It is pretty much the end of the 2020 show season. Due to the Coronavirus pandemic I didn’t attend any in person shows. I did enter a virtual show, but it just isn’t quite the same as looking at the cars and meeting the people in person. I hope that 2021 offers more opportunities for the car show community to get together in person.

Of course not attending car shows doesn’t translate to not driving the car. My driving time was very limited, but I did get the opportunity to stretch the car’s legs a few times. It also gave me plenty of time to plan what car projects I would like to complete this winter. I thought I had a plan, but on my last drive of the season the car gave me a clear indication as to what my highest priority winter project will be this year.

I got the car all cleaned up in preparation for what I thought would be my last drive of the season. I only got a short way from my house before I remembered I needed to bring a mask with me. I didn’t really expect to be in close proximity to any people, but just wanted to bring a mask just in case. I made a quick U-turn and headed back home. I was now driving in a direction where the sun was shining straight through the front windshield. I noticed what appeared to be some smoke or fog rising up in front of the dash. It quickly cleared so I kept on going. I arrived back home and went inside to get my mask. When I returned to the car I noticed a small puddle on the passenger side floor mat and some dripping coming from the heater box. This was something I’d seen before, just not for a number of decades. It looked like I was going to need to replace the heater core. Looks like my joy ride for the day was over.

A couple of days later I made it back out to the garage and pulled the heater box out. One look at the heater core and it was obvious it was leaking. The heater hoses and heater box were in good shape as I had replaced/rebuilt them in the past. So just replacing the heater core was a viable option that I could pursue without a lot of additional work or expense.

Another option would be to install an aftermarket air conditioning unit. This option involves a lot more work but would make driving on long trips more comfortable. Since my car has a factory console there is no room for an A/C unit that hangs under the dash. However there are several companies that sell kits that install in the dash, replacing the factory heater box with a unit that has blended air/heat, and dehumidified defrost functions. I’m not completely certain at this point and I keep oscillating back and forth between A/C and no A/C, but I’m starting to lean towards adding the A/C system. At this point I’m researching and waiting to see if I can get any Black Friday or holiday deals.

Whichever route I choose, I’ll do my best to document the install process, hopefully with lots of photos.

The three aftermarket A/C kits I’m considering are:

• https://www.classicautoair.com/
• https://www.vintageair.com/
• https://www.oldairproducts.com/

Since this car show season was pretty much cancelled due to COVID-19, I’ve been inspecting the car and planning my projects for this upcoming winter. One plan that’s been on the back burner is to replace the car’s upper control arms. I purchased the replacement parts over a year ago but wasn’t able to install them when I replaced the spring perches due to health issues. I also planned to perform the Arning drop while the control arms were removed. I already have the template and drill bits on hand. I will talk some more about the Arning drop in just a bit.

I have already purchased new upper control arms from OpenTracker. He sells arms that he has blueprinted to ensure that the shaft is centered and the bushings are lubed and adjusted to move smoothly. It might cost a little extra but I felt it was worth it.

The Arning drop I referred to above is a modification to the upper control arm mounting point developed by then Ford engineer Klaus Arning that was adopted by Carrol Shelby for use in the early Shelby Mustangs. It has the benefit of lowering the center of gravity of the car and changing the camber curve to have more negative rather than positive camber as the suspension move up and down. Applying the drop requires drilling two new control arm mounting holes in the shock tower located one inch lower than the factory holes. If the upper control arm is already removed from the car it is a free modification. There are numerous write-ups on the Internet on how to perform the drop and its’ benefits. Dazecars has a good write up, but there are many others explanations out there as this is a very popular modification.

I have previously replaced my upper ball joints so I already have some tools on hand. In the past I used a pickle fork to separate the ball joints from the spindle. While eventually successful, using the fork took quite a lot of banging with a hand sledge hammer, repositioning, and prying to get it to work. It also damaged the ball joint and boot, and could mar up the spindle if you aren’t careful. I felt there had to be a better way to do this job.

From searching the web I learned about a simple, easy to make tool that will press the ball joints out from the spindle. I found the plans at the Dazecars web site. (Scroll down the page past the spring compressor plans to find the ball joint removal tool plans.) It looked simple enough that even I could build it. All the parts were even available at my local hardware store. I don’t feel that I need to go into a lot of detail on the tool’s construction since Daze has published the plans on his site.

Here is what mine looked like just prior to assembling it and the finished product.

To use the tool you remove the ball joint cotter pins (or bend them out of the way) loosen the castle nut on the ball joint(s) to be removed (just loosen it, don’t remove it all the way yet), and insert the tool between the upper and lower ball joint studs. Then expand the tool until it is applying enough pressure to pop the ball joint stud out of the spindle. You can always give the spindle a good whack with a hammer at right angles to the stud to get it to pop out. Once the stud has popped out from the spindle you can remove the tool and then the castle nut.

I’ll post again as to how well it worked for me after I do the Arning drop and replace the control arms.

For the past five years I have entered my car in a show put on to raise money for Operation Second Chance. OSC is an organization that helps wounded, injured and ill veterans. Due to Covid-19 they chose to hold their show online rather than in person. I wasn’t sure how this would work but was happy to enter my car and hopefully help out their organization.

When I entered my car, they requested I send them three photos. They wanted a side view, an interior view, and a front view with the hood open. I made a trip to the park and snapped a few photos. I ended up using a front view I took at a prior car show. Here are the pictures I submitted.

Silly me, I don’t know why I didn’t open the door for the interior picture.

The show ran for three days. During that time period people could visit the web site and place their votes for the cars. I was very fortunate to be able to earn one of the runner up spots that included a $25 prize. I chose to donate the prize money back to their organization.

The show wasn’t as much fun as an in-person show would have been. But concessions had to be made to the Covid-19 pandemic. Hopefully next year we can return to holding in-person automotive events. In the mean time I will make do with whatever online events take place.

I’ve collected a number of dash plaques and was wondering what to do with them all. I did some quick research online and found that people either put them on their dash, threw them out, gave them away, stored them in a shoe box, or made some kind of display for them. I decided to mount them so that I could either show them with my car or hang them on the wall.

First I went to Target and purchased a poster frame. The one i bought was 18″ x 24″ and was less than $10. I probably should have picked a larger one but I didn’t want to invest a lot of money in case it didn’t work out. I also purchased some Scotch permanent mounting squares to mount the plaques to the frame. Several of the plaques already had double sided sticky tape on them but I used the mounting squares so the plaques would all be the same distance off of the board when mounted. In afterthought it may have looked interesting if the mounting depths had varied.

This is the poster frame I bought.

These are the mounting squares I bought.

The next step, arranging the plaques on the poster frame, was the most time consuming (at least for me). Before I mounted the plaques permanently, I laid them out on the frame so I could move them around and arranged them how I wanted. This took me quite a while before I found an arrangement that made me happy and was pleasing to the eye (at least in my opinion).

I started out arranging the plaques in chronological order. This left a lot of empty spaces. I moved the plaques around to make them fit better but still keeping the years together. This let me fit more of the plaques on the board, but there was still wasted space and leftover plaques. I decided to try arranging the plaques by car show. This let me fit most of my plaques on the board, but it looked unbalanced to me as all the large plaques were grouped together and all the smaller plaques were also grouped together.

The final arrangement I ended up with was to place the plaques randomly, trying to keep the years somewhat together and to not place plaques from the same show next to each other. This made for a more balanced looking arrangement and gave me the flexibility I needed to fit most of my plaques on one frame. I used the mounting squares to attach the plaques in the arrangement i had laid out. I had two very large plaques left over, so I saved them for my next frame after I collect more plaques.

This the arrangement I ended up with.

The car was reliable all season, even making the trip to Ocean City, MD and back. While we were there it was our only means of transportation. It got me back and forth to several other shows, and did a small parking lot “acceleration demo” for another car enthusiast. With that said, my only real complaints are a small squeak in the front suspension, the front bumper isn’t perfectly aligned, and there is a tiny dent on the right hand side front fender from some PVC tubing that fell over in my garage. None of these “issues” are very high priority, and I could probably get by without doing any winter projects beyond normal maintenance.

My ideas for potential winter projects are:

• Rebuild front suspension. This isn’t really necessary as everything is tight and the alignment is still good. Seems like overkill to fix a small squeak. However it would give me the opportunity to add some upgrades if I choose to, such as solid strut rods, roller bearing idler arm, roller bearing lower control arms, and possibly a Monte Carlo bar.
• Remove and align the front bumper. Most people don’t even notice the small misalignment of the bumper, but it still bothers me. A fair bit of work for a small reward. But I probably will still fix it.
• Paint less dent repair for the passenger side fender. I would have to hire somebody to do this for me.
• Polish/buff the exterior paint. I may attempt to do this myself as I have the equipment. But I may choose to hire a professional if I’m not satisfied with the results of my attempt. If I hire a professional detailer I will have them do the interior and exterior, as well as the engine compartment.
• Replace the exhaust tips with larger diameter ones. The current exhaust necks down from 2.25 inches to 1.875 inches just before the exhaust tips. I could modify the existing exhaust to keep a consistent 2.25 inch diameter all the way to the exhaust tips.

I’m not certain how much of this list I will tackle this winter. I don’t need to do any of these items. It all depends on my motivation and more importantly on my health.

I usually refrain from making repairs during the driving/show season, but there were a few nagging issues that were bugging me. I felt that the repairs would be minor so I didn’t believe that I was risking disabling the car and missing out on driving time. There were 3 issues I wanted to address.

Issue 1: The clutch pedal was not returning all the way after depressing it. I noticed this during the Spring 2019 boardwalk parade in Ocean City. If I nudged the pedal from behind it would come the rest of the way back up. I wasn’t sure this would be an easy fix, so I did some research into roller bearing conversions for the clutch support. This conversion goes beyond what I would do during the driving season, so I would be required to make the repair as a part of my Winter maintenance. But before I plunged into the deep end I decided to try some white lithium grease on the under dash linkage. I stuck my head under the dash and gave a few sprays onto the linkage. That freed everything right up and the clutch pedal works fine now. Issue #1 handled.

Issue #2: The engine ran well but seemed to be using more oil than I would like. After a while the idle got a bit rougher as well and I could see some smoke under hard acceleration. I wondered if the engine might be sucking in oil through the PCV valve. I pulled the PCV valve and checked it in the only way I knew. I shook it to make sure it rattled, which it did. Then I looked into the grommet in the valve cover to see the condition of the baffle that prevents the PCV from sucking in oil. There was no baffle in my valve cover. I did some quick research and found a replacement grommet that is supposed to prevent oil from entering the PCV valve. I ordered the grommet and installed it. My other option was to replace the valve covers with a pair that has a baffle. This is the proper long term fix. But in the short term the new grommet appears to be helping. I need to keep track of my oil levels and make sure that was the problem. Hopefully Issue #2 is addressed, even if it is only temporary.

Issue #3: The belt line weather stripping on both doors was lifting at the ends. There are supposed to be screws at the ends holding then down, but my replacement weatherstrip didn’t have screw holes so I never installed the screws. I got out my drill, made the holes, and installed the screws. Issue #3 fixed.

Hopefully that handles the minor issues until this winter. Now back to driving and car shows.

I joined the Vintage Mustang Forums in 01/2014 to help me find information about repairing my Mustang. This forum turned out to be a wealth of information as it had many extremely experienced members who have restored and repaired many cars. I was mostly a lurker, using the site as a great resource. Occasionally I would make a post if I felt I had something useful to contribute.

On 3/22/2019 I was contacted by one of the moderators who wanted to know if I would like to have my car chosen as the ride of the month. Would I? You better believe I would!

I had to spend some time writing up the story of my car and attaching pictures. This wasn’t easy as I had 45 years of information to cover in only a few paragraphs. Still, I was able to put together a document, with pictures, to be posted on the forum. After the story is posted I’ll add a link to it in this posting.

Update: I was contacted by a site administrator for the VMF. He said my car was selected as the May 2019 ride of the month. I’ll post a link sometime in May after the VMF site is updated.

Update #2: Here is a link to the posting. https://forums.vintage-mustang.com/ride-month-winners/1156796-congratulations-sdcohe.html

One small nagging issue I had was that the replacement Holley carburetor I was using didn’t have the same attachment point for the throttle linkage. This prevented me from using the original clip that Ford used to attach the throttle linkage to the carburetor. I had managed to come up with something using a spring clip that was holding together fairly well. I had used this same solution in the past, and it eventually came loose after quite a bit of driving. I always had this fear in the back of my mind that this clip would come off just like the old one had. I knew that I couldn’t be the first person to run into this throttle linkage attachment problem. So I did some research on the Internet.

I learned that I definitely wasn’t the first person to have this issue. I also found a very clever DIY solution that looked nice, was easy to build, and used common and inexpensive parts. This is the link to the article I found. https://www.fordmuscle.com/archives/2004/08/ThrottleLinkage/index.php

I took some measurements, looked at online parts catalogs from my local hardware stores, and placed an order for the required parts. Once the parts arrived, I made some more measurements and did some cutting with a hacksaw. I also purchased a new throttle return spring and bracket since the spring I was using was the original 50 year old part. I had to do some bending to get the throttle return spring bracket to clear the new throttle linkage.

I feel that this DIY solution works well and has a professional look to it. I haven’t had much of an opportunity to drive the car with the new linkage. The only thing I can say at this point in time is that the new return spring is lighter than the original and I tend to step on the throttle harder than I need to. Hopefully I can avoid getting any speeding tickets until I adjust to the more sensitive throttle.

We had another nice weather day and it was time to get back to work on the MeterMatch installation. I disconnected the battery and pulled out the instrument cluster. I’ve done it so many times now that it doesn’t take me very long to remove it. I did notice that some of my previous wiring efforts could use some organizing. I decided to address that while i was building and installing my wiring harness for the MeterMatch. Unfortunately I didn’t give any thought to taking pictures and visually documenting my progress. Sorry about that.

I chose to start by installing the harness I had already built onto the instrument cluster. Since I had used my spare cluster to build the harness this step was easy. Everything plugged in as it should, and I used wire ties to attach the new harness to the original cluster harness. I also dressed up the tachometer wiring harness I built a few years back by using wire ties to attach it to the cluster harness as well. That looked a whole lot neater.

Next I measured wires to go from the console to the instrument cluster. Using those measurements I built a wiring harness to go from the instrument cluster fuel gauge to the MeterMatch which I planned to install in the console. I used connectors I got from a trailer supply house as they matched some of the factory connectors. Then I routed the harness and used wire ties to attach it to the existing behind dash wiring harness. I also cleaned up more of the tachometer wiring I had previously added.

The last harness to build was the wiring for power to the MeterMatch. I also installed a glass fuse holder and a 2 amp fuse for protection. I got the 12 volts required from the accessory port of the ignition switch. I used an existing screw behind the dash as a ground.

At this point I was ready for a quick test to make sure I had wired everything correctly. I connected the instrument cluster back up and turned the key to accessory. I had already determined that the tank should be about 3/4 full. Prior to installing the MeterMatch the gauge read closer to 3/8 full. I turned the ignition key to the accessory position and the fuel gauge slowly moved up to indicate 3/4 tank. I tested out everything else in the cluster and it all appears to be working properly. I still need to test the speedometer before I button everything back up.

My plan is to test drive the car and then fill the tank up after the drive. That will let me see how much gas it takes to fill the car compared to what the gauge read just prior to filling up. Then I can adjust the full setting on the MeterMatch if required. Further calibration will need to take place “on the fly” as I drove and fill the tank over the next show season. I’ll make another post after I have burned up a few tanks of gas and made any calibration adjustments.

It took a week before I had another warm day and was able to get back to work on the driver’s door innards. Having to wait was getting on my nerves as I hate to leave work partially completed. I have to admit I did find some opportunities to test opening, closing, and locking the door. But this was just playing around, not getting real work accomplished.

After watching several online videos I felt that it would make reassembly easier if I removed the guide located at the bottom of the window. I was able to get the regulator out without removing this guide, but reinserting the rollers for the regulator back into the guide looked like it would be tricky. With the guide removed I could insert the rollers outside of the door and then insert the regulator and guide as one assembly. This turned out to be a great plan, but with one hitch.

There are three screws that hold the window guide to the window. Two came out fairly easily. The last one didn’t want to budge. I had a screwdriver that fit tightly into the screws I removed, but the head on the last screw was starting to get dug out. It looked like I would have to drill the screw out and replace the clip that it screwed into in the back of the window. That’s when I saw that only two screws used clips and the third screwed into a threaded hole. Of course that was the screw that wouldn’t come out.

There were several ways I could proceed at this point. I could drill off the head and try to unscrew the rest of the screw from the back of the window. I checked and it was accessible. I could remove the window and guide from the door and work on it on a bench. But first I decided to try a screw extractor, thinking I could always try one of the other plans if that one failed.

One of the online videos by AutoRestoMod had the same problem and used a product called Grabbit to remove the screw. My local hardware store sells the same product so I decided to give it a try. In the video it removed the screw in about 45 seconds. My attempt took a few minutes longer, but the screw came right out. Looking at online reviews for the Grabit, people had mixed results. All I can say is that the first and only time I tried the tool it worked for me.

I had already ordered replacement screws and clips for the guide, so I reinstalled everything using the new screws. Everything went back together without any more drama. The window rolls up and down like it is supposed to.

At this point I have completed all the repairs that I needed to finish before the show season starts. We should have a few more warm days this week, so I hope to finish wiring and installing the MeterMatch and doing an initial calibration of my fuel gauge. If I really feel ambitious I may fabricate a new throttle linkage and return spring mechanism. This isn’t critical, but I am still using the original return spring which could possibly fail due to old age. I also kind of jerry-rigged the throttle linkage attachment to the carburetor. I don’t really think it will come apart, but it isn’t really attached properly either. So I hope to get a few more items squared away this week. Then I’m just an oil change and detailing away from the 2019 show season.