Blake's 1965 Mustang Project

[Venom13132]

haha well that seems reasonable though since it's not a track car.  I am building my FD in such a way that my wife can drive it as well.

[digitalsolo]

Bought new reverse lockout solenoid. 
Bought new connector for reverse lockout solenoid.
Test fit new reverse lockout solenoid.   
Remembered that exhaust is too close to fit the connector.
Hacked up new reverse lockout solenoid to solder wires directly to pins, shorten 1/2" and potted in epoxy.

Stupid custom cars.

[cholmes]

   Stupid custom cars.

HA!!

[kinger]

Bought new reverse lockout solenoid. 
Bought new connector for reverse lockout solenoid.
Test fit new reverse lockout solenoid.   
Remembered that exhaust is too close to fit the connector.
Hacked up new reverse lockout solenoid to solder wires directly to pins, shorten 1/2" and potted in epoxy.

Stupid custom cars.

HAHAHA this is so how my day would go except I would have allocted 1 hr to the project and probably would have thrown said solenoid and connector in the garbage after messing with it for 4 hours.. 

[digitalsolo]

Speaking of allocating 1 hour to a project...

My MGW came in today;  I had the car prepped to put it in, and it had one before, so it seemed easy enough...

Well, first off my transmission had a broken tab for the shifter on one side when I got it, forever ago.  I had welded it back on, but being cast it was always weak and ended up broken off when I did the sequential.  It doesn't really matter, because it's still plenty stable with the other side + one tab on this side.   So I modified the pin/clip assembly to bolt to the shifter arm instead of "clipping" to the transmission tab.   No biggie, but an extra effort.  Done.

Then the shifter.  Well the rear mount on the shifter is too wide, I knew that already, because the I had an MGW in it before.   So I threw it in the CNC and trimmed it for clearance, and drilled/tapped a spot to mount it to the tunnel "plate" that I made.  Done.

Next up, the reverse lockout.  I modified it to fit previously, but still needed to wire it to the ECU.  So I re-pinned the connector for the gear position sensor on the S1 to work for the lockout and set it up in the Haltech.   Done.

Tested the shifter and it wouldn't center.  Why won't it center?  Oh, yeah, you pull out the little spring that centers the shifter when you do the sequential.  Wonder where that spring assembly is?   Found it, then had to remove the little plate that came with the sequential to block it off (hey, I think that was part of my still leaking issue...), installed the spring assembly and now it actually centers properly.   Done.

Now, the MGW has a really nice plate/seal that goes over the shifter and seals the tunnel.  And my plate was already setup for it.  Well, it was when the engine was 3/4" further back before I redid everything last year, and now with it in place I can't shift into 1st/3rd/5th/reverse.  Crap.  Worked the mounting holes on the MGW plate with a drill and carbide burr and made clearance.  Annoying, but done.

Then reassembled the entire interior and tested functionality.

So, about that hour.  Well, maybe 2.5 hours.

Also it started raining.   Oh well.  Should be nice tomorrow, so I'll do a fluid change (it's probably low after all the leaking, and I'm switching to Royal Purple Synchromax) and hopefully take it for a drive to see how it feels.  The nice thing is the MGW in the Mustang and the Tick in the Aston feel pretty similar, have the same pattern, and I have identical stainless weighted shift balls on each of them, so it should make swapping between cars pretty painless.   Now to reprogram my brain to use this as an H pattern and now sequential...

[digitalsolo]

Got the fluid changed and took the car to cars and coffee this morning.  No one was there, so I went and got donuts instead, hah.

Car feels great, it's definitely easier to deal with on the street with the H pattern, I think I'm just getting too old for racecar stuff.

edit:  Checked the car after cool off, looks like all the transmission leaks are fixed now, finally.  There are a few wet spots, but I think those were existing.  I'll hit them with brake clean later and then take it out again tomorrow for a bit.   I also got the bluetooth amp back in so that I have tunes when I want.   Next up is sorting A/C and the ducting, then redoing the strut tower brace/EGT bracket.

Back to getting some stuff done on the Aston tomorrow, probably.

[digitalsolo]

On the "not enough time to work on two cars" front, I finally looked at the Mustang again.

Still no leaks, yay!   If you recall I ran out of gas a few months ago, because my dash wasn't showing fuel level properly.  Well I noticed it still said I had 100% now, and that doesn't seem right, so I looked in the ECU, yeah, almost empty.  Turns out the dash was trying to reference its internal wiring instead of the input on my PDM that the fuel level is on.  Swapped that over and now it reads 4% which is good news in that it works, but bad news in that I need gas.  Hah.

On the "bigger issues" front, my brake balance is jacked up.  I noticed something smelled hot last time I drove it aggressively, but didn't think it was clutch.  Yeah... back brakes were toasty, fronts were barely warm.  Did a lock test and the rears locked first.  Whoops.   Need to get under the dash and adjust the balance bar.   Easy enough overall, just need to do a few rounds of testing to make sure it feels good.  I reckon that'll make my brakes feel a little better, they've seemed a little weak;  good pedal, just not good "feel" as it stops.

Anyway, outside of that, the rest of the items (A/C, HVAC ducting and strut brace) are probably winter projects.

[digitalsolo]

So this thing is mostly "done" (yeah, right), but I'm working on little things.   Last week I found out that the company that makes my wireless steering wheel controls now offers direct Haltech integration.  That's GREAT news as I can pull that feature set out of my CAN gateway.   Right now the gateway emulates a Haltech keypad and translates steering wheel inputs to be button presses on the virtual keypad.  It works fine, but it's extra complexity and every great once in a while it gets in a fight with my real keypad and they both do a reset, which is annoying.

I'll test that soon.   I still need to build the strut brace and get the AC done.  Hoping to do the AC on the Aston and Mustang at the same time this spring.  Hoping.

[shainiac]

Blake, have you considered adding a clockspring instead of wireless?
On my FC, I'm using a 91 vert clockspring (Airbag car) that has 4 wires. Enough for CAN H/L and 12V+GND.
I'm using a CANCHECKED CFE18 CAN I/O board. It's a TINY printed circuit board (27x29mm) that gets soldered direct to and has 9 digital and 9 analogue inputs that have defined CAN addresses you should be able to input in Haltech.
I have some photos from back in the summer/fall in my build thread. I printed a clamp mount that attaches to the column, with the bolt pattern for the clockspring for mounting. No issues so far.

Depending on what clockspring you use, you can also get functioning turn signal cancelers.
A more modern clockspring might have enough wires to do direct switches to GND also if you have the IO.
There are a few manufacturers that make 4-wire quick release hub adapters for NRG/Bell that allow you to pass more than just a horn signal through a standard quick connect. I'm using one for CAN/12V and it works great.

[digitalsolo]

The wireless stuff is a pretty good solution in my experience so far.  Getting a clockspring + disconnect that could feed my buttons was more complex (I have 4 buttons to manage).   Doing CAN to get the buttons through would put me back in the same spot of having to translate/emulate something anyway.