Scheduled production date for Dearborn 64 1/2 Mustangs

Below is a list of the door tag data that I have collected for the 64 1/2 Dearborn-built Mustangs. If you are wondering about the scheduled production date of your Dearborn-built 64 1/2 Mustang, just fit your VINs sequential number into the series and look at the scheduled production dates of the cars with VINs that are very close to yours, and this will give you a pretty good ballpark estimate of when your car was built. Obviously, this can't guarantee that your car was in fact built on that very day, but, it would have been close to that, certainly close enough for you to order parts, get a new door tag, etc..

Turn signal wiring and back-up lights for 64 1/2 Ford Mustang

The turn signal wiring for the 64 1/2 cars is a bit different from what you find in the 65/66 cars. It isn't very complicated, though. Power starts out at the ignition switch. From there a black wire with a green stripe goes to the fuse box, which has a fuse marked "14A Turn". From there, a black wire with a red stripe takes power out. That wire ends as a female bullet connector about 6 inches above the fuse box. This bullet connector has two wires coming into it, one being the black/red wire and the other is an orange wire with a yellow stripe. The orange/yellow wire is taking power from the black/red wire over to the turn signal flasher. From the flasher a blue wire goes to the turn signal switch, which distributes the flashing power to the appropriate lights when activated. There is a black/red wire plugged into the female bullet connector which goes to the neutral safety switch on a car with an automatic transmission, or, to the back-up light switch on a car with a manual transmission, and, from there, goes to the back-up lights. It should be noted that back-up lights were an option that cost an extra $10.40, so, an awful lot of the 64 1/2 and 65 Mustangs did not  come with back-up lights.

New Wiring Diagrams

Hi, everybody. I finally got around to shooting the lock off of my purse and buying some software so that I could make wiring diagrams that are a bit easier to follow than the Medusa-head drawings that Ford produced. Trying to distinguish the relevant from the irrelevant in the original drawings can be a challenge, and I got tired of just trying to erase the irrelevant from the original drawings. It is actually easier to just draw these simple systems from scratch, if you have some decent software for that. So, I hope this helps, and, any feedback on how I can do these drawings better is appreciated.

Instrument Cluster Voltage Regulator for 1965 1966 Mustang

As much as it grieves me to have to say this, the ICVRs available at auto parts stores and dealerships have become so shoddy, they are not worth wasting your time and money on. It is, from my experience, and the experience of others, far more likely that the unit will fail immediately than that it will function like it is supposed to, and, if it does actually work straight out of the box, that state will not continue for long. I'm hearing the same thing about the Motorcraft and the BWD, the Mustang-specific units made by whoever, which are sold by the vendors of vintage Mustang parts, do not fare any better as far as I can tell.

If a person were to take the time to read through my blog, they will notice something. First, there are no ads here, and there never will be. I do not want a nickel from anyone. I do this because I love the cars, and if I can help in some small way to keep these cars chugging down the road, I am happy to do that. You will also notice that I do not recommend manufacturers or retail outlets for parts, and, the reason for this is simple. I will not do anything that will, in any way, damage my credibility. But, the ICVR situation has become so bad, I have to say something. There is a nice man in Florida that makes electronic ICVRs. He contacted me a few years ago, offered to send me a couple for free to check out and possibly recommend, and I declined for the reasons that I have just stated. I now realize that this was a mistake on my part. I still haven't tried one personally, but, I have heard from several people that have used them, and this unit works. It is reliable, durable, and does exactly what it is supposed to. Here is a link to his ebay store.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/281691350846
If I needed an ICVR, this is what I would buy.


A quick update. A friend of mine bought  few of these regulators and tried to blow one up. He couldn't do it without running power straight from the battery with a 10 gauge wire and grounding both the ground and the  output terminal straight to the body of the car. He gave me one and I also tried to blow it up, and was unsuccessful. This is a remarkably durable component.

Horn wiring for 64 1/2 Ford Mustang

Here is how the horns are wired for the Mustangs that came from the factory with a generator instead of an alternator. To see the entire diagram, just left click the part that you can see and the little bit that is hidden will pop out. You have a black wire with a yellow stripe bringing power from the hot side of the starter solenoid over to 'B' terminal on the voltage regulator. From the 'B' terminal, there is a yellow wire that goes into the horn relay, and from there goes to the underdash area, turns blue with a yellow stripe, and goes to the horn button. The 64 1/2 turn signal switch only has one horn contact, instead of the two contacts that a 65/66 switch has. When you press the horn button that grounds the blue/yellow wire, activating the horn relay. From the horn relay there are a couple of yellow wires with green stripes that go to the horns themselves. When the relay is activated, power goes from the relay to the horns, which ground out on the strut rod brackets that they are mounted on, causing the horns to honk. Nothing to it.

PCV system on a Mustang 1965 1966

Lately, I've had several people ask me about this system, how it works, what is it's purpose, etc...so, here's how that works and why it's important. As the fuel is burned in the combustion chambers of an internal combustion engine, the motor does not burn 100% of the fuel. Most of that unburnt fuel goes out the exhaust, but, some goes past the piston rings down into the crankcase. Also, all of the exhaust gases don't go out the exhaust. Some of that also gets past the piston rings, and again, ends up in the crankcase. As one might imagine, having these combustible gases hanging around in the oil pan can't be a good thing. What they actually do is contaminate the oil, degrade the lubricating qualities of the oil, and cause your motor to wear out a lot quicker than it should. That is with a motor in which everything is as it should be. In a motor that is getting a little tired and has excessive ring clearance, this problem is multiplied and the gases can accumulate quickly enough to actually catch on fire in the crankcase. People have devised different ways of dealing with this problem over the years, but, we'll stick to Ford's solutions. In the Model B Fords, the first cars that had the flathead V8s in them, the solution was very simple. Ford put a hole in the front of the oil pan up near the top and welded a flap in front of it to keep rocks and stuff from bouncing into the oil pan. A very straight-forward idea, but, one that cried out for some modifications. They later developed what was called a road draft tube, which you can find on some of the 64 1/2 Mustangs. This was the same idea, basically a hole to let air in through, but, a hole that road crud couldn't really find it's way through. However, dusty crud could still get sucked in.Next was the positive crankcase ventilation, or, PCV, system. Vacuum is generated by the pistons, so, they put a hose from the base of the carb over to one of the valve covers. The gases that blew by the pistons and wandered into the crankcase get sucked back into the combustion chambers. To solve the problem of the massive vacuum build-up this creates, they put a vented oil filler cap on a hole in the other valve cover. This allows fresh air to circulate through the motor and prevents the build up of the blow-by gases. They put a one-way valve on the hose that goes to the carb to prevent air/fuel mixture from going the wrong way.

A good and useful system, and very easily maintained. All one has to do is clean out the filter in the oilfiller cap to keep it from getting clogged up, and clean the PCV valve occasionally to keep it from getting stuck.

Translating this blog

Good afternoon. I was wandering around cyberspace and I stumbled across this.
http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=2&hl=de&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dautolite%2B4100%2Bchoke%2Badjustment%26biw%3D1364%26bih%3D931&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=en&u=http://thecareandfeedingofponies.blogspot.ch/2008/04/carburetor-common-repairs-and.html&usg=ALkJrhigv0N7tFUkWch9SXySCvkGs8HIlA

It appears that some industrious fellow in Switzerland has started translating this blog into German. I do get a fair amount of traffic from Germany, Austria and Switzerland, so, I think that this is a wonderful idea. I just wish that I was able to do that. So, just in case someone would like to maybe translate this blog into Finnish,  Italian, French, Russian or any other language spoken anywhere on earth, please feel free to do so, and you have my gratitude for doing for me what I would do for myself if I was able.