a vacuum tube to our modulator from the back of the carburetor





more pictures of the fuel lines:







i got all the spark plug wires out and ran everything:



that night we spent FOREVER trying to figure out a good way to run our transmission lines:





we ran them pretty close to the block all the way back. actually getting them in was a bit of a pain.

we used a right angle bend on the forward line, and went into a 90 fitting for the rear, for anyone wondering:





hooked up!





my dad pulled a TON of wiring apart that night, and we ended up going to bed around midnight, this is how we left the car:



the next morning we pulled the transmission pan, and put in a fitting so we could mount a temp gauge. we got a rubber gasket, which ended up leaking later (SUCKED), but oh well.



i also picked up a few things, and took a picture of some 289 emblems my dad got:



performance sway bar ends?



289 emblems to make the car look even funnier.

now here is where we MESSED UP. turns out you are supposed to install the oil pump shaft when you assemble the motor. well ours didn't have one installed, so we really sort of forgot about it until now. we had to pop the collar off of it, and drop it down the hole VERY carefully. we luckily got it into the pump using some hose to hold it, and a rod to push the hose off. this was a pain in the ass, but it is very nice we got it done.



there is my dad concentrating very hard.

now i don't have much pictures from here, but this is where the night got INTENSE:



wiring the motor up (hot wiring i should say). my dad put a toggle switch in so we could kill the coil at any time, in case the motor was running wide open/etc...



wiring the distributor up.



wiring finished!

now here's how the rest went. we got everything wire up, and fired the motor a few times without spark to build some oil pressure. once we felt like we had oil pressure (our gauge inside wasn't reading for some reason), we hooked up the spark, tossed some gas inside the carb, and crossed our fingers!

she ran! of course it was only for a few seconds each time we threw gas in, and it was moderately rough at first, but it was GLORIOUS. now we got a bit concerned because we weren't seeing any oil pressure on our gauge. so this prompted us to take off the distributor very carefully, and hand run the pump. we didn't see any pressure at first, but due to being zealous and making mistakes, i completely forgot that the oil guage probably had a lot of air in the tube, and it was preventing oil from reaching the gauge (after all, it's an oil pressure gauge, not an air pressure!). well after i unhooked the gauge to let the air bleed out (as well as a little oil on my carpet, doh!), we saw we were getting 75-80 lbs of pressure, not bad, and i think compliments of our high performance (high pressure, high volume) really helped that.

we ended up rehooking up the fuel pump to a gas can via a line, and got the motor running/idling for around 15 seconds! very steady oil pressure, and SO nice. with the open headers, it obviously sounds VERY loud, and i cannot begin to describe how i felt. biggest smile on my face, you have no idea.

after that we really just tidied up and i went home. i can't wait for next weekend!

slow weekend

i just got back from another crappy weekend. lots of misty rain, and really bad wind! we got some good stuff done, didn't get it fired up though, with the bad wind, i decided to avoid running lines/etc... plus my dad had to leave for a funeral up in nor cal at noon on sunday.

we ran out saturday morning, and picked up some trans fluid/header bolts (3/8"s so that we can get the box end on them if need be).





b&m trick shift. because blue is better. 70 dollars for all of these.



new header bolts, 10 bucks. got these on the headers when i got back.



plumbed up heater hoses



fan clearance on radiator





driveshaft hooked up



leaf spring perches/shocks hooked up.



headers/transmission mount/b&m shift cable coming down (still need to secure this better)

we got the coil mounted on the intake manifold. this was actually pretty rough, our mount had a really crappy bolt, so we welded our own bolt on:



we drilled a few holes to run our gauges and put some grommets in.



we also drilled the hole for our throttle bracket:







we built a new gauge cluster and started running the gauges. the reason we built our own out of aluminum is because i wanted an extra gauge for transmission temperature.

my dad also welded a mount onto our trans dipstick tube. came out pretty slick! saved 70 dollars (didnt have to buy the lokar).

we also went out and picked up new tie rod ends to get the steering linkage all hooked up. good news is it all works now we think, bad news is we got one tie rod end that was bad, and have to wait for the new one to get delivered to auto zone. oh well!



i got the carb, throttle linkage bracket and air cleaner on as well. i guess i did get a lot hooked up?



good picture of the drivetrain.

here's to next weekend. should be driving by then, i hope. i also finished hooking up the b&m shifter, and we spent 127 at autozone picking up:

new radiator hoses
hose clamps
trans cooler lines
fuel line
vacuum line

and many other various and sundry.

quick update

yesterday i went out to my dads and i unfortunately have pretty much no pictures to show for it but we accomplished the following:

- fixed transmission crossmember to allow our ebrake cable to be used with the headers we have
- modified some steering linkage pieces to not rub on the headers/painted them/reinstalled them
- installed rear pads for the rear end, these are what the shocks and ubolts attach to and hold the rear end in with
- installed drive shaft (which fit damn near perfect!)
- re ran some rubber padding for the radiator to sit in
- installed the fan
- played around with the coil and ballast resistor for mounting
- installed most of the pieces for the b&m shift cable (one last thing to hook up)



hard to see in that picture but thats with the radiator and fan/etc.... in the car.

we are looking like this will fire up this weekend (i know i've said that before but i actually mean it now!). so stoked.

on the way home, a tire blew out on my friends car, AGAIN. i am ridiculously tired as a result.

last weekend

rupdate!

i went out to my dads last friday with julie. weather was bad the whole weekend so not much was accomplished but heres goes:

saturday morning we went out getting parts (as usual) and i took some pictures of them as well as my new driveshaft.





my dad taking out the u joints from the driveshaft



mount my dad made for the gas pedal to mount to the firewall (it's adjustable as you can see to 5 different heights. thanks dad!)



sitting with the motor in her!



o no dey be takin my motor!





new u joints, 24 dollars



new brake lines, 20 dollars?



brake line fittings, 30 dollars



bolts/new taps, 10 dollars?

now before we could do much to the motor, we had to fix the steering box. a few weeks ago i turned the wheel and noticed the steering box end cap popped out as well as bearings, so we pulled it out and began to work on it







me taking it out, i think

no pictures of the work, but we added a new bearing, and readjusted it, as well as regreased it, etc...





back in the car!

next we put the new u joints in my new driveshaft. i painted the driveshaft as well (nice new gray color!) note that this work is occurring on sunday (this weekend was such a waste due to crappy weather:











voila!

this is just a funny picture of me:



this is me trying to reinstall the steering column:





my dad started working on the master cylinder and this is how i spend most of my time:



we eventually got the brake lines all bent for the front end, and the master cylinder installed as well.

we dropped the motor back in and started installing the headers towards the end of the night (once it stopped raining, FINALLY):









the west coast, are you a blood or are you a crip?







headers in!



that was pretty much the end of the night, we drove home and a tire blew out on my way. it SUCKED. i was for once glad that i had metric tools. tomorrow i am going to potentially do some more work when i drop julie off at the airport. update more then!

presidents day weekend

back from a long ass weekend! here we go!

we got out to my dad's mid day friday, and ran around to pick up some parts. we didn't get much done, but got some stuff picked up from a few places.

the next day we woke up early, and got right down to business. i wheeled the motor outdoors, and you can see in the next pictures, the nice lifting setup my dad made for this:





i took some pictures of stuff we picked up:





rotors, with brand new timken (made in USA) races in them, as well as bearings, which added around 50-60 dollars to our excursion.



the calipers.



organic pads, so that when i stop it's quiet, and hopefully they won't destroy the rotors like semi metallic do. 20 dollars



brake hoses



built to last. duralast. 70 dollars?



new motor mounts, 20 dollars.



trans cooler which i ended up taking back, but ended up being around 40 dollars.



premium wire set. i think 22 dollars? i also got spark plugs for free, thanks autozone dude!



copper exhaust gasket, 30 dollars.

we got the motor up in the air, and started piecing everything together:





the plate was originally cracked, my dad ended up welding it. thanks dad!





we got the flexplate on, and started torquing it down.

we put a bar on the harmonic balancer so that we could turn the motor and get the torque converter on.





if you are reading this, you are probably laughing and on the internet.



torque converter on!

next we got the bellhousing put on:





put the new motor mounts on:



next we lowered the motor in!







now the reason we did this was to fit test the radiator, and figure out what sort of fan/spacer we would need:





as you can see, not much room there!





couple of glamour shots:







we ran out and picked up some parts, including a flex fan.



50 dollars or so.

with the fan and no spacer, this is how close the blade came to our alternator:







not much room at all!

we solved this in two ways. we moved our radiator back about 3/4 of an inch or more, as well as by cutting out the rear firewall, to allow the motor a lot more room to move back.



patched in firewall.

with the tube moved back, now the tubes of the radiator hit on my dad's support he had built, so he had to cut out and modify that. lots of work, and i'm glad he handled it:





next we welded the bracket on the top back in place, to move the radiator back like mentioned earlier.







now we could fit the radiator, and a fan+spacer





that was the end of saturday, and i passed out.

sunday i woke up and was so groggy i moved the transmission 20 feet without noticing i had fluid spilling all over me.

we got the transmission on my dad's truck and then started pulling it apart.



we pulled the pan off to get the filter out, as well as clean the whole thing up.

while my dad was lolly gaggin, i got the b&m shifter brackets mounted on the tranny:



we removed the front and rear seals, as we figured it was a good time to replace these:





here you can see the chrome pan i got for the transmission with a drain plug. worth the 20 dollars completely. i had wanted a deep pan, but i understand you need to make some modifications i didn't feel like doing.



we ran to autozone and picked up some more parts. they are getting to know us and our "frankenstein" by now. it's pretty funny.



new filter installed, 10 dollars?



spraying the pan gasket.





installing the pan.

now something that has stunk for me, is being i have to take most of these pictures, i never show up in them working! julie came out and took pictures of dad and i, while installing the transmission onto the bellhousing:





"clocking" the transmission to accept to our torque converter. just a little bit of a pain:







well dude, uh, there you have it.







my dad mounting the starter:



dropping the motor and tranny in:



with the motor and tranny in, i had to get under the car and block it up, etc....





blocked up, and the rear seal.

now my dad started playing around with a transmission mount, and while he was doing that, i got down to business and mounted the shifter:





julie helped me with it, and we got to rip carpet, drill, etc...

my dad also decided against my wish of mounting the battery in the trunk, and cut a hole where he wanted to mount the battery.



at first i wasn't feeling it, but later you will see it came out pretty nice, and fit well.

the next morning, yesterday, my dad woke me up at 5:30 am and we went out to build the battery box/mount. we also picked up parts from autozone, and it escapes me what we got, aside from dust caps and a transmission mount.

when we got back, i started getting the rotors on the spindles, while my dad worked more on the battery box/mount:





my dad putting the box in:



















once the box was in, we mounted the starter solenoid, and began making the cables:



we shoved a header up in place to make sure we built the cables right, as well:



i took sometime to take pictures of the old trans mount for the 6 cylinder, and how we adapted it to work with the c4:



i am not completely sure, but i believe my comet has the old style mount, that you cannot buy a bolt in replacement for from a website, so to anyone wanting to figure out a similar type of situation, heads up:



e brake cable moved down.



pieces of tube steel to give us a little bit more room.



you can see the header tube and the transmission in this picture. i just took it because it made me happy.

we shot some rubber undercoating on the inside of the fenders, it looks a lot nicer now:





next we mounted the calipers, which isn't exactly easy, and the hoses/etc...





we got the tires up in place, and dropped the car:



as i had suspected with the mustang springs, they are TOO heavy duty, and the suspension would barely react, even with the motor/tranny in, and me/dad jumping on the bumper.

my dad ran out, got the spring compressor, while i took the original comet springs and cleaned them up/painted them aluminum color.





we put these in after much screaming and yelling, and the suspension appears to be a lot better now. note to self: it is always easier to put a spring in without the upper control arm in place.



with the car on the ground, this is how i left it last night:





while everyone was fooling around with the springs, i installed the gauges (hah).





next weekend:

- remove engine one last time
- fix steering box
- finish steering setup
- reinstall motor/transmission
- install headers
- install accessories
- install brake lines/master cylinder
- finish wiring
- fill fluids/etc...
- fit driveshaft to trans/rear end

and hopefully, hear this thing fire up/drive it around.

rear end

i ran out to fontucky on tuesday to pick julie up from the airport/see my dad off (he had to goto the hospital). after getting some fries at the hat, and my dad getting back, we tore the rear end out of my car. julie took pictures of that process, i unfortunately do not have them on me.


old rear end out



new ford 8" rear end





side by side for comparison



cassy showed up after we finished piecing together some parts on the rear end (brake line stuff, emergency brake cable out of the old rear end), and we started installing the new rear end.











in:







me and julie, me very dirty



my dad discovered that our shock perches had the wrong angle for the current shocks, so well, he decided to heat them up by about 1,000 degrees and fix the issue.







old perches and new perches:



for the record, they didn't work at all, and my dad got new ones off ebay for some price i don't want to think about (thankfully he is).

rear end IN:









after we got done, we all took pictures with hats that welders use on:







my dad trying to be elmer fudd:





we went home for the night, and here is the progress so far:



my dad sent me a picture of this:



my front end brakes came in!

100 for rotors

70 for calipers

35 for brake hoses

STOKED.

this weekend is a four day weekend. expect to see a TON of awesome stuff come tuesday.

another weekend

monday morning and a new update, as per usual:

i got out to my dad's late, like we are talking 2-3 in the morning. my buddies car kept breaking down for unknown reasons, and i have to look at it tonight as well. my dad woke me up bright and early on saturday, and we went out junkyarding in hopes to find a brake caliper mounting bracket in a junkyard. we went to:

ecology
pick a part
and a few other places until we got a tip on a dude in san bernardino who has a load of cars from the 60's sitting in a real junk yard. within 5 minutes, the guy had what we needed, and we scavenged for other parts (maybe going back at some point). the part ended up costing us 50 dollars, which is unusually high, but pretty on key with what it would cost anywhere if you could even find it.





in that picture you can see the brackets attached to the spindles. finally!

what you can't see is my dad made a bushing adapting one of the spindles to fit the granada bracket, as for some reason the bolt hole had changed in whatever year it came from.

we made some other rounds and picked up a new water filler neck (the spectre one would not work), distributor clamp, and silly things we needed.







i tore apart my old control arms, and removed the spring perches. i cleaned these pretty good, and then painted them for good form.



also, here is a better picture of the alternator setup that my dad has working right now:



we got the spring perches mounted on the control arms, and then put those up in place.





i also started chipping some residue off of an old spring guard, i still need to do the other side:



my dad ran in and cleaned up some of the other suspension part.





we got the control arms up in place, and then mounted the spindle. what a great feeling.







my dad mounted one of the junk rotors, and a tire to see what our clearence looked like (we are moving to tires about two inches taller overall, etc...)





the next morning we went out and got some shocks, as well as borrowed a coil spring compressor.











next we got one of the mustang springs and started sucking it up!





we lowered it in and with some banging, got it in the perch.





these springs are incredibly stiff, and i'm not sure if they are going to work, but we have yet to see. they seem like they will raise my front end quite a bit in comparison to the original springs, and we might switch back over.

after we had both springs in, we turned our focus to finishing the radiator mounting. my dad got his plasma cutter hooked up, and marked out a few spots we would need to eliminate for the radiator to fit.





sure beats using a torch/cutting wheel.

next we mounted a piece of tube steel we had picked up, for the radiator for rest in (along the bottom rail).









having a welder as a dad sure helps.

sitting on the rail:



next we measured out the top mount, and made some holes/cut it fit into the frame.





next we got down to brass tacks again, and welded the piece in place.









i didn't get pictures, but we laid down rubber for the radiator, as well as used a rivet gun to add screw in's for the radiator (i had never seen this type of rivet before, and was really stoked on it)













my camera got funky, but here are some pictures of the rest of the night:



shocks installed!



installing tie rod ends. we ended up going to autozone twice to find the right tie rod ends, the first time we went, we got two tie rod ends that were wrong, but in the right box. what are the odds.

from here i took the long drive home, and i'm sure i'm missing a lot of detail, but my dad informed me that he has purchased the front brakes (cross drilled rotors too!), and those will be here for next weekend. we had hoped to get the rear end in but my brother was being lazy, and my best friend was too busy with midterms.

here's to next week!