Oil Pump and Pan

 Finally posting pics from several months ago.  This was installing new Ford oil pump, new driveshaft, cleaned and polished bolts.

 Oil pan fasteners before cleaning...nearly forgot that I needed to do these, since they get painted with the engine.

 Note original counterweight forward of the first main bearing.  New Ford oil pump and original pickup was disassembled cleaned and reassembled.

 Pan attaching hardware after cleaning...note different head stampings.

 The pan is on, finally!

 New bronze pilot bushing in the crank.

 Rare to see the Ford script on an oil pan of this vintage...this is right after media blasting.  The pan appears to be stamped June 11...but hard to see.

 One final note.  I noticed this small mark near the Ford script stamp on the crank before I put the pan on.  Looks like a Brinnell hardness test mark.  I've seen earlier cranks that have a highly polished area where the cranks was supposedly inspected visually.  This mark is different than what is on the flywheel, it is a single conical indent.  Cool stuff - and yes that is original orange paint on the piston rod, they were just cleaned not media blasted.

Timing set and Front cover

This is the starting point for installing the front cover.  The cam retainer for the 64 1/2 HiPo 289 of this period was the rare "two level" with counter sunk screws.

Next come the cam "C" spacer.  I managed to find an NOS unit to replace the original.  I was also able to find NOS cam and crank sprockets.

The front counter weight attaches to the crank sprocket with a roll pin that has to be driven in to just the right level so as not to interfere with the beveled edge that snugs up to the radius on the front bearing journal.  The roll pin is just there to ensure the proper alignment of the counterweight with the rotating assembly as balanced.  When the time comes the flywheel will be installed in the orientation it was in during balancing as well, but that's a ways off yet. 

 

And here it is assembled

With that, the rest of the timing set can be installed.

And now the Front cover is installed.  Incidentally, I've recorded all of the actual torque for each bolt in the engine, including the front cover bolts.  Note the original C5OE damper dated L3.  Of the original cars of the period all dampers were dated L3 or A5.  This one is in great shape.  It was restored with new rubber, and still shows the lines on the exterior surface that go all the way around.  Most dampers have had rust or dents.

Short Block is done, FINALLY!

You know, sometimes I wonder what happens when "professional" engine builders see "little" issues with internal engine parts - if they take the time to address them or just throw the engine together and get it out the door. Of course all of the pros that I had work on this motor are extremely detail oriented and would have address this issue.  We went to sometimes excruciating lengths to dial in this engine so it would look and feel like it did when new in 1964, but with waaay more attention to detail than was given back then. We also wanted to preserve the original stamping, tooling marks, and compression ratio - all of which further complicated and increased the cost of the build.  In the end I am extremely pleased, but man it has been TEDIOUS!

 Here's one of those kinds of "little" things...During assembly I noticed issues with the first set of rings.  I ended up removing all of the pistons and reinstalling a new set of rings after noticing a slight shiny track on the wall of a couple of cylinders.  At first I thought maybe there was a burr on the edge of the ring end left over from gapping them. On closer inspection, and after further deburring the ring ends the problem persisted.  So I ordered a new set of rings, installed them and the problem went away.  Evidently, the first set of rings had a twist - a manufacturing defect, that caused the ring end to have one corner that protruded out towards the cylinder wall, causing a light but noticeable shiny vertical mark on the cylinder wall. The mark was not detectable by sliding a fingernail across it but I was concerned that it would eventually cause a grove that would impede the free movement of the ring around the piston. 

Anyways, after regapping and replacing all of the rings, the problem is gone and were ready to button this thing up.  YEAH, FINALLY!!

Springs

I was able to install the rear springs and noted something interesting that I have not seen on other cars.  There was a white paint daub on the rear spring that I recreated exactly from pictures of the springs right after they came out of the rust remover.  Now that the springs are installed I can see that, in-fact, these white paint marks ARE visible when the spring is installed.  This was probably an inspection mark that was actually applied after the springs were installed.  There is a daub on both the left and right springs in about the same place.

I already posted pictures of the unrestored front springs.  Now it's time to add the brown and white stripes that were on them originally.  The brown is more of a lighter brown or "coffee with creamer" color.  I color matched by mixing brown, white, and some yellow until I got the color.  I also marked the original locations on the springs.  The brown on right hand spring was much easier to see than the left, the white was easily visible on both as you can see in the pics.  The left hand spring had the brown on the opposite side of the thinner white stripe.  When installed both white stripes are clearly visible, and located at the left outside prong of the spring perches when installed.  The brown stripes were in different locations: on the left spring it is located to the left of the white stripe (which only extends over 4 coils on both sides), and located to the right of the white stripe on the right spring. 

Here's a shot of the completed coil springs - paint is still wet!  Took extra effort to make the white paint strokes look like the originals, on close examination it was clear that the strokes went from top to bottom.  The brown was very thick in places and indicative of paint that was "gobbed" on the brush.  I am very happy with the recreation of the original look, especially the shape, color, and thickness.

Here is a pic of a K code Mustang taken around June 1964 showing similar paint markings on the right front coil spring.  Cool!  Note the coil spring is painted black and also is the sway/stabilizer bar.  If you look closely, you can see the a slightly lighter area just to the left of the white stripe, this is the colored strip in this Hipo Mustang - don't be confused by the reflection in the same area.  On this spring the colored stripe is just a bit narrower than on those I just restored. 

More parts ready to install

Well I went to install the rear leaf springs and and ran into a snag, so this will push to another day.  But here are some pics of some of the restored parts that I have been meaning to post. Front suspension strut rod bushings above.  In my last post I talked about how this car and others from this time frame (June 1964) had paint marks on them to identify the fronts from the rears. Honestly, I don't understand the use of pink on parts, sometimes it seems to mean "face towards front" other time "face towards rear".  Even on driveshafts, some I see the end with the pink paint installed to the rear, on others to the front.   At this point I'm just recreating what was there that I can still identify, and putting off the reason why the colors are there until later.

Here's a pic of the driveshaft and some of the rear axle and brake components

Maybe tomorrow, if I can get past the current obstacle, I'll get some of these parts installed.

The pink stripe shows up on all of the K-code mustangs of this time period that I looked at (that I  could get a read on driveshaft stripes anyways - many were painted black.).  That said, there were many different stripes on cars I saw that had been restored.  One had 2 purple stripes adjacent to the pink, some had a single white, sometimes the white and the pink placement was reversed.  I have no idea what the placement or color of the stripes indicates, only that he pink seems to be common to the K-codes of this period regardless of the rear axle ratio, tire size (15" or 14"), or whether they had inside or outside snap rings on the U-joints.    The original K cars if this period, all had the pink stripe roughly 10" from the u-joint weld.  The stripe 6" further towards center from the pink was orange on this car and one other had a stripe in this location.  This car has a 3.89 rear axle, inside snap rings, the other had a 4.11, outside snap rings, so this has apparently nothing to do with axle ratio or snap ring type unless my interpretation of the color on the 4.11 car was wrong - stripe could have been white or yellow but too hard to tell for sure because the driveshaft was painted black. White or orange may designate the snap ring type, but more data is needed to determine for sure.  I will note, that all of the driveshafts with a white stripe had outside snap rings, but again, more data is needed to be conclusive.  One other thing, the trans yoke on K-codes is beefier on the ends than the D codes of this period, and has sloppily applied green paint on it.

More Brake and Suspension Parts

I pulled out the original axle vent hose and found the original white paint daub that marks where the rubberized clamp that holds the hose to the underbody is to be placed by the assembly worker.

After cleaning an reconditioning the rubber hose I decided to reuse it rather than replace it with a NOS hose that I had.  I always reuse original parts if I can assure that they will perform.

Also reusing the original vent fitting and clamp.  The hose to body clamp looked like new after cleaning as well so all of these parts will be original assembly line on the car...cool!

I also went back and looked at the shackles and the rear shock mount plates and felt like they just didn't look as good as they should.  Shock plates look like new now...

Original hackles were pretty pitted,

and I was going to replace them, but the original factory parts were just a little different so I decided to go back and see if I could rework them.  They came out great but I have a ton of hours into them to get them looking like this.

Original nuts were replated to replicate the original clear cadmium finish that was on them from the factory. the original nuts are taller than the replacements that are currently available. Company that made the original insulators for Ford is still in business and these are available.  I chose to use the original rubber type rather that urethane replacements.

Also, was looking at the original strut rod bushings. I noticed that rather than having the "FRONT" letters embossed on the outer edge of the front bushing, like later cars have, these simply have a yellow/orange stripe with pink around the leading edge.

Here's a pic of another early K code taken around June of 1964 showing similar markings on the front bushings

Also, finished restoring the  front emergency brake cable,  cable to body brackets, and rubber parts

Axle Details

Added some details to the rear center section and axle housing over the Thanksgiving holiday.

Dug up these pictures of brake backing plates before cleaning which show the two parallel, vertical white lines near the brake adjusting hole

all of the backing plates have a unique identifying number, rears are Kelsey Hayes, front are Bendix.  It seems that all of the brake components have identifying number that are fairly close in sequence to each other.  More on this later.