August into September 2010

I figure I'll start by trying to get this blog caught up with what I've been doing over the past few months.  But first, a little more history.

In June 2007, my uncle Dwayne (also a "car guy" to the core) was more than kind enough to pick the car up from my family's home in Aransas Pass, TX and store it for a bit over a year in his garage in Lufkin, TX.  That simple description of events does absolutely no justice to the amount of effort and expense Dwayne put in to the "flying" trip down and back from Lufkin coupled with the work he and I put in to getting car exhumed from it's "tomb" and loaded on the car hauler for the trip to the Texas Piney Woods.  In short, it was an experience I am sure neither of us will soon forget.  I will remain grateful for all of his help as it represented a critical turning-point in getting the project off TDC.

Now.......on with the show.  This batch of pictures covers everything Dad and I accomplished in August and September of 2010.  It may not look like much, but an enormous amount of work went into getting the car ready for the restoration process to begin.  Lots of discoveries.  Lot's of heartbreak.  Lot's of frustration.  In other words:  Everything required to start putting together a realistic plan on what needs to happen.  I have set up my digital camera to apply dates to every image to help keep things chronologically ordered.  Here we go.....




Engine bay after the front sheet metal and radiator were removed.  Rough....

 


Thanks to some fantastic advice from my Studebaker buddy Neil, we managed to get 90% of the undercoating off the inner wheel openings in only a few hours.





Sanford & Son?????




Left quarter isn't too bad.  Right is pretty good too.




This pic gives you a good idea of the approximate position of the camshaft center in the car.  Why is this important?  Because this is just about the right place to locate the rotational axis of the body when it is in the rotisserie (details coming soon).





Here, you can start to get an idea of the extent of the damage inflicted to the car in it's former life.  The reddish circles in the top left show where all three of the hood hinge nuts were literally ripped out of the apron.  The circles in the lower right show brazed spots along the lower frame section.  This was the first indicator that things in the left front apron were not right.  Also note the severely bent front radius arm mount.





A surprisingly solid firewall.




Right radius arm mount is severely bent as well.






Right front apron was a disaster once the battery tray was removed.  A common Mustang problem.

 


This corner of the engine bay will come back to haunt me later......





See that scabbed-on "patch" just left of the pitman arm?  That is another sign of bad things to come........




Wrong shift levers on the top-loader 4-speed.  Trans is out of a Fairlane based on the I.D. tag.





Engine on the hook.  The block VIN indicates it's from another 70 Boss (original engine is loooooooong gone).  Looks terrible.........and gets worse from there.





See the threads on that bolt?  Well.....you shouldn't.  Left rear block ear broken completely off.  At least they took the time to paint the block _after_ the damage.




See a trend here?




Yep.  Top and bottom bolt flanges on the right side of the tail housing are both broken off too.




Nice clean coolant.  Only problem is, it's coming from the oil pan.  About a half-gallon drained into the pan before ever getting any oil out of the engine.




The weld "worm" along the left edge of the cooling jacket at the rear of the block is the evidence of a poorly repaired crack in the block.




JB Weld to hold the cam core plug in place and bathroom silicone sealer to keep the oil galley plugs from leaking.  Nice.




When intake manifold bolts don't center in the bosses, it is usually an indication the manifold has been cut too much to fit properly.  This was backed up by the large volumes of bathroom silicone used to seal the intake gaskets to the heads.  Also note the crack starting just under the bolt head on the right side of the boss.  Toast.




A crack in the rear corner of the valve cover.  I think I can fix that......





Another dire indicator of an abused engine.  That dark line running vertically on the rocker arm is a crack in the rocker arm.  It was pure luck that it didn't fail and wipe out what little remained of the engine.