Mustang Rebuild Update

A small video update on the restoration of my classic Ford Mustang. Its been a good while since I posted any video about anything just because of “life”. Weddings, colds and just working really hard with my job have kept me away from my projects. However like a good project person I always come back to them.

Front Brakes Almost Done

This Mustang video primary shows that the Granada brakes have been re-installed and are about done. I am waiting on manufactured brake hard lines for my car before finishing that stage and putting wheels on the car to roll it around. I’ve also had to purchase a re-manufactured master cylinder for my 69 Mustang.

Ford Mustang Body Part Restoration

Since I’ve been waiting on mail order parts for my front end restoration I’ve started looking at restoring the hood, fenders and vailance. Slowly but steadily I’ve been starting on the setup for my at home shop to do this sort of work without having to drive 20 minutes to my dad’s where my Mustang is stored. I’ll simply take the parts here and get them done.

Ford 351 WindsorEngine Rebuild

As you can see in the video I’ve got my engine on the stand and am going to rebuild it with the help of my father.

House Warming Party

House warming parties aren’t really my idea of fun. My girlfriend had a double woman festival with a house warming / Southern Living party and it effectively canceled my plans to go video some downtown Baton Rouge scenery. So I taped myself going pick up the food for the house warming party. I’m not sure about the legality of the driving down the street with a video camera in hand but I did it. Geez and LSU lost to UCLA as well.

First PowerDirector Movie

The people at Cyberlink sent me a free copy of their Powerdirector video editing software that seems like a good competitor for light weight video editing software such as Apple’s IMovie. I’ve yet to use IMovie yet because this was sent to me by Cyberlink and I’m likely to not use it in the future because I can accomplish the titles and transitions I want with Powerdirector. This is my first edited movie because I only tinkered with the program here and there as I’ve been busy. However in less than 10 minutes I added these simple titles and exported the movie. They have alot of nice pre-made titles and you can easily add or modify effects on the titles. There are options to add sound overlays and I’m looking forward to putting something to music.

PowerDirector was pretty easy to figure out. The only thing that took me a minute to figure was the drag and drop approach thats actually very useful. Its probably too simple for a person like me that makes everything difficult on myself. I can’t imagine Apple’s IMovie being much easier to use than this but maybe I’ll try it out. However in less than an hour that I’ve played with PowerDirector I’ve been able to see how I’ll be able to put together all the effects I desire for my projects and videos.

You’re going to need a pretty darn good computer to PowerDirector though and I’m sure thats true for all software. (PowerDirector says 512MB and Apple IMovie Recommends 512MB though it says 256 ok) I purchased a Sony Vaio FE Notebook as a direct result of not being able to do video editing on my old Notebook without having to wait all night for it to process. My Notebook has a 1.66GHz, 2MB L2 Cache Duo Processor and 1 GB of memory and it does everything very quickly.

Big Bucking Chicken

I absolutely love this big bucking chicken commercial. They play it during sports, on comedy central at night and a few other spots that are just perfect for the type of people they’re trying to target. That type being warped people who love sports and south park like me. It never gets old and they even get it put out for free by people like me who love this advertisement so much that they post it on their video blog. (thanks to Mike from Michigan for emailing me a place to get it.) Of course I sing it around the house and my girlfriend absolutely hates it but oh well.

Congrats LSU for beating Duke! Geaux Tigers! Baton Rouge is jumping and happy tonight, thanks guys!

Coil Spring Installation Mustang Video

Well after two weeks of being injured and sick we finally got the coil springs installed on the 69 Mustang’s suspension. A pain because there is no new coil spring compression tool that I’ve seen that will do the job on classic Mustangs. So some flat iron, a cutting torch, all-thread and a little creativity and we pulled the springs up tight.

Beautiful day for auto mechanics

As you can see from the video blog we had a pretty good day out in the shop. The coil springs are installed, the strut rods are installed and the only thing that stopped me from installing the shocks and starting on hooking up the rest of the steering and the brakes was a lack of carriage bolts(Shock Tower cap mounting bolt & nut ) for the shock tower caps. We even managed to finish welding together a work table and fixing the front brakes on my brother in law’s car.

With the moderate spring weather we’re likely to get a ton of progress on the old Mustang. As you can see I got my father out in the garage and with no problems. He’d been sick for a few months but the doctors finally fixed him. I’m starting to look the direction of the engine and transmission because we’re going to have to be able to move this thing around after I get the front wheels underneath it.

1969 Ford Mustang Suspension Video

I purchased all the parts I needed for the power steering on my car from ebay over the past couple of weeks and as you can see from the video installed them. Apparently the power steering setup is the same for 1967, 1968 and 1969 Mustangs (perhaps even 1970 too) because I purchased my power steering setup from a guy who took it from his 1968 Mustang coupe.

Coil Spring Compressor

One small hitch is that the springs for the front suspension on my Mustang aren’t going to be brought up with the tool I’m using so my father is building one from a design he used before.

Mustang Strut Rod Parts

I still haven’t gotten my strut rods installed because I’m waiting to pick them up for a deal. I’m not paying $120 for something I can get for $40 with a little patience.

Ford Mustang Wheels

Looks like I’ll have to go pick up some wheels and tires. The wheels that I had on the front of my car 5 years ago are gone. Its amazing how parts get lost over the years.

The Video Clip

This time I encoded the clip in a lower quality to shrink the size even further. It didn’t really seem to matter much to me but I’m not an outside observer. It isn’t very sharp at all but you can see whats going on and what parts are on.

I’m trying to get to a somewhat done point so that I can do a video on the complete front suspension and steering on the front of the Mustang. Life sometimes gets in the way of projects and when you do find the time you end up running into minor setbacks. I do however have the control arms on and the spindles on. This week I’m running down miscellaneous things for the steering linkage which I’ll most likely just order online or get at a discount store such as Autozone. I have to order shock tower caps since mine have walked off some how and the shocks which I’m getting for a web deal through an associate. Its all shaping up now but will end up taking about a month longer than I thought. I should just start doubling my time estimates for projects.

Classic Mustang Steering Parts

I have to run down the common steering linkage since taking a look at mine after several years its in pretty bad shape. I have to wonder how I could’ve looked at that stuff in my teenage years and decided it was still ok to drive that thing without risk of running off the road. So I’ll be getting new tie rod ends & sleeves, idler arm and probably ending up going manual steering instead of the power steering that I had on it until I can rebuild the hydraulics.

Update - Was going to add video but its raining today so I’ll get it this week. However read my Mustang Blog Updates concerning the power steering deals I just found on Ebay

Steve Garfield is one of my favorite vloggers. He does a vlog called “Vlog Soup” where he discusses vlog technologies and different things people are doing out there. He’s very entertaining and everyone should give him a watch. I’m new to working with video and I was rather clueless on what type of video editing software I should use to create a vlog beyond just one continuous video clip. Steve is a video editor so I wrote him an email requesting advice on video editing software for beginners. He suggests that I try iMovie or Final Cut Pro Express so I’m going to take a look at both pieces of Apple software and figure out which one is for this beginning video editor!

Apple IMovie:

• Costs only $79. May be what I’m looking for. Seems to describe many of the Video Editing Features I want to accomplish.

Apple Final Cut Express:

• More advanced software and costs $299. Final cut express seems to be a step between IMovie and Final Cut Pro as described in this helpful review.

Well the hard part is finally over. My frame rails, fender aprons and shock towers are repaired and painted. My 1969 Mustang is in much better shape than when I first purchased it so long ago. As you can see from some of the pictures on my original Mustang page I had to take it down pretty far. Unfortunately I took it down so long ago I hadn’t at that time thought to take pictures. Battery acid damage was so bad that the frame rail, radiator support and strut rod brackets were very done. The shock tower drivers side was cracked up so badly where the bolts were at that it couldn’t hold the front end together. I’m suprised I didn’t wreck and destroy it long before this project began.

Back to Nuts and Bolts

Its actually pretty suprising how many nuts and bolts are involved in hanging a front end. Today(Jan 7) I brought my new front end kit to the shop and figured out what case hardened bolts I was missing to install this thing. I also figured out that one of my strut rods is bad so I’ll be going find that at the salvage yard as well. If the week goes well next Saturday I’ll get the big hardware installed on the car.

Old Vs. New bolts

Just to let anyone know who is installing new upper control arms on their 1969 Mustang, the new kits apparently aren’t shipped with the case hardened hardware for the arms, spring seats or strut rods so you’ll need your old ones or probably just have to buy new. My old bolts were threaded differently from my new ones so I couldn’t use the old ones. Time to go to Capitol Bolt CO in Baton Rouge to see about some raw parts.

Hard part almost over?

I guess I should have said almost over because piecing together a front end I took apart 5+ years ago isn’t going to be easy. Fortunately my dad has done this so many times he can do it with his eyes closed.(very fortunate for me because he’s getting to be a blind old MFer!)

More Mustang Video Coming

I decided to post all that went on without video because it was actually quite lengthy for getting not much done. I got my parts and got situated at the start of this new milestone. When I get the control arms on at least I’m going to get some video of the 1969 Mustang Mach 1 reconstructed. Then once I get the steering back in I’ll do another and so on. Should be fun to watch.

First Video of 2006

About this video:

This is my first vlog video of 2006 where I’m just talking about not a whole lot but I wanted to post something up where I improve upon what I did in my first face to face vlog. I focused on lighting and looking at the camera without glancing around and fidgeting too much.

More on Mustang:

Ok I’m done with the 69 Mustang’s frame work thank you god and now all that needs to be done is a coat of black enamel and then the front end will be re-installed.

69 Mustang Front Suspension Kit:

I was suprised at how many options are available in terms of suspension kits for these cars and there are varying opinions in the matter. Parts are made in America, Canada and Asia for people restoring cars and naturally the prices vary depending on whatever variables. I’ve picked up a kit on a recent 69 Mustang Suspension ebay auction thats being sold by a company known as Laurel Mountain Mustang that seems to offer really good prices on parts in comparison to john’s Mustang or California Mustang which are big names. Their front end kit is Canadian made according to the gentleman who answered their toll free number and it looks to be a winner so we’ll see and of course I’ll post what I feel about all that once its on.