Yes, I'm Back!

There was a time when my blog posts would start of with "....its been six months again..." Well, this one is actually being written three (3) years after the last post...and that was only some photos from a car show! So what happened? Well, the simple answer is that life is what happens while you're busy making other plans, to coin a phrase.

Not very impressive...

When I left off, in October 2015, I was still getting settled into my new garage, even though the 68 had been in situ for almost a year. I had quickly discovered that although the garage was located just three blocks from the house, in many ways, it might as well have been on the moon. I just couldn't find the motivation to saddle up and walk over there if I only had half an hour, so progress became minimal.

The house/garage move had also coincided with an expansion in our family and their needs coupled with a kitchen remodel didn't leave much time for tinkering with a car. I did carry on chipping away through most of 2016, but the pace was so slow that I essentially abandoned this blog in the summer of that year. I also became slack about documenting what progress I had made and I'd often forget to take the camera when I did find a couple of hours to sneak over to the garage.

There was an upsurge in productivity towards the end of 2016, and it really looked like the car would be running in the new year. However, in early 2017 I received the disappointing news that my landlord was not going to renew the lease on the garage. After moving the car three times since I took it apart in 2010, it was time to pack up and ship out once more.

This time around, I could not find a suitable garage space to put the car where I could (occasionally) wrench on it. It was with much sadness that the car was moved to a short term storage unit out by Oakland Airport in March 2017. Around this time it became clear that owning and living in a house without either a garage or off-street parking had run it's course. In April 2017 we began preparing our house for sale, and in August we moved to our new pad. Obviously it comes with a double garage this time and a big driveway. The 68 was delivered to its new home in October 2017. It had been away eight (8) months.

Garage #5

The last year has been incredibly hectic, and it's fair to say the majority of my free time has been devoted to smarting up out new pad - point your browser at this link if you're interested in that particular project - but I've found a few hours here and there to work on the Mustang, and thanks to all my buddies in BAMA my interest has been revived.

This blog was always intended to be a personal diary of the 68 restoration, and while it's tempting to post the most up-to-date progress on the car, I have decided I will build up to that by first documenting what I've accomplished in the past three years.

To be continued.....I promise!

lighting up time

Happy New Year! I really hope that 2013 is the year when my '68 runs again, even if it isn't completely show-ready....ultimately the amount of time I have available will be the deciding factor. I've previously mentioned the huge swathes of down time during 2012, and the proof is in the number of posts: 20 in 2012 compared with exactly 46 in each of the preceding two years!

The other thing about this blog last year is that it was always several months behind. There is always some time lag between  when stuff happened and when it gets written up, but in 2012 this was exception. For example, the last real work I did on the car was painting the inside of the trunk and that was actually accomplished in November 2011...although it didn't make it into this blog until the following July! As it happens, the work described in the post you're about to read (if you plod on, that is...) was actually accomplished last Labor Day weekend, and that was pretty much the last vacation day I had until the Christmas break.

So....lighting up, so to speak. When I took over my garage it came equipped with three 110V outlets and a pair of incandescent light bulbs. It wasn't really good enough for moving boxes, never mind high class auto restoration. Or even the work I do come to think of it.

only a little better than the black hole of Calcutta

Fortunately I already own a bunch of fluorescent lights and all the related conduit, cable and fittings etc....and this is in fact the third garage/workshop in which they have been installed.

Every light installed is one less thing to store

Had to stand/lie on the platform I built over the car to hang these lights

After photo

three more at the "business end"

While this was going on I had to move the car away from the side wall, which isn't easy when there's not much space to go forward or back. The easy solution would be to buy a set of car skates, but I need to do it right there and then, and since the car is still devoid of a motor, I figured I could do it with the floor jack. This is easy at the rear, where I used a piece of 2 x 6 under the third member, but more difficult at the front where I only had the X-member to lift (white arrow).

To help, I made a custom lift block out of a piece of 4x4. On the underside I drilled some holes and worked them into a pair of curved slots with a half inch chisel: the slots go over the lifting pad on the floor jack and stop the block from sliding on the jack. You can figure out exactly where to cut the slots by putting the block on top of the jack and hitting it with a BFH.

Then I cut a slot the same width as the X-member on the opposite side of the block. The slot is deliberately offset so that the X-member (and all the weight) is shifted a little bit behind the jack's front wheels. So, raise the car until the wheels are about an inch of the ground and push sideways about six inches. Then the same at the back. And rinse and repeat etc.Stay tuned for some "real" car stuff coming up :)

setting up shop

The sharper eyed regular readers of this blog will have noticed one thing about my new garage: it's about a third of the size of the Green Room. This meant that once the car was rolled in, and the rest of my stuff piled around it, there wasn't really much room to do any work :( Add in the complications arising from moving house for the seventh time in the last eight years (!), and it's no surprise that several months elapsed with the following view pretty much intact:

I knew moving was going to slow down the project a LOT, and when I did finally get some free time, it was mostly devoted to making some extra space in the garage. I started by building a very strong and sturdy platform over the front of the car, which I can use for storage.

2"x4" joists supported  by a pair of 4"x6" posts

add closet doors

and start piling it up...

After a seriously long time spent shuffling boxes around in the dim glow from one light bulb, I had my workbench in place, some shelves on the wall, and a huge pile of boxes. It took the best part of three months to get this far, because I've been busy with other stuff.

Later in the story another platform got built at the back corner of the garage and I started getting stuff organized a little bit. The hardest part of this was trying to cut lumber on my miter saw without any space to work in.

Slowly the pile of boxes got smaller as stuff was unpacked, shuffled around or thrown out. I also sold off a lot of the excess furniture I've acquired over the last few years.

Really felt like I was getting somewhere when I had space to put some shelves up.

A few more weekends invested and this is pretty much how my new workshop will look for the rest of this garage. Now, back to the car....With a little bit of luck, 2013 will see the car running again! Happy New Year :)

moving the car

Finally time to move the Mustang - I was lucky that I could get my workshop unpacked and set up without having to work round the car, but finally it was time to get it moved into my new garage.

Just before I stopped working on the car I managed to acquire a cover from a friend who owns a really nice show condition '66 coupe. Apparently the cover shrunk a bit in the tumble dryer, and had to be replaced, but it is perfect for my needs at the moment.

I got the cover right before Mustang Monthly published an article on how to choose the best cover for your car. This cover wasn't mentioned, but I really like it, just don't put it in the dryer!

The best car covers come with a plastic ring insert that you fit yourself to ensure that the opening for the antenna is in exactly the right place for your car. This one is sewn in, but I think it would be better to install either a retractable antenna, or no antenna at all, and it's the latter route that I'm planning to take with my car when I get to working on the fenders. Let's face it, I'll not be listening to AM radio in the car.

It's not like I need to worry about my paint job just yet, but here's a perfect example of why you need a car cover:

I looked at renting a flatbed trailer from U-Haul, but I don't have a hitch on my car, and my old garage is on a very steep hill, so I decided to throw money at the problem, and let someone else worry about moving the car....while I watched.

still looking like a drag car

settling in to the Green Room

upgrading the power part two

So I already said that the lighting in my new garage is great, and it is, but that still left me with a pile of lights and tubes that I salvaged from the last workshop - I pondered whether to just leave them behind, but I was worried my electrical work might not be up to California building code, so I ripped them down.

I decided to install a couple of the lights below the cabinets at the back of the bench - mainly to make up for blocking off the window.

Like the bench outlets, the lights are also served from the outlet bank, and I installed a switch so that the lights are independent of the other garage lighting, but are not "always-on" like the outlets.

In the past I've tried to join wires at the back of the outlets, but with a complicated set up like this, it makes sense to install a junction box.

The last bit was to connect the new cabling to the supply, and install a few more outlets in the laundry area.

I also put in another junction box in case I want to add anything else in the future.

There was no smell of burning after the big switch on, just lots more light....and POWER!

The flash photo doesn't show it, but this outlet is showing a double orange, which means the polarity is correct and the outlet is grounded. It's always a good idea to check every outlet before using them, just to make sure you haven't got any crossed connections, or forgotten to crimp a ground.

upgrading the power part one

The lighting in my new garage is great, but the power...well a solitary outlet was never going to be good enough for what I need! I had a similar paucity of outlets in my last garage, so I am at least practiced in adding electrical infrastructure. (Note: I'm posting this stuff because I want to keep my blog going while my Mustang project is on downtime, but, if you're thinking of doing your own re-wiring, there are many better resources out there).

I started off by securing a long piece of cable close to the outlet I will be tapping into, and then threading the cable behind the water heater, through the back of one of the cabinets, and out into the area behind the bench.

Next I cut some pieces of conduit into appropriate lengths, threaded them over the cable, and secured the conduit with some clamps. Here's the clamp inside the cabinet.

I will be putting several outlets at the left side of the bench where the cable emerges from the cabinet.

I previously installed outlets at the front of one of my benches, and they were so useful I decided this would be a great opportunity to put in a couple more.

Once I decided on the location, I drilled out the front edge of the bench (a 2x4) with a hole saw.

After enlarging the opening with a chisel, I threaded the armored cable through and connected the extra outlet. I always use armored cable under the bench, just in case I happen to drill through the bench top - not very likely as it's made of 2x6 boards, but it's always better to take too many precautions where safety is concerned.

Next I extended the cable/conduit to the pre-existing outlets at the rear of each bench.

These outlets are fed by cable exiting from the outlet bank at the left side of the bench - essentially what I have is just a long extension lead with LOTS of additional outlets....or it will be when I get it finished...