March 20, 2k
The engine bay was in really good shape. The paint was pretty good, just dirty and scratched here and there, and worn where the wiring harness rubbed it. The one really bad spot was the battery tray. The boltheads had rotted away and I couldn't get them off without drilling them out. Underneith, the metal was rusted and corroded, but only pitted. I've seen much worse.
So I cleaned the corrosion away with a wire brush until I was to bare metal. Then I painted it with two coats of POR-15, to kill any rust left in the pitted areas. The POR-15 also fills in pretty good, because it's quite thick. Once that dried I painted the area with brown primer.
And
I'd say it looks pretty good.
So I cleaned the rest of the engine bay, scraped off the odd globs of seam sealer the factory had left here and there, and primed the whole thing. That way I can give it all a fresh coat of paint and make it look uniform. Unfortunately I ran out of paint before I got to the radiator support. I'm going to clean and paint that too, since you see it when you open the hood, and I don't want anything detracting from the engine on cruise night.
April 17, 00
Yesterday I got my suspension parts back, and so I decided it was time to get back to work on the long-ignored car. I bought a can of Krylon Rust-tough Semi-Flat black. I like this paint because it sprays out in a nice wide fan, putting the paint down in a vertical line about six inches or so long, which makes it easier to get a smooth finish than sprays that come out in a round pattern.
It came out really nice (but hard to see in a picture). I did run out of paint before I was completely finished, though, so I need to go get a second can. I am also waiting for my mustang guy in Brush Prarie to get in a rubber engine bay plug set, which is on backorder. That should finish this part up really nicely.
September 9, 2000
Now that Bloo is back on wheels, I can put the engine and tranny back in. I rolled the car as far as I could towards the garage door and brought in the hoist. It took some work just to get the engine back out of the corner. I wonder how I got it tucked in there last year.
Once I got it out where I could work on it (and dusted off the cobwebs and removed a few spiders) I removed the Lakewood scattershield bellhousing. About a month ago I bought a kit from Sacramento Mustang to install the T-5 5-speed transmission which I got off a low-milage '88 Saleen Mustang, thanks to Vernon at Affordable Performance. This is a direct replacement for the four speed that was on there before. For those who don't know, this engine is the one that was in my other '68, old Bloo, before I retired it's rust-ridden body in favor of Deja Bloo. You can see more about this engine here.
Anyway, the T-5 kit includes an adapter that goes between the tranny and the bellhousing to move the tranny back a little bit, I guess because it has a longer input shaft. This adapter required a couple holes to be accurately drilled and tapped. That's out of my league, so I pulled the bellhousing and took it and the adapter to Vernon, and he did the drilling and gave me the bellhousing back ready to bolt on.
It was a little tricky to get the tranny installed, but it was really just a matter of patience, getting it all lined up just right, and doing a little back-breaking work. So I asked my husband to join me - he was thrilled. I got it all lined up, and it slid right into place. Well, actually the first three times it hung up on the clutch release bearing, or the clutch gears, or whatever, and we got very frustrated and his back got tired of lifting the thing up and we called it a day. The next day we tried it again and it slid in on the first try. So maybe you should be well-rested or at least in the correct state-of-mind, before you tackle this one at home.
And damn-straight, that thing's a beauty! Nothing like a fresh 302 with a practically brand-new 5 speed behind it. As you can see the shifter is on the five speed. I wanted that off so we would have the extra clearance for finessing the engine and tranny into the car together, so I removed it. We latched the hoist on to the forward-most hole in the lift bracket that is bolted onto the intake. That tilted the engine and tranny enough to lift them over the radiator support and slide them in where they belonged without too much trouble.
Once they were close to lined up we put the shifter back on through the shifter hole in the transmission tunnel.
And set the engine down and bolted up one of the engine mounts (one side is still giving me trouble - it's close but it just won't line up enough to get the bolt through).
Then we attached the new transmission mount (which was part of the kit from Sacramento Mustang). That put everything in it's proper place. I did have to cut a notch in the shifter hole. It's only about a quarter inch on the right side and the top, where the shifter was close to the edge and I wanted to give it a little more room to move.
And there it is. I'll admit to sitting inside, rowing through the five (count 'em, FIVE) gears and making vroom-vroom noises. Pretty damn cool! I can't wait to get it all running again.
October 17, 2k
The stuff that's left to do now is a bunch of this-n-that. I'm trying to do it all in the right order so I don't have to go undo things to do other stuff. For example, I wanted to install the shocks, so I went ahead and installed the export brace. I hope it doesn't get in the way of the power brake booster I have yet to install.
I also installed the fan. It is very sharp, so I used leather gloves to hold it while I wrestled it into place and tightened all the bolts. Then, when I went out to the shed to get the radiator, I ran across another pulley. Dang it! I guess the fan won't turn without the pulley behind it. So I had to pull it off and put it on again, this time with a pulley between the waterpump and the fan.
Then I installed the brand new four-row radiator, for maximum cooling capacity without going to one of those aluminum radiators (which cost big $$$). I'm going to get a fan shroud for it too when I get a chance.
November 8, 2000
Well, I decided to send Deja Bloo away to my mechanic for the final details to get it running. I prepared by dragging my butt out to the garage to work on it some more. I must admit that I have gotten pretty tired of the whole thing, and it is a chore to force myself to spend free time working on it. I hope it's just a temporary burn out and I'll feel better after it's running again.
So I watched the X Files season premier the other night and then went out in the garage to work on the car and think about the show. Next thing I knew three hours had gone by! I didn't really have any more insight into what happened on the show - I'll just have to wait for next week for that - but I did get a lot done on the car.
I hooked up the hoses, fuel lines, and pcv valve to carb lines. I removed the engine lifting plate and installed the Edelbrock carb, the same one as was on old Bloo, along with the air cleaner. Also, see the dirty metal plate next to the radiator? There is one on each side, and I still need to clean them and paint them so they look nice. The important part is that I almost forgot them! Without those plates on either side blocking the extra width of the radiator hole in the sheetmetal which the radiator itself does not fill, the fan will pull air around the radiator instead of through it, which could cause the car to overheat. So don't forget those blocking plates. They're important!
On the other side of the engine bay I installed the MSD box on the wall where the battery used to be. The battery will be relocated to the trunk. I mounted the coil on the shock tower. See all those wires? that's why I'm sending the car back to my mechanic to be finished.
So it's been almost a year since I took her apart, and now the car is all ready to be finished and hit the road. I think I will have my mechanic put the front sheetmetal/hood back on as well. I don't remember how any of it goes together. Except the hood, I could probably figure that out...
Anyway, once I get it back in running condition, I can do some fun stuff, like the interior. I'm really looking forward to that. A little paint, a little polish, a few new pieces, and it's going to be looking pretty spiffy inside. Then I'll just need a paint job. I guess I could get enthusiastic about this project again, in fact, I'm feeling better already.