Hey guys- Haven't been around here much lately. Wanted to check in. I've been busy with the cars. Mostly the '86 with the whole Megasquirt thing, but I gave the '87 a little needed attention.
The paint on the '87 was horrible. It was spray bombed before I bought it, and it looked OK for a while afterwards, but it started rusting really bad under the passenger side belt trim, and also at the bottom of both rear quarters in front of the wheel well and it was fading off the hood and roof. I had to do something, so I decided to grind off the rust, delete the side moldings entirely, and paint it again. I was happy to find that none of the rust had gone through the metal completely (no holes). I need to replace the passenger door as the bottom third of it feels like cardboard, but it'll be OK for now. I'm under no illusion that this is a permanent fix, but it's at least a good improvement over what it was. Only took time and 12 cans of Rust-oleum.
Anyways - here's the before and after:
Almost forgot about the opinion part of the post... I'm having an internal debate on what to do about the wheels. To paint or not to paint. I have a can of satin black left. I was think about spraying them, but I can't commit. The wheels don't look all that great as is. What do you all think?
That's kind of a lie... I'm super excited! I finally... FINALLY got the '86 running on Megasquirt. It's been 11 months since the last time I got to hear it run. There have been so many problems during this process, I lost hope several times, but I kept at it and finally got my reward! I love this car... [video=youtube;QJD5fNTpUMo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJD5fNTpUMo[/video]
Anyone have opinions on this? Or does anyone here do it? I've done a lot of reading about it for a while now, and considered it to try to help quit my pack and a half a day smoking habit. I've been smoking since I was 15. Now I have two kids and have wanted to quit, but my body will not let me. My wife just quit one day, like 10 years ago, and never had another one. It's not been so easy for my. I couldn't go three hours. One would think it would be as simply as not buying them anymore, but for me it's not so easy. Anyways, I've been resistant to try the vaping thing because I didn't really feel like it could help. Well... a coworker of mine is really in to it and offered to sell me one of his units pretty cheap so I figured I'd try it out. I figured why not - at the price he was selling it, I wouldn't be losing out on much if it didn't help.
Well I haven't had a real cigarette since about noon on Wednesday and, so far, don't really have the desire to light one up. Right now I'm using a higher-nicotine content "vape juice" and it's really been a good alternative so far. The overall goal is to gradually reduce the nicotine content until it's zero and hopefully quit both smoking and vaping. I am encouraged so far and hopefully this plan will come to fruition. If nothing else, it certainly smells better!
I got up there late and had to leave early so I didn't get to walk around nearly as much as I would have liked. I did notice that they stuck the Cougars WAY in the back against the fence which I thought kinda sucked...
I'm looking for ideas here. I'm installing a 'squirt and LS coils on my '86 TC soon, but I haven't figured out a good place for the coils yet. I have materials to fab up a bracket to hold them, but as for their physical placement in the engine compartment, I don't know what I want to do yet. I'm not touching any of this until after Carlisle so I'm in no real rush here.
I'm going all-Ford again. I just bought an '87 TC from BJL and I'm selling my '50 Chebby. Going to pick up the 'bird Sunday afternoon. I'm pretty excited about it. It'll be nice to have a TC with working A/C when that wonderful mid-atlantic humidity hits! Will update when I get it home.
I don't think I ever posted about this car. I bought it a few months ago for a price I couldn't refuse! It's a '66 Mustang. Pretty basic one - 200ci Inline 6, C4. It's ain't the prettiest '66 out there - far from it in fact, but it runs great and drives down the road, and it's structurally sound. Most of the work it needs is cosmetic.
The PO owned it for the last 25 years at least. It floated around in his family. Well apparently it started having some running issues. I won't get into everything that happened, but basically what I was told when I bought it was it had the wrong length pushrods in it. The PO took it to two, TWO different mechanics up in Baltimore who "couldn't fix it" and subsequently gave up on it and decided to sell it.
It did run like when I took delivery of it. Had no power whatsoever... like having to get a running start at a hill kind of no power. Well I popped off the valve cover and immediately noticed the adjustable rockers. I start fiddling with 'em and they are waaay out of adjustment so.. I adjusted them, and now it runs like a champ! Man was the PO cross when he found out what the problem really was and especially how easy the repair was! I was happy, though. I love freeeeee fixes!
Anyways - some photos:
Like I said - it needs some work, but after all was said and done, I only paid a measly $100 for it and didn't even have to pay to have it towed down to my place in VA!
Here's a little video I took right after I fixed the valve lash problem. I thought it was neat to watch the inner workings while it was running. [video=youtube;-VdWeJ3-rII]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VdWeJ3-rII[/video]
I've been meaning to get one - was in Target yesterday with my boy picking out his birthday cake and ended up picking one up. I was totally paranoid that the thing was going to fall off the car at some point, but it hung on like a champ. I wish the Hero's had better sound, but here's the (hastily edited together) clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIn1CQROrLI&feature=youtu.be
I know it's a stretch, but I am in the market for some good, 17" 4-lug wheels with usable tires. I would consider 16" wheels if the price is right. Don't really want to spend more than ~$600. If you have anything let me know.
Hey folks! Just registered on this forum and wanted to say hi. A few of you may know me from the NATO forum or TF, but for those who don't, I have an '86 TC which I bought for a whopping $600 back in '99. Mildly modified over the years (see sig). Now I am mainly focusing on "updating" the interior lighting as time allows. I guess that's about it for now. I gotta peruse the board a bit and see what I've been missing. :D
