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This really belongs to my dad but I’d like to chuck a build thread up for those that are interested. This a 68 gt390 Mustang that my dad bought out of the states at the start of the year. He’s always wanted a “bullit” mustang after seeing the movie when it came out, fast forward 50 odd years, and he finally can afford one. The Plan was to get it vinned and ready for the road but unfortunately we ran out of time as he flys out to the states tomorrow with my mum. 2 years ago she was diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer at the age of 65 and is now travelling to Houston as a last ditch effort to receive some effective treatment. So my brother and I will be hoping to have the car ready for them when they return in about 12-18 weeks.

Sheds happening at a good pace.. And a nicely lowered internet bee To make it symmetrical, I got the only cheap chrome remote-control valiant door mirror on trademe..$40 delivered. Been watching them for a year and they hover around $150 Probably scruffy but it will match the other side, hasn’t arrived yet but I’ll give it a spruce up when it does.

Time to sort out the hand brake linkage. It’s a big under the dash ratchetty thing that looks like it came from a 1920’s Allis Chambers bulldozer. The original Bowden cable was extremely gunked up so I taped a funnel to one end and started flushing it with kerosene. The amount of sludge that came out was very impressive……… It had a grease nipple in the middle (as they did in those days) so I pumped it full of grease. Found a fire-wall grommet that sort of worked and re-fitted the cable.

I ended up replacing my sacrificial anode with a sheet of steel. More surface area and easier to wipe the scum off. Pretty much all the rust is gone, except for the bit in the middle due to the size of my container. A lot of the paint came off too. I did no scrubbing, just shot it with the water blaster. Most of the grease came off(it turned white) but probably due to soaking for days in the washing soda that's used to make the electrolyte solution. I got mine from Mitre10 ages ago but I can't find it anymore, it's this stuff. https://www.countdown.co.nz/shop/productdetails?stockcode=276728&name=greenwood-washing-soda-crystals

Baby blue has been trucking along well. Ive rebuilt some b210 struts and brakes to put back in (currently has b310 struts and brakes), so we will lose the spring binding issue when it hits bumps. Radiator rebuilt and new hoses throughout. Currently our cheapest car to run with the a12 and single carb

And he 'knows what they are worth'

I think LVVTA does as much as it can but they are so busy with dealing with modified cars that they don't have time for much else. I don't really think it's their job to be lobbying for car enthusiasts either, people should be getting together to protect what we have I personally don't think there is anything in the pipeline to get rid of collectible cars directly, apart from 'younger' classics getting caught in the push for safer/more environmentally friendly cars (the whole vision zero thing, and the possibility of a cash for crush scheme) there is a danger in my opinion, of it getting more difficult for environmental reasons, and I don't think this will be a "you can't have an old car" but more along the lines of "fossil fuels are bad and now are very expensive, oh your classic car runs on petrol? That's a shame!"

Lapped the valves in Gave up fighting the keepers so called it a night after only getting two sorted

An update on the bus/shed heater. It is now powered by a 30A power supply, and the exhaust is extracted with a 150mm fan and ducting. I got a whole lot of ducting leftovers for $60 off marketplace. The fan was a freebee from when I worked at a tech company in chch, they cleared the storage out and let us take what we wanted, I grabbed loads of shit. I still have boxes of ally brackets and bus bars in my container... The fan is pulling right on that exhaust so I checked the temps while running it, it hits 43 degrees on high, 30 on low. That ducting isn't sealed so it is sucking air as well. The fan is a Pabst that is rated for 70+ deg so should be sweet. Still need to mount the supply and an RCD in a box for safetys and cut a hole in the shed to waft the fumes out.

Paint card...mmmm...rootbeer #brownisthenewblack

Thought I'd quickly chuck the side trim on this morning before moving on to other things. Err....... no ..... The $1,000 USA respray from 2010 comes back to haunt me once again. Looks like the door jambs must have been painted after the lower side valance and I only noticed the ugly over spray when I got down and personal. If it was just colour that would have been okay, but it's bloody primer too. If I'd have noticed it earlier we could have painted it at the same time as the doors, but oh well. Managed to ease most of it off with a piece of 1200 grit water paper followed by a bit of rubbing compound. It's not perfect, but it's a lot better than it was. Thanks for looking.

Might be going one weekend soon, but not this weekend.

Yeah I saw that. Would love to grab the gearbox, but don’t have the time to get in there. Aswell as a few other bits like brakes, rear diff and control arms etc

My mate fritz made a video of our trip back from Christchurch last July in this thing

Fun hands on stuff is beginning! Cheers to @- i5oogt - for sorting me a PC, unfortunately my ancient screen didn't have hdmi/dvi so the TV took over. Standby for noob problems, this is my first ever PC, fumbling through BIOS and formatting bootable USB drives somehow happened (Credit youtube/google) and we have linuxcnc loaded up, running latency tests was square in the 'not suitable' window ~1,000,000ns but for now I will ignore it, as my confidence grows i'll work through diagnosis and checking suspects off the list. Its a massive steep learning curve, but happy to have booted linux and loaded up a mock machine, most of it makes sense and the few questions that arose were easily researched and answered if the "help" tab top left couldn't assist. A few weeks back I was informed to buy a certain MPG from our dear friend Ali, in record time it arrived, decent quality and heavy in the hand, hopefully it performs as expected. The MESA boards should be on the way, might be some long nights when they turn up! All for now, stay tuned!

The continuing process of remaking the bottom of the B-pillar. I've been doing it in smaller pieces to keep the shape references. This area is almost all hidden when the wood and sills go on anyway.

When I was a kid, my Mum taught me that it was rude to take basically anything offered to us kids when we went somewhere. So we go to someone's house, and they're expecting us, so they've made some chocolate biscuits especially for us to eat. Which are the best thing ever because I'm like 8 years old. Fucking delicious! However. I'd been conditioned to say "No thank you" because doing otherwise was rude. For the person who baked something especially for us arriving, it's was disappointing that no one wanted their food. "How could kids not want delicious my biscuits?" "Are they especially bad?" "What did I do wrong?" How could my Mum not understand how mutually disappointing this situation was? It didnt make any sense to me then, and I've still no idea who profited from this situation. The people were happy to give me a biscuit, and I was happy to eat it. Surely this is the worlds simplest situation to keep everyone happy. I fucking love biscuits, and it tears me up thinking how many I missed out on, at the stage of my life when they were the most delicious. God damn. For some reason, tonight I have had a revelation that refusing willing help from people here draws parallels to this situation. I have been conditioned to feel shameful about accepting assistance that's willingly offered. Why? So for anyone who's willing to chip in a few bucks, I can promise you this: I'll spend any contributions towards a Prius motor, and maybe exhaust parts. I will not spend any contributed money on psychological counselling for my unresolved childhood trauma about missing out on biscuits. I also promise I will come to your house and eat your biscuits if you invite me over. https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/finding-a-cure-for-the-atkinson-cycle Thanks to anyone that wants to help, and by all means dont anyone feel obligated.

Got the all the wiring run, main fuse to Amp mounted and front speakers mounted. Wired headunit and powered it up. It spits out a Creed CD, so I did the world a favour.

Yea so I have set up a budget recording studio in my shed, it works pretty well. I have been playing with getting a good sound when recording acoustic guitar. My main go to acoustic is a K. Yairi that I bought brand new in 1992. It has amazing looks, sound and playability, but access to the battery for the pickup has always been a drag, you have to loosen off the strings and get a fat hand in through the soundhole. Also if it is left plugged in it will drain the battery. So I ordered a Gotoh panel mount battery box and got to work. This was pretty scary as this guitar is pretty much my most prized possession. All seems good. I added a switch to isolate the battery as well, so if I leave it overnight plugged in and set up it will still work the next day...

Great update. Cheers. Your dad looks to have alot of time on his hands...

long time no hear. Have had the work/life balance tipped way too far to the work side since jan 21 and haven't done much on the car. I did get the engine assembled, and @Bistro gave me a hand to install and test drive/run it in sometime maybe earlier this year. Engine went really well. Knocked a bit with the old gas in the tank, but is going sweet with some fresh stuff. Just running a stock cam and single carb at the moment. I have a cam and a MAXX ecu to run the injected carbs. Need to do the fuel supply inside the carb hats, and order some lash caps to suit the cam. Hopefully ill get onto it later in the year. Image hosting seems to have packed a shit so ill try something else. As it sits, a good storage area for my other projects...

It went to its inspection, haven’t heard back though. My garage situation means I needed to hustle and get this vulnerable metal sealed and protected. Fucking marathon of shitty jobs and many hours spend rolling around under the thing over a week but I’m starting to feel like I’m progressing the way I want to! My eyes still crunch when I blink but it’s worth it? Rear end needs another coat then I can sling it back in. I used a can of cavity wax in all the orifices but I’ll need to grab another tomorrow to finish, then a second coat. Don’t get it in your beard. and one shed down! Contractors have pushed a week so I’m chilling on the green shed demo for a little longer.. I’ve got a crooked spine so I get wrecked after doing physical shit and I’m ok with a wee breather.

Finally got back to this. Revised the tooling a bit and tried a longer test piece. Came out usably OK I think. Quick squirt of zinc it just to remove the reflections. I haven't filled the holes in this test one, but they'll need to be done for the proper pieces.

Going by FB the box and most of the good bits were gone before lunch