Post #55, 6/14/15 We Be Jamming & Rear End Rebuild

65 Mustang Restoration

Where to begin,, quite a lot has been accomplished over the last couple of weeks,,, but the biggie has been moving the car from Waldo's garage,, to the shop's paint booth. Waldo did a bit more on the seam sealing, and then proceeded to get the jams painted.

 Let the papering begin!

And then the paint,, sorry for the grainy pictures,,, it seems to be very hard for the camera to capture this particular color. The color changes drastically in different lighting conditions,,, from black to extremely bright metal flake,,, and under certain lights it's a very deep candy blue. Seems like every time we've taken painted parts home, it's been cloudy,,, one of these days the sun may appear at the right time for us.

Waldo also got the test coat done on the dash,, it's a semi gloss black paint that that the guys up at Sherman Williams made up on their own for a local hot rodder,, and that we weren't 100% sure about,, but now we are,, very good color & sheen to it,,, and it's very smooth & durable feeling. We like it so much that I think we're going to shoot a coat of it on the engine compartment,,, if for no other reason that it seems to be a ton easier to clean. I really like the Eastwood products,, but their "Top Coat" is very porous & dust seems to really cling to it.

 And after nearly 11 months,,, she's finally back home,,, at least for awhile anyways.  It's getting close to assembly time,, but not quite yet,,, a few more tid-bits to get done 1st.

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 Rear End & Smalls

And while all of that paint work was being done by Waldo,, I was busy working on all sorts of items,, mostly small parts,, cleaning, prepping & painting,,, bunches of sand blasting! 

The new Scott Drake Leaf Springs are really nice,, but they're terrible looking,, I tried to blast them, but that seemed hopeless,, so I switched to the DA with some 80 grit & smoothed down most of the areas I could get to,,, that worked pretty well.

This is after all of the parts(except sway bar) have been painted with several types of Eastwood's coatings,, Spray Grey, Brake Grey, Detail Grey, Extreme Chassis Black, Diamond Clear, Rust Encapsulator,, etc,,,, not sure what color the sway bar will be yet.

And then there's the rear end,,, it was needing a bit of attention. This 8" third member is definitely the older style,,, no plug in it & is why the plug is in the back of the rear end.

 The gears & bearings in this center section look very good,, may have to clean her up & list it on ebay. I assume they're the 2.80's,, haven't looked yet.

 

As I tore it apart, I was surprised at how whimpy the axles were & how bad their bearings were, so I took them up to the shop & removed the bearings. It was nice to find out that some yahoo had changed one of the bearings before,,, With a Torch,,, and as you'd expect, he cut into the axle,, in 2 places. Well, decision made,, time for a new set of axles. So I did my normal 2+ hours of searching & and once again,, my rear end guy on ebay came through again. "staticz2229" (ebay store: Quick Performance Racing) set me up with a beautiful pair of axles, cut to the lengths I told him,, with new bearings and seals,, new studs,, and with the large hole on the face,,, all for only $350 Shipped to me,, approx. $90 less expensive than any where else,, and these were customized to my wants/needs. 

The new axles are so much stouter than the factory axles,,, which should help when we bump up the horse power & torque. 

I went to our local swap meet last fall, and a gentleman had a nice pair of 8" Ford backing plates sitting in his pile,, that were all nice & clean and he told me that they had been nickle plated & that he wanted a whole $20 for them. It was hard for me to get the cash out of my pocket fast enough. 
  

I got bored & decided I might as well install the new Scott Drake Parking Brake Cables along with all of the new brake parts. I blasted the PB arms & spreader bar and coated them and the new wheel cylinder housings with some Brake Grey,,, can't wait to get them installed.

I started to mess with the power steering assembly since I had everything to rebuild it,,, found out the center link portion was bent where the control valve slides inside,, so I had to order a new one of those,, yippe. I got most of the control valve cleaned & rebuilt,,, but I got the cylinder and new hoses all put together.

 

Now I have to figure out what's next to do,,,  till next time,, cya!