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Rustang arrives at her new home

well she's home but it didn't take me long before I started to strip her.

she arrived on a Saturday afternoon around 2pm on the 23 September 2006, by 2 pm on the Sunday this was the result of a hard days work !!!

1st October 2006

well I've been busy this morning as you will see below. after reading numerous websites where people have found rust I was expecting the worst for a car that had been parked up for the past ten years, but after closer inspection she's not that bad.

I cleared the interior out and started hitting the floor with a hammer and a screwdriver trying to find any weak spots and apart from some  glass resin on the rear arch it seams that most of the rust has come in through the front air vent and sat in the carpet.

I decided to take the front wings and the complete front assembly off so I could investigate behind the splash guards and found minimal rust, just small welding patches to apply. but I have noticed the original sealant has lifted so I will remove all this and weld up and treat all areas with a rust remedy and then a rust inhibitor and finally a rubberized sealant and  stone chip paint seeing as there's not much air movement here so this should protect the metal. the same paint and sealant will be used on all the chassis and internal body work.

I've also taken the boot lid off so I can replace the inner skin in the evenings this week.

8th  October 2006

What a weekend, decided it was time to try and start the Stang. I charged up a battery took the plugs out and tried to turn the engine over with the starter. nothing, the starter was seized. This wasn't promising.

So the first job was to remove the starter motor and decided I would have a look at it the following day with a fresh head.

While I knew I couldn't start the engine without the starter motor I decided I would check everything else out .

So I took the plugs out and tried to turn the engine over with a spanner.

I could hardly turn it, this really didn't look good.

So I sprayed a product called Oxim made by Norm fest down each bore and waited about 15 minutes.

While I was waiting I decided to check the carb out and again found this to be seized solid too so I took it off and decided I would clean and dismantle it on the bench in my workshop.

now back to the engine, I put the spanner on it and tried to turn it again and it started to turn very stiffly so again I put some oxim down each of the bores and tried to turn the engine in the opposite direction. again it was hard to turn at first so I sprayed some more oxim and rocked the engine back and for a few times and then was free as a bird.

because I wasn't sure what the oxim would do to an old engine I poured some petrol down each bore and rotated it a few times to wash the bores.

after this I decided to set the points by eye, got it on a cam lobe got a bit of sand paper and roughed up the contact and said "yep that's about the right gap" !

so into the workshop I went and dismantled the carb. it was full of water and had seized just about every thing up inside. after about an hour it looked very clean so I reassembled the carb ready for the following morning

Sunday morning bright and shiny I dismantled the starter and wire brushed the whole of the inside of the starter till it was nice and shiny. then I put it all back together ready to bench test it.

I flashed a battery on the starter and it came to life!

ok then lets fire the old girl up !

cleaned the plugs and gapped them by eye, connected the carb and starter and turned the engine over to get fuel up to the carb.

now seeing as the engine hadn't run for over ten years I decided to mix some redex and two stroke oil into the fuel to act as a lube seeing as I didn't wont to scratch the bore to much. I also sprayed some wd40 down each bore and refitted the plugs and leads

now it was time to fire the old girl up so I poured a cupful of fuel straight down the carb just to give it a little extra help.

I turned the starter and she caught after the third rotation but as I let the key off she died.

so I cranked her again nothing. I rechecked the electrics checked the carb and found fuel was getting to the carb but it wasn't going through it, I thought maybe it was because it was being refilled due to the strip down so again I poured a cupful down its neck and cranked her over. again she fired and died.

now my thoughts were maybe electrics so I checked the coil feed and only got 3 volts?

so I hot wired the coil straight to the battery and poured another cup of fuel and again she fired  and fizzled out within a few seconds. so I knew it was the carb.

I was a bit pissed off by now and decided I would pull the carb off again and check it out in the week.

14th October

over the week I have made a new brake and clutch pedal up so if I do fire her up I can check the clutch works.

now was the time for the engine to run!

I had rechecked the carb and found nothing so I refitted it and put a fresh set of plugs in just to make me feel better

again I bled the fuel through and again I poured a cup of fuel down her and had the same results as last time

I was really pissed by now so I took the top of the carb off and took the main jet out. I had missed the fact that beyond the jet it was block solid so again I got my oxim out and sprayed it into the hole and through any other holes I could find, hoping I would break down the sludge by attacking it from all angles,

lots of debris came out so I refitted the jet and took the nozzle off a can of wd40 and held it tight against the jet in an effort to clean the venturi out. well the wd40 came through even if it was only a trickle

so I refitted the carb and tried again. and the same dam thing happened.

by now all I wonted to do was fire the engine up. so I took the 10 mm fuel line off and stuck a 3 inch 8mm bolt up it and wedged it into the top of the carb.

the old girl fired up first time and ran really well but because I didn't have a cooling system I couldn't run her for long

so I pushed the clutch down and put her in reverse and slowly bought the clutch up and she moved back so I popped her into 1st and she went forward, result!

Sunday I decided I had to pull the rad out and check the cooling system, I also removed the heater and found moor rust! the vent hole has been eaten as well looks like more welding!

 I took the  rad hoses off to find the thermostat full of gunk  to the extent it was blocked solid but after a bit of digging I got to the thermostat. I decided I might as well pull the heater box out to check it also and found it to was full of poo.

seeing as I had stripped most of the stuff from the inner wings I decided to remove the wiring loom and grind all the paint off with a rotating wire brush so I could remove all the surface rust and find any weak points. by the time I had done it  to inner wings on the outside and the engine bay side, the bulk head, vent panel, and the rad panel some 6 hours had passed.

I then treated the panels with an anti rust agent and primed them with red oxide with a hint of orange gloss  as a safety measure to protect it over the winter.

The one good thing removing all the paint has done is highlighted any rust spots as well as stopping any more damage being done. All I need to do now is grind away around any holes and patch and the repaint

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