Well a bit of a busy weekend and most of it based around these Mustang heads I have bought.
There are 2 different points of view on the heads.
On the one hand it was a pretty big mistake and on the other they are the best things for this engine out there.
Both camps have good and valid arguments and in the end I have gone with the person who has given me sound advise since day one and the heads have gone.
The person who sold them say's they will fit perfectly and that in the 80's these heads from the Mk2 Mustang were worth more than their weight in gold and that fights had broken out over them; and the people who have just been round to pick them up seem to be of the same mind.
The other camp say that I would have big problems with them and the tuning would be a nightmare and quite possibly I may need American cams to suit.
The person who sold them is adamant that all cams and everything else will match perfectly.
Obviously I would need new inlet & exhaust gasket of which I sourced in 2 minutes and these are of the shelf stock, the big problem comes with the carb and this is a problem. I have been through the web tracking down the carb which I now believe is a Motorcraft 2150-2v or possibly a Holly 5200 of which the USA eBay site is teeming with, but the big crunch is my ability to do the job.
So, as I have said before this is all new to me and you are reading the chronicles of a beginner, although I am learning each time I put a spanner to the car. At the moment I have an engine that runs with the correct carb and that the future may be a lot easier if it stays that way. So I decided yesterday morning to re-list the heads on eBay, within 30mins I had 2 watchers 5 hours later 7 and 6 hours later they were sold; basically for what I paid for them, Ok I lost £30 mostly the cost I paid for delivery but I'll put that down to a very steep learning curve.
The 2 guys who bought the heads live local, around 10ml away in Washington and came cash in hand this lunchtime, only in they early 20's and have already restored a 66 Beetle, a Sierra XR4 and are now restoring a Mk3 Cortina fitting a 2.8 Cologne Injected engine and are converting that to a carb. They are having Specialist engines re-build the engine and have already contacted them about the suitability of these heads and have the thumbs up that they are good, so it looks like they will be skimmed and ported and made new again. Best of luck, best thing is they don't have a garage and do all this at the side of a house. Brrr
With all this going on I have still managed to get some work done and the good news of the weekend is that the Battle of the Bush is over. Floflex delivered on Friday, it was Lynne's day off but luckily I managed to be in for the delivery. Now that I know the pitfalls of bush alteration it went without a hitch and fit perfectly so all finished.
After this came the fitting of the fuel tank, this really is a 2 handed job but with the use of my jack I managed to get it into position only to find that I could not get the inside brackets to bolt on as the holes didn't line up. I remember when I removed the tank that both brackets were a bit twisted and very tight against the tank so out came the junior hacksaw and drill and I slotted the holes, after that it went straight in.
After it was in I painted it with a coat of Tetra shutz, I didn't want to spray it on in case it went everywhere but on looking at the photo I think tomorrow I shall mask up and the spray gun will be out, I'll make sure I get the bits I missed plus the spotted spray pattern looks a whole lot better.
So basically that is the underside all finished, I've stripped everything apart, sanded, rust proofed, painted and Tetra Shutzed the underside, sent what parts I could to be powder coated, sandblasted and sprayed what couldn't, had polybushes made and re-modeled those that were close but not fitting. Sourced and fitted new dampers, re-built the brakes, cleaned and painted the fuel tank and put it all back together again. It took a little longer than anticipated, mostly because of the bush problem but that's all part of the fun.
The filler connection was looking a bit rusty and I have been trying to figure out how to remove it for a while now, I seem to remember reading that it was from the Vauxhall Viva (maybe wrong).
Anyway I could not see how to get it out without resorting to a hammer which I certainly didn't want to do so I rotary wirebrushed the rust and got most of it off, I then painted it with rust converter as there was still some rust on the inside edges that I could not reach and when that dried I masked it off.
This is a coat of silver metal paint, it doesn't look to great but once the car is sprayed the rough edges will be cleaned up.
Hopefully tomorrow is the day it goes back on its wheels, to do this I need to get the brakes all working, I have bought and was going to re-fill with Silicone brake fluid but after taking some advise and doing a lot more research I have realised that this could create some bad braking problems.
When converting to silicone all contamination with dot 4 must be removed as when combined with silicone forms a sludge that can block things up. I was hoping to just flush through a couple of times but that's not enough, after my research I have found that every damn thing needs replacing, master cylinder & pipework and calipers (mine have been re-built). Seeing as these are all new from the last owner I am going to put the silicone on ebay and have a trip to Halfords.
Well that's for today
See ya Paul
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