Hello

There is a very large class of people that own 65/66 Mustangs that, as far as I can tell, anyway, have been, for the most part, ignored entirely. They don't really want that 100 pt. show car that is so nice and was soooo expensive that they're afraid to drive it, they also don't want to make their car capable of achieving warp factor three. They just want this car that they dearly love to be able to cruise around smoothly and reliably, without having it dump them out on the side of the road or have it start making weird noises or belching out big clouds of funky-smelling smoke. And I think, truth be told, that this is by far the largest class of Mustang owners. They take their car to some technician when what they actually need is a mechanic, and this, frequently, does not work out very well at all for the owner. They don't want to re-engineer the entire car, they just want someone to fix what broke. These are the people that I am trying help out with this blog. Some problems require a little bit of back and forth, as in, "Try this." "I tried that and it didn't change anything."
" Oh. well, you probably need to try that." " I tried that and it helped, but it still isn't quite right." "Now you need to try this...." If you go to http://www.allfordmustangs.com/ and then go to the classics forums, you will be able to do that with a pretty hefty gathering of some very knowledgeable people that also happen to be very friendly. None of that ridiculous one-upmanship, no flaming or abuse, none of that stuff. Just good, solid advice from people that know what they are talking about.

Saturday, February 22, 2014

Turn signal switch tool

Getting the wires to turn loose from the connectors, which have to be reused, when replacing a turn signal switch is a task that can be very annoying if a person hasn't done this a whole bunch of times before. There is a very simple, easily fabricated item can make this job go sooooo much more smoothly. Here is a picture of what is exactly what it appears to be, which is a bent piece of copper tubing. The tubing has an inner diameter of 1/8 inch, and is readily available from any hardware store. apparently, this type of tubing is used for something having something to do with refrigerators. You just push the tube down onto the wire end, that pushes the release tab out of the way, and you just pull the wire out. Nothing to it. I prefer the 'pistol grip' configuration, but, there was a write-up about this tool in the December of 1965 Shop Tips brochure that Ford published every month or so for their service people. In that, they used a 3/16 diameter tube that they crimped the end of, and bent it into a T-handle configuration. The tubing only costs like a dollar, and it will save you from the really aggravating chore that replacing the turn signal switch can be without it.