Over on Facebook one of the groups has a Then and Now series of posts. That consisted of folk posting the cars they were driving 10 years ago and now. I thought that was cool so I put quick clip together for my rides then and now.
For sometime now I have a Mustang Corvette combo, my ’70 Mustang/84 Vette combo and my ’73 Mustang/’07 Vette combo.
Just a little trip down memory lane!!
Thanks for reading.
Tim
Let me start out with a couple of pics of something most followers of my sight haven’t see in a couple years.
Project SportsRoof – not up on jack stands!!!!
The Stang getting a full tank….IN PERSON!!!!
It’s great to have it back on the road!!
As you know, I had a recommendation to have some work done on #ProjectSportsRoof. The story was this shop was expanding into Tucson and the son of the owner was going to run local ‘branch’. That was only 20% true. The son (for whatever reason) rented a bay from a garage here in town. Instead of paying rent he was going to do free repairs for the shop owner. Shortly after the Mustang was at the location, his deal with the owner went south and so did my car!!!
For two weeks I could not get hold of guy and when I showed up at the place he was supposed to be working, I was told they had no idea what was going on. Shortening the story about 2 months, my car is finally returned to me. Running great, but missing ‘stuff’. You can see the that part of the story here: https://wp.me/p2YxYx-5fK
BTW Twisted Addiction was the name of the shop and I still hear good things about the work they do in a town about 50 miles from here. But my experience was beyond crappy!!!
After wrestling with the shifting lever I needed to get the car on the road (O.K. – more like a want) I turned to a unique garage. They are unique not because they are one of a kind, in fact they are a chain. They are unique because the owner/partner pushed the envelope on the range of cars he would allow his team to work on. Work on older cars was (and is) not part of the chain’s business model, and certainly helping out the locals on their old project cars wasn’t either. But they did and with the new owner/partner, they’ve grandfather me and my project in. They were there when I needed help on my current project. From my 1970 Mustang to my 1984 Corvette and now with 73 Mustang (#ProjectSportsRoof) they didn’t hesitate.
I had the SportsRoof towed to the shop and the damage to the suspension wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but there was not need for it to occur. You can see the story here: https://wp.me/p2YxYx-5hV.
I have the Mustang back and there was a mix of used and new parts added to fix the suspension damage.
And now I have it back and still stinging from the series of set backs, but happy to have it drivable again. Here is a video update.
Thanks for reading.
Tim
1973 Mustang Project SportsRoof – Exterior Walk-Around
1973 Mustang – Project Sports Roof – Pertronix Ignitor Update
So today the Mustang was going to make a quick trip the shop down the street to have the valve body put back in the transmission. The tow truck driver got the ‘Stang off-center on the flatbed and decided to winch it sideways. Only problem he wrapped the chain around the lower control arm. I was on the phone and heard a sickening snap. The bottom of the lower control arm is now facing the front of the car and you can see the rest here. Video is below the pic.
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Will update when I have news.
Thanks for reading.
Tim
#ProjectSportsRoof
More work on my 73 Mustang’s shift lever. I have the pan off and removed the valve body. You can get a good look at the what needs to happen next.
Here is the bolt pattern for the valve.
The dots show the bolts to remove.
Over on www.7173Mustangs.com one of the experts modified a open end wrench like this:
We’ll see what I can find to remove this nut. That will be coming up shortly.
Thanks for reading.
Tim
#ProjectSportsRoof
Welcome back to Project Sports Roof (#ProjectSportsRoof). The struggle is real!!!
You saw in the last video my replacement of the linkage that was lost by the repair shop (along with my new battery and started). This repair shone the light (as often happens with older cars) on a previous repair. Some might call it a hack and I get it, there are times when you need to take short cuts, but as usual short cuts often have short life spans.
Take a look at the video:
When you have issues with shifting an automatic transmission and it’s related to the linkage you have the option of fixing it right or fixing it “wrong” (i.e., short cut). At some point in my Mustangs earlier life the C4 transmission was swapped our for a used C6. It seems that the C6 (from a 1972 Ford – which really doesn’t matter the C6 has changed much in all this time) had a broken shift lever. Take a look:
Here the run down:
A is the broken shift lever. What you should see there is something like this:
B is what is commonly called a ratcheting shift lever. It’s a replacement that is ‘clamped’ on to the stub of the shift lever to shift the trans. This is done because to replace the unit you have to drain the transmission, remove the pan, the filter and the valve. This is a PITA. Especially true, if you just put the transmission in and filled it with fluid!!!) So the after market ratcheting shift lever is common. This what the parts looked like when I took them off:
Custom hack
Of course C is a washer and D….well, D is a very special customization or it’s just a hose clamp.
As you can see at the end of the video the ratcheting shift lever was just sliding. I suppose I could have just tightened clamp down and see if it shifted, but how reliable would it be…might as well fix it right!!!
Thanks for checking on #ProjectSportRoof.
I have more coming up on my 1973 Stang and more on Bill’s ProjectBeepBeep as well.
Tim
Thanks for checking back in on #ProjectSportsRoof. My 73 Mustang doesn’t what to get it in gear so I have to troubleshoot the shifting linkage.
For this round, I’m putting in new bushings to remove the slop when shifting.
Here is the video:
More coming up.
Thanks for reading.
Tim
Project SportsRoof Shifting Linkage Part 1
1973 Mustang – Project SportsRoof – Compression, Rods and Heads
1973 Mustang – Project SportsRoof – Fender Removal
Welcome back to my 1973 Mustang project #ProjectSportsRoof.
In the last post I mentioned that some how the shift linkage bar was lost when I had the car in a local shop to help put with the transmission. They took another look around their place and I did the same…no luck. So I purchased a replacement link.
Take a look….warning the audio is not great in spots.
Well we are now moving into, what I hope is an adjustment phase for the transmission. However, it might be something….more expensive!!!
Stay tuned.
Thanks for reading
Tim
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
Well it has been a while since I’ve updated readers on #ProjectSportsRoof and frankly there hasn’t been a lot going on.
As the regular readers know I do all the work I can on my car, when practical. This work happens in my driveway, which unfortunately has a rather steep slope.
You’ve seen the videos of my work pulling out the engine and the transmission and putting the engine back in and attempting to put the transmission back in.
I few weeks ago, after suffering from a huge bout of guilt for not working the Mustang, I attempted one more time to get the transmission reattached to the engine.
This endeavor, required me to put the car up a lot higher than normal on the stands, to get enough room to maneuver the trans and the transmission jack around. this was a huge mistake. After a few tries I decided to pull the transmission back out for under the car and wait for some help later in the week.
Everything went fine and the transmission was safely strapped to the transmission jack and rolled back into the garage. Since the car was lifted higher for the failed attempt, I decided to lower it back on to the ground. As I lifted the car with my floor jack, so I could remove one stand one of the remaining stands slipped from its place and the car dropped about 5″ on to the tires. This didn’t seem to be to dramatic of a fall until I noticed that the motor mounts had separate (broke to be frank).
That was depressing, to say the least and another set back. Of course this depression was compounded by the fact that I had very limited free time coming up to work on the car. I am a full-time Junior High teacher and I had just signed on to coach our boy’s basketball team which was a lot of fun (we when 10 -2 for the season) and very time-consuming.
I purchased the motor mounts and was attempting to schedule a couple of relatives to help out. That proved difficult.
So a relative mentioned a successful automotive shop that was opening a new location here in Tucson and I contacted them to see they wanted to tackle the engine and transmission re-install, build a custom drive shaft and add headers and exhaust. They looked it over and we agreed on the cost estimate.
So off she goes to get the complete drive training straighten out and hopefully back on the road soon.
There is still a lot of work to be done and as I get ready for my summer break from teaching, I should be able to but more time into it!!!
I have a lot more coming up on #ProjectBeepBeep as well.
Thanks for reading.
Tim
#ProjectSportsRoof
#ProjectBeepBeep
It’s been a while but the new career is smoothing out and I’m hell-bent on getting back to my Mustang project.
Here is where we are with the drive train…going backward is necessary sometimes to get moving forward again.
HEY FOUND THEM:
More Coming Up on #ProjectSportsRoof.
Thanks for reading.
Tim
