Pre-1964 Autolite 2100 Carburetor Rebuild

Here is a follow-up on the last post. These are the pages from the technical manual that Ford gave to people   learning to be factory-trained service personnel in 1963. This shows how Ford expected their people to go through a carb that was causing problems. If you do what this says to your Autolite 2100 it should function flawlessly. These pages look like they've had the right hand side chopped off, but, if you click on the first on, it will pop up and show the entire page. You can then go through them, save them to your computer, and print them, so that you can have this stuff sitting right beside the carburetor while you are working on it. 

Autolite 2100 Accelerator pump system for 1961-1963

This carburetor was never used on a Mustang by Ford, but, occasionally, one might find that this is what someone has put on their car at some time in the past, and it looks different enough to sort of throw somebody off for a moment. The first picture is a page out of the training manual that Ford gave to the people that were preparing to become factory trained service personnel.

 In this next picture, you will notice that there are what appears to be two holes in the front of the carb instead of the usual one hole for the pump inlet. This is actually a deception. The upper hole is not a hole at all, but is plugged up. The lower hole is the inlet hole. This hole does not get one of those rubbery flap thingies that people are accustomed to seeing.

 In this picture you see that hole drilled down into the top of the pump housing, and, if you look carefully, you will notice a check ball down in the bottom of the hole.

 In this picture, the screw has been placed in that hole with the check ball down inside it. You want to run that screw in far enough to prevent it from leaking, but, not so far that it prevents the check ball from being able to come up and let fuel into the pump housing. How this works is that when you step on the gas, and actuate the accelerator pump, the pressure pushes the inlet check ball down to prevent fuel from just being pumped back into the float bowl, giving it only one place to go, which would be through the cast channel, up into the banjo bolt, and out through the discharge in the booster venturis. This part of the system is the same as the system on the 2bbl carb that Mustang left the factory with.

Putting your 1965/66 Mustang on jackstands

A question that seems to come up occasionally is where are the best spots on the car to place jackstands so that the car will not A) fall on the owner and, B) not be damaged by it's own weight. The best location at the rear of the car is the rear axle housing. Lift the rear of the car by putting the jack under the middle part of the rear axle housing and then place two jackstands on the tube part of the axle housing on the inboard side of the shackle plates that hold the leaf springs onto the axles. 

The best location at the front of the car is not so obvious. The strongest spot for the jackstand is on the frame rail, right behind where the torque box is on a convertible. The coupes and fastbacks don't have the torque box on the 65/66 cars, but, the location for the jackstand is the there. Here is that area, boxed in red, on a convertible.

If you intend to lift the entire car up on jackstands, do the front first, one side at a time, and then do the back. If you raise the back of the car first, and then start lifting one side of the car on the front, this will also lift the car off of one of the jackstands in the back, causing the car to slide off the jackstands and land pretty much on it's side. Not such a good thing to have happen. When you are taking the car off of the jackstands, lower the back first, then do the front one side at a time.


Most folks have enough sense to figure out that they shouldn't try to put a car on jackstands in their yard, or  any other place that is dirt or grass. It is not immediately obvious that  you also shouldn't do this on asphalt. Do NOT place your car on jackstands on an asphalt surface, like the one you find on many parking lots and streets. The feet of the jackstand will pierce the asphalt, slowly sink in for a little bit, and then drop the car on you. Don't be 'That Guy' that people tell the story of.

Replacing valve cover gaskets

I just realized that I had never gotten around to mentioning something that can turn an annoying task into something very quick and simple with one little trick.   The first picture is a motor. Next, I have inserted 6 set screws, 1/4-20, into the holes for the valve cover bolts. You then drop the gasket on after applying whatever  you like for sealing purposes, apply said sealer to the top of the gasket, drop the valve cover on, then remove one set screw with an allen wrench, put the bolt in, remove another screw, insert another bolt, etc... then snug up the bolts to spec. The set screws keep the gasket from creeping around on you while you get the bolts started.

Another person's blog

Hi, everybody. This has nothing to do with an old Mustang, but, a guy that I know that also follows this blog has started a blog. He hasn't posted much yet, but, it does look interesting so far. Here it is. You might or might not agree with him, but, it is at least worth thinking about. Here it is.
http://indefenseofcommonsense.blogspot.com/
The least I can do is put in a cheap plug for him. (insert smiley face here. )

Bleeding the brakes 1965 1966 Mustang

 

Bleeding the brakes on a 65/66 Mustang can prove to be a very annoying task. It is typically done in one of a few ways by the the average hobbyist, none of which go anything close to as well as said hobbyist hopes. Either using a partner to press the pedal down while you are operating the bleeder valve, or, if it's just you, using one of the many hand-powered vacuum pumps which don't work very well at all, or, even better, open the bleeder valve, jamb the brake pedal down with a telescoping hood prop, go back under the car, close the bleeder valve, go pull the hood prop out, open the valve, etc.... and then you run into the problem of aerated brake fluid, that one annoying air bubble that just won't go away, all sorts of little issues that make for a very unpleasant afternoon.

 

I became very frustrated with all of the above methods, having to threaten one of my children with all sorts of sanctions if they didn't help me, and trying new devices that I was assured would make my life easier, and never did. So, I gave it a little thought and this is what I came up with. I figured that it would work pretty well, but, I was actually amazed by just how well this thing actually did work. I screw this thing onto the master cylinder, which is full of fluid, attach a piece of vinyl tubing to the bleeder valve on the wheel cylinder, open the bleeder valve, open the valve on my contraption, and in an instant I have good clean brake fluid coming out of the bleeder valve. I was amazed at how easy this made a chore that had been extremely annoying in the past. Here is how I made it.

 

I took an old master cylinder cap, drilled a hole in it, cut that same hole in the M/C cap gasket and installed a quick release fitting for an air hose. I then put a pressure regulator for a paint gun on a short run of air hose with the other quick release fitting. I used those particular parts because I had all of that junk sitting around, but, one could go to a paint supply house, a hardware store, or a home improvement store, and get a lever type valve. What you see in the picture is all that there is. An old master cylinder cap, way less than 10 dollars worth of fittings, a washer on each side of the master cylinder gasket, some gasket sealer on the outside of the master cylinder cap, a screw in the vent hole of the cap, and a valve.

 

This is a very easy assembly to make, using parts that are both readily available and very cheap. All that is required is an air compressor, and the smallest cheapest air compressor in the galaxy would work just fine. Don't crack the valve open all the way on the first usage. Take it easy until you see how quickly the fluid is coming out of the bleeder valve with the compressor that you have. Just screw the cap part onto your master cylinder, attach a normal air hose to that, attach the rest of this thing to other end of the air hose, so that you have the valve with you at the wheel, attach your air supply hose to the other end of your new bleeder thingy, and have at it. 

1965 1966 Mustang Turn signal switch wiring

Once in a very great while it becomes necessary to replace the turn signal switch on a 65/66 Mustang. Once it has been determined that the switch needs to be replaced, you will discover that you have to reuse the old connectors. One is a two-wire connection that will only plug together one way. That connector is for the rear turn signals at the tail lights. If those two new wires are placed into the old connector backwards, what will happen is the right rear turn signal will start flashing when you signal a left turn. Not that big of a deal, and all that you have to do is switch those two wires around and you're all set.

The six-wire connector is sort of a different story, though. The two connectors will only plug into each other one way, but, there are all sorts of wrong ways to place the new wires into the old connector, and, if done wrong, all sorts of disasterous consequences will follow involving smoke, melting wires, etc...

Here is how those six wires are supposed to be installed in the old connector. If you look at the connector from the orientation shown in the picture, you will notice a slot in the cross piece in the center of the connector. Holding the connector so that this cross piece is pointing up and down, and with the slot closer to the top, the wires go as follows, going clock-wise beginning at the top left corner.

1)The top left corner has a yellow wire, which brings power from the headkight switch to the horns.

2)The top right corner has a white wire with a blue stripe, which goes to the front right turn signal indicator.

3)The right-side middle wire is a green/white wire which goes to the front left turn signal indicator.

4)The bottom right wire is blue/yellow, which takes power to the horns.

5)The bottom left is a blue wire, which brings power from the turn signal flasher.

6) The middle left wire is green, which brings power from the brake light switch, so that the brake 

lights are flashing on the appropriate side while the turn signals are flashing.

In the wiring diagram, you will notice what appears to be some extra wires. I drew it like this, oddly enough, for the sake of clarity, so that one can clearly see what each wire is doing. Wires 1 and 8 are both white with a blue stripe. There is actually only one white wire with a blue stripe coming out of the turn signal switch, with the same thing happening with wires 2 and 7, which are green with a white stripe. There is only one green wire with a white stripe coming out of the turn signal switch. If you look at the 6-wire connector that the turn signal switch plugs into, you will see two white/blue wires coming out of the place where the one white/blue wire goes in, with the same thing happening at the place the one green/white wire goes in. Two come out. What the switch itself has is one yellow wire bringing power in for the horns, one green wire bringing power in from the brake light switch, one blue wire bringing power in from the flasher, one blue/yellow wire taking power out to the horns, one white/blue wire taking power out to the right front turn signal and right dash indicator, one green/white wire taking power out to the left front turn signal and left dash indicator, one orange/blue wire taking power to the right rear turn signal and brake light, and one green/orange wire taking power to the left rear turn signal and brake light, with the last two being that two-wire connector. There are some aftermarket turn signal switches with wires that don't really match the colors of the Ford switches. I don't know why anyone would do such a thing unless it had something to do with cheap, but, that was what they did. If you have such a switch, the last two pictures will show you the locations of the wires on a Ford switch.