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.

Friday, February 25, 2011

Mustang Fuse Box 1965 1966

Many questions seem to arise concerning this seemingly simple component, such as "Where is the main power feed?' or "How do I replace this with the more modern blade type fuses?"  First, there is no 'main power feed'. Here is how the wiring is on the 65/66 Mustang fuse box.
In the bottom left corner of the picture there is a contact with a black wire with a yellow stripe attached to it. There is a black/yellow wire coming from the hot side of the starter solenoid, the same terminal that the positive battery cable is attached to, which comes through the firewall, splits into three wires, one black/yellow, one black/orange and one yellow. The black/yellow wire on the fuse box is the black/yellow wire coming from the starter solenoid. This is constant power, whether the key is on, off or in the accessory position. The power is always on, thus, the term, 'Constant Power'. (insert smiley face.) You will notice that this contact has two round thingies on it. If you flip the fuse box over, you will see that one of those round thingies is the hot side of the fuse for the cigarette lighter/emergency flasher circuit, and the other is the hot side of a circuit called 'Dome'. A 65/66 Mustang does not have a dome light. This is the interior courtesy lighting which comes on when you open either door. On the other end of the Dome fuse is a green/yellow wire. This green/yellow wire goes out to the driver's side door jamb switch.  On the other end of the cigarette lighter circuit is a blue/white wire. This goes out to the lighter, and splits off before it gets to the lighter and also goes to the emergency flashers, if your car has the emergency flashers. Not all 65 model Mustangs had emergency flashers.

On the middle fuse you will have two blue/red wires. One of them brings power directly from the headlight switch and the other goes to the instrument cluster back-lights. Those are the ones that come on when the headlights come on, not an alternator/generator warning light, or the oil pressure warning light.

In the top right corner, there is a black/green wire. This brings power from the ignition switch when the key is in the on or accessory position. Again, the wire is attached to a contact plate with the two round thingies. The one on the top is the hot side of the accessory fuse. There should be a wire hanging out of the front of the fuse box on that circuit which supplies keyed power to whatever accessories are plugged into that wire on the other end. The other round thingy, marked by the brown/green arrow, is the hot side of the heater fuse. There is a brown wire coming out of the other end of this fuse. If you have three speed heater fan, this wire goes out to the fan motor. If you have a two-speed, center-position/off heater fan, this wire goes to the fan switch. The fuse box of a 64 1/2 is a little different in a couple of ways. I'll address that one in another post.

So, as you see, power goes to the fuse box from three different places, the starter solenoid, the ignition switch, and, the headlight switch, and the systems that get power from one are pretty much completely isolated from all of the others. There is a little more involved in replacing this with a blade type fuse box than just removing this fuse box and sticking the new one in. The new one needs to either have a provision for isolated independent power feeds for different circuits, or, it needs to be more than one fuse box. 

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Ciao, Italia


Ciao a tutti da Italia. Se c'è qualcosa che ti interessa qui, ma l'inglese non è ben capito, si prega di chiedere, e cercherò di tradurlo.



 

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Moi Suomessa.

Tervetuloa, Suomessa.
Kaaviot johdot ja johtojen ongelmat ovat enimmakseen 2008. Kommentoikaa. Auta minua sanoa tata oikein.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

1965 Mustang build date

Here is the list of VIN data that I've been collecting for a while. This is just for the 64 1/2 Dearborn cars, but, I'll be posting the rest of the 65/66 stuff that I have as I type it up. If you want to estimate the scheduled production date of your car, just click on this http://www.allfordmustangs.com/forums/classic-tech/278593-64-1-2-vin-data.html#post2408151 then click on the PDF link and scroll down the list until you find cars with sequential numbers ( the last six digits of the VIN) that are close to yours, and that will get you very close to what your's probably was. Ford destroyed the records for the 65/66 cars, so, there is no way to know for certain what the scheduled production date for a car would have been, but, this will allow you to come up with the absolute best estimate possible from any source.

I have just added the 64 1/2 San Jose cars. The pdf for that is in post #4. I've already started organizing the 65 Dearborn cars, and, will be posting that soon.

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Recreating your Mustang door tag 1965 and 1966

Many of the cars, after nearly half a century, have either lost their warranty plate (door tag) or, it has become too ratty-looking to read and looks just awful. Brand new replacement tags are available from http://www.martiauto.com/ but, you have to tell them what it's supposed to say. The warranty plate will have the VIN of your car on it, along with some codes that gave the dealerships that would be working on the cars some basic information about this particular car. The first code is body style. For a 65/66 Mustang, how that goes is

Coupe............65
Fastback........63
Convertible...76
with a letter after it. Standard interior would be an A, deluxe (pony) interior would be a B, and standard interior with a front bench seat, instead of front buckets, would be a C. So, if you have a standard interior coupe, that would be 65A, a pony interior convertible would be 76B, etc..

Next would be the exterior color. I have a list of the color codes here. http://thecareandfeedingofponies.blogspot.com/2008/04/paint-codes.html What would be on your door tag would be the single-digit designation above the name of each color.

Next would be the interior trim of the car. Again, I have all of the possible interiors for these cars here.  http://thecareandfeedingofponies.blogspot.com/2008/05/65-interior-samples-and-codes.html and here http://thecareandfeedingofponies.blogspot.com/2008/05/66-interior-samples-and-codes.html In the first column there is a two or three digit designation under 'Code'. That's what would be on the door tag.

Next is the scheduled production date of your car. Ford destroyed the records for the 65/66 model cars, so, there is no way to say for certain when your car was built. However, I have amassed a pretty good data base of cars that the scheduled production date was still known from the original door tag, and, if you go here http://www.allfordmustangs.com/ go to the classics forums and ask about your cars birthday, I can ballpark it within a day or two. This is assuming that nothing goofy happened during production of your car, and it rolled off the line pretty much in sequence with other cars. It would be a good workable date for buying parts for your car, and it's a date that would make sense.

It is not possible to deduce what the D.S.O. ( District Sales Office) code for a car was if the original door tag is gone, because, as I mentioned, Ford destroyed the records, and, basically, the car could have been ordered by anyone, anywhere in the world. If you still have the tag, and are wondering what that code means, then the number designates the city or region that your car went to to be sold originally.
11_Boston
12_Buffalo
13_New York
14_Pittsburg
15_Newark
16_Philadelphia
17_Washington D.C. After 1/1/66
21_Atlanta
22_Charlotte N.C
23_Philadelphia
24_Jacksonville FL
25_Richmond VA
26_Washington DC
27_Cinncinati  After 1/1/66
28_Louisville KY  After 1/1/66
31_Cinncinati
32_Cleveland
33_Detroit
34_Indianapolis
35_Lansing MI
36_Louisville KY
37_Buffalo  After 1/1/66
38_Pittsburg After 1/1/66
41_Chicago
42_Fargo ND
43_Rockford IL
44_Twin Cities( Minneapolis/St. Paul)
45_Davenport Iowa
51_Denver
52_DesMoines Iowa
53_Kansas City
54_Omaha
55_ St. Louis
61_Dallas
62_Houston
63_Memphis
64_New Orleans
65_Oklahoma City
71_Los Angeles
72_San Jose
73_Salt Lake City
74_Seattle
75_Phoenix
81_Ford of Canada
83_Government
84_Home Office Reserve
85 American Red Cross
89_Transportation Services
90-99_Export

Next will be the axle code, which tells you what the rear axle gear ratio is. The 9 inch rear end was not the only rear end that had an optional limited slip gear set-up. This was also available on the 8 inch rear end used in the A code and C code cars, as well as with the integral carrier used on the 6 cylinder cars. This was extremely rare on cars destined to be sold in the United States, though. One would be safe in assuming that this is not what their car came with unless the car was originally sold in Canada or Europe, and then made it's way back to America. Here are the codes for the door tag. This will be in the form of 'if the motor that your car came with was a_____ then the axle code on the door was _____
Before 9/01/64
170____________ 5
260____________1
289____________1
289HP (K code)__8 (3.89) or 9 (4.11)

After 9/01/64

200/auto__________2
200/manual________3
289/2bbl__________6
289/4bbl__________1`
289/4bbl/HP_______5(3.50), 8 (3.89), 9 (4.11)

And, finally, the transmission code. This is just for the 64 1/2-66 cars. There were some minor changes in the codes and options at the beginning of the 67 model year.

Automatic transmission___________6
6 cyl/three speed manual__________1
V8/three speed manual___________3
V8/four speed manual____________5

After determining what your car actually came with, this should provide you with all of the information that you need to recreate your door tag.

Monday, January 3, 2011

Mustang heater blower motor 1965 and 1966





Here is how the heater blower motor works on the 65/66 Mustangs. If you click on the diagrams, they will pop out so that you can see the entire diagram. I made them as big as I could so that they would be easier to see.

  If your car is an early 65, as in 64 1/2 with a generator, and has the center position off switch, the second drawing is how that is wired. Power comes from the fuse box to the switch, and, goes from the switch to the blower motor. If you look at the blower motor itself from under the hood, you will see three wires sticking out of it. One is red, one is orange, and the other is black. The black wire is the ground wire, and should be attached to the firewall. The other two bring power to the motor from the switch.

If your car has the off position on the switch all the way over to the driver's side, the first drawing is how your car is wired. This is a system that can be a little confusing until one realizes that it is wired backwards from the way most of the stuff in this car is wired. Most systems have power coming from the switch to the component. The heater blower motor has power coming from the component to the switch. Power comes from the fuse box and goes straight to the blower motor on the brown wire. It leaves the blower motor through the yellow wire, which plugs into the resistor on the front of the heater box. There will also be a three wire harness that plugs into the resistor which goes to the switch. You will notice that there is no ground wire in this system. The switch feeds power from one of the three wires coming into it, depending on which position the switch is in, straight into the metal of the dash. It is important that the switch be making good contact with the unpainted metal of the dash on the back side, or, the system won't work, so, if you decide to paint your dash, make sure that the switch housing is still making good contact when you reinstall it.

There was also a center position/off two speed blower available in the later 65 model cars, which, at a glance, appears to be like the 64 1/2 from inside the car. It does not have the resistor on the heater box. however, these worked like the three speed blowers. Power comes from the fuse box to the blower motor and then goes to switch, which grounds on the dash. The resistor is an integral part of the switch.

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Ford radios and 8-track tape players

This is a page that I blatantly cut and pasted from  http://www.hammar.dyndns.org/radio.htm and then reformatted slightly to have it make sense on this page. The information came from Hammar, though. They did the research and published the page, not me. It is a very useful source to help you figure out if your car has the right radio in it.  



How to Identify FoMoCo Radios and 8-Track Tape Players


(Note: Though the following information is primarily geared toward mid-1960's Ford/Lincoln-Mercury radios, this coding system was employed on all Ford/L-M units from the 1961 through early 1969 model years. Bendix AM/FM radios continued employing this system through 1972.)



All original Ford sound equipment installed prior to 1969 was clearly marked with a four or five character code identifying the model year, manufacturer and intended application. Following this was a four-to-six digit serial number (for the radio -- NOT related to the VIN!)



These markings will be found as approximately 1/4" characters, stamped into the side or back of the radio chassis. Though they bear some resemblance to part numbers, they in fact have very little, as the following table reveals:



First Character:  Radio Type
(BLANK) = AM

D = Underdash "Hump" Mounted*
E = Electric Retractable Antenna**
F = AM/FM
T = 8-Track Tape (Includes AM/8-Track)
TOB = AM/FM***
(*1968-69 Only)
(** Used only on some Mercury units)
(***1965-66 Thunderbird Only) Last digit of model year (BLANK) = 8-Track*


Second Character: Model Year This a single digit indicating the last digit of the model year, as 5 is 1965, 6 is 1966, etc..

Third Character: Sound Type (?)
Blank 8 track*
T = Transistor Radio
S = Stereo (8-Track or AM/8-Track)
(*1968-up)


Fourth Character: Manufacturer
B=Bendix
M = Motorola

P = Philco



Fifth Character: Model Application

C = Continental


D = Falcon

E = Comet

F = Galaxie

G = Comet

H = Hang-On Tape Player

L = Lincoln

M = Mercury (Full Size)

O = Fairlane

S = Thunderbird

T = Truck

U = Econoline Van

V = Lincoln

W = Cougar

Y = Meteor

Z = Mustang



Sixth Character: Speaker Configuration or additional info

(BLANK) = Front Only

F = Fader for Front/Rear Speaker(s)*
L = Truck**
M = Truck**
U = Econoline**
(* Used on some Continental/Thunderbird units)
(** 1968-1970 Truck Only)



A Few Examples

4TBZ = 1964-1/2 Mustang AM, by Bendix

5TMZ = 1965 Mustang AM, by Motorola

5TPZ = 1965 Mustang AM, by Philco

5TPD = 1965 Falcon AM, by Philco

6TPZ = 1966 Mustang AM, by Philco

F6TBZ = 1966 Mustang AM/FM, by Bendix

T6SMZ = 1966 Mustang AM/8-Track, by Motorola

T6SMF = 1966 Galaxie 8-Track Player, by Motorola

(Beginning in February 1966, Ford marketed this as

a dealer accessory "hang-on" player for all models.)

F7TBZ = 1967 Mustang AM/FM, by Bendix

T7SMZ = 1967 Mustang AM/8-Track, by Motorola

T7SMH/F = 1967 "Universal" Hang-On 8-Track, by Motorola

(Identical to the 1966 T6SMF/T6SMM, with the

addition of a built-in rear speaker fader control.)





Notice that this coding is not based on interchangability -- a 1965 Falcon radio will fit your 1964-1/2 to 1966 Mustang just fine. These markings merely indicate for what year and model a radio was intended.

Here    http://www.hammar.dyndns.org/radiolist.htmis    is a more complete listing of radios used in 1964-1/2 to 1973 Mustangs.




Notes:

The belief that 1965 Mustang AM radio dials start with a "6" while 1966 dials start with a "5" is actually a myth, stemming from the fact that in 1965, Ford used multiple Mustang AM radio suppliers (Bendix on the "Early" 1965's, Motorola or Philco for "Late" 1965 models), but fitted 1966 AM-equipped Mustangs exclusively with Philco sets. All 1965-1966 Philco radios featured dials beginning at "5", while the other makers began their scale at "6."

The Bendix 4TBZ was electronically identical to the Falcon 4TBD, but featured an updated dial free of the Conelrad marks mandated on all US-made AM radios produced since 1953. Though the Conelrad warning system was deactivated in 1963, the decision came too late for design changes to the new 1964 sets. All 1964-1/2-1966 Mustang AM radio models also featured the same chromed pot metal volume and tuning knobs, while the Falcon version used black plastic ones. Because both models were otherwise interchangable, it's possible (and even likely) that some on-hand Falcon radios were installed at dealerships -- nevertheless, the "Conelrad" design would still be technically "incorrect" in a 1964-1/2 Mustang.

Generally, from 1966 onward, factory-installed AM radios were supplied by Philco (a Ford subsidiary), AM/FM units by Bendix, and 8-track players by Motorola.

Some confusion exists regarding 1965-66 Mustang radios featuring with the word "Deluxe" on the chrome bezel. In reality, these were not Ford radios at all, and had no connection with the "Deluxe" (Pony) Interior Decor Group. These "Deluxe" radios were merely aftermarket AM units produced by Boston-based Automatic Radio Manufacturing Company. Interestingly, Automatic Radio later filed a lawsuit over Ford's 1967 switch to the use of Ford-made (and marketed) radio mounting bezels.

Although the Mustang AM/FM is normally thought of as a 1966-up item, it was actually introduced to dealers in July 1965 (as an accessory only -- it did not become available through the factory until the start of the 1966 model year).

Interestingly, the dealer advertising proudly trumpets the use of a "new, unique station selector controlled by five 180-degree turn-over buttons" -- in reality, the Mustang AM/FM used the same type of tuner button as the AM version (though in a more attractive chrome finish), and relied on a simple slide control to switch between the AM and FM bands. Other Bendix-supplied AM/FM radios did use these "turn-over" buttons -- and this "better idea" was adopted for the Mustang sets beginning in 1967.

The first AM/FM stereo radios appeared in 1968 Models - for the Mustang, they were the Bendix-made "F8TBZ". All earlier AM/FM radios are Mono, reproduced in Life-like High-Fidelity through the trusty dash speaker.




The Philco-Ford Story

Ford purchased pioneering radio manufacturer Philco on December 11, 1961, and in 1963 merged in the "Aeronutronic Ford Corporation," acquired by Ford in 1956. Philco Aeronutronic became NASA's primary communications equipment contractor for the U.S. Manned Space effort during the 1960's and early 1970's, designing and supplying control consoles for the newly constructed Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston. Other divisions of Philco-Ford built home appliances and entertainment equipment -- as well as more than a few car radios.



In 1974, likely motivated by the forced divestiture of Autolite, along with the weakness of U.S. auto sales and a general recession in the wake of the Arab Oil Embargo, Ford sold Philco's Consumer Electronics Division to GTE-Sylvania, who in 1981 resold both it and Sylvania to the Netherlands-based Phillips Consumer Electronics (a longtime Philco rival best known in the U.S. for their Norelco shaver -- sold in every other country as the "Philishave", but renamed in America thanks to Philco's skillful trademark protection).



Philco-Ford's Appliance Division was spun off to White Consolidated Industries (formerly White Westinghouse) in 1977, and purchased by Sweden's AB Electrolux in 1986.



Of the original Philco-Ford, only the Aeronutronic unit remained, producing radios from 1975-1989, first as the "Aeronutronic Ford Corporation" and then from December 1, 1976 on as "Ford Aerospace and Communications Corporation". On January 5th, 1988, the company was redesignated "Ford Aerospace Corporation", and less than two years later, on October 24th, 1990, the "Philco-Ford" era ended when Ford sold Ford Aerospace to Loral, creating "Loral Aeronutronic". Loral Aeronutronic supplied radios to Ford during the 1990's before being acquired by Lockheed Martin in 1997.



The Philco name hasn't entirely disappeared from North America, however. Until recently, the Philco name could be found on a line of budget-priced audio/video products sold through K-Mart, and the brand still graces a line of Nordyne home cooling systems. Finally, Polyconcept USA, Inc, now markets several "retro"-styled "Philco" turntables, under license from Philips Electronics North America Corporation.