I thought the move to the Midwest would offer me numerous opportunities to take the Mustang out on the roads. I soon found that every time I went out for a drive, the mustang was overheating. Now for those of you that know a lot about the 1960's mustangs, they are notorious for overheating problems. My baby was no exception to this problematic design of an all but too cool classic muscle car. I had even upgraded every part of the cooling system to mitigate this troublesome problem, but in kept creeping up at every opportunity. After replacing all the hoses, coolant, thermostat, flushing the radiator, and a bit of praying (I am after all in the Bible belt) I was getting desperate! After consulting a restoration manual, I concluded that my baby was leaking combustion into the coolant (thus adding super heated gas to liquid) which was causing the overheating problem.
Remedy: Replace the head gaskets. If you plan to tear an engine that far down, its not too much more trouble to just yank the engine.....and transmission.....Yeah, well it sounded good at one point, trust me. But hey, I have my own garage now (sorry Mike, your place didn't get to see this one). Time to call the parents, grab the cherry picker (apple pickers are too bulky) and pulled the engine with the help of my brother, we'll call him Eric.
Next came the rebuild. If you have an engine out of your car, the car Gods demand you take it apart and make it better, which I did. That effort on the engine made me $1000 poorer. But all of that work seems to have paid off. The new valves, guides, timing chain, paint, gaskets, and love has made the engine so much more responsive. It also gave me the opportunity to clean and detail the engine compartment so I don't have to feel embarrassed to have the hood up when I let her strut her stuff at car shows.
Next came the rebuild. If you have an engine out of your car, the car Gods demand you take it apart and make it better, which I did. That effort on the engine made me $1000 poorer. But all of that work seems to have paid off. The new valves, guides, timing chain, paint, gaskets, and love has made the engine so much more responsive. It also gave me the opportunity to clean and detail the engine compartment so I don't have to feel embarrassed to have the hood up when I let her strut her stuff at car shows.
The next step was to find a new Automatic Over Drive (AOD) transmission. New tranny? Scott, I thought you said that the car was overheating, not having problems with shifting...Well you are right, the transmission was working just fine and dandy, but since it is out of the car, might as well replace it, right? Well.....sort of. The real reason for putting a more modern transmission in the car was to go from a 3 speed transmission to a 4 speed, thus a highway gear. My MPG was expected to go up about 30% (Peder would be so proud of me) and the gearing for gears 1-2-3 would not change, it's a win-win, well....maybe not. But let's keep going with the story. So after long searches on ebay, multiple craigslists (yes all over MO), and even mustang websites, I located a AOD transmission out of a 89 mustang with a 5.0L (that's a 302 for all you old timers like me) for a $100. I thought it was in Lebanon, IL, but it turned out to be in Lebanon, MO. Hmm....about 16o miles from me, but hey, I didn't have anything going on that saturday. I get the transmission and to my surprise, it looks to be in very good shape on the outside and even signs of a recent rebuild. I got it all cleaned up...see...all nice and pretty to install (please God let it be ok). Here is the universal tool used to clean automotive parts (just make sure it's your wife's) 
The mustang is now all back together and running strong. Not everything is working though. Somehow all of the instrument gauges that were functioning before I took everything apart, are not functioning. No worries there. What is worrying, is the instrument gauges that were not working before ARE now working. I really haven't been able to figure that one out. But hey, it's a cool car!
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