Classic Racer

Posted on July 27, 2014 by Mustang Maniac

This week we have a 65 fastback used for what they do best – Racing! This little lady has been stripped down and is going for a caustic bath or dip to remove everything, paint, filler, rust, aluminium everything except the good metal. What is left we are not to sure yet, but we will see. We hope to have some photo’s once she has been dipped. The main advantage is the dip process is cleaner and quicker, the downside can be the cost. We can arrange for the car to be dipped at reasonable rates including transport there and back. The car will continue her racing career once she has been put back together again, but it would need to be in her original condition and specifications.

A slightly more relaxed week this week with most cars in for a general service, we notice when the sun comes out, the cars come out and are prepped for a few summer miles to be enjoyed. It’s not just the oil and water to be considered. On these older cars there are grease nipples, axle levels as well as checking the brake cylinders if there are any left on the cars of course. Rubber will perish the last thing you want is to press the pedal and the fluid comes out! Give us a call or make an enquiry via email and we will see what we can do for you on our turn around times in the nice weather for a change.

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Rare Cleveland 302 Engine

Posted on July 20, 2014 by Mustang Maniac

We have finally managed to get hold of a rare Cleveland 302 engine. Yes, you did read that right, not a 351 but it’s a 302 with the transmission as well. The Cleveland 302 was not manufactured in the USA only in Australia. It’s identical to the 351 except for the crank and rods due to the shorter stroke. Some called it the Ford Fairmount which was supposed to have more torque but slightly down on top end. Just to prove it you can see the crank clearly say 302. We have had some interesting conversations about this engine and to date not managed to get a full engine. This was stripped down about ten years ago and has been like it since and this is how we bought it. We have some plans for this engine, which one wins we will have to discuss. What better way to pick up a classic rare engine in a classic rare Falcon pick up truck?

Falcon and engine
Cleveland 302
Cleveland 302

Cars:

We have had a couple of cars in for a routine services and they were finished well on time. We had this nice shot of a dark blue ’65 Coupe ready to go and we decided to make it into a wallpaper for you to download, click here.

We decided to get some work done on ’66 Coupe that is in our panel shop on the spit. The front floor pan supports were rotten and poorly welded in place. As a lot of the work has been done to grind away the old welds, we removed the old ones and was pleased to see the inside bodywork to the supports was in good condition. We painted the inside of the supports as standard with red oxide before welding.

old removed
ground and prepped
painted

Al (Yogi, to his friends) then welded the new floor supports(s) back in place one at a time. Everything was carefully marked up to make sure no movement in the vehicle during the process.

left support and replace hand brake bracket
right support
Yogi’s attention to detail
pair

We also attached the hand brake bracket back in place a mended the holes there previously, we also gave the floors another generous helping of filler to be sanded down. We didn’t tell Mart as we thought it would be a nice surprise for him.

News:

We had a stone dog given to us a little while ago and we had it shot blasted to clean it up. But, somebody who hasn’t owned up yet, staff or customer has now placed a half chewed mat and a wig on the dog! We liked it so much we have left it. 🙂 Any ideas for a name for our new hound?

Quick links:

Downloads ’65 Coupe & Gas Pump or click here

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Two’s Company

Posted on July 13, 2014 by Mustang Maniac

This week we saw another rare car in our yard, this particular car was a Hertz 2007 GT-H which matched our own 2006 GT-H, parked next to each other they really made an awesome sight. The Shelby Hertz cars are rare as only five hundred were made of each and only a few made it to the UK. The number plate on the 2007 is brilliant and matched the car as well as a statement. We can’t tell you what it is of course for privacy reasons, but we liked it, a lot. A number of customers visiting us made a comment of not seeing a Hertz Shelby before and then we have two in the yard at the same time.

A little background to the Shelby Hertz breed of pony:

(#) Head of Ford design, J Mays, had said back in 2004 to expect a series of special-edition Mustangs to keep the stallion kicking, and it didn’t take long for some exceptional variations on a winning theme. First to be announced was the Shelby GT500. This came in Spring 2005 at the New York Auto Show. But that was well ahead of the car’s introduction as a 2007 model. Announced at the 2006 New York show, and introduced as a 2006 model, was the Ford Shelby GT-H. This was a throwback to the famed Shelby GT350H “Rent-A-Racer” program from the 1960s. Ford Motor Company, Shelby Automobiles and the Hertz Corporation partnered to produce a special run of 500 performance-modified Mustang GTs and called them the Shelby GT-H. The H stood for Hertz brand. The cars were available for rent exclusively through the Hertz Fun Collection at select airport locations in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington. In order to rent one of the race breed beasts you had to complete an interview which was a lengthy process. The program recalled the 1966 teaming of Shelby and Hertz that got Shelby Mustang GT-350s into the hands of rental customers. Those Shelby GT350H Mustangs became sought-after collector cars. Prepared with assistance from the Ford Racing Performance Group, each Shelby GT-H had black exterior paint set off in gold by Shelby’s traditional “Le Mans” dual racing stripes. Rocker stripes included Shelby GT-H custom look. Each car wore a Hertz Edition emblem on the front fenders, Hertz Shelby GT-H sill plates, and a numbered dashboard badge with Carroll Shelby’s signature.

 

The Hertz Custom bodywork included a Shelby Performance hood with pins, a brushed aluminium grille with running horse emblem, unique front fascia with integrated lower grille, and side scoops. The Mustang GT’s brakes were dressed up with painted callipers, visible through the GT-H’s 17-inch aluminium wheels with P235/55ZR17 high performance rubber. Ford Racing Performance Group supplied its popular Power Pack kit to add an extra 25 horsepower to the 300-horse Mustang GT 4.6-liter V-8. It raised torque by 10 pounds feet to 330. With the unpredictable skills of rental customers in mind, all 500 GT-Hs got Mustang’s five-speed automatic transmission. In place of the 3.31:1 rear axle ratio used by automatic GTs, however, the GT-H got a Ford Racing 3.55:1 ratio rear axle assembly. The package included Ford Racing’s 90mm Cold Air kit, the Muffler Kit, a new X-pipe similar to the one used on the Ford Shelby GT500, and a performance calibration and a cat-back performance exhaust. To put that extra horsepower to the ground, the Ford Shelby GT-H came with the Ford Racing Handling Pack that included special-tuned dampers, lowering springs, sway bars and a strut-tower brace. Under the hood of the new model GT-H was a security tag on a small wire which identified the engine to the chassis. The tag was to ensure the engine and chassis numbers were tampered with. This was to stop a repeat of the ’60’s where the Shelby engines were swapped out of the Hertz and replaced with a lesser spec engine in it’s place. If you can locate a number matching engine and chassis on an original Hertz the you truly have a rare car indeed.

 

After the heavy rain this week a burst of sunshine on Saturday morning enabled us to have a proper sweep up. The dogs love a ride in the road cleaner and Adam was happy to oblige them. There is enough space for two dogs in the spare seat, the first two were the lucky ones.

After a stint of cleaning in the warm cab a well earned tea break was in order, in the good ol’ British fashion of course. The other storage sheds for our paints, plant parts and some heavier engineering tools was looking a bit full. So we had a clear out, we scrapped a lot of the stuff we had hoarded for a some time but never used, this made space and easy access for our generators and compressors. A productive week for cars and making the place look a lot smarter.

www.mustangmaniac.co.uk

# some additional information sourced – How stuff works 14/7/2014
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Ultimate Bling?

Posted on July 6, 2014 by Mustang Maniac

A lot of customers bling their cars up and add chrome, polished steel, superb paint jobs and anything that makes them look good and different from the rest. But, I believe we have the ultimate bling part. This is a Genuine Limited Edition Ford part, a 24 caret Gold plated Pony for a ’64 – ’67 Corral. We have sold a couple and only have two left, once they are gone – they are gone! Call us for prices as this isn’t on the WebShop at the moment.

Ford Gold Pony corral

A few customers like to take a little guided tour of our cars, garages, parts stores, and of course have a cup of tea with us in the club house. Our guard dogs are on patrol of the yard 24/7 for obvious security reasons. Some customers don’t mind the dogs when they are being shown around, or they are with one of the guys. Off course we do put them away into their pens if people are uncomfortable with them being around, not everybody likes dogs as much as ponies (Mustang style of course). The point here is that a customer decided we needed another dog to add to our pack. This one is a little stony faced though, its temporary home is outside the main office, were not sure how the dogs will take to it though!

guard

The Cars:

The jobs for this week have been completed and we have done a complete engine strip down and rebuild of this 1964 1/2 260. The engine was not in the best of health should we say. (We did take some photo’s, but haven’t got round to editing those yet). The oil ways were blocked with fifty years of gunge and muck, valve seats all clogged etc etc. At one point we had to use a long drill very carefully in the pipes to clear them out, it was that bad. The original oil pressure was not good as a result of the blockages as you can imagine. However, we rebuilt it, set the valve clearances properly as they were way out originally, timed it, tuned it and run it for a while. Now she purrs like a kitten and the hot starting issues have gone away. It also helps to have the heater pipes routed close to the choke mechanism where they are supposed to be on this model of carb, to stop the choke closing up again. While we were at it we gave her a bit of clean up too.

We have even managed to do a little work on a customers car in order to make his to make his life a little easier and speed things up a bit for him as he is doing a lot of the labour himself. He wants a polished stainless steel export brace fitted so we removed the original shock tower bracket so it looks right and sits correctly and not just bent out of the way as some cars tend to be. To remove the spot welds we went old school, small pilot hole then drill out the top part of the weld to weaken it. A few small spot of weld for the holes and grind down and she will be as good as new and nobody will notice.

There was also the issue of the handbrake cable bracket that was pop riveted in the wrong place as the original had pulled out of the floor. It should of had a plate welded where the original mount was and then the bracket welded onto the plate. From the pictures below you can see the original hole was left open and the incorrect place where the bracket was.

drill out the rivet
orginal hole and bracket removed

The main workshop was looking a bit tired on the inside so it has been given a little face lift, new panels for the internal walls and insulation, and the floor has been re-levelled and painted. The guys were saying they wanted a few little creature comforts, so I put up a replacement dash and wired a the radio up for them, now they can listen to the radio or a tape as they work, they even store the tapes in the glove box as well. New lights around the side make working on the ramps easier and give a consistent shadow free light. We have purchased a couple of new items as well to go in the renovated shed. A new oil changer, a new air jack we are trying out at the moment and a new air compressor with coiled hose.

air jack
oil changer
retro radio

No sooner had we fitted out the workshop and made space we moved a couple of the cars inside that were waiting for collection. Its amazing how much space you can claim back by adding a few shelves and storage units. Where we had a space for two cars previously, we now have four on the floor. We can now do tracking and geometry in here as well as the geo workshop. Everybody is happy, we just got to replace the old pictures and signs we had up. It does seem funny to have blank walls again though.

undercover

WebShop: www.mustangmaniac.co.uk

 

 

 

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Mr W. It’s ready!

Posted on June 29, 2014 by Mustang Maniac

We managed to complete a couple of cars this week ready for collection, and the tidied up yard has been well received. This week we been working on a rare 1964 1/2 “D” Code 289 coupe. The owner who I am sure wouldn’t mind if we just called him “Mr. W” has not driven her yet, but we know he follows our blog and is eager to see her. So we wanted to let him know “Mr. W. your car is ready”. Of course we can let him know by email or phone, but we thought as the owner is away at the moment what a pleasant way to see your car, on this weeks blog post. The car has had a new Edelbrock Carb and matching intake which is a serious looking piece of bling feed by a new fuel line and HT leads. She has had a master servo upgrade which is always difficult on a manual vehicle as the servo sits slightly higher due to the clutch pedal mechanism through the fire wall. This in turn means the servo has to sit higher so the full split reservoirs will hit the shock towers. To make it fit we have to use a modified modern reservoir that does the job now. It obviously goes without saying our custom-made brake pipes and fittings are in place, the distribution valve is screwed to the inner fender, and not left hanging in thin air like some recent “upgrades” we have had to sort out recently. The front to rear brake balance proportioning valve is easily accessible just under the fluid reservoir where it should be. Front brakes have had their new disc brake conversion fitted. It’s advised to give the car a couple of hundred miles to bed the brakes in properly. We have fitted a NOS fan belt for the correct fitting and size as a nice little touch. There are new performance shocks all round, a new custom exhaust from the headers to the rear which sound very nice. The owner has specified his steering wheel and is now fitted. All in all this is now a safer car and should handle a whole lot better and we are pleased with her. We have added Mr. W’s rarity to our Customer Cars Menu – 1964 1/2 “D” Code or click here for the quick link for all the pictures. You don’t see many of these around so it was a pleasure to work on this one.

Edelbrock car and intake
new radiator
NOS fan belt
front discs
new wheel
Adam’s final once over.

We have purchased a new bit of kit for us as it’s always a tired game of hunt the mig before we want to use it. To cut that down we have added new Mig welder from Snap-On to our collection. We were looking forward to using it until we realised that the mig wire has been used up. In theory at least we should have one each now until this becomes the new favourite to be used of course.

Note to self: order more mig wire!

promig

Of course all the parts we have used were from our stock. If you want to have a similar look please visit our Webshop at www.mustangmaniac.co.uk

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Spring Clean

Posted on June 15, 2014 by Mustang Maniac

This week we have had a blitz on the yard, in fact it’s been a Spring Clean and a Summer Clean all rolled into one. We needed more storage room to park and clean the cars when they are ready for collection. We have now stored the old axles, engine blocks and transmissions that were outside ready for reconditioning back inside one of the units. The yard looks so much better now for the clean up, and the little ladies waiting collection by their owners are now easily accessible for them. We should have done this years ago, oh, we did. Now we have done it all over again so we are more determined than ever that this time it will remain tidy. But, and there is usually a but, the open plan look could all depend if we get any more unexpected barn finds and we need to temporarily store stuff again.

spring clean1

Cars:

We mentioned last week that we have some cars in for a general service, one in particular stands out as a shining example to the owner for his dedication to making this car into what it is now. There have been many hours cleaning and a few years to get this Factory Optioned 1969 GT on the road to drive as good as she looks. The owner likes to tell us that the back seats have never been sat in, he polishes the underside, the carpets are vacuumed after each trip and even the dust caps have to be correct. We did pull the owners leg to say that we all went down the pub in her and had a kebab while sittin’ in the back. Seriously though, we have added a well deserved link to this car under our Customers Cars menu or click here for the link and all the other pictures. Everybody who knows this car knows her by name, “Ruby”. This car is a real gem to look at and drive.

The best bit? This car is up for sale.

So if you want a pretty much perfect car and Genuine ’69 Factory 351cid GT, give us a call or email us and we will put you in touch with the owner.

Almost all the stock of our popular Mustang Maniac shirts have now gone and we only have a few left in some of the sizes. We will try to replenish the stocks as soon as we can. Another happy customer drives away with some parts and shirt. Give us a call or visit our webshop to order a shirt or parts at

www.mustangmaniac.co.uk

part2

 Quick Links:

Customers Cars – “Ruby” 1969 Factory Option GT or click here for the hyper link.

 

 

 

 

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It Don’t Get Much Better

Posted on June 1, 2014 by Mustang Maniac

It has been one of those weeks where we have seen a lot of new cars for minor work and services etc. We thought we had seen some great cars  in our time then this little beauty came along and we just had to have her. This is an original 1965 “A” code Coupe 289cid and really is as good as they come! This has seen only a single coat of paint slightly different from the original. The panels are original, no rust and straight. The gaps are exactly what we would expect for the time. We even have the original owners manual where it was bought in the USA, Tennessee. Service stamps in the owners book suggest that this engines seventy-four odd thousands miles are the original miles. The doors have all the original rubbers, the glass is tinted as for all aircon equipped cars. The pony interior is the full spec and in amazing condition, as the we would expect she has the ’66 gauges in wood effect as a result, and this is not an incorrect dash, but the correct one for the year and spec as the door codes confirm. She runs very nicely we just need to tweak her a little for the idle, all in all it’s a fantastic little car. I doubt we will see one as good as this for while in its genuine and original untouched state. This car doesn’t need any restoration to the body, the rear loom and engine bay looms still have the original fittings. The engine will need to be cleaned and tidied up a bit to match the wonderful chrome work but that is about it. We are still very excited about this one to say the least.

During a quick clean and look around on the car we even found a cheque in the car. So if you know who this cheque belongs to please let us know and we will be more than happy to post it back to the owner.

cheque

At our secret location and storage area we have our second car this week to tell you about.  This car is as close to the launch date as we have ever seen. This 1964 Coupe “D” code 289cid which was made 20th April 1964. This is also confirmed as a genuine ’64 as the numbers on the door plate are below the 250000. Again this is a very nice car, that only needs a minor tidy up to her bodywork along with the engine which runs fine.

To change the subject a little we are talking about setting up a monthly meeting for our customers to bring along their cars. We had a trip out to Herbie’s American Bar and Grill and took a few Mustangs along of course, (well it is an American Diner). It turns out that I ended up breaking a record for a food challenge, and at the end of it there was still room for a beer. We are looking to promote this excellent restaurant for a regular meeting spot as we enjoyed it so much. We have added a link on our blog to their website as well. We thoroughly recommend the restaurant and remember to mention us to the owners. What a way to end the week, Cheers!

https://www.facebook.com/herbiesbarandgrill

before
after
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Enfield Pageant 2014 (Part 2)

Posted on May 29, 2014 by Mustang Maniac

As promised the second installment of the Enfield Pageant. The biggest attraction at the show just has to be the USA ‘ iconic Greyhound bus. The bus is being restored but is in pretty good condition. Compared to the UK bus the size and use is evident. The UK’s Routemaster was designed for short trips between stops, sometimes just a few hundred yards apart, the open back was to allow people to jump on and off. That idea was soon frowned upon by the health and safety brigade, but you might still see one in London on a good day. The Greyhound on the other hand was an interstate cruiser with comfort in mind. We just couldn’t believe the size of the bus, it dwarfed our double-decker. Two very different vehicles with very different needs. We took a pic of the spec for the Greyhound bus that was in the window as it made interesting reading. Are these still used in USA?

Some European Classic cars:

More American classics here but we were surprised by the “History Chanel” car. We were expecting a nice paint job only to find it was sticky foil covered!

Perhaps one of the most famous posters ever in the UK during the times of the war:

enfiled.14-67

We are back to work again and continuing our projects. The weather is not helping things at the moment as we don’t want to put the customers cars in the rain while we move things around. That can slow things up a little to say the least.

Our key hooks have been selling well and we even gave a few away over the weekend to customers who made an order with us.

MM50years-sskey1

MM-sskey1

If you wish to get your hands on these great for Fathers Day gifts give us a call and we will see what we can do for you. We are working on some other branded items which we hope to have very soon and exclusive to Mustang Maniac. We will post these as soon as we know we have them in stock. Unlike some stockists we try to hold everything in stock so we can deliver as soon as the postal service can get to you.

http://www.mustangmaniac.co.uk

 

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Enfield Pageant 2014 (Part1)

Posted on May 26, 2014 by Mustang Maniac

Part 1 – Traffic lights!

 It’s that time of year again when the event organisers book space for the dedicated Classic car enthusiasts to bring their pride and joy to the classic car shows. Last year was glorious weather and the show was busy. This year the UK bank holiday rain curse hits again. The rain kept a lot people away as they didn’t want to get their cars wet which we can understand of course. The thunder and lightning at one point made the tents very popular. Once the downpour had finished the bright sun came out and people were walking around soaked in the sunshine. Such a strange day. The visitors that did make the effort came to see the war years themed event which was informative, and had a few nice bits of memorabilia in there. On our pitch we had a total of nine cars which included customers cars that had been loaned to us for the show, we would like to thank you very much. Al bought his “Coz I can” Mach 1 with him, we had the equally famous 1000bhp UBB Mustang which was shown on 5th Gear and driven by Vicki Butler-Henderson on the show. The KR replica was there again, we had some great compliments about all the cars and we had a steady stream of photos taken with them. There was our traffic light cars as it was pointed out to us (red, amber & green), and it was also said “I wouldn’t like to come up against any of these at a set of lights!” The Falcon Ranchero was a popular car which we have just had sign written as it’s the company pick up with style. We have taken a number of shots of the pageant around eighty in total with a number in reserve. We will post again over the next few days to make it a more manageable read.

We will start with our cars we had, we had a nice stream of people visiting us and we had a crowd around us at one point that were calling for us to start the UBB up. We did of course oblige and nobody could hear a word! We have a video of it starting up and we will post that on YouTube along with some of the other things we need to post on there as well. Don’t worry we will let you know when we do. Which one is the UBB (in case you didn’t know as we took the stickers off),  it’s the one where the engine is too big to fit under the hood and had a hole cut in the high-rise hood to allow it to shut!

There was a nice selection of trucks at the show, and we took some pics of the more unusual ones:

It was interesting to see the reactions of the visitors to our cars on display, there was the younger generation interested in the UBB and the white Shelby, the older visitors were looking at the classics.  All appreciated the Mustang brand and we even gave away a few of our Mustang Maniac key hooks.

Car that needs no introduction was there from the London Motor Museum:

In part 2 will have some pics of a wonderful Greyhound bus, some American and British classic cars too.

We have added another five wallpapers for you to download and hope you enjoy them. We were asked if there would be more so somebody obviously knew about our new menu for the photos. So as requested the wallpapers are here but also at the Menu bar under downloads.

Quick Links:

UBB 1000BHP on 5th Gear click here

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