June 13

It's been so long since I've posted or done anything more importantly. It was a big day yesterday since I made a big purchase. I bought a full of set of wheels and tires from Gerry. When I saw them I was very happy to see that they were in good shape and they are the kind of wheels that I have wanted. They look just like the kind used by Steve McQueen in the movie, Bullit.

Gerry told me how to properly clean the wheels so they have a nice shine. He also told me that it's going to take elbow grease to get them really clean. When I returned back to my house I started working on one right away.

It took a lot of elbow grease! Can you spot the wheel that I spent 2.5 hours cleaning?

I really hope that everybody can tell because if the difference isn't noticeable I'd be kinda sad.

On June 14, I'll try to finish the other three.

June 1

I got sick the next day so I'm wondering if my body made me take a day off. Now that I was feeling a bit better I had some researching to do.
The pictures don't show it but the tires are corroding and need to be replaced soon. I called my friend Gerry, since he had a full set of wheels and tires ready to go. I wanted to get a price on them for future planning, he tells $500. Score!

Next I went to Mustang and Fast Fords OC (mustang parts store). I asked the owner to give me a price on the front end (which is totally shot). He explained to me the entire process that the car would go through: labor and parts. The quote comes up to $1600. I kinda cringed at a number that big but it needs to be done. He also told me that the car would be so much better after it was done.

I also inquired about wiring harnesses since the electrical is so messed up. Rear harness would be $130 and turn signal switch another $120. I probably need to get these things too.

I need to start saving again! Major investments will be halted for now. I'll continue working on the small stuff.

May 30

After working on the car so much I wanted to take the day but John wanted to keep working. How can I turn him away?
He wanted to start work at 9:00am so that means I have to be there earlier to pull the car out of the garage and setup the tools and parts we'll need. He doesn't show up til 9:40 but luckily he was bearing gifts, so all was forgiven.

After two days of tearing apart my dash area: heater control, radio, and instrumental removed; I thought we should work on something else. I asked him to remove something else that bothered me since I saw the vehicle: the mudflaps. But they were only installed on the driver's side. I said to John "get them off, I don't care how you do it." John used a tool that I never would have thought of using: a vice grip.
I couldn't believe it but he got both of the flaps off in no time at all!

That looks so much better!

My work underneath the car continued and I did pretty good job cleaning.

The area from the rear axle to the front of the transmission looks mostly like this. Though there appears to be some factory over spray near the actual body and some grease is so caked on, I may have to put another day into getting the remainder grease off.

Next I decided to tackle the area under the engine block. This would be the most challenging since it's the source and lots of smaller parts that I'd have to work around. There's still a lot of dirt left in that area, I didn't finish that project today.

One project that John and I really needed to tackle was installing a new fuel pump. There was one little problem: we were missing a small fuel connector (connects the hose to the actual pump). No problem, we'd just head over to pep boys and get it and be done in five minutes. WRONG!
We spent a half-hour there looking for the part and the staff was extremely unhelpful. So we decided to go to O'reilly's instead and they didn't have it either but the staff was much more helpful. The guy called one of the other stores.
Luckily the other store had it. We finally reached the other store and got the part and left. This was an hour long adventure. When we got back to the shop, I was so disgruntled by this I couldn't see straight. With some help form my Dad, the three of us got the new pump in there.
It worked successfully! No more dripping gas!

This is the old pump. I'm very confident that it was time for it to be replaced.

After a long day, it was time for a little cruise. We got in the car and drove down Airway Avenue (which is one of my favorite roads since it is very secluded and perfect to let the car stretch it's legs). I drove first. When it was time to head back, I let John drive. Unfortunately the seat doesn't move much so he was a bit cramped. I hope he had fun driving it.

May 29

John really had a lot of fun working on the car and wanted come back the next day to keep working on the electrical. He didn't it working yesterday but dammit he's going to fix it! Allow me to show his determination.

It is really funny to watch someone who is over 6 feet working underneath the dash. What's even funnier is watching him try to crawl out!

As anyone can imagine, I continued my work underneath the car but I have made some real progress!

The black is the problem and the red is what is supposed to be there. Seeing the red is a very good sign: it shows me that the body does not have significant rust and this is the original factory under spray which is very cool.

When I first saw the car, there was one thing that bothered me the moment I saw it: a bell. The bell was installed there as some kind of alarm system. It obviously did not work and it wanted it out of there!

 This was a team operation.

 The screws were so cheap that they were falling apart while John trying to remove them. I was called in to help.

Good riddance! And proof that we got the job done!

May 28

I decided to get a head start in the morning and get the car ready for the work that'll be done by putting cardboard all underneath the car since I would be using degreaser on the undercarriage. The transmission has been leaking fluid and I wanted to make sure that it had enough fluid.

Today was a special day since I was able to get my friend John to help me out with the auto. When he first arrived I asked to clean the inner fender on the driver's side. I must admit that he did a very good job. But before he could start, he had to take everything on the inner fender off.

Luckily he has long arms, so he literally can reach around both sides of the fender.

Meanwhile I was cleaning the underside of the car. I decided to start from the back and make my way forward. I want to show this picture of the kind of dirt and grease, I had to deal with.

This dirt and grease was very thick, also imagine this all underneath the entire car! I was forced to buy heavy duty degreaser to try to get this off. I was going through the degreaser like candy. I also went through rags and shop towels like it was my job.


After John was finished with the inner fender, I asked him to work on the electrical. As previously mentioned, the rear tail lights don't work properly. Since John is an engineer, I figured he would have an idea about what to do.

May 26

I took the Mustang to my friend, Gerry, so we can get more work done on making the car fully operational. Gerry has a garage that blew me away when I first saw it. He has so many mustang parts it's like walking into a mustang store, he has more tools then I'd know what to do with, and he's got some pretty sweet cars.
The daily driver is a 1966 Galaxie 500.
The Sunday driver: although not quite finished, 1969 Mustang Mach 1 with 428 Cobra Jet (one of the biggest baddest engines Ford ever produced)
Projects: Another 1969 Mustang Mach 1 with 428CJ (not anywhere near complete)

When I arrived, Gerry was very impressed with my Mustang and he was really excited to get to work on the car. We had some serious work to do:
Rebuilt the carb
Reconnected the rear brake lines (after we were done with this, I felt much safer driving the car)
Relocated the ignition coil to its right location
Tightened the steering since it was a bit wobbly
Made the connection between the solenoid and battery better

He tells me that he has some headers he would like to sell and I would really like to get those when the time's right. He also had a full set of wheel and tires that he wants to get rid of as well, so those might be a purchase in the near future.

May 24

Last summer I promised my cousin, Mallory, that when (or if) I got a project car she could come help me out. So I invited her down to help me out with the car.
The project I asked her to work on was the taillights. The right taillight was out so I wanted her to replace the bulb.

Unfortunately after changing the bulb nothing changed. After that I asked her to look in the repair book to see if she could diagnose the problem.

 She tells me that the diagram looks simple enough but the wiring on the car is so backwards that we could not solve this problem.

While my cousin was working on the electrical components, I decided that I would try to clean the engine compartment a bit. I think it turned out pretty well but I know that more work is needed. A can of engine degreaser can really do some work.

May 17 Fords Only

I brought the Mustang to my friend's shop called Ford's Only. He used to help me on my first Mustang, 1966 Mustang. From two years to now, a lot has changed for Fords Only: moved to a new location, his garage has grown to accommodate more cars, and it's busier than ever.
With all these things combined, I couldn't get direct help or guidance when I brought the new Mustang there but he was able to order the parts for me for a better price. So I had to do all these repairs by myself:
Replace spark plugs and spark plug wires (I discovered that one of the spark plug wires was not connected at all, so when I first started the car I was only running on 7 cylinders)
Replace the rotor
Replace the distributor
Install a new engine mount
Fresh oil change

I also had the privilege of driving the Mustang to my parent's warehouse.

May 15 She lives!

After properly removing all of that bad gasoline and replacing the fuel filter it was finally time to see if starts.

If you couldn't tell I was pretty excited that it started. One of my neighbors told me that when it started a big cloud of blue smoke came out of the car.

May 15

Now that I finally arrived back home in California, it was time to get to work.
The first thing to do: let's see if it starts.
I was told that in order for this car to start I am going to need 3 things: air, gas, and spark.
Air: well that's a given.
Gas: My friend, Gerry, told me that since the car has been sitting for so long it would be best for me to drain the gas tank in case there might be dirty gasoline or sediment.
Spark: Didn't really check that one out, really hoping that it would work.

Gasoline is not supposed to be brown! It turns out that Gerry was right and I'm glad that I listened. If I didn't drain the gas tank then all of that dirty gas would have been sucked in by the carb and that would be a world of trouble.

April 24

After a basic car wash the car looks a little better and we took a lot of pine needles out of the engine compartment.

 The car had a trailer hitch attached (obviously). It's removal was one of the first things done to the car.

Since the car hasn't been running for so long we decided to have it towed back to the homebase. The car would have to sit in front of the house until I could come from school and begin my work.

New Blog

John and I just created this blog so I could share all the successes, accomplishments, and "challenges".
This is my first blog and I wanted to show how the car will progress from start to finish.

The car: 1968 Fastback Mustang. My aunt and parents discovered this old Mustang in Lake Arrowhead, CA. The owner wanted to get rid of this car since it was taking up space and my family jumped on the deal. When they first discovered the car it was an absolute mess! The pine needles were everywhere! Inside, outside, and even today I'm still finding pine needles. After negotiating with the owner the car was turned over to us. This car was not operational and they had to have it towed down to Newport Beach.

The kid: While my family was securing this car, I was still in school and had no idea that any of this was happening. When I came home for Easter, the car was revealed to me and it was a huge surprise! I have always wanted a car like this: a car that I can work on and build to make it my own and it was not a total rust bucket. Sadly, I had to go back to school for finals and it was quite difficult to concentrate during those tests.

Now that I'm back in California, I'm going to do everything I can to make this car into a real muscle car.

Photos are from: 4/23/11