84 Mustang GT

[JWS4621]

Found some more pics from drag week. Thought I would share..

[TheSilverBuick]

[JWS4621]

So small problem popped up this weekend. I went to change my oil from drag week because I thought I was going to make passes at the local track that day. My car had other plans for me.

Pulled the front drain plug a little shavings on the magnetic drain plug no big deal. Pulled the rear drain plug a little shavings and a decent sized piece of metal. Hrmm wonder where that came from. I sent a pic to BBR and he called it pretty quickly.



A piece of the dog bones that hold the lifters straight. I though oh no what kind of carnage am I going to find. So I started pulling the intake.

Wasn't as bad as it could have been fortunately. The number 8 dogbone broke. Here is some marks it left behind.



Started trying to put everything back together. Mind you when I put this motor together I put everything back the way I found it. DON'T MAKE THIS MISTAKE. Whoever built the motor before me put the spider and dog bones in wrong.



To finish the story I put the spider back in like this and was looking at it and the dog bones can jump on top of the lifters with no issue at all. In fact there were witness marks where it looked like all of them had at one time or another jumped up. I didn't like this at all. Not knowing any better I though well crap the base circle on my cam is so small that it allows them to do this. What do I do now. I started looking and texted BBR another picture. He at this point didn't realize what I had done and neither did I. Went and got another spider from a friends shop where he had just tore down his motor, put the dog bones in his spider the same way. WORSE. What is going on here. I texted BBR again and he said he had another. I went over there and grabbed his. I took it home and looked at it it didn't have the loops on it. That is when it dawned on me. Dang it. I looked online a bit and sure enough. The don't go that way. The dog bones go on first with the spider pushing down on them.

Feeling a bit defeated I started putting back together and went to put the intake gaskets on. DANG IT those are the wrong ones. I called my guy at the parts store he could have the correct ones here on monday afternoon.

Last night I finished putting the intake back on and just have a few loose ends to tie back together.

Don't do this. I feel rather stupid. Seems to be a common mistake but still.


I should have taken more pictures but I didn't. These are the ones I had.

Our local track is closed for the season now so on to VEGAS.

[milner351]

NO WORRIES - this just proves you're human!

Thank GAWD none of those lifters decided to start rotating during one of the long drives during drag week!

Never under estimate the power of careful observation of witness marks!

[JWS4621]

There was one morning the car was making a weird noise on the way to the track. I think it was thursday morning. It quit about halfway there. I think that may have been the noise. I am just very very glad it didn't screw up the cam.

I didn't get time to mess with it last night but tonight it should run again.

[BBR]

I'm just glad you caught it before tearing a bunch of stuff up!

[JWS4621]

Engine all sorted out I hope I started taping off to paint the trim. My buddy came by and helped and brought some supplies. It got covered in a hurry. Crazy.





Looks like a paint shop in my garage. Can't wait to see it done.

[Beagle]

that should look great - it's the little things that confuse me about the Mustang... like why I can't get just that window weather strip around the quarter windows. I guess cuz it's bonded, but still, that should look a bunch better!

Hope the lifter deal is okay - I almost did that once but saw another mill with the manifold off before I bolted everything up. Ford went to a plastic dog bone replacement for the retainers, I'm not sure you can do that with them. Other bonus is they'll hold the lifters up like an ls or late model sbc so you don't have to pull the heads or have 8 arms to change a cam. Aftermarket heads I think you can pull the lifters most of the time anyway, but I never could with stock heads.

[JWS4621]

Luckily the 4 eyed cars didn't get the weather stripping that the aero cars got. The weather stripping around the windows was so hard it just came out in broken hard pieces. I am surprised it didn't break out on some of those Oklahoma roads.

I think it is going to be ok I looked at the cam with my cheapo inspection camera and it looked ok. Lifter bores looked good. No real weird wear on the sides of the lifters so one can hope.

Live and learn luckily this was a rather inexpensive lesson.

[JWS4621]

I got a thing on facebook from the lady at ford. This is the dash plaques they are giving us for participating. I thought I would share I am really excited.



Going to be a great keepsake.

[DanStokes]

Will you stick it on the dash? Very cool.

Dan

[JWS4621]

I probably will I might wait till I get another for that side mine is a little beat up. And keep the beat up one in case something happens to the car.

[JWS4621]

I think I have it cleaned up. Well as much as is going to happen. I finished up the trim. It turned out to look great. Replaced the window felts, that turned out to be a little harder than I anticipated. The old window felts were hard as a rock and had to break them out to get it all out. But feeling pretty good about my 30 year old car.

I went last weekend on a cruise type thing that a friend had told me about so I met up with him. Drag week reunion.



We drove from a walmart in town out into the countryside and ended up in a canyon overlook area. Ended up being pretty cool.



I hung out with a couple of people I know that were there. Otherwise as usual in this town I was the fox body guy and got ignored. Well I guess I could have been more friendly too.

I drove most of the way behind a pace car vette with a guy in the passenger see waving his hand around. I got tired of looking at the back of it so I passed. Evidently not approved behavior. I got a heck of a dirty look, but he did park beside me when we got there.



Had a good time took it home and got all of the suicidal bugs off of it. Crazy how many bugs were on it when I got it home.

Went last night to BBR's house and got Bills trailer to take to SEMA. I am very happy to have a trailer. I wasn't sure if all of this was going to work out or not. But I have the trailer I will load the car in the morning and head out West.


I will try to do keep this updated on the trip but can't really promise much I know I will be busy alot of the week.

[JWS4621]

Another crazy week. It was more tiring than drag week without all the stress. Here we go.

Saturday before SEMA we get the car loaded up early and head out.





Stopped at the crazy rock place as my wife calls it.



It is a place in arizona that sells rocks and petrified wood. Pretty creepy place can't find the pics of the place.

Drive on to Flagstaff and stay there.


It was raining most of the night and snowed on us on the mountain pass west of Flagstaff. We stopped and wiped the worst of the stuff off of the car and headed on.

[JWS4621]

A quick stop at in and out burger in Kingman AZ and another truck going to SEMA parks beside us.



A scenic over look stop.





Then on to Vegas.

On the parking garage at the Luxor