73 Mustang is back!! Project SportsRoof is Alive!

Well this day was long time coming.  My 1973 Mustang has finally returned home and it sounds fantastic!!

You followed #ProjectSporstRoof, you may recall  I ran into time issues and ability, to get the transmission mated back up to the engine and the components had to be placed back under the hood and new radiator installed. I had disassembled the engine, send it out to be bored (.040) and crank was milled a bit and rebuilt. That was over a year and half ago. In Feb of this year I decided to get some help getting it running.

A relative had an acquaintance that was starting a second shop here in Tucson to match the success of their first shop that was about an hour way. I wanted to keep the car local so I could check in on the work being done. So I asked and received an estimate and the price was fair. My only stipulation was that the car stay in Tucson and not their out-of-town shop. What I didn’t know was that their idea of starting a shop was to use a garage at a start-up/pop-up used car lot. In return they would be doing really cheap work for the car dealer in lieu of paying expensive rent.

There’s very few times such a plan works out and one day my Mustang disappeared and I wasn’t informed. I eventually (weeks) got a hold of them and found that my car was right where it I didn’t want it…at the out-of-town shop.

Now, I understand business deals falling part, especially when you start-up with little capital and hook-up with another start-up with little capital. What I didn’t like was not knowing that my car was now no longer in the city. Checking on the progress was going to be impossible and as it turned our some of my parts were left/lost at the Tucson shop. An additional problem was that I forgotten to pack a few parts and it took massive coordination effort to get the items to them.

Number 6 is huge!!!

If you don’t have trust in the shop then everything, even the normal things, that arises when you are restoring a car are suspect. Combine that with a newly rebuild engine, never fired-up, well lets just say I was concerned that the proper cautions would be attended to and I’d end up with a pile of ugly Mustang parts in my driveway that I’d have to get rid of or sell the house to afford to fix it!!! So I held my breath and reluctantly had them push on.

Only two real issues came up, one was the drive shaft, it has been repaired a some point in the car’s history and poorly done at that and the yoke was in rough shape. A local shop said that could fix it for a set price, they couldn’t and ended up replacing the shaft and for the original price quoted. The other issue was a panic call/video from the shop, showing my Mustang vomiting radiator fluid in the air like Hawaii’s Kīlauea. That of course is what happens when you put a Windsor thermostat in a 351 Cleveland.

So I reduced my expectations and told them all I wanted was for the car to be mobile. I wanted it driven off the trailer and driven in my driveway and I’d be finished with them. The manual shifting you saw in the video is a result of a lost part.

Now #ProjectSportsRoof is back and I can get on with all the little projects that are left…like installing the shift linkage…yea…that should be first!!!

Thanks for reading and I can now say…there’s more coming up for #ProjectSportsRoof!!!

Tim