Before	After

More Before and after Pictures

Time for a running total.
$320 - Wheels, tires and tail lights
$5 - Corner light
$28 - A/C Compressor
$38 - Misc interior pieces
$96.80 - Refrigerant and tune up parts
$100 - Fender, spoiler and other bits
$2.55 - Flasher
$51.00 - Fluid change at Midas
$299.85 - Full Exhaust
$1247.01 - Paint & Bodywork
-----------------------
$2188.21 - Total

Damn! I wanted to keep it under $2k. The paint and bodywork is what killed me and unfortunately, I have no control over that. I may have a buyer for the old wheels and tires. If so, I'll use that money to buy either springs to lower it or some different seats. We'll have to wait and see...

07/30/07: I've been working with a guy on the stangnet.com forums called "HISSIN50". He is helping me troubleshoot the A/C. I've replaced the WOT relay and it seems that the problem is in the HVAC controls. Hopefully, I'll find it tomorrow. I also scraped off more of the window tint.

08/1/07: This evening I replaced the fuel injector seal, so hopefully I won't have the noxious smell of gas in the passenger compartment anymore. I also reconnected a vacuum line under the dash, so now the A/C blows out of the main registers as it should. This afternoon I ordered some R12 freon off of eBay to recharge the system after I buy a device to purge the old gas and fluids. Total cost should be about $115.00. That's probably 1/10 of what I would have paid a shop to troubleshoot and fix the problem. Especially considering they would have had to convert the car to R134A. The R12 on eBay costs nearly the same as R134A and I only plan on having this car for about two years, so it should work out nicely.

08/3/07: Picked up a center console, a used fuel injector and a gauge hood from Blue Oval (blueoval.com). When I got home I installed the injector, put in a new clutch cable that I had left over from the Cobra and installed the quadrant and firewall adjuster (FWA). The FWA makes the cable too short and the clutch slips badly.

08/4/07: Messed with the cable and FWA to no avail. I also got the new gauge hood in and tried to install the gauge cluster that I bought two weeks ago, but the lens that I already had is incompatible. Bummer.

08/5/07: I finally had to pull the quadrant and FWA from the Cobra in order to get the Mustang to run right, but alas it works beautifully! Also, since I changed the leaky injector, there is no more gas leak! Praise the gods. I painted the ashtray door and headliner piece that I got two weeks ago. I installed the door cups that I had gotten two weeks ago. And lastly, I installed the new center console and stereo, but the speakers are shot. Oh well, at least I have some music, as rough as it sounds and the car is in one piece for the first time since I got it.

08/6/07: I just found out what a bunch of cock suckers they are at Pioneer electronics. Get this, they wanted $17.45 for the owners manual (that doesn't include shipping) and then, an additional $9.74 for an installation manual! The stones on these guys must require a fucking wheel barrel! So rather than pay them $35 for the two manuals with shipping, I had to download it off of the internet from a third party site. Absolutely ridiculous!
I also tried to blow out the drain holes in the sun roof, but found out that the tabs that hold the sunroof in were rotted to hell. One actually broke right off and the other is hanging by a thread. I hope it makes it to work tomorrow.

08/7/07: Nobody locally has the tabs for the sunroof. I was hoping that Blue Oval Corral would, but even he has his limits. So I drove home with the sunroof out, because I was afraid it would come out when/if I got up some speed. When I got home, I fabricated new tabs out of some aluminum stock that I had "acquired" from a previous job. Yeah, I was pretty proud of myself!

08/10/07: Received the radio bezel today. Scraped some more tint off too. However, more importantly, I vacuumed and charged my air conditioner and it works! WOO HOO!!! No more sweating in 90+ degree weather on my way home from work! It took a little research, some postings on stangnet.com and just under $100. I found that the car was already converted to R134A (Duh!). Luckily, I was able to resell the Freeze 12 that I bought on eBay. I think there may be a second leaking injector, but luckily it isn't as bad as the first one.

08/11/07: I added a second can of R134A today and the A/C is now blowing ICE COLD!! Next is a tune-up, removal of the smog equipment and a flex fan.

08/14/07: Took another trip over to Blue Oval Corral and picked up a spare injector (I thought I smelled another gas leak, but it may be leftover fuel burning off from the original leak) and some trim screws. I installed the radio bezel and it looks pretty good. I also removed the two extra layers of sound deadening material out of the the hatch area. Why was it there? I have no idea, but it's gone now. I also installed the trim that goes on the underside of the hatch and put in the spare tire well cover that I had my brother-in-law cut out. While I was there, I installed the rear hatch area trim that I had. It is black and needs to be painted, but nobody is ever back there, except for me and I don't really care enough to worry about it for now. I should be done with the condo rehab this Saturday, so I am looking forward to giving the car a tune-up. I am starting school on Monday the 20th and I am excited about that. I doubt it will take too much of my time as I have only started with one class, so that I can ease back into it.

08/21/07: I had a lower radiator hose pop on me last week while on lunch at work. Theresa came and saved me, but the car has been having over-heating issues since. Because of this, I decided to replace the worn out serpentine belt and clutch fan. I picked up an aftermarket flex fan and attempted to put it in. The guy at Gearhead performance sold me a spacer that was too short. The fan rubbed against the A/C compressor. So with only twenty minutes until closing, I picked up a longer spacer from Advance auto parts. No dice, it was still too short. Now it rubs against the fan shroud.

08/22/07: Exchanged the spacer at Gearhead performance and reinstalled the fan tonight. Again, it still rubs against the shroud. The smart thing to do would be to get a smaller fan, but that would be too easy. Instead, I cut and removed the lower half of the shroud. This is risky, but screw it, they are probably cheap to replace. It finally works, but the real test will be in 95 degree heat, sitting in traffic on my way home tomorrow. While testing the fan this evening, I found that the car has a bit of an oil leak. I had changed the oil about a month or so ago and I am already a quart low. It looks like the valve covers are leaking, so I'll have to replace them this weekend. I also noticed that my alternator is only putting out about 10-11 volts, so I am gonna have to replace that as well. I confessed to Theresa that this car may have been a mistake. She reminded me that although it may have cost me the same as the car payment for the '06, I won't have to replace these parts next month. Smart gal, that's one of the many reasons why I love her!

08/25/07: Today I finally changed out the gauges. Thanks to Todd ("toddr" on the ffcobra.com forums) for donating the replacement gauges! Those ugly white faced things are gone. The replacements went in without any issues and they all work properly. The old fuel gauge had the classic Mustang issue of shooting up when full and then dropping fast at a 1/4 tank. Also, with the gauge overlays, it made the gauges almost useless at night and the directional indicators absolutely useless during the day. I guess the original covers needed to be removed first and the guy that put them in didn't read the directions. Secondly, I replaced the water pump. It wasn't a very difficult job and surprisingly, it went smoothly. The cooling system still isn't right though. I also replaced all four speakers. I put in some cheap Pyle speakers that I bought off of eBay. They don't sound bad though. Anything was better than the crap that was in there. Two blown stock speakers and two Pioneers that didn't seem to be working.

08/26/07: This shouldn't come as too big of a surprise, but Theresa and I were discussing selling the Mustang. I really do enjoy working on it and it has come a long way, but I have so much going on in my life, that I just don't have the time to be working on this three and four days a week. After I put in the head liner and tune it up, I think I'll try and put it up for sale. If I can get $4300-$4500 for it, I'm going back to the book of the month club and buying a nice, clean, used car or maybe a new, super cheap, economy car. There is so much to do around the house, plus work, school and I feel like I am neglecting my wife and kids.

08/28/07: The clutch stretched about two inches on me, on my way home from work today. I almost got stuck, but was able to connect the cable the second hook on the quadrant. Very strange, but luckily it is working better than before. Go figure!

08/29/07: This weekend, I'm planning on maybe doing a compression test and/or adding dye to trace the coolant leak. I'll also tune it up and maybe do the headliner. Theresa and I will discuss the fate of this car tomorrow, but I am thinking of just keeping it. I doubt I'll get my money back out of it, so now I'm on a mission to figure out the coolant leak.

08/30/07: I FOUND THE COOLANT LEAK!!!
It is the throttle body coolant line, down behind the intake manifold where it connects to the hard heater lines. I went to a local service shop to pressure test the cooling system. The local auto parts store didn't have one for sale. I guess it needed the pressure built up by the engine revving at higher rpm's to force the fluid up and out of the line. I have to change the valve cover gaskets anyway, so I bought some new line to replace the old stuff that is in there. I guess I cracked the line from removing and replacing the upper intake manifold so many times when I was trying to repair the fuel leak.

09/01/07: So I removed the upper intake ONCE AGAIN and replaced the ruptured hose. I also changed out the valve cover gaskets. Oddly enough, everything went smoothly. I don't think that I'll really know if it is fixed until next week, as the traffic will be light because of the holiday weekend. Maybe I'll do some extra driving this afternoon to give it a good test. Lunch traffic around here can be pretty brutal.

09/15/07: Today the Mustang got a full tune up with new plugs, wires, cap & rotor and fuel injector cleaner. I also installed a new headliner of black vinyl. I'm not too happy with how the headliner came out, but it's a thousand times better than the lack of headliner that was there before. Lastly, I vacuumed it and threw a little Armor-all on it's plastic bits. So, for all intents and purposes, it's done! (except for the wheel cover that I am waiting on from an eBay seller...)

10/01/2007: Picked up a heater core today and was pleasantly surprised to find that it only cost $20 at Advance auto parts.

10/07/07: Started at about noon today and replaced the clutch cable with a new one. The old one had come apart and the outer sheathing was pulling past the grommet that goes to the firewall. It caused the cable to bind and feel like it was stretching. I had moved to the third hook on the after-market quadrant and it really needed to be replaced as it was a safety issue.
Next, I replaced the heater core. It took me five hours and I would really like to meet the engineer who designed the HVAC system in these cars. He could use a good slap to the head! Anyway, I get all done and take the car out for a test drive. lucky for me I was only a mile from home and not on my way to work when the clutch failed. Yup, the throw-out bearing went through the clutch fingers and hit the disc, disintegrating the clutch disc!

10/09/07: I took the day off today, so that I could replace the clutch and the starter. The starter was also giving me trouble. Twice in the last month it would get hot and not work until it cooled down, a few hours later.
It took over five hours to install the clutch and starter, but now the car runs like a champ. The clutch operates like a new car. Hopefully it will last as long as a clutch in a new car...

01/29/08: The friggin' clutch cable snapped on me today. As luck would have it, this happened about 150 yards from an Advance auto parts. about $30 and an hour later, I was on my way. That's why I love this car. It is THAT easy to fix.

The punch list:

1. Lower it.
2. Replace tail lights.
3. Replace the seats.
4. Remove and replace the window tint.
5. Paint the exterior trim.
6. Tune it up.
7. Install headliner.
8. Fix the sunroof leak.
9. Replace the leaking valve cover gaskets.
10. Replace the heater core.
11. Find and fix the fuel leak.
12. Replace the mis-matched gauges.
13. Repair the stereo system.
14. Fix the air conditioner
15. Replace the driver's side front fender.
16. Repair the exhaust leak.
17. Repair or replace the rear spoiler.
18. Find a spare, jack and lug wrench.
19. Change the rims.
20. Have it repainted.
21. Find and install missing interior pieces.