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, October 18, 2008

Torque Specifications

Here are the torque specifications for your 65/66 car. At the bottom is the general guide for bolts of various sizes. One should always proceed with caution when dealing with 40+ year old components. This will not be their first rodeo. You have decades worth of metal fatigue due to wide variations in temperature, along with the simple march of time, slightly distorted threads from previous repairs, slightly looser threads from the metal loss due to rust, etc.. to contend with. And, metalurgy in the 60s wasn't anything close to what it is today. There was a much greater degree of variation in the strength and consistency of the seemingly identical components. By now, each and every component has it's own distinctly unique set of characteristics. You will need to be much more cautious and pay a lot more attention to what you're doing than you would if you were just slapping together brand new stuff.

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Thursday, October 16, 2008

VIN decoder for 1965 and 1966 Mustangs


I just realized that I haven't gotten around to putting this up yet. Oh, well.Here's what the VIN on your 65/66 car means.
The first digit is the year model, as in 5 means 1965 and 6 means 1966

The second digit is the code for the plant at which your car was built. F is Dearborn, MI, R is San Jose, CA and T is Metuchan, NJ. Those were the only three plants that were building Mustangs then.

The third and fourth digits represent the body style. 07 is a coupe, 08 is a convertible and 09 is a fastback.

The fifth digit is the engine code.
U is a 170 cid six cylinder with a 1 bbl carb
T is a 200 cid six cylinder with a 1 bbl carb
F is 260 cid V8 with a 2 bbl carb
C is a 289 cid V8 with a 2bbl carb
D is a 289 cid V8 with a 480 cfm 4 bbl carb
A is a 289 cid V8 with a 480 cfm 4 bbl carb
K is a 289 cid V8 with a 600 cfm 4 bbl carb ( along with some other cool stuff)

The last six digits are the sequential production, or 'serial' number.
The picture indicates the location of the three VIN stampings on a 65/66 car. If you open the hood, you should be able to see the front one on the driver's side. To see the other two you have to remove the fenders.
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