Better Beaters - Building Cars and Daily Drivers

Well I've had my Mustang for almost a year, eleven months to be exact and there has been a lot of progress. Once I completed  wiring up the relays for my headlights I've spent most of December  test driving the car then driving it to work and on errands. Just like a real car. As part of the New Years celebration I just took a bunch of new photos  The main visual change are the tires and wheels, The Ranger alloys were replaced by a a set of Ranger steel rims measuring 15x7 in. These wheels have the proper backspacing and have plenty of clearance with the 215 60/15s I'm running. I broke down and bought a new set of touring rated tires. The were from Pep Boy's own collection: Futura LTEs. These are made by Cooper tires,  I have used  these tires before on my mini van and found them to be excellent, grippy, quiet, and smooth riding. I have racked up lots of vacation driving at 75-80 mph. on the straights and zooming through the mountains, just ask my kids. Now the car sits level. The car is pretty low, it came with one inch lowering blocks in the rear. I assume that the front springs must have been changed or modified or it wouldn't sit level.  There had been an issue with the lug length, they weren't quite long enough to properly secure the lug nuts. maybe it wasn't a real issue but it did bother me  and I''ll describe the issue further in a future post. Now onto the photo show..

 This shot of the interior shows the Grant GT wheel that I installed. There was a few problems that I can describe and share the solution in a future post. The original dash pad is pretty beat up but the car came with a tailored carpet cover which I'll use for now. The cut out that was used for the radio was done by the former owner  and it is an improvement over the stock location of the radio above the heater controls. I painted the instrument panel and rt.side dash panel and glove box lid  a medium grey  color to coordinate with the grey sheepskin seat covers and the grey floormats. I wanted to lighten up the  inside appearance and a similar color scheme is used in my forest green F-150.

Here's a close up of the tire and wheel combo. The wheel diameter has been increased by one inch, to 15 inches. The rim width has been increased from a stock 5 inches to 7 inches. The original tire was probably a C78 14, the equivalent  of a P 175R/14 tire. The 215/60 15 sits in a7 in. rim which is almost the widest recommended for that width.(Maximum 7.5 in.) This stabilizes the side wall which combined with the 60 aspect ratio will provide better steering response. I also didn't want to overtire the car since a good ride and fuel economy were primary goals.

 This photo shows off the grille I made. Behind the black mesh you can see the driving lights. The turn signals are clearly visible  when they are used. The blacked out grille really cleans up the front appearnce.

 The side view shows how low the car sits . The stance and lack of ornamentation gives it in my opinion a serious business like look. The hardtop coupe is the least appreciated of this era's Mustangs  but still looks clean ,crisp, and sporty. If you need cred, Shelby raced coupes in SCCA sedan racing and Shelby de Mexico built notchback coupes like this that dominated their class in Mexican roadracing.

Now a shot of the "little locomotive that could" The 250 CID (4.1 litre) straight six. This was an option in 1969 and 1970. This represents a 25%  increase in displacement over the standard 200 CID six. It's like the difference between a 302 and 351 V8.  It had not yet suffered the drop in power that followed in 1971 and beyond due to smog regs. and still boasted a 9.0 compression ratio. Rated at 155 HP at 4400 rpm and 240 ft/lbs of torque at,  get this,1600 rpm. The 200 six was rated 120HP at 4400 rpm and 190 ft/lbs. of torque at  2400. The 250 six was described as  "the six that runs like an eight, but saves like a six". Yes, a V8 would be quicker but so far I think this engine will be adequate. I will also see if I can improve  it a bit. You can swap any V8 up to the 428 Cobra Jet into this chassis if desired.

I must admit that this car is growing on me. I need to drive a car so that I can build a relationship with it. Just looking and working on it aren't enough. Soon I 'll get back to working on it more. I'm planning on taking a side trip to Ventura Ca. and visiting NPD's warehouse.