Removing the thermostat housing bolts

Soooo, the bolts. The stuck, bolts.

There they are. I had already started drilling but I centered the left one off-centre :-/

I was scared the holes wouldn't be blind, leaving metal in the water after drilling. It seemed they were blind holes thankfully.

When trying to re-centre the off-centre hole the bolt unexpectedly came out. Lucky me! Unfortunately the other one was the opposite and it was really stuck. Left turning drills didn't get it out. Vast amounts of penetrating oil didn't do a thing and I didn't even start welding a nut on being so close to the fuel line.

So the only option left (I'm not even taking easy outs into consideration) was to completely drill it out. Thankfully I centered this hole nicely. Being a 5/16 bolt I ended up using a 6.4 mm drill which separated all the threads and made the bolt come apart after which I only needed to pick up the pieces and clean the thread a bit.

I was very pleased when I got this bolt out and it's made me more confident for when it happens next coz I'm sure it will some day!

I did notice one sensor that is not connected to anything. It's not the temperature sensor because that's actually behind the hose (connected to the black wire)...

Removing the thermostat housing

Right. So after my last ride I noticed coolant leaking in 2 places. One was on the radiator where the overflow hose is and the other one is the top hose going to the heater, where it connects to the waterpump. I'm not sure what's causing this but I figure it wouldn't hurt if I replaced the thermostat before I investigate further. I wasn't aware of the little drama that was going to unfold ;-)

Hello engine.

The thermostat sits underneath the thermostat-housing on which also the rop radiator hose connects.
I took off the hose and discovered a great mess underneath.

Cleaned. Ready to be removed!

I managed to get it off. My new one is a lot shinier!

And there is the old thermostat!

Unfortunately both bolts snapped off and are stuck in the block. So there awaits my next challenge...
In order not to get any crap into the cooling system I left the old thermostat in for now.

Putting in a carb spacer

Finally it was time to put the new carb spacer in. I'd never removed a carburetor myself so that was pretty exciting for me. Removing a carb allows you to look into the intake manifold and I had no idea what to expect. I thought it would be very dirty inside because my old carb looked real dirty inside as well...

So I got started.

Removed the air filter.

And removed the carb. Easy job really. There's not too much to detach before you can remove this type of carburetor.

So there was my first ever look inside any intake :-) It probably sounds like nothing to many of you but if you have never done any engine work this feels like you're taking the engine apart!

The inside of the manifold is remarkably clean!

I was going to add this carb spacer from Edelbrock. Hopefully this is going to keep my carb cooler and therefore give me less issues with vaporizing fuel during and after a drive.

The bolts came with the spacer. I seperately ordered the gaskets. I like them blue ;-)

When you're working with an open manifold, I think it's wise to put a cloth in so that nothing falls in to it. I can't imagine the shit you get into if for example, a nut drops in or something smaller and it falls into an open cylinder chamber. I think I'd get a panic attack...

I cut one of the gaskets to fit the dual plane (2 hole) manifold. You don't want to have any unused gasket dangling which eventually can get sucked in to your engine.

Adding the spacer itself.

And a 4 hole spacer on top.

Nice.

Then it was time to put the carb back. Also pretty easy.

And finally the air filter.

After checking if everything was in the right place I cranked for just over 10 seconds. After a small pause I cranked again and the engine fired almost immediately. I was SO surprised with all the starting issues I had over the years.

I also took the car for its first spin this year. It's been hibernating during the winter here in the Netherlands. It was a really nice day and everything went great :-)

Finishing my trunk

This is what my trunk looked like before. It started rusting after some tosser left it outside in the rain overnight with the cover on and put it in the trunk before I came to pick it up. I was not impressed...

And before the rest of the story, this is the finished result. I am quite pleased with the improvement but I'm still gonna put one more layer of clear coat on it. I'll explain why.

I bought a can of Eastwood Rust Encapsulator and a can of Trunk Paint. I thought the trunk paint would be black/grey with white splatters but it apparently is ONLY black and white splatters...

So this is what it looks like up close.

This is from a bit further away.

I had a few spots with the old black paint on it which now is visible. It's not too bad though. So just a clear coat and it will be finished.

More sanding / the wires

Today was a good day to spend some more time on the Mustang. Two good things happened!

I am so glad I bought that little sander. I got most of the rust and bad paint off. However, the last spots are probably going to be the shittest of them all ;-)

I found these loose wires under the passenger seat and I'm thinking they'll make the "Fasten seatbelt" sign work once connected! I really want that to work so I better find a way to connect these wires...

Another trunk update

Not much has been happening in the trunk department until today. Mainly coz getting results has been a dreadfully slow process which was not very inspiring. So today I wanted to change that and I bought a proper circular sander. El cheapo but wow does it work!

This little sander gets the job done a lot quicker! I did this in about 30 minutes. Not bad I reckon. At least I'm getting some results now. A few more times and I can start painting. YAY!

Replacing the fuel pump

I wanted to replace the fuel pump on my 351 Cleveland. Not so much because it's broken but to rule out the pump as a cause for low fuel pressure.

So here we go. Since I don't have a ramp I can't reach from below so I need to dig in from above, where we encounter the first obstacle: the powersteering pump.

The powersteering pump is attached with 2 bolts only, one of them is used to put tension on the belt.
It's not hard to get the bolts out. but you do need to put the pump somewhere though. I didn't want to take off the hoses so I lifted it and "parked" it against the PCV valve.

There it is, ye olde pump ;-) To remove it you need tools in American sizes. I actually had small sized wrenches which came in handy in the little space available.

Don't forget to put a bucket or something underneath. I was afraid of fuel pouring out of the main fuel line so I first cut a new hose to connect the mains to the pump. I clamped a bolt in one end of the new hose (as shown in the picture above) and after disconnecting the the old hose from the mains I quickly connected the new hose. In the end I didn't need to rush things because only a tiny amount of fuel came out... So then I had the main fuel line sealed off which allowed me to continue working on removing the pump.

Removing the actual pump is real easy. It leaves you with a hole like this. You gotta clean it up a bit and make sure no gasket remains are left behind.

Old pump (made in Canada) and new pump (made in the USA).

So after the surface is cleaned you put the new gasket in place.

Then you have to put the new pump back in. Notice that the lever sticking out of the pump is not exactly in the middle. Here's a little tip: When sliding the lever inside the engine, keep it to the left a bit, not in the middle as you'll hit stuff and won't get very far. Point it to the left slightly and it will slide right in.

Finish off by connecting the hose and secondary fuel line (going up to the carb).

All that's left now is to put back the powersteering pump.

When everything was done I had to crank 4-5 times for about 10 seconds to get fuel into the empty system so it would start.