A place for tutorials on programming and other such works.
In July 2017 I had the center console redone. I got some of the replacement parts from Phil Schmidt at Mustang II Speciality Shop New Used Obsolete 1974-1978 Ford Mustang II Parts (ash tray, coin tray, emergency brake rubber, automatic selector surround, center council brackets and the placement diagram). I also had Brett McHugh refinish the center console so it would be back to it’s original state and it did!
In June 2017 while getting my tach adapter put on I noticed that I was leaking coolant yet again. I had just had the water pump replaced but this time it was coming from the timing cover itself. In order to take off the timing cover I had to take off all the puly’s, the water pump the radiator, the front grill, the bumper. It was a lot of work that as I am writing this is still ongoing. I also found that a head light was cracked so I am also waiting on that. Determining the right gasket set was a little difficult as my engine seems to be made up of a lot of different year parts. For example my water pump came from a 70’s (D00E-D). The timing cover is RP-E5AE-6058-FA, Top timing cover sprocket E3AE-A3.
Once I got it all back together the pressure was good had a tiny leak on the water pump but after I snugged it a little more and added a missing bolt I didn’t notice till after all worked well.
In 2016 I also decided to redo a lot of the dash. The cluster cover was not correct and had a big hole in it, missing cluster plastic cover. No vents. Gauges in wrong areas. Bad wiring and interior lights not working.
I got a lot of parts from from Phil Schmidt at Mustang II Speciality Shop New Used Obsolete 1974-1978 Ford Mustang II Parts such as cluster plastic, cover, wire connectors, tach reducer and vents.
Here are the before pictures.
I decided to get rid of the custom tachometer that I had mounted to the steering column and go with the original tach. In order to do this I needed a tach reducer and a MSD tach adapter 8920. I don’t have the tach adapter yet but I did find a tach reducer and had that mounted in preparation. Also my dash cluster’s connector was broken so I had to get that replaced. I also had to replace the tach connector as that was not the correct one as well.
Here is it finally all done.
In 2016 I decided to completely redo the engine harness. I was constantly getting battery draining issues. Everytime I turned on my blinker the volts gauge would jump all over the place.
I will admit when I first started this project I thought ah this shouldn’t take too long to do. I was definitely wrong. It took almost a month of work. I had to find wiring diagrams and get them blown up so I could read them. I also got them laminated because I would be full of grease and they would be easily cleaned.
I had the car turned around in the garage so the front was facing out so I could work easier. Mike from Auto Electric MD taught and helped me redo all of the electrical in the engine bay and straight through to the dashboard. If you want to see the dashboard electrical restore I will be putting that up shortly.
Here are the before pictures.
After removing all the electrical tape from the wires I found that a good majority of the wire was corroded, connected improperly and completely overused. The voltage regulator was not setup properly. The 4th wire on the voltage regulator was why the car wasn’t charging.
Little by little we would trace wires in and compare to what the diagram said. I think labelling took the longest. Because you have to ensure everything is correctly mapped as to how it came off. We even had to disconnect the dashboard area to ensure wires went to where they actually said they went.
In trying to do replacements we had to disconnect the starter to replace and re-route cabling. That was a major part of the redo. We identified early on that a lot of what had been done could be routed better. The less cable the better. In disconnecting the starter it cracked the solenoid. Yes it actually cracked… The heat from the headers made the starter brittle. The plan was to put a heat cover on the starter next summer. So we had to replace the starter now. If you have ever worked on a 1974 Mustang II with a 302 engine. You will find that this is not done easily. We had to jack the engine in order to pull out the starter. What a nightmare to get that done but we did it. The alternator wasn’t setup correctly as well because the contact points were too close to the valve covers. So Mike had to rebuild the starter and alternator before we could continue. The voltage regulator seemed to not be correct as well so we put in a better one. All the head lights were redone. new connectors, etc.
Here are some pictures of the work as we were going through it.
By the time we were done we had probably 5 pounds of over used wire. No joke! At this time the tack still doesn’t work but it will summer 2017!
In summer 2016 I decided to get the exhaust replaced. I was looking pretty manky. It was never done right so it was time.
Here are the before pictures. Pretty shotty job if I do say so myself.
I brought it over to Carlane Auto Centre in Guelph, Ontario. They estimated and I got it done the right way. I believe it took them a day to get it all done. It looked amazing!
Here are the after pictures.
All in all very happy with the new exhaust system!
The dates in this retelling may be slightly off. It has been difficult to find tangable years/proof based on limited documentation I had during that time. I have tried attempting to track down image dates based off of negatives I had and even the printed photos didn’t have good information on them unfortunately.
The story starts at age 15 1995 with a red 1980 Mustang. As strange as that sounds. My friend’s brother had it in London, Ontario. We went up to see it and we had it towed back to Windsor, Ontario at a cost of 300$. Only later to find out it wasn’t worth fixing. Just way too much rust. So I decided to give away the inline 6 and send the car to the junk yard. But I had the restoration bug and my search continued to find a Mustang I wanted/needed to restore. And thus the restoration adventure of restoring a Mustang begins.
In 1996 I think I then found a 1975 Mustang II Coupe somewhere around Drouillard Rd & Tecumseh Rd. So I bought it and brought it home. I didn’t clear it with my parents just brought it home. I later had to get a car cover. In the search for parts I needed eventually led me to a garage somewhere around University Ave. W. and The Ambassador Bridge which I found from either an ad in the paper or word of mouth. I can’t recall. There we found a 1974 Mustang II completely gutted except for the drive shaft, axle and a V6 engine just sitting in it with no radiator, hose, etc with the windshield cracked and some rust on the hatch and firewall. I fell in love immediately. The garage where we found it was a mess. It was filled with boxes, etc all piled up and over the car. I talked with the owner and he said if I could get it out I could have it for free. We got it out and called the tow truck to bring the car to my house. When I got it home and parked it behind my 1975 Mustang II my parents were in shock that I brought yet another Mustang home. This was the third Mustang by this time but only two at my house. My mom said that one had to go behind the fence. So I pushed the 75 all the way to the back. We had a big yard and it took probably half hour to get it all the way back there. I decided right then that the 75 would be used as a parts car and I would restore the 74 as the body was in much better shape even though it had no interior, dash, gas tank, anything really but had a V6 engine sitting in it.
Finding parts was a very difficult task as Facebook wasn’t around. Me and my friend spent a long time trying to track down “usable” parts. We looked in the classified ads in the Windsor Star, back roads, making connections, going to junk yards. I eventually found this farm on the outskirts of Windsor that had I think four Mustang II’s in the yard. I knocked on the door and asked if I could buy parts off their car. They agreed but warned that there are bee hives in the cars and I would need to be careful. It took a while to get the parts I needed off the car’s due to how many bee’s were there flying around. To my success not once was I stung but it did take me a week or two to complete. I didn’t want to just get rid of the bee’s which would have made my job a heck of a lot easier. I went to a few junk yards and got parts. Some junk yards still had some of these cars though few and far between. Sometimes I had to travel an hour to the next junk yard just to find the car I needed to get parts from it. I eventually made two contacts one at Performance Parts Plus in Windsor and a backyard mechanic (Gary who drove a orange 70s Dodge Ram pick up). The guy at Performance Parts Plus helped get me the hard to find parts that couldn’t be found in Canada. He had them brought in from the US. He knew the right people.
I worked on the car in my driveway for month’s maybe even a year hard to recall. The guy at Performance Parts Plus got a line on a C4 transmission from a junk yard and got a torque converter for it. Although getting the bell housing was very difficult to find that would work with a V8 for my car. Eventually we tracked it down and we did get the V6 put in from the 1975. But eventually the Mustang was taken and V6 was removed and all the wires cut. I eventually tracked down the car and one night snuck out of my parents house and had a tow truck bring it back to my house. V6 was gone by this point but it didn’t matter much as it wasn’t a V8. It took a long time to find the parts I needed and to get the wire harness to be rebuilt. I had a radiator from the 75 and some engine stuff from that car but decided after that I would get a V8 and redo the engine bay with all high performance parts. I got a line on a 1988 302 roller motor from this other backyard mechanic’s garage on Walker Rd near Wyandotte. For a while the ’75 and ’74 Mustang both sat in the back where I got the engine from and I worked on it there instead of at my house. We eventually got the engine put in and I think after a few months I had both Mustangs’ 75/74 towed back home to my house. I then got a transmission cooler, Flex-a-Lite electric fan, aluminum radiator, MSD ignition, Edelbrock RPM Performer Intact, new gas lines ran, brake lines repaired, power steering rack and pinion, Holly carb 650 dual feed dual pump, original radio and oil pan from the guy from Performance Parts Plus. I got seats redone at Hai Ho Upholstery in Windsor. They did a fantastic job. I think that ran be 500$. I got rims and tires from Franks Tire & Wheels.
Eventually I started working full time in the Tool & Mould industry around 1998 and worked on the car in my spare time. I worked on the car during the day and went to work at night. Gary helped me get the car to a driveable state with the parts purchase from Performance Parts Plus. He had a garage on Tecumseh Road in Tecumseh near where Green Giant used to be. I kept the car there and he helped me restore it and find parts I needed. I paid him for his time. We did a lot of it together during the day then I went to work at night. Across the road from his garage was Coleman-Dillion that put a sump in my gas tank and restored it and got rid of the rust. They used dry ice to clear the gas tank of fumes so they could do welding. Gary (mechanic) had a Dodge Dart fully restored just beautiful. He helped get the car done as much as could be done at the time. He even did the body work and painted it. We used Wimbledon White. I had it appraised in 2000. I had it in one car show I think around 2001. It was down town Windsor on the water front. I didn’t really know where the car show was although I had heard of it. I ended up getting a joke award for only having one headlight. Although I haven’t been able to find that award unfortunately.
Eventually I decided to go back to school to become a Computer Programmer. The Tool & Mould industry at that time was not very stable. Was laid off a few times and I was a CNC Programmer so decided to do what I was passionate about anyway. I was working at Dimension Tool at this time working nights doing 80-100 hours a week, doing one class C++ at St. Clair College and then in my spare time working on the Mustang. My job at Dimension Tool only lasted 2 months as I couldn’t keep 80-100 hours a week going. I was burnt out! The Mustang was put away in storage at J’s Loc It on Manning Road in Windsor while I went to school from 2002-2005. As soon as school was finished I moved away and the Mustang stayed in storage. It stayed at J’s Loc It for a while after I was away but eventually moved to my uncle Dean’s shop and eventually to my Nonna’s garage. At some point while it was away in storage it was scrapped on the drivers side quarter panel and rear bumper. Not bad but required some body work which I would eventually get done. No idea where or when it happened just happened.
In 2014 my parents helped me bring the car to my home and I started working on it again. It was in very rough shape having sat from roughly 2001 to 2014 only having been started once or twice during that time as I was far away and couldn’t get back to start it. After I got it home it began the monumental task of documenting what is wrong with it. As it had trouble starting but did turn on. I then got onto Facebook and started looking for groups for Mustangs which I then stumbled on eight groups and I joined all of them. Got into contact with a guy named Phil Schmidt at Mustang II Speciality Shop New Used Obsolete 1974-1978 Ford Mustang II Parts who had the parts to fix my hatch and get it to close. I then made another contact Tom Porter and I have been buying parts from them ever since. I have replaced all the dash panels, all the hatch pieces, headlight bezels, headlights, new grill, new emblems and letters, vents for the dash, arm rests, wheel well chrome, marker light chrome, driver side fender brace, replaced window regulators, C4 transmission shifter rod, dome light, cat whispers and rear seat belts. I got a new air filter and chrome from Part Source. Other parts from Tom Porter. One of the most important things I was never able to do back in 2000 was to tie the frames. I got them from Stumpy’s Fab Works. Vinnie’s Mr. Fix It helped me get the car back running and put the frame ties on and cleaned up the engine bay, repaired the gas leak, oil leak, relocated the gas filter and got the gas gauge back working again.
In 2015 I had the transmission redone by Gino’s Automatic Transmission Ltd and Vinnie’s Mr. Fix It. Vinnie’s also helped get the shifter rod put in. I did a lot of interior work, chrome work, headlight work for the parts bought in 2014 winter. I also had Rick at Racetrack AutoGlass & Trim redo the interior door panels.
In 2016 I had the exhaust redone by Carlane Auto Centre. I had the rear hatch, driver side door, rear bumper and front of hood redone by Sutton Auto Collision. Vinnie’s helped me move the custom volt, oil and temp gauges from above my gas gauge to where the ash tray was. New weather stripping was put on the doors and hatch. The car still had trouble running battery draining was always an issue. Eventually I got into contact with Mike at Auto Electric MD. He helped me rewire the entire engine bay and dashboard. We had so many issues! Most of the wire was corroded or connected improperly. The voltage regulator only had 3 out of the 4 wires connected. The 4th wire is what was missing so the alternator would charge the battery. Wire was overused and had to be completely cut out. Headlight wiring all redone and corrected, MSD ignition corrected, voltage regulator and solenoid moved to provide the shortest possible route for power. By the time we were done the engine bay we had probably five pounds of unused wire/garbage. New starter, alternator and voltage regulator was needed as the starter cracked when trying to unbolt it. It was honestly a miracle the car even ran and that it didn’t catch fire. The dash area needed lots of help as well. My tach was missing the tach reducer on the back. The connector that connected to the back of the dash cluster was broken and needed replacing which is why my gauges would stop working off and on. The tach at this point still doesn’t work because we need a MSD Tach Adapter 8920. Then through my buddy Vinnie got added to the Facebook group Ontario Classic Cars and he linked me to a 1978 Mustang II that was being parted out in Hamilton area. Me and my kids Lucien and Sebastian went to see the car and I was able to find a center console, tail light wire harness, chrome, misc other parts to finish my car. The center console needs repainting and chrome shined up. Vinnie sand blasted a part that was full of rust for me and it looks amazing now. That was the part that holds the engine harness to the firewall.
In October 2016 I had a 74 Mustang II with Horse made from 16ga #4 brushed stainless steel from DK Custom Welding and Design. It measured 24″ long x 6.5″ high.
The plan for next summer is to shorten the gas line to the carburetor, put in the MSD Tach Adapter, possibly fix the crack in hood, fix the leak just below the driver side glass. Put on the engine harness that holds it to firewall.
In 2017 I tried starting the Mustang and it ran but leaked out coolant. I brought it over to Vinnie’s Mr. Fixit. I had the gas line going from the carburetor replaced. I had a starter cover put on over top the starter to protect it from heat. We replaced all the hose in the engine bay with brand new. When we got to the water pump we found out the water pump I am using is D00E-D. Which is from a 1970 engine. We still don’t know which ones will fit besides D00E-D and we are trying to track down what the engine code I am running is. But it turns out I need a very specific water pump with very little room to maneuver. We are still looking for the right pump.
On April 9 we will be heading out to a junk yard with Mike from Auto Electric MD. He knows where a few of my car are. I also want to see if they have a water pump that I need there. Unfortunately due to unforeseen circumstances we were unable to make this outing however he got me a new chrome alternator and I had it put on during the water pump work at Vinnie’s and it looks amazing. I decided to also get the exhaust headers wrapped to contain heat, put a starter cover on and had the oil pan dipstick properly mounted.
In June 2017 lots of unforeseen work occurred. My timing cover started leaking coolant, had the center console redone by Brett McHugh, gas/brake pedal replacement, MSD Tach Adapter 8920 put on. I also had the front entirely redone by Sutton Auto Collision in Guelph and it looked absolutely amazing. Can’t wait to get the hood fixed but that might have to wait a month or so. Went to McLeans Auto Wreckers with Mike that I was supposed to go to back in April but couldn’t. It was amazing saw a lot of Mustangs and roughly 5 from 74-78.
In August I had Vinnie’s Mr Fix It fix my carb. The choke died and had quit a few vacuum leaks. The car was running really good.
Was able to bring my Mustang out to Guelph Rib Fest 2017 in August. Was a blast and it was great to get the car out again. Just days before I wasn’t sure if I would make it due to my carb having a really high fast idle speed. It took three days but I was able to bring it back down ad the car was drive-able once again. I was only able to go one day due to issue with oil and coolant possibly leaking together. Needs investigation currently. Next summer project most likely.
In September I brought my car over to Sutton Auto Collision in Guelph to have the hood crack fixed. I am very excited that it will finally be fixed. Just brings me steps closer to finishing!
In September Mike from Auto Electric MD found me a Holley 600 Single Feed vacuum secondaries. This week I hope to put it in. But we will see.
I got into contact with JD/Brenda from All Classic Motors Ltd. for the final parts I am missing for my car. I am very excited that they have them and soon that will be done. Stay tuned for further updates regarding this. I received the last marker light chrome for the rear passenger side and the speaker covers. Can’t wait to get them installed. Installed the rear passenger side marker chrome and it looks amazing! The speaker covers might be difficult to get on.
The Holley will have to be put on next year.
In 2018 I got the rear view mirror replaced by Richard (Vinnie @ Vinnie’s Mr. Fix-It! got me in contact with Him). I also got the proper hatch latch from Phil Schmidt at Mustang II Speciality Shop New Used Obsolete 1974-1978 Ford Mustang II Parts because my hatch wouldn’t close right. I installed it and now the hatch closes perfectly. I also worked with Mike from Mike’s Auto Electric MD to get all the following done.
Now the car runs amazing once again.
This year (2019) I will be replacing the tires, putting the speaker covers on, getting speakers, hooking up the radio and see if we can get the indoor feet lamps running.
In April 2019 Mike from Auto Electric MD got me in touch with Cor’s Tires & Accessories in Guelph and we got new tires put on the Mustang. They did an amazing job. We put on BF Goodrich Radial T/A P205/70R14 on the front and P245/60R14 on the back. They event put on a chrome valve stem.
In may 2019 Mike from Auto Electric MD mounted the speaker covers for me. They look amazing!
In August 2019 Mike from Auto Electric MD got the speedometer fixed. Now I actually know how fast I am going.
In July 2020 Mike from Auto Electric MD did some final work on the Mustang before I moved and got married to my amazing Wife :). Although 2020 had it’s share of challenges. The radio just had static before so it now works and gets radio stations. The lower and upper control arm bushings were done. The radius arm bushings were also done. Anti rattle clips were done on the front brakes.
In October 2020 we moved to Amherstburg. I started working on the Mustang again in March 2021. When I went to start the car it was leaking a lot of gas. So I brought it over to Thrasher Sales & Leasing Ltd. The issue was my carb. They did a rebuild on it. They also fixed quite a few other leaks from my axle and transmission. It all works now with no leaks.
In May 2021 I decided to start cleaning up my interior. I got #8 and #10 self tapping screws 3/4″ to 2″ in length from Rona. Then replaced all the interior screws with the same screw. I also bought black screw caps to make it look cleaner so you don’t see screw heads. I also bought new floor mats from Auto Custom Carpets. They were 801 Black Cutpile with #110 Mustang Silver Running Pony Logo. They look fantastic in the car.
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