. Photo Your Winter Fun

[calspcl]

Hey Rob, off topic, but still winter discussion! Wanted to post a shout out! The wife and I took the new RV to Belfair state park the 21st of January, 15 for a crab feed at Vaughn. It reminded me of a drive out to your digs on the lake for the GT/CS get to-gather during the 2008 mustang round up in Bellevue, Wa.

While in Belfair, we stopped at Safeway to stock up on goods. Low and behold, they had Mustang Monthly on the magazine rack. I have been looking at numerous stores for years around Seattle and never spotted one. Thought to myself, go figure, only in Robs hood! I am subscribing as I type!

Your party was a great event, lots of folks from this site - Good time-good grub!

the bad thing was - I had to pull my old tank top out of the drawer to see what year it that was "Holy smokes" 2008!, how time flys....

 

[robert campbell]

Crap, missed your reply!!! That was my pleasure and I love to BBQ! If you come this way again, stop by and we can tell lies in my garage!!! The older I get the better I was!!!

Rob

 

[robert campbell]

Current customer car is a real 1966 Mustang GT Coupe. 289, 4 barrel, auto car and cosmetically very nice. Black pony interior and a rally pac. Owner bought it sight unseen from an auction house in Texas.

Mechanically it has been a bit lacking. New steering box, new 8 inch rear end before it came to me. I rebuilt the entire front end with new parts sans the coil springs. Got that done, but the car had a very poor hot idle. Especially in gear.

Started with the carb. Full of a fine silt dirt and the fuel filter on backwards. Gas pressure blew the end of the filter part off internally and let fuel and dirt come right in the line. Thought that was the problem. Rebuilt the old 4100 and bingo!!! Still ran like crap. But a known good 600 Edelbrock carb on and bingo!!! Still ran like crap. So the plot thickens....

Did a compression check and all were within specs and actually quite good. Hot idle vacuum with both carbs was a not steady 12 to 13. Any crack of the throttle plates and car runs great and vacuum goes right to 18 to 20 pounds and holds very steady.... No vacuum leaks that I can find and plugging all vacuum sources does nothing. Vacuum advance functions properly and Pertronix seems to function fine under power. No amount of initial advancing seems to help....

So off come the valve covers. Engine is not original to the car and is a 1965 289. Behold the worst valve job I have ever seen on a set of heads. someone drill out the push rod "guided" holes to large circular holes you see on our cars. They installed screw in studs and push rod guide plates. Not sure what the guide plates were for, but all the exhaust rockers were pushing of the valve tips sideways in the same direction. Number one was using the tip and the retainer for contact. Every valve tip was a different height and many badly burred. As you can imagine the rocker arm tips were junk. Turn them over and the valves/valve seats are all over the place. Some recessed very badly and other ok. Even with all of this it had very little rocker arm noise.

I had a nice set of 66 castings with hardened seats and had them refreshed. These are pushrod guided and more correct for his engine. Got some Comp Cam roller tips and new one piece push rods. I hope to start it today and see if this cures the idle problem. The side load created by the misaligned rockers should have been producing some stickiness / inconsistent closing at slow idle. Anyway if it is not the problem, it need immediate attention before he dropped a valve.

Rob

 

[rvrtrash]

Rob, are the guide plates factory Ford, and if so, what are the part numbers on them. I think I need a couple for a certain future project, if they're the right ones. Also, I know where there's a brand new repop fan shroud, if the car is missing one.

Steve

 

[robert campbell]

Steve,
They are not Ford pieces. And they certainly are not for a 289. I would throw them as far as I could!

Got the motor running in the above car. Runs much better, but still has low vacuum at idle. But now it is steady at around 13 pounds. I do not know what cam is in the engine or whether someone installed it with 4 degrees of advance or retard.

Anyway it runs a bunch better.

Rob

 

[Midnight Special]

Hey Rob, TJ returned for another visit over the weekend....>

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oulqbsytwYM&feature=youtu.be

 

[Ruppstang]

TJ is just in to everything, now he is doing IIHS crash testing! LOL

 

[robert campbell]

Is that TJ's newest ride??? I have to ask based on Marty's comment! What the heck are you guys doing???

The really funny thing is Val's cousin has a 1999 purple Dodge Stratus!! And it ain't very pretty!!! This is the car I did the head gasket replacement on last year. The twin cam special.....

 

[Midnight Special]

Is that TJ's newest ride??? I have to ask based on Marty's comment! What the heck are you guys doing???

This was a trade-in at the dealership he works. High miles and bent on all four corners by an elder owner who drove by braille. TJ simply loved it to death ;-)

 

[robert campbell]

I thought this might be a bend on the "bucket challenge"!!! AR AR, a "bend"!!! The barrel challenge!!!

Rob

 

[robert campbell]

Cool 50 Ford vert in my shop. Doing some fine tuning. Unfortunately it has a 350 with a turbo 350 conversion. But that is just me!!!

 

[Ruppstang]

That is cool, the 350 is not!

 

[stangfan]

My biggest car-related peeve...a hot rodded car with an engine from another brand. :icon_evil

 

[robert campbell]

Me to!!! How cool would an original flattie be!! You can put either a C4 or an AOD behind them now a days!!! Nice electronic conversions to get rid of the old points in that wonderful location the dizzy was in!!!

Rob

 

[stangfan]

I'd love a flathead. There is a bunch of speed equipment available for them these days also. They just look cool in an engine bay!! :grin:

 

[robert campbell]

+1!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[franklinair]

I had many great times driving the Ford flat heads:Canadian heads, dual Strombergs. I used to help my older brother in the early days of NASCAR, running modified flat heads in the local stock car tracks. Still have my lapel pin from 1956 when I joined NASCAR (by forging my high school ID to make me 21 years old! I was 17 at the time). We used to race with & against Bobby & Donnie Allison when they first started racing.

Neil

 

[Midnight Special]

Me to!!! How cool would an original flattie be!!
Rob

....................>

 

[robert campbell]

Tim,
What a cool pic. Sometimes I wish I was Neil's age!!!

Neil,
What great memories you must have of that era. The Stromberg is one carb that has not past over my work bench. They are coming back, and I bet they are so simple once you play with them a bit!!

Rob

 

[somethingspecial]

Why do I see Neil here. LOL