Day of Days.........

Actually, it was two days.
Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 29-30, was a landmark weekend in the restoration of the car.
Endless sanding occupied two full days for Benjamin. When the morning began Saturday, the car looked bad, with the remains of seven coats of paint and primer layered in different stages.
At the end of the day Sunday, all of the layers of paint were gone and a new coat of self-etching primer had been applied to the body.
Benjamin and his dad made great efforts in this project, while Uncle Dan once again provided little to no measurable assistance.
Through all of this effort we now know more about the condition of the overall body in terms of rust, bondo and other imperfections. This will give our body shop man a chance to cut and weld and hammer to form a body for this car that will be solid and straight.

This picture shows the car after priming. This primer is only a protective coat to help prevent rust. After the body shop repair the car will eventually make its way to the painter where the final efforts of primer and paint will take place.

We have used many, many tools to get to this point, but none more symbolic than the Binks Model 69 paint gun. This gun belonged to Benjamin's late grandfather, James "Moon" Smith, and father and Dan and Ben. Moon and Coot Smith were the owners of Smith Brothers Body Works, and during the '50's, '60's and '70's, offered stellar body shop services in Troy.
While Papa could not be here for this project, there is no question he is here in spirit and is constantly thought of as he would be so proud of Benjamin of his project car.

In between football games, more car work

Autumn Saturday's in Alabama are reserved for college football, thus, we have not turned many wrenches on the Mustang in a long time, but this morning was excellent.

This morning Benjamin pulled the heater box from under the glove box/dash, ripped and cut out the ratty overhead headliner, removed the brake fluid reservoir from the engine compartment, removed the break line assembly from the engine compartment, removed an old battery tray, removed the interior automatic transmission shifter and assembly, removed all heater hoses and cables from under the dash, removed the cigarette lighter from the dash, and rode with Uncle Dan to Zaxby's to get some most excellent chicken, although the drive-through attendant was obviously texting or not familiar with the English language or possibly both as placing the order was more of something off of Jeopardy......"Alex, I will try 'What is Chicken Finger Meal?' for $500 please"....."

With the stripped down 'Stang resting in the garage, there is now time for Saturday afternoon and Saturday evening college football.

This Monday we will try to remove some paint and get to the bare metal. That is the plan. Benjamin is to be commended for his interest, enthusiasm and love for this car at the age of 13, and it is certain he will be proud of it when it is ready and he has his license.

Days remaining to have this car ready!

Everyone should pull an engine at least once in their lifetime

The picture alone is a conversation.
In many ways it is like every picture ever taken of a UFO - blurred, out of focus, and not quite sure if what you are looking at is real or really happened.
Then again it looks like the picture you see of the three fishermen standing next to a trophy fish caught in a four hour battle before it gave up and was taken to land, only to be hung from a pulley on the dock and the subject of many photos and legendary tall tales.
Yes, this is the 302 Ford engine and transmission of the 1965 Mustang, which through the efforts of Ben, Benjamin, Uncle Steve and Uncle Dan, fought for four hours before it eventually lost its grip from the car and was loaded onto the back of a trailer to be taken one day soon to a reputable mechanic that can give it a second life.
No, it should not have taken that long, but the greater part of the battle was removing the cables and hoses and clamps and nuts and bolts and screws associated with the engine compartment.
We elected to remove the engine and transmission as one unit because it seemed like a good idea at the time.
Additional efforts included separating the two headers from the exhaust pipes, removing the radiator, removing the transmission mount, supporting the trans with a floor jack and removing the two engine mount bolts.
We then took the better part of an hour trying to get our chains and hooking plan together, as we wanted it to be strong and safe, so really this hour did not count.
Once we got started with the pull it began to move but we had to loosen one header from the engine as it was binding. We still felt great resistance and learned that the two lines that run from the bottom of the radiator to the transmission were disconnected from the radiator, but not from the transmission, and this was a major problem. We disconnected those two lines and our battle was over.
This was without question a major advancement in our efforts to fully restore this ride. We have three years until Benjamin's 16th birthday, so we are off to a great start with plenty of time.
For now, we have a great fish tale to tell.

Hot and greasy, and I'm not talkin' about fried chicken.......

Saturday morning, Aug. 20, good progress was made in the first steps of removing the engine and transmission.
Thanks to Randall Hayes, we were able to borrow a good jack and two of his good jack stands. I already had two medium sized stands. Randall also lent a good-lookin' engine hoist.
The car was raised as high as the jack would go, which gave about 12 inches of clearance, and the stands were placed.
Unfortunately we do not have a dolly/creeper yet, so I got to scoot and slide on a blue tarp under the car, which was not too bad until the grit and transmission oil made things a great mess in no time.
Either way, within a couple of hours the driveshaft was removed, a majority of the transmission fluid drained into pans, the transmission oil pan was removed to drain the rest of the oil, the automatic transmission lever was disconnected from the trans, the speedometer cable was removed, the battery was removed and the starter was disconnected and backed out of the engine.
By this point - it was about 96 degrees outside - I was about as nasty as I wanted to get on a Saturday morning, so I cleaned up everything the best I could and called it a day.
Hopefully in our next attempt we can complete the removal of the transmission and engine.

Benjamin speedy in Wednesday work

Benjamin made great progress in a short amount of time on Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2011, as he removed the speedometer cluster, the trim around the rear windshield and also the rear windshield. His Uncle Dan was present but provided little to no measurable assistance.

Remaining disassembly includes removal of remaining seat belts from the interior, all wiring harnesses behind the dash, removal of the engine, removal of the transmission and driveshaft, and removal of the rear left and right rollup windows. The car should be ready for body work by this point.

Ben and Ben Ben have been busy.....

Video of Benjamin and Ben gettin' it done

Ben and Benjamin were busy Sunday working on the 'Stang, removing a front brace that supports the hood latch system when it closes, removing two windshield wiper arms, which was not as easy as it sounds, and removing all the trim that surrounds the front windshield.

Benjamin also did a great job of tagging and ID'ing all the pieces.