Round the block

Now that I knew the engine ticked over, I checked the brakes and auto to see if I could take it for a spin. The fluid level in the gearbox looked ok (a bit strange seeing a trans-cooler hose was disconnected when I got it) and the brakes worked when I rolled it off the trailer and then again when I rolled it down the driveway. So the driveline/brakes looked initially sorted


I got some imperial welsh plugs and some "cheapo" rocker covers to complete the engine, but christ - what a pain it is to put in rear welsh-plugs (in a power steering equiped 289)! It took me several hours as you can't get a straight hit on a drive dolly to seat the rear welsh plugs. After many skinned knuckles and a lot of swearing all was complete so I filled it with what coolant I could and fired it up. So far so good. So I hopped in and put the shifter into "R". There was a familiar "clunk" as it found gear but then nothing......


It seems all those years of sitting had let the trans-fluid drain from the converter and various internal galleries so it just looked like the fluid level was ok. After adding several litres of fluid it came good. So I backed it out of the garage, sat it idling on the lawn and waited for it to warm up a little so the thermostat would open. This it did after a minute or two so I could now completely fill it up with coolant.


I will eventually include a video here that I took of it (the old video camera is now broken so I can't convert the tape to digital for now) but it went and looked great. Yet again I had Mark & Lavina over to take it for a spin - great fun. When I say it went well, that was true - but it didn't stop so well. There is just something about those 4-wheel, non-power-equiped drum brakes - that catches you out when trying to slow down for the first corner!! Never mind, we made it around and it was only out of curiousity that I got it going at all - but well worthwhile the effort. I think ii was only 5 laps of the block that the car ever did before I was to begin the "strip down". My 3 kids had the first drive with me - Dylan, Nicola and Ellie. Thankfully they thought it was great and told mum so too.


Straight after that I parked it in the garage and the engine came out......

Here (below) is the motor fresh out later on the same day of the last test drive.


And here (below) is the motor sitting in a cradle (an old office chair made a great trolley) so I could move it around. Notice the bracket for the radiator to circulate coolant and the new petrol tank made out of a plastic coke bottle (a black funnel is stuffed in a hole in the coke bottle).



The engine went so well that I bartered it for a new Shelby bonnet. That is, I swapped the engine & trans (which I didn't need) to someone who will peel the steel bonnet shell off the metal frame and graft a fibreglass 65/66 Shelby bonnet (with scoop) back on.

I got the engine going on the stand so this person could see the full worth. Here is a video of the engine running on the stand.......

Now that the engine was out, there was no excuse to delay the dismantling process that would reveal all the ugly secrets......

It actually goes!

There is a business term called the "J" curve. This is a general term that predicts something will get worse before it gets better. I was quite prepared for this to happen with this project as there were just too many signs of rust problems.

For instance, the carpet was rust stained, the sills had rust holes, and if it sat still for more than a few minutes - small piles of rust scale would appear at various spots under the car! As is obvious in these shots.........

While none of this was "encouraging", at least I knew that as I was putting in a full chassis - I would have to cut out (or at least into) most of the floor and sills anyway. It was at this point that I decided that I needed to build myself a rotisserie. But first I wanted to check the car over completely - and if possible get it going.

I did the usual reconnection of hoses, checked fluid levels and found myself a spare battery. I noticed the two rear welsh plugs had been knocked out (probably by quarantine) so i'd have to get some spares later. However it wouldn't stop me kicking the engine over. First thing though was to disconnect the fuel line between the carby and fuel pump so I could run some fuel to both - to soften the various seals and diaphrams.

Next I found I could turn the engine over by hand (good sign) and I adjusted the points while doing this too. There was plenty of oil in the sump and the oil looked good. So far so good but as I didn't have any keys I would have to hotwire it as well.

This I did by simply running a direct 12V wire from the + battery terminal to the + side of the coil (knowing the points & coil would hate this long term).

But when I hooked up the battery terminals to the leads - a dead short would result (bummer).

I got under the car to tap on the strater in case there was a short and it was here that I noticed the black battery lead running to the starter. It seems the red lead in the USA is the earth and the black lead is the +!!!! On reversing the leads to the battery - no problems (much better).

Notice the black battery lead on the fender apron leading to the solenoid and then onto the starter. This would be the red lead in Australia - so a trap for first-timers like me!

Seeing these early Fords have the starter solenoid mounted in the engine bay, my ignition key became the trusty screw-driver that I would "short" between the battery lead and starter wire on the solenoid housing. As I still had no rocker covers, I could turn the engine over and after a while saw the pleasant sight of oil eventually dripping from the rockers (so the oiling system was primed & working).

Lastly I connected a funnel to the fuel line leading into the carby and saw that once filled with fuel, the carby accelerator pump worked ok. Funnels (hanging by wire from bonnet frames) make good petrol tanks.

Now it was time to fire it up - so I connected the coil and gave it a go...... but nothing. I left a plug-lead off to check for spark and found none (yep, that would do it). So I checked the points again, saw a spark there thankfully, fiddled with a few wires to ensure they had good contact and tried again. Vrrrroommm! She fired right up but the engine appeared to have a knock.

Still, 2 hours to get an engine going after 17 years being dormant isn't bad. One amusing thing was that it shot a squirrel nest out of one exhaust (no squirrel though)! Don't worry too much about exotic pests entering the country - I carefully swept it all up & burnt the lot in the wood-fired bbq that night. Then I had some good fortune........

I had visitors over for dinner later that day and they were busting to see the car. I told them of the engine knock but they said "...... we've never heard a Mustang go before - just fire it up please". I thought as the engine isn't going to stay - why not. So I started it and in an instant was told to stop as the fan was hitting a hose clamp.

It seems one blade on the fan was longer than the rest (I still ask why?) and hit the tightening screw on a hose clamp. I loosened the clamp, slid it round 90degrees, restarted the engine, then - purrrrrrrr! It idled and ran beautifully. So thankyou Phil, Mark & Lavina, extra eyes are always useful.

Seeing the engine was ok - it was time to get this Fastback moving.

First impressions

I must say my first view of the Fatsback was "ok" as it did look straight - the most important thing. However there were the tell-tale signs of old body repairs in the rear-quarters and some obvious rust holes in the sills. There was no way of easily knowing if these repairs were from rust itself, or from crash damage (and rust set in later).

No matter - I had already purchased the car so it didn't really matter what the condition was, I was going to have to fix whatever was wrong. All the polished trim was there, the interior, the console, the glass was nearly perfect - so I was on to a good start. But no keys was a hassle as it meant I couldn't open the boot and would have to hotwire it if it was ever to go....

A walk around the car showed that it has recently had its pony badges and rocker covers removed. I'm told it sat in a shed for 17 years and the list of receipts that were in the back-seat seemed to verify this (a flurry of activity up until around 1990 and then nothing). The car spent its life in Indiana and from the receipts the previous owner has done the following to the 289.......

• Fitted Tri-Y extractors.


• A new higher lift Comp-Cams cam (no spec' sheet though).


• Compression test.


• Port work in the heads.


• Replaced some valves with "good second hand units" (why second-hand?!).


• New pushrods and roller-tip rockers.


• Plus other sundry tune-ups, new hoses, etc, etc.

All this showed that the owner at least had an interest in "go fast" goodies. But the big clue I saw was that as the rocker covers were gone (replaced with a nice set of old oily tea-towels), I quickly noticed that under those missing valve covers that the rockers, springs, retainers, rocker pedestals and everything else were extremely clean. There was no layer of black oil grunge that coats the inside of an engine that is a daily driver. This motor had done very little work since it's last rebuild (if at all).

Check out the photo above, that is one stock 1966 engine bay.... with 17 years of cobwebs as a bonus.

I'm sure that the fact the engine didn't look like a "runner" helped keep the cost down. No matter, we bundled it onto a trailer from where it landed in Adelaide and drove it back to its new home in Melbourne.

We got our good share of people checking it out on the trip home.

The first tinkerings would prove intersting.........

How it all started

I didn't just fall into this project, it has developed at random over a number of years. About the only consistent theme has been an interest in Ford's. No doubt this is the same for a lot of people, my parents drove Ford's so that's just what I learned about.

But don't think i'm one sided, I grew up with a bunch of mates that drove Holden's (GM). We had a healthy rivalry with the cars that we built back in the mid to late 1980's.....

Bongo had his one-tonner, Greggo had his initial one-tonner (on gas), Alby had his HG Wagon with a hot 308, but eventually purchased an ex-bathurst 308 and put it in a lightened 4-door LH Torana. Boy did that thing fly. Harrop crank, Carillo rods, Cosworth pistons, etc, etc. I've never seen a more efficient "diff destroyer" - until the 9" was installed.

During this time I was the lone Ford driver and built up my own XC ute. I put in a balanced and blue-printed (by Mick Webb) long-block, but was lucky enough to have a friend travel overseas and they brought me back a Crower roller cam. Installing this with all the associated valve-train pieces really made the ute fly.

I got myself a Mig welder around this time too, but being a student or else having just starting work - I had bugger-all money so did all car modification and engine assembly ourselves (we all did). These times turned out to be a great learning curve for us all. Learning to weld, looking at chassis/vehicle engineering drawings, getting ideas from various "hotty mags", assembling engines and learning all about bore finishes, matching piston ring materials, (file back) ring gaps, head porting, valve geometries, intake charge speeds and angles, finding decent ignition systems, dash wiring, etc, etc.

Then there are the "life interuptions" called marriage, kids and a mortgage. All of these experiences have lead to this point - where a small but constant trickle of funds has amassed bits and pieces needed to take on a project like this.

I really should mention an important job performed on my old ute. Actually, it was my second ute - a 1972 XA model. I selected the XA as it didn't have any emmission requirements when registering the car. However, this body had the usual hidden rust problems so I needed to replace a heap of lower panels. More importantly (now) however, was that I had to do some chassis modifications. This experience has proven invaluable as not only did this involve cutting and welding in new steel (typically panels & hollow box section, making sure the welds are correct, the existing chassis is cut correctly, etc), it means organising accredited vehicle engineers and meeting, learning and following their advice.
Such people are full of helpful advice and don't cost anywhere near as much as you may think (well, what I thought they may cost anyway).

There is no way I would attempt the chassis mod's I will reveal shortly if I hadn't learnt from my old ute in the past.

At the end of the ute's life I had installed the final development of my 351C - a fuel injected, 8V, roller-cammed motor with a top-loader and detroit-locker diff. Everything fitted under the standard XA bonnet so it was a real "sleeper".

Above is a shot of motor & gearbox as I was just finishing off the EFI. Lifting the bonnet on the stock looking ute really turned heads back then!

Project Overview

This should be an interesting journey.

It was suggested that I put this project build up as a blog - so here goes. I'll add to this blogg when I can as I have 3 kids that keep me very busy.........

The Project is this;
Install a stroked 460 big-block into a 66 Mustang Fastback - but have it done safely & legally so I can drive it on the street. The car will require a full chassis to be welded in, RRS suspension to enable the bog-block to fit, phase 3 RRS brakes and of course upgraded running gear.

Thankfully I have most of the mechanicals already - left over pieces from previous projects. By stumbling across this 66 Fastback for a reasonable price, I now have a destination for all these parts and so this project has been born.

Here it is the first time I saw the car........

.....more on how I got the car later.

Along the way I'll reveal how the car gets transformed from the old stock "C" code 289 into a "Restmod" with a few unique differences.