Locked Up

Neither door lock worked with the key. The driver's side entire cylinder just spun, meaning any key or screwdriver would unlock the door, while you could actually pull out the passenger side cylinder. This was pretty insecure so I couldn't leave my car anywhere unattended. I had to remove the door panels to get to the locking mechanism. The armrest is held on by two philips screws, while the door lever and window crank each have a single allen screw holding them on. Then I used a nylon pry lever to pop off the 10 or so clips holding the panel in place.

The panel is just vinyl wrapped cardboard so its important to pry on the clip so you don't tear the backing.

Here you can see lever pulls on the metal clip and not the panel. Once the panel was off i vacuumed the bottom of each door to remove any crud. Any loose dirt and grime in the bottom of the door will hold moisture anytime water gets inside the door, making it easier for rust to form. There was some loose sound-deadening material that had flaked off the inside of the door and had stuck to the bottom. One piece had even managed to seal one the drain holes closed.

Here's why the passenger side cylinder was loose. The metal retaining clip that holds it in place had fallen off. Simple fix. But when I tried the key in the cylinder it wouldn't turn. It doesn't feel like all the pins inside the cylinder are contacting the key. I don't know if the cylinder on that side is even keyed the same, or it's just dirty inside, or even worn out. For now I just put everything back--at least you couldn't open the door just by turning the cylinder anymore. While I was in there I saw that the rod going from the outside door handle to the latch was bent. This didn't look right so I straightened it out somewhat. However, I neglected to check whether the door would open from the outside. Sure enough, after I buttoned everything back up, the door wouldn't open from the outside. Well, maybe next time.

The driver's side lock mechanism was way stiffer than the passenger side. I'm guessing the parts are more worn out since they've probably seen a lot more use. I lubed up the linkage the best I could and it started working better.

Here's the driver's side cylinder. You can see the clip is in place but is not slid far enough to the left where it would lock into place. This allows the whole cylinder to rotate, leaving that circular wear pattern on the door. When the clip is slid all the way to the left it contacts the edge of the door and prevents the cylinder from spinning. Another simple fix. The key now works the lock but it can be finicky. It's probably pretty worn. At least now I can lock up the car, but I can only open it from the driver's side. A new door lock and ignition set is only $30 so I may have to invest in one. It would really suck if I couldn't get back into the car because the single lock finally wore out.

Ok. I splurged on a new lock set. I even paid extra to get the Pony key. I replaced the passenger side lock first since it had other issues from my previous attempt. I figured I'd tackle the non-operable door handle first. As soon as I removed the door panel the problem was obvious.

The operating rod on the left is supposed to be snapped into the black plastic bushing in the center. It must've popped free when I was straightening the rod. Here's what it looks like in place.

I pulled the old cylinder out and it was clear why it wasn't working--most of the pins were missing.

The old cylinder on the left is missing the cover that keeps the pins and springs in place. With the new cylinder in place the lock worked as intended, although stiffly. Someday I'll pulled the latch assembly and see if I can clean and lube the mechanism.

I also replaced my front seat belts. The old ones were rusty and didn't adjust very well.

The new buckles are all chrome instead of black plastic. They still have the protective film on them so they should look even shinier.

UPDATE: July 2017

I finally did get around to removing the driver's side door latch. I needed to replace the window regulators since it took two hands to raise the windows, so I figured it was a good time to lube up the latch. They are not easy to get out and put back in but I did it. It was especially frustrating getting all the operating rods back in place and functioning correctly. I ended up replacing the driver side inside door handle mechanism since the spring was broken. I also found these cool washers to fix the stripped out latch mounting screws.

I guess it's a common problem. This side wasn't too bad but the other side had a screw pull right through the sheet metal.

I'm So Tired

From day one I knew I had tire issues. First, they're date coded 2007. So even though they look brand new, the rubber feels more like plastic since they are almost 10 years old. Also, one of the back tires has a bulge in the sidewall. Ok, not that big of a deal. However, when I looked closer at the left rear tire, the same one with the bulge, I noticed two slices in the side of the tread.

I also noticed that the inner fender lip was bent at about the 10 o'clock position. Apparently, the tire had contacted the lip, bending it and slicing the tire. I tried bending it back but mostly all I accomplished was chipping the paint. Just to compound the issue, the front tires also rub occasionally when going over seemingly small bumps. Obviously, buying new tires wasn't going to be that easy.

It's easy to see right away why the tires rub--they are flush with the outer edge of the fender. I'll have to say it looks pretty badass, but it's not very practical. The tires and wheels are different sizes front and rear so they'll require a different approach. The front should be the easier to fix so let's start there. The wheel is an American Racing Wheel Torq Thrust D in size 15x4.5". That pretty narrow, but I guess a previous owner was going old school with skinnies up front and fatties in the rear. While I normally like the fattest tires possible on all four corners, the manly steering option necessitates less friction when turning the wheel. Most of the problem lies with the tire which is a 205/60R15. It bulges much wider than the rim. In fact, Google tells me that this size tire requires a 5.5" wide rim at a minimum. So a simple solution is to switch to the proper sized tire for the rim which would be about an inch narrower. But splitting the difference would only move the edge of the tire inboard 1/2". This may be enough, it's hard to say.

The rear fix is going to be a bigger issue. First of all, the tire is 255/60R15. They look nice and meaty from the rear, but Google tells me nobody runs a tire this big on a 65/66 Mustang without performing some sheet metal surgery. The largest anyone fits is a 225/60R15. A simple tire calculation shows that my tire is 27" tall and 10" wide whereas the smaller tire is only 26.1" tall and 9.3" wide. So not only would my already high cruising rpms increase, I'd only move the outside edge of the tire by 0.35" which is nowhere near enough. What gives? It turns out the proper wheel to use is 15x8" with a 4.5" backspacing. But my wheel is 15x8.5" with a 3.77" backspacing. So my 1/2" wider wheel with its smaller backspacing actually sticks out 1.23" farther than the 15x8" rim. Now that is why my tire is rubbing. If I look under the rear of the car there is about an inch of clearance between the tire and the leaf spring--space that I could use on the outside.

After much debate I finally decided to order two new wheels and tires for the rear. The Torq Thrust D wheel in 15x8" only cost about $200 each and I figured I could sell the old wheels to recoup around half the cost. TireRack shipped the wheels with the tires mounted and balanced in just a few days. But when I removed the packing material I knew I screwed up. The wheels didn't match--I ordered the wrong ones.

American Racing makes many styles of Torq Thrust wheels but only one style comes in both black and a 15" diameter, the Torq Thrust D. I had always assumed that was the style I had since that was the only wheel that came in my size and color. So after more scrutiny of the tiny pictures on AR's website I concluded that I actually had Classic Torq Thrust II's, but mine were painted black instead of the factory argent. Torq Thrust II's start at $400 a piece so I didn't really want to spend $1600 on different sized wheels. If these new wheels fit ok I could always replace the front wheels to match.

I removed the old rear wheels and fitted the new wheels. Before I could tighten down the lug nuts I new these wouldn't work. They stuck out almost as much as the old ones. WTH? I was getting more than a little frustrated at this point. So I took some pictures of the old wheels, reinstalled them on the car and when back to the computer to try and decipher what was what.

Here's a shot of my old wheel. It's a two-piece wheel with a cast aluminum center and a forged rim. That's why they run $400, not including the aluminum center cap. The new wheels are one-piece cast aluminum, thus the cheaper price. Here's a photo from the website.

Close but not quite. The new wheel has a satin finish on the lip while the center cap is plastic! No wonder it's half the price. So why didn't it fit? Besides misidentifying the wheel style, my measurements were off. I measured the wheel width with my calipers by measuring from the outside to the inside of the rim. However, I wasn't accounting for the the thickness of the rim material. Obviously, the tires mount on the inside, not the outside of the rim. So my 8.5" measurement on the outside meant the wheel was only 8" wide. That means I was comparing backspacing for the wrong size wheel. Plus, I was looking at the specs for the wrong style wheel, and they weren't the same. Likewise, my front wheel was only 15x4" not 4.5".

Here's a picture of the backside of the rim. I had to remove black overspray from between the spokes which confirmed that they were repainted. BTW, carb cleaner removed the overspray like magic. You can see that they are indeed 15x08" with what looks like part number 245551. Unfortunately, this number doesn't match anything on American Racing's website. Looking closely at the backside of the wheels they appear to be a lot older than the 1500 miles since the last major rebuild, which was done 10 years ago. So it's possible these wheel are vintage and weren't considered "Classic" when they were made.

At this point I was really wanting to keep to old wheels and decided I would try to fix the rubbing issues by going with smaller tires front and rear. Dropping down from 255/60R15 to 225/60R15 was only going to gain me 15mm of clearance on the outside edge, but the shorter tire would also gain me clearance at the front of the wheel well, where the bigger tire was rubbing. On the front I calculated a 175/65R15 might gain me the necessary clearance, but there are very few tires available in that size. I really wanted the same brand front and rear, mainly for aesthetics. Luckily, BFGoodrich makes the size I wanted for the rear, and a matching skinny tire for the front, 155/80R15. This skinny size is one of the few sizes that fit on narrow drag wheels, which is what I have. At this point, without replacing the front wheels at a cost of $800, I just needed a tire that fit the front wheel and wouldn't rub.

I found this nice calculator at https://www.wheel-size.com/calc/ that gives a nice visual diagram of my fitment issues.

You can see how the existing front tire is way too big for the width of the rim. The new tire fits much better and is even the same height.

The rear diagram doesn't eliminate the interference but it does gain me more suspension travel. So I ordered the new set of tires from Tire Rack and had them shipped directly to the tire shop down the street. They arrived there the next day and I had them installed the following day.

Wow, those front tires are skinny! The best part is they shouldn't ever rub, plus it's a whole lot easy to steer at slow-to-no speeds. It's hard to tell if the rears could still rub, but I definitely gained more suspension travel.

Lean On Me

With the new baby Holley Double Pumper installed the engine definitely runs a lot better. It idles very consistently at 800 rpms although it still lopes quite a bit from the mystery cam. I just finished swapping the cold 160 degree thermostat for a 180 and the idle seems to have increased slightly up to 900 rpms. I guess the intake mixture was too cold with the 160--the oil should stay a lot cleaner now too.

One big issue I still have is drivability at low rpms. If I open the throttle too quickly at say 1500-1800 rpms the engine will buck and backfire. The timing is fairly close to where it should be, and for now I have to assume the camshaft timing is correct, so Google says that my carb mixture is too lean. Now, I was actually thinking that I had the wrong power valve for my application which was making the mixture too rich when I cracked open the throttle. My Holley 4150 came stock with a 6.5 power valve which requires 13" of vacuum at idle to operate correctly. Since I'm only getting 8" I need a 3.5 or 4.5 power valve. But Google keeps telling me a backfire means lean not rich. So I pulled a spark plug to take a reading.

This plug looks very clean (except for the oil on the threads WTH). Too clean actually. It should be a light tan color and not this ghostly white. So she's definitely running lean. We had just driven the 'Stang back from a cruise-in so the engine had been running steadily at 2500 rpms for the last 30 minutes. So this plug is pointing to the main jets being too small. My Holley is stamped 4776-5 which means it came with 66 primary and 73 secondary jets. My old carb is stamped 4778-8 which should have 69 primary and 78 secondary jets as long as they weren't changed in the past. I think I'll remove the jets from the old carb and see what size they are.

The primary and secondary jets are located inside the front and rear fuel bowls, respectively. I removed the 4 retaining screws of the primary bowl on the old carb and then removed the jets. Instead of finding the stock 69 jets they were stamped 72! One of the side-effects of using a large carb on a small motor is that airflow is much slower than optimum, especially at idle and part throttle. The larger throttle plates don't have to open as much to supply sufficient air to the engine. This means that air moves slower through a large carb than it would through a smaller carb for any given volume, assuming that the smaller carb can handle the maximum flow required for the engine. Since carbs rely on airflow to "suck" fuel from the bowl, reduced airspeed means less fuel is being drawn in, making the engine run lean. So someone had previously increased the primary jet size to compensate for the slower airflow. Unfortunately that means I can't use these jets in my new carb. Jetting up from 66 to 72 is way too much. However, in a stroke of luck, I found a Holley jet kit on Amazon with same-day delivery! With this kit I'll have plenty of jets in all sizes to jet away to my heart's content.

While I'm waiting for the jets to arrive I reassembled the old carb and started removing the jets from the new carb. This is more difficult since the carb is still mounted on the engine but it's doable. I first siphoned as much fuel as I could from the bowl through the sight plug--the rest drains out when you remove the bottom screws.

I was able to remove the primary bowl with the fuel line still connected since it has a braided hose. Then I could just barely move the bowl out of the way and reach the jets with a screwdriver. 

While I was removing the jets the metering block came loose so I just removed it from the carb.

This made it a lot easier to change the jets. I debated back and forth about how big of a jet to go to. Holley recommends going two steps at a time when changing jets, but I'm not sure 2 will be enough. So for now I swapped the 66's for 68's.

While I was draining the fuel from the carb I figured it was a good time to swap out that glass fuel filter before it breaks and starts a fire. I picked up a cheap chrome filter for now. One of the cheap hose clamps was stripped so I had to make a run for a replacement. I also wanted to replace the two short pieces of rubber fuel line but the local Autozone didn't have any on the shelf. Eventually I'd like to replace it with braided line like I have feeding the carb.

With the larger jets in place I started her up to go for a test drive. It might have been psychological but the throttle response seemed much better, allowing a smoother start from standstill. However, as soon as I hit 3rd gear, a quick stab at the gas pedal produced another backfire. So I continued around the block and parked it without letting the engine fully warm up. Since it was still backfiring I figured it was still "way" lean and not just "wee" lean. I didn't want to go all the way to 72 since that would mean I could have used the primary jets from the old carb and saved the $60 for the jet kit. So I swapped jets again, but this time I jumped up 3 sizes to a 71. 

I didn't get to test drive the car for a few days until we went to a cruise-in at the local Rock 'n' Brew. She started right up and didn't backfire once on the trip there and back. The clutch still chatters a little, but not nearly as bad when I first drove the car. Right now the only drivability issue is when I try to crawl through a parking lot. While in 1st gear at basically idle speed the engine starts to buck. It's easily stopped by pushing in the clutch, increasing the revs a little, and letting the clutch back out. 

I'll drive it a few more times before I do any more fine tuning. Ideally, to read the plugs you should drive at cruising speed for a while and shut down the engine and coast to a stop without letting the engine idle. Then you can pull a plug while on the side of the road. This will narrow down the reading to just the primary jets. If the primary jets seem good I'll then have to tackle the secondary jets.

What I'd really like to do (someday) is install a wideband oxygen sensor. This would require welding bungs in the header collectors for a pair of O2 sensors. Then I could install a gauge that would monitor the air/fuel ratio taking all the guesswork out of jet selection. Since I can't weld I would have to either take my car somewhere and let somebody else monkey with it or remove the headers and take them someplace. Maybe if and when I have to remove the transmission to fix the leak I'll try removing the headers since I'll have to remove the rest of the exhaust anyway.