I’ve done some minor stuff on Parker, but nothing could result in a non-functioning vehicle.  Last Saturday that changed.  Parker’s radiator, if not original, was at least 20 years old.  As a result, the engine was running a little on the warm side.  So I decided to replace it with a new “3 row” radiator.  It was all pretty straight forward removing the old radiator and putting the new one back in.  The only snag came when it came time to start the car.  Both myself and my trusty assistant had eyeballed the fan and thought it would not hit the new radiator.  Well, the moment of truth came when I turned the key and sure enough, the fan caught the lower lip of the radiator.

Looking down at the impact site, I realized that if I dropped the fan 1 inch, then it would be just fine.  Luckily the radiator had 2 holes in each corner, allowing for a little flexibility.  So now I took my handy silver sharpie, marked where the new holes needed to be and proceeded to drill into the mounting bracket for the radiator.  Of course neither I nor Zack had the appropriately sized drill bit, so a run to Home Depot was required.  With the new drill bit in hand (well, in drill), I started the process  of making the appropriately sized holes.

With 2 and a half holes drilled, the battery on what I thought was a fully charged drill died out.   Luckily, 20 minutes of charging gave enough juice for the remaining holes to be drilled.  The new holes were drilled and the radiator fit in like a champ.  I took Parker out for a spin and the engine temperature stayed around 20% cooler than before the radiator swap, so it was definitely a good thing to change out.

While driving around, I then noticed that I was really low on gas.  I pulled into the station and after putting in about 2 gallons, gas came shooting out of the gas tank.  I fired Parker back up and my fuel gauge still read about 1/10 full.  Great.  After some research, I discovered that I needed to check to make sure the fuel sender was actually working.  To do this, I needed to crawl under the car and ground the cable to the frame of the car.  In theory, if I turned it on while grounded, the gauge would go all the way to full.  Well, I get under there, go to pull off the cable and find out that the wire running to the fuel tank doesn’t have a lick of insulation left on it!  That may very well be the issue I’m running in to.  I went out and bought some wire today, so I’ll see if I can replace it and get it to work.

Cross your fingers for me!

I drove Parker from the transmission shop to the great folks over at Mustang Fever yesterday. I was really impressed with the owners, Mitch and Scott. They’re two brothers who obviously run a Mustang shop because they love them, not because its a way to fleece collectors. I took Parker there to get a disc brake conversion done and to have them give it a look over to see what else needed to be done. Mitch told me they probably wouldn’t be able to take a look at it until the next day, but 4 hours later, I got a call from Scott with a huge list of things that need to be done on the car.

He really did a thorough job, putting together a 2 page list broken into “Necessary” and “Optional” sections. Unfortunately the transmission didn’t seem to want to shift out of 2nd, so it was looking like a rebuild was going to be necessary. Scott called back the next day telling me that it was just a blocked vacuum line keeping it from shifting, so no rebuild is needed. How often do you have a mechanic call you back to tell you that you need to spend less money? So here’s the list so far:

• Disc brake conversion
• New Vacuum cap
• Tighten carburetor body
• New flasher
• Horn spring and retainer
• Rewire turn signal switch
• Clean rusty fuse box
• New temp guage
• Temp sender
• Front right bulb
• Right cooling line hose
• Front sway bar
• New oil sender
• Air filter
• Electronic ignition
• Heater core plenum
• Hose & seal kit & defrost hoses
• Heater motor
• Rear end rebuild
• 3 row radiator
• New gas tank

Optional list

• New cigarette socket (for charging cell phone)
• Right and left window regulator
• Lube rear 1/4 windows
• Oil pan gaskets
• Rear main seal
• Valve cover gasket
• Front and rear windows and gaskets
• Leaf springs & shackles
• Rear shocks
• Front suspension upgrage
• Stereo
• Dash speaker
• Rear speakers in kick panel
• Power antenna

Its quite a list. I told Scott that I’d see if I could get the heater working myself and he gave me a lot of tips on what I needed to do to get it working. The necessary list is going to be a pretty penny, but it will be nice to have all that taken care of.