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A long rewarding day

1K views 7 replies 4 participants last post by  Caper50 
#1 ·
I bought my 67 200/C4 almost a year ago and havent driven or worked on it much the past 6 months. For the most part it sits in a rented storage locker, I take it out every couple months and drive it a few miles to get it up to temp and charge the battery. It needs a lot of TLC. Very solid body, the only rust is the driver cowl. The 200 is ailing, bad lifter or wiped cam lobe I suspect, otherwise it runs well, doesnt leak or blow oil out the tailpipe. Paint is a garage special and the further away you are, the better it looks.

Today I decided to tackle a few issues that are bugging me.

Removed the sway bar end links. I suspect they are CJ Pony pieces and do not fit properly. The holes in the bar and control arm are .75", the bushings arent big enough to properly sandwich the link and hold everything together. The bolt doesnt have enough threads on it and the PO added a bunch of rusty washers to take up the slack. Ive got a box of suspension bushings, bolts, washers and nuts, so Im going to try and fix it. If I cant, Im ordering the SD 1" bar from Summit.

I greased the front end, except for the UCAs. That has to wait for the 90° kits.

I loosened the LCA bolts to see if it would drop the front end. It didnt, so I thought WTH and headed to Advance to rent the coil spring compressor. That was an adventure. I had to add a 5" piece of pipe to the top of the bolt so I didnt bottom out on the spring seat when compressing the spring. 3 hours on the left side, 1 hour on the right side.

Unsprung spring height was 16", I cut one full coil and the unsprung height dropped to 14.5".

I reinstalled the springs and went for a spin.

Fender lip height was 28F 26R, it changed to 26F 26.5R.

Im running 215-75-14 on stock 68 GT wheels. Tomorrow Im heading to Discount tire to swap out the fronts to 195-70-14 . Its a little bit to tight up front now.

Im going to pull the head off the 200 and see what the problem is. I have a spare reground cam and a set of lifters. If Im lucky its a collapsed lifter, if Im not so lucky, Im pulling the cam.

Im still working on a engine swap, but if I can get the 200 running well for the cost of my labor and gaskets Im going to do that so my SIL can drive it this summer. Ive still got a few things to finish up on my 65 and the spring lawn maintenance will be in full swing shortly. The weather man says 90° here tomorrow.

All in all a good day. I wanted to take pics but it was dark so tomorrow after the tire swap.
 
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#2 ·
Well done.
We have the seats out and stripped completely bare for my son's car. I went out this evening, cleaned up the rest of the old foam, burlap and batting bits stuck to them, and shot them with some black paint to help them last another 50 years. Taking them and the new foam and deluxe upholstery to our tailor tomorrow.
 
#3 ·
My Mustang Day wasn't long but it was rewarding. Since we had rain, cool temps and wind I had to work in the portable garage, tool shed and house. I replaced the exhaust pipe stud in the manifold and tightened up the exhaust on my L6. I have it ready for the paint shop so I polished up the bumper guards and quarter panel emblems (had to touch up the black on these). Only a few hours but another step closer to finish my restoration (it's in the Build forum here under: 66 bucket coupe).
 
#7 ·
Im running a 195 70 14 in my 65 and a SN95 mini spare in the 67.
 
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