It’s been several months since my last posting and I have made some progress and attended a few shows. As to the projects I said I would attend to over the winter, I have had mixed results. I removed the steering wheel and adjusted the horn buttons some. It is much less sensitive and no longer honks accidentally. However one of the three horn buttons doesn’t work very well. But I still consider it an improvement. I replaced the quarter window regulator, but it made no difference in the window’s operation. I consulted with my Mustang expert (Val) who suggested I completely disassemble the mechanism, clean out all of the old dried up grease, and lubricate everything with white lithium grease. That is on the back burner for now but I will work on it again. I haven’t touched the wiring but it is all working as expected so I don’t feel a lot of pressure or urgency to change it. I have done some detailing in the engine compartment by touching up some paint and replacing some rusty bolts with new clean ones. As to new items that were working but now need repair, the tachometer doesn’t move past about 600 RPM. I plan to live with it until the end of the show season and then send it out to be reconditioned, along with the speedometer.

I checked in with Val regarding my engine compartment detail and power steering upgrade. He had originally said that he could get to me this summer. It now looks like that won’t happen until this fall or winter. At this point I can choose to wait for Val or look into having somebody else do the work. At the moment I’ve put that project on hold.

I have attended several shows this year. I’ve been attempting to choose shows located near some of my old friends that I haven’t seen in a while. That way I can visit them after the show ends. That means some of the shows I pick may not be the biggest, most exciting, or glamorous. But seeing my friends after all these years is quite rewarding. And I’ve started making a few new friends with the show regulars at some of the shows I’m attending.

Other than that, I don’t have a lot to report. The car is running fine and has been very dependable. At this point it looks like the 2016 show season is going to be a lot of fun.

The 2015 show season has ended and Winter is fast approaching. I’m happy with how the season went, and I even came home with six trophies/plaques. I’ve also been able to work out a few kinks over the season to make the car more pleasurable to drive. I still have a few issues to sort out. Some of those issues I will address over the Winter. A few will have to wait until I have Val detail the engine compartment for me. But at this point I feel like I can hop into the car and drive it some distance without a lot of fuss or worries. I’ve never been looking for a strictly show car. My goal was to build a well sorted driver that can hold its’ own at a casual show or cruise night.

Since my last post I installed a new/rebuilt carburetor since the idle mixture screws were inoperative on my current carburetor. I installed a Holley 650 CFM vacuum secondary carburetor with an electric choke. I installed old style fuel bowls and a balance tube to make it appear more like the original part. I wired up the choke to the stator terminal on the alternator, but i may change this to a full switched twelve volt source. And yes I did install a fuse in the wiring for protection. Holley recommends not using the alternator connection, but many people connect it up that way since it mimics the factory connection. I plan to eventually use the stator connection to trigger a relay that will power both my electric choke and electronic ignition. Right now neither are receiving a full twelve volts, but both appear to be working fine as they are. Sounds like a Winter project for sure.

Another small project I completed was tracking down and fixing a rattle I had been hearing in the right front of the car. It turned out that the right front fender had a loose mounting bolt and bent mounting. I used a couple of washers as shims to help hold it tightly in place. That should eliminate the rattle, however I haven’t road tested the car yet, and most likely won’t have an opportunity until the Spring.

I still have a number of items on the to do list that I can work on over the Winter. The wiring I already mentioned. The passenger quarter window could use a new regulator, which I have already purchased. The driver’s window may need one as well. I need to remove all four wheels so I can put the last few screws in the wheel molding trim. Finally I may attempt once again to adjust the horn button. It is too sensitive for my tastes at the moment. I have expanded my toolbox by purchasing a compressor and some air tools. That should increase the number of jobs I can do at home. I have also enrolled in welding classes at the local college. Hopefully I can become proficient enough to be able to do some of the jobs I have always needed to “farm out”. I’ll most likely only post sporadically until the Spring thaw and I get the car back out of storage.

The car has been fairly reliable and I’ve been able to enter it in a number of shows. However the gas mileage has been much worse than I expected and the car isn’t running as well as I would like. I decided it was time to start optimizing some of the carburetor and ignition settings. I decided to start with the ignition since I knew of at least one problem with it. When I had my engine rebuilt, the machinist said that the rubber on the harmonic damper had deteriorated and had allowed the timing marks to slip. He had remarked the damper for top dead center, but I never really understood why he didn’t just replace the damper. I ordered a replacement that is a copy of the old 427 damper. It took about a month to arrive, and came with a new timing pointer and an integral pulley for the fan belt. I was able to install the new damper without much dis-assembly. Initially I thought I would have to remove the radiator for clearance, but it turned out that step was not necessary. After I buttoned everything back up and checked the timing I learned that the machinist’s marks matched the new damper exactly. I still needed the replacement since the rubber on the old damper was continuing to deteriorate. But at least now I had reliable timing marks and could fine tune the ignition timing with more confidence.

While I was working on the damper I sent my original distributor out to be rebuilt. I also requested that the re-builder modify the advance curve so that full timing advance came in sooner. He interviewed me to learn as much as he could about my car, driving, and the engine combination. The timing specifications he built into the distributor are 16-18 degrees initial advance, 9 distributor degrees at 2900 RPM, and 6 vacuum advance degrees added at 15 inches of vacuum. He also installed a Crane XR-I electronic ignition conversion while the distributor was apart.

Once the rebuilt distributor arrived back at my house, I marked the positions of the current distributor housing and rotor. Then I removed the old distributor and installed the rebuilt one, being sure to line it up with the markings I had made from the old distributor. This ensured that my timing would at least be close to the old timing. That plan proved to be successful since the car started up at the first tap of the key. I connected my timing light and set the initial timing to 16 degrees. I may choose to advance it another degree or two after I get a feel for how the car likes the timing set at 16 degrees.

The good news is that the ignition system appears to be working fine. The bad news is that the engine still isn’t running as well as I think it should. I do plan to replace the rotor, cap, wires and spark plugs when I get a chance. I didn’t bother doing that along with the distributor since all of those parts have very few miles on them. But I think it still makes sense to replace them and confirm that all of the ignition system is in good shape. I also need to go through the fuel and carburetion system to ensure I don’t have any issues there. Even though the carburetor has no more than 1000 miles since it was last rebuilt I don’t feel that I can rule out the possibility of it having any issues.

I added a new page to that Web site that shows all the car shows I have attended in a tabular format. I also included what awards (if any) I brought home from the show. For now I plan to just update the table after every show I attend rather than creating a new post for each show. I may choose to return to creating individual posts at some point in the future. But for now I’ll just plan on updating the table.

The next show I attended was the Down on the Farm Car Show in Frederick, Maryland. My first challenge with this show was just finding my way there. I had printed out directions using Google maps. Unfortunately the directions were wrong. So I used the GPS and mapping software in my phone to help guide me there. These directions were also wrong. Both the directions I printed and the phone navigation software insisted on taking me to places on the highway in between exits and just leaving me there. Eventually I abandoned my Google navigation aids and found my way there the old fashioned way. I located the correct road and watched the addresses until I arrived at my destination. While the navigation software is usually pretty good, in this instance the modern navigation aids let me down.

Now that I had located the show everything else went smoothly. I got registered and parked. I was able to get a spot near a line of trees which provided a bit of shade for part of the day. I was parked next to a later model Cadillac, and I chatted with the owner for a bit. I also met a gentleman with a supercharged truck. I think he found me a bit amusing because I wasn’t too familiar with car show etiquette and also because I kept trying to venture back out into the heat rather than stay with him in the shelter we were sitting under. At one point he showed me an older copy of the LMC truck catalog, and his truck was on the cover. He also told me that his truck had about 500 HP. Too bad I didn’t get a ride in it.

For the time being I’m planning to relax and just do some minor detailing to the car. The next show is in two weeks. There are several shows that weekend, but I plan to attend a new show that is only about 2 or 3 miles from my home. I want to support the local business that is hosting the show rather than go to a larger show that is farther from home. We will see how that turns out.