Tag Archives: Mustangs

84 Corvette – Power Steering Work

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Two guesses as to my next project on my C4……cricket…cricket…cricket…Give up?   Fine, its replacing the power steering reservoir and connected hoses.

Just for fun?  Nope, who’d want that mess of a job, just for fun?  No…no it is not an upgrade but a serious leak. 

Hey kids its story time!!!!  Let me tell you about the big shiny Vette that ate all of the average guy’s car budget.  Grab you binkies…it’s horrifing.  

If you’ve been reading my posts, you may recall (“come..you ‘member!!!” {I stole that from the comedian George something}…..What you don’t hang on every word I type?…You don’t re-read my post to memorize all my car woes and tips and humor???..that’s what I figure…yet I keep on typing….its good therapy for me!!!) that my vette over heated, not once, but twice!!!   Freak catastrophic radiator hose split and then the fan frying it’s self.   

After I got it back from the shop, where I had them check the electric work I did when installing the new fan, I noticed a leak under the car in the driveway.  I hate leaks under my cars, almost as much as the Ms. hates the side affects they have on our driveway (I’m not crazy about them either).  The leak was not too big and when I cleaned it up, I chalked it up to left over coolant from the over heading, it had the right consistency. Then I washed the car.  Nice shiny beautiful red…money swilling Corvette!!!! 

Drove the car to work and home again and came back out a bit later to put the garbage cans on the curb….errrkkk…hey…Tim..no one, not one single person, cares why you came back outside, and just as many care where you put the trash cans… and I’m going out on a limb here…but I’m betting the total is the same for whether you drove it to work…to the store…or Japan…got it bro???!!!  These are valuable minutes of our lives being spent here reading this!!   Ok..I got it. The pool was bigger than before and it no longer could be mistaken for coolant.  It was without a doubt, transmission fluid, or power steering fluid.  Whether it is GM or Ford, either of their recommend power steering fluid looks and feels similar to the transmission fluid. 

Dreading the worse news, I decided to first check what I hoped was the problem, power steering fluid, I’d hate that less then tranmission issues.  Luckily…(isn’t that the way it is with older cars..your happiness is measured by the size of what’s broken, or needs replacing)…it appeared that it was just the top of the hoses on the reservoir, near the hose clamps…perfectly understandable….it’s an old car..and simple to replace (remember that later on in this post). 

Here are the hoses: 

Hoses leaking near the clamps.

 

I’m thinking…oh..”SLAM DUNK” easy fix.  Perhaps, but come on….really….does it really ever turnout that easy…yes it does…but not this time!!! 

After further inspection, I noticed something else..oh…you’ll love it!!  I’d tell you but you know a pic is worth 250 cuss words (most of those aren’t real words but I do have some unique arrangements of the classic 4 letter ones and a few bigger).  Ready???  NO!! For the pic… make up your own cuss phrases!!! 

Sigh!!!

 

Well that does make it a clean sweep…everything above the pump up needs to be replaced!!!  Ok, still not horrible, so I’m much happier knowing it’s not the transmission!!!!  Just order the parts and we are home free. 

And that’s the end of the story…expect for the part where the hoses aren’t available any more and OMG, you betcha, they aren’t straight hoses.  Here…take a look!!! 

From the reservoir, down to the pulleys, nothing but bends!!!

 

Better look at the hose going straight down the Front of the engine block

 

They are molded to hold shape, there is no room for anything but the exact bends or they will rub against the pulleys and last..oh..maybe a week!!  

And finally… 

And a little wider view.

 

The reservoir and one hose that is supposed to fit are on their way…be here tomorrow. The other hose is not available…no not out of stock and on back order…not made any longer.  

But I have an idea….I’ll give that to you tomorrow. 

Thanks for reading 

Tim

1970 Mustang – Replacing my Pillar Post Moldings Part III

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Caulk another tasks down on the restoration of the Mustang. 

I finished up the pillar post molding last night.  Here is the before: 

Pretty?

 

Now these were not as labor intensive as the dash-pad but here were some issues. 

We’ll walk through them. 

The removing the dash-pad was chronicled in my earlier post and that was pretty quick now that I’ve done it twice. 

Once the dash-pad was removed there is an additional piece that needs to be removed, or at least a couple of screw removed on each side. That is the top molding: 

Top Molding

 

 In the picture above I’m pointing to one of the screws in the top molding that runs the length of the windshield.  That screw  is actually through the pillar molding which is partially behind it.  The top molding has 5 screws, two on each end and on my coupe the fifth is in the center and holds the plastic snap for the ends of the sun visors.  That screw does not have to be removed there is plenty of play after the removal of the four other screws, to safely (without forcing anything) remove and install the new moldings. 

The next step is removing the two additional screws that hold the pillar molding to the pillar. 

Screw Marked Remove

 

and this one: 

Second screw to remove.

 

It’s tough see there but here is a good clear picture…that old mold was so deteriorated it actually fell apart. 

Lower molding screw.

 

When I said it fell apart……. 

Yup. It was in bad shape.

 

The other side came/fell off the same way, in pieces, nothing left to do but snap the other pieces on and…eeerrrrkkkk(insert braking sound)…”Yeah..anybody know if you can insert sound in there a WordPress blog??” ….cricket..cricket…cricket……huuummm where’s my…oh I have no staff…well, only when my son visits (he does some on my graphic design..more on my new logo search later..maybe you all can vote on one??) back to my eeerrkkk…we need to discuss quality of workmanship for reproduction parts.  That won’t be a long discussion..”sucks”…there ya go, end of discussion. 

But really I know that they try, and I am grateful for something that looks almost as good, especially for a rare car like mine (…meaning not very sought after..at least not yet…therefore the profit in making any unique parts is next to nothing.) 

One of the first things about this particular molding is that is about 1/2 the thickness of the original and made of light plastic.  This worked out because the holes are not exactly lined up and there was a larger problem. 

Offset isn't correct.

 

As you can see the molding on the right (the original) where the screw driver blade is located, is recessed about 1/2 an inch, if not a little more.  On the left (new molding) there is almost only about 1/4 of an inch..maybe a bit less.  If the material for the new molding was as rigid as the original there would be no flex in the material and the lack of offset for tab on the new molding would not have allowed the use of the original screw, it would have been too short. Additionally, screw holes A and B  in the picture below were not aligned properly and would not have enough ”give” but allow installation, if it was stiff as the original. 

Improperly aligned.

 

 Was this engineering genius or happy mistake? 

Generally, the fit was close, not contours car show inspect-able close, but close enough for the local guys.  But if you can find parts made from “original tooling” (we talked about that when I was install the dash-pad for the first time) buy those, if your Average Budget can handle it.  These molding just aren’t available in any other tooling. 

With the holes in the wrong place it took some pressure and jostling to get them into place.  One tip I can pass on is do not tighten the screws until you have them all started.   I had to leave the top two screws out far enough to allow movement to get the bottom screw in. 

Keep the screw loose to maneuver the piece around.

 

 In the end the result were pretty good. You be the judge. 

Left side

 

Left side bottom (and my vette in the background)

 

Right side (and my neighbor's truck...like you need to know that!!)

 

Left Side bottom

 

Over all it took about 3 hours with interruptions with phone calls and neighbors stopping to chat.  It’s like Soaring over on www.MustangV8.com forum said..”Those are the kinds of tinkering jobs I like.  You get satisfaction you can actually see.”  (BTW – I like that forum, the Classic Mustang section is great.) 

Thanks for reading. 

Tim 

Vette troubles Overheading Do’s and Don’ts Part I

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The other day (7/1) was a record-setting day for me.  Oh..yea..setting some personal bests, that….well….frankly I could have done without!!!!    

 So I thought I’d take a minute or two to jot down the events of the day, as a form of therapy, and maybe I won’t feel like having all my cars crushed and moving to a small Quaker community in PA.   

Ok…. that does feel better.  Now say it with me…”I’m OK and You are OK”.   

So here’s the story and I’m being as dramatic as necessary!!!!   

Drove my 84 C4 to work as normal yesterday………   

>>>Oh..hey wait…..I did this Corvette owner thing a few weeks back…guess what it was?…..{silence….cricket…cricket….cricket..}  Give up?  Ok..fine I’ll just tell you.   I got a personalized license plate…No..not a vanity plate that says “Studly” like my wife wanted me to get!!!  {{If you only knew how funny that last statement was..my wife hates those plates, although I believe he thinks I am studly!!!}}. Nope I had to get clever,  I wanted something that defined my car.  You have no idea how many times I get asked…”Yo…what years is it?”  My neighbor next store ask me that every time he see me outside my house…he’s 80 something…so I’m very polite about it (’cause I’ll be 80 some day), and tell him it’s a 1984, and always ask him if he wants to take it for a spin and we both laugh.  (Man..you’re getting your money’s worth reading this one..three stories in one.) Any way I thought if I could squeeze the year of my Corvette into the plate and I wouldn’t have to answer it as much.  ( I actually got a stamped “1970” plate at a place in a shopping mall for the front of my Mustang for the same reason…Arizona only requires a rear plate…funny..they still sent out two plates though!!!)  (Geezzzeee..there’s 4 stories for ya…I don’t think I remember what the orignal was??!?!?!).  The plate reads  “84C4WOT”.  Deciphered it means   1984 C4 (the generation) and WOT = Wide Open Throttle.   

Wow was that painful to read through?  Hope not!!!   

Ok, back to the original post.  Got to work just fine no problems.  Now, this time of year it’s get’s pretty hot here is Southern AZ and  I think yesterday was about 105 or 107.  My work day went by as slow as it possibly could and I had to hang a little late to finish up a task.  I head home and I got about  4 miles from work and I noticed the cars behind me slow down and to a little swerve in the road.  If you’ve driven here in Tucson much, such things are not extraordinary, there’s a lot of weirdness here on the roads.    

Approximately 1000 yards down the road I see my digital temp gauge, jump to 260 degrees.  Now the 1984 C4 runs hot by factory standards.  The electric fan has a factory setting of 223 degree before it kicks on…but 260…is not good…not by any stretch.  And picture my expression on my face when 200 feet further it shot to 280 degrees.  I’m doing about 45 and I’m in the middle lane of a 3 lane street and traffic is heavy.  I know I need to pull this thing over or that which is currently going very bad..is going to get even worse.  I cut off the next car where there was the smallest of a gap and dove for a  Circle K (like a 7-11) parkinglot about another 500 yards away.  As I pulled in to the parkinglot…my temp gauge read  299 degrees (my first new record of the day..beating the old temp by a whopping 17 degrees…”Tell him what he’s won Johnny!!” ” Well Wink, he’s won a cooked corvette and gas saving trip on the back of a tow truck!!!!”.) DOOM!!! was the only word that came to mind….ok..fine…that wasn’t the word…but it did have 4 letters.   

I stopped it, turned it off, popped the hood latch and jumped out of the car to get the front lifted up….  I expected to see coolant gushing out of every place imaginable, but the engine compartment was pretty dry…I’m thinking..this is not good…nope….not good at all.  There was a little fluid on the frame and a small wisp of steam, but nothing to make you think there was an Old Faithful event about to occur.  I checked the coolant overflow tank and it had a small amount of fluid in it..very small, odd for something that was about to blow.  I quickly checked the hoses that I could see, without touching anything….every thing was hot, and they looked fine. I could even see a portion of bottom hose, it seemed ok.  I stepped back and looked under the car and there was only a very small puddle.  Corvettes are pretty low to the ground which makes it hard to see anything will out getting down on the ground, but I had on white paints and when it is 107 degrees in Tucson, the pavement is about 115!!!   

So what my observations imply is there wasn’t enough coolant in the car to boil…and at about 300 degree…it would be boiling!!!   

 There are only a couple of things that would a cause a complete drain of the cooling system.    

1. A hose coming off.  Since there wasn’t any coolant on the upper part of the engine, so the top ones were fine and what I could see of the bottom hose it seemed normal.   

2.  A cracked block or a head would have had the Vette running poorly before hand and I would have noticed.   

3. Freeze out plug failing.  I’m thinking this was the problem.  A freeze out plug is just that, a metal plug in the block and heads of your engine. They are there mainly for cold weather climates.  If the coolant was mixed wrong with too much water and should this mixture freeze,  the plugs will pop out during a “freezing event” allowing expansion of  liquid hopefully saving the engine’s metal from cracking from the pressure.    

   

Freeze Out Plug

 

Freeze Out Plug in the engine block.

 

Why is that so bad?  They look pretty simple to put back in.  Sure they are, right…after you pull the entire engine out!!!   

So there I stand, white paints looking soiled, red Vette with hood up and smelling like a burnt carrot, 107 degree, humid as hell, and it starts to rain.  Can you picture it?    

I made a quick call to my GM Motor Club and they arraigned for a flat-bed.   2 hours later my lovely wife meets me at the Circle K and we wait together for another  45 minutes(total of 2.75 hours) for a truck to show up (my second record of the day… breaking my last tow truck wait by 1.25 hours) and 45 minutes after that I waiting in my favorite repair facility parkinglot waiting for my poor Vette to be dropped off (where it would sit, in the dark, overnight, all alone and wounded).  Too much drama?   

Let’s get to the do’s and don’ts.   

1.  Do pull over in  a safe spot as soon as possible.   

2. Don’t continue driving. Don’t try to make it home or one more block/mile.  You could just be making it worse.   

3.  Don’t keeping it running after you stop in a safe place. It isn’t normally going to cool it down and again you could be making it worse.   

4. Don’t touch anything under the hood. Don’t open the radiator.  Don’t open the coolant overflow reservoir.   

5.   Don’t try filling it with water or coolant immediately.  Just let the car cool down all the way down.   

6.  Don’t try driving it after its cooled down, even if you filled it with water.  100% chance that what caused the overheating, didn’t go way.  

7.  Do call a tow truck.   

8. Do call a friend or someone and let them know where you are, at the least.   

9. Do get a motor club of some kind.  Average Guy with average budget..right? Towing is expensive, very expensive.   I like the GM Motor Club.  I pay about $69 a year and I’ve used it twice this year already.  I have my son’s car covered and my Corvette. (The Mustang is covered by Haggerty insurance.)  Within town the towing is free up to a certain mileage, both this years tows were free, saving about 250 bucks a shot, that a good deal.   

More coming up.  

Thanks for reading   

Tim.

Hanging in Chi-town

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Coming to you live from The Witt in downtown Chicago, it’s me typing on my laptop.   Three more days to enjoy relaxing and seeing the sights.

Speaking of sights..what I don’t see is a lot of muscle cars now or old…errrk… let me explain “lot” in this context it means…. “almost none”.  I’ve actual only seen one newish corvette (C6 – convertible) and a 1968 Mustang.  The Vette was on the street and the Mustang was parked in an alley.  That’s it!!!.

Muscle Car Drought..the only Vette I've seen!!

Ok…hang on,  if you think I just sit and type uninterrupted..nope…not much chance of that.

 My better half is here in the Windy City, at an international interior design event, where she’ll be giving a talk on….um…some interior design subject….um….yeah…I pretty sure that’s right and I tagged along. Nice little vacation where I can tool around a big city, which I enjoy doing from time to time.  What’s my point…umm…oh yeah….so I just ran out to get pick her up a couple of items while she is practicing her presentation.   On my return trip back to our hotel I spied  a beautiful custom 2010 Mustang..so..that makes three!!!

 Would you drive  your vintage or newish muscle car around a large city?  Let me say that I’ve been walking and taking cabs and even ridding on top of the double-decker tour bus and I’ve seen how these Windy City dwellers drive….I’d have to day…..I don’t think I would.  These folks drive 50 miles an hour between stop lights…but..still I might consider it early on a Sunday morning!!!

Oh…bTW…I know these guys!!!

My Parts Guy.

Oh and in the category of hanging 1930 Chevy’s….here ya go…a 4 door sedan at Portillo’s.

1930 Chevy..hanging in an eating establishment.

And up close:

1930 4 Door Sedan.

Engine and all are there for you to see.

Thanks reading.

Tim

Steve Sears 1992 Ford Ranger XLT and Paint

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Steve Sears is one of the readers of this blog and owner of a 1982 Mercury Cougar Station Wagon (again..I love this car). 

But that’s not all, Steve does a lot of his own work, including this unique paint job on his 1992 Ranger. 

Here is his recent project. 

The before: 

1992 Ford Ranger XLT

 

Tim, 

  

I completed my project last week and thought you’d like to see it.  I painted my Ranger with a roller.  I only did six coats of each color, usually 8 – 10 coats are required.  I like to call the color Haze gray underway and white.  I spent 26 years in the Navy so I thought the gray was appropriate for me. Ha Ha.  It’s painted with rustoleum mixed with mineral spirits in a 1:1 ratio thus the many coats required.  The body prep is the same as any other type paint job except that a primer is not used over the whole truck.  I only spot primed the bare metal and over the bondo used to fix parking lot dings.  It took a full 8 days to complete the project including the paint on the topper.  I have to wait a few weeks before buffing out for a full gloss.  For that I’ll just remove the mirrors and the bug shield on the front.  The process is well documented on the web over the last 10 years or so so I won’t repeat the process.   

  

I thought your readers would be interested. Finally I have the truck looking like new again.  It’s a 1992 Ranger XLT that I had bought new on April 24, 1992.  It has the 2.3 liter four and a five speed tranny.  The picture labeled 019.JPG is the before shot is attached.  

And the after photos: 

After Pic 1

  

After Pic 2

  

After Pic 3

Thanks very much for sharing it Steve.  (A roller?  Wow!!!!)  

  Drop me your comments!!!! 

Thanks for reading 

Tim 

Auto Factoids for the Week of 5/30/2010

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5/31/1927 – Mr. Ford produces the last Model T

6/2/1899 – Locomobile Co. Founded – they were in business until 1929.  They made a lot of cars, I hadn’t realized that.  Here are a couple.

1901 Locomobille - Cool..wonder what the 1/4 mile time were??

Love this one..Steam powered????

1923 48 Series Sport

6/3/1864 Ransom Olds was born in Ohio.  He developed and build cars named after him,  Oldsmobile and REO (his middle name was Eli, hence REO, hey that was a band name REO Speedwagon.

An Reo Speedwagon

I’ve never heard of the next guy, until now and did a little reading.

Barney Oldfield was born 6/3/1878.  He was a race car drive, but started out racing bike and wining silver medals in the process.  Here are a couple pics:

Early 1900's

Oh Yeah..that Henry Ford standing next to his car.

Mustang Hose Woes

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I was about to start the pillar moldings mini project when I ran into a couple mechanical issues.

About a week ago the Mustang began squealing when pushed to high revs.  That normally indicates one of several problems.

1. It could be a water pump

2.  It could be the power steering pump

3.  It could be a pulley

4. It could be a bolt that was holding the alternator bracket to the engine worked itself out and was in contact with the fan belt.

5. It could be a combination of the any of these.

Now the Mustang did, every once in a while, drip some fluid from the power steering control value but it wasn’t a huge deal.

Well, Saturday I went to start her and the battery was dead.  It’s over 3 years old and I had left the lights on the day before and had to have it jump started.  So off to the auto parts store I went and pick up a new 3 year battery and stuck it. When I started the engine up, it made the squeal and I decided I needed to fix this, before the pillar molding.

So with a neighbor revving the engine I noticed the bolt protruding from the water pump/block ( it passes through left side water pump housing in to the block).  With the revs the fan belt would flex and briefly hit the bolt.   This bolt was “custom” made when we were fitting everything up to reman’ed long block and was about 7 or 8 inches long.

It took a bit to get that back in place, had to loosen up the alternator’s other two supports and toss a little loctite on the threads and she was good to go…..almost…..

Yeah….option #5 above was the correct answer BTW.

Started it up and there was still a squeal – not the same squeal but clearly an ‘accompaning’ squeal.  Shortly after that a power steering hose let go and well liquid does what gravity  make it do and I spent the afternoon cleaning the driveway.  So there went my allotted time for Saturday.   So replacing both hoses seem the best way to go and they’ll  be in today.  Right now it’s at the shop down the street, I had no time to undertake this task at the moment, will be traveling the next couple weeks.

One of my travels takes me to the National Corvette Museum.  I’ll spend an entire day there which include the assembly plant tour.

Thanks for reading.

Tim

V8 Reference Book

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I grab every book I think is useful in any of my hobbies.  I happened to be at the mall the other day and had some time kill and wonder down to Borders books store.  Pick up a book entitled “Ultimate American V-8 Engine Data Book” 2 Edition  by Peter Sessler, published MotorBooks.

This book has engine identification codes, component casting codes, internal dimensions and specs, and power and torque ratings.

It goes back as far as 1952 and covers Fords, GM, Mopar, and AMC, Packard and Studebaker.  It includes big blocks and small blocks.  There is a lot of information.

I learned from this book that all of the engines possible for the Corvette in 1984 were rated @ 205 hp.  The CFI was the main power supplier, but it also had listed a couple TPI’s (engine suffix code ZFC), TBI (engine suffix code ZFJ – supposedly for export only) and a 4v for California (engine suffix code ZFF).

They also inform you of the transmissions that go with the engines.

There are listings for cylinder heads parts or casting # as well as intake and exhaust manifolds as well.

I think this one is worth the  $30.00.

This is a great transition to introduce an up and coming feature for this blog.

I love engines…(duh).  To me the history of development, what was used when and where and maybe even why can be fascinating.  I’ll be tossing out specs and the like and hopefully some, ” I would have never guessed that” information.  Now, I don’t have this all in my head, it will be researched stuff or some experiences. (My 1974 Torino was a good case study..tell you the story soon).

Thanks for reading.

Tim

SCCA Event 4/25/2010 Auto Cross Part II

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So the other cost I mentioned will be in the area of tires.

In this event I just ran with my street tires 255/50 ZR 16  BFG GForce Sport and stock rims (only chrome). There was a lot of tire spinning and some smoking.  The surface of the track was…well lets just say less the optimun..ok…fine…it was horrible.  (You could toss in a few cuss words in front of horrible and you wouldn’t be over dramatizing.)  It was black top, cracked, uneven and there was grass and weeds growing on the far end. The tires looked rough when I finished the 10 runs.  Too many more events (this was the second auto cross on these tires) and I think I’d have to replace them.

So that really means that to protect the street tires and the chrome rims, I really ought to have an other set of tires and rims.  Now you are talking money that many of us average guys aren’t going to spring for.  This is true for vette owners..tires are not cheap for the older vettes. Not so for my co-worker running his Civic, they are reasonable. 

Take my C4  the tires and the Wheels are uni-directional.  Not unusual for tires, but my 1984 C4 rims only go one way and are labeled left front, right front and the same for the rear.  I do have the original set of rims that I will eventually restore to the factory aluminum and clear coat, but right now they would for auto crossing.  But the rubber can run upwards of $700.00 and if I put racing rubber on it, according to SCCA rules it will change my class.

The last cost is the “I broke it cost.”  They could be just about anything on a car that’s racing.  Anything mechanical, brakes (oh..they will wear out a lot faster in auto cross…or at least the way I do it!!!!), undercarriage,  right down to the dreaded “cone damage”. (yeah…yeah….I know you aren’t suppose to hit them…I know the object of the race..but man did I kill some of them ‘good’..no doubt!!!)   I did no damage to the vette but I did see a Evo that took out a portion of his front air dam.

In fact the vette performed flawlessly, only problem was the driver.  I’ll get to that next blog.  You’ll laugh and I’ll give you my times and points and we’ll talk about PAX times and classes.

Thanks for reading.

Wrenchin’ Tip – Fuel Line Threads – Comment from A reader

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I replaced all the fuel lines and brake lines on my 65 a few years ago, and I used this flaring tool and the thread seal that comes in a tube.  I have never had a leak, and I have never used the teflon tape.  You don’t need a real expensive flaring tool to work on these old Mustangs.

Flaring Tool

  

Soaring’s ride: 

1965 Mustang