67 Mustang heart transplant surgery in progress...

Work today was spent on getting my MSD mount made.

Starting off with this sheet

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After some dremeling this is the result

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About ready for the hole saw

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Result

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I'm pretty happy with the way it came out, minus where the hole saw walked all over the plate and messed up my nice finish. <_< Once installed you can't see the mark at all so I'm debating whether or not to fix it. I was thinking of taking the panel to work with me and basically lap it on the mill.

Also got it better timed today. I think I'm at about 12-13 BTDC. Took it for a drive and it felt quicker.

Odd problem of the day, when I hooked up the battery none of the interior lights worked. Map lights and door lights wouldn't light up. Thoughts? I was fooling around under the passenger side footwell for a good part of the day. Maybe I disconnected a wire by mistake. Fuse? Ground?

Also, I don't think my alternator is properly charging the battery. Is there a way I can check it's output with it in the car with just a multimeter...?
 
Run a multimeter across the battery terminals while it's running. If it shows you 11.8-12.2v then it's not charging. Allow for some margin of error. The alternator should be charging it and it should read around 13-15v. It should be right around 14 but again, allow for some margin of error. I'm not sure exactly how your alternator works, but if it reads low, make sure you rev it to around 2k RPMs and see if it changes. Some alternator types will barely charge at idle, but charge much better at cruising speed. Just dont short it to ground. ;)


That Blue Moon beer is all the rage out here all of a sudden. Power tools are way more fun with alcohol is involved.
 
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Run a multimeter across the battery terminals while it's running. If it shows you 11.8-12.2v then it's not charging. Allow for some margin of error. The alternator should be charging it and it should read around 13-15v. It should be right around 14 but again, allow for some margin of error. I'm not sure exactly how your alternator works, but if it reads low, make sure you rev it to around 2k RPMs and see if it changes. Some alternator types will barely charge at idle, but charge much better at cruising speed. Just dont short it to ground. ;)


That Blue Moon beer is all the rage out here all of a sudden. Power tools are way more fun with alcohol is involved.

Alternator wasn't charging, I realized I hadn't hooked up the trigger wire. However I ran until a bunch more issues once I fixed this. I posted the following on stangnet but figured I might as well here too in case some of your might have some insight.

First off, I've got the 3G alternator. I took the car for a spin yesterday after honing in on the timing better. The car fired right up and ran well. Only complaint I had was that the battery was draining. This morning I discovered my alternator wasn't charging. After a little more investigation I found that I had not hooked up the "I" terminal trigger wire. I went ahead and ran 1 wire from the "I" terminal to the green w/ red stripe wire that feeds into the voltage regulator connector just to see if there was a difference.

Got in the car, started it, and immediately got loud belt squeel which to me told me that the alternator was charging. I went inside and came back out to try it again and this time left it running. Once it started I tried playing with the throttle and it immediately sputtered and died. I thought this was odd considering how smoothly it has been running.

It got weirder from here. I went back in to try and get it started again but it just kept turning over and never fired up like it had so easily before. I go again to try and start it, turn the key and I get nothing. It won't turn over although all my electrics are working. I also noticed my anmeter gauge was doing wacky things. Like if I put the key into the "ON" or "ACCY" position the needle would sort of throb, moving back and forth. I thought maybe the battery was undercharged so I slapped on the charger and went back in for awhile.

Came back out about an hour later, took off the charger, hooked up the battery and went to try and fire it up again. It fired up pretty easily this time again and was accompanied by belt squeel which went away after a few seconds. However, the idle was at about 2000 RPM. The previous day it was idling right around 800-1000. After a few minutes the idle started to get rough and I had to keep revving it in order to keep it running. Eventually it died. I went to start it again and nothing, it wouldn't turn over. I checked the voltage across the battery and it was in the range of 11.7 volts.

Now, I know that is undercharged, however the voltage across the battery has been lower but it would still crank even it if was slow cranking. In this case it was either cranking strong or not cranking at all. That is why I don't think the battery is the problem.

The only thing I can think of it is that I potentially damaged my starter solenoid. I do have a alot of wires on the positive side. I'm still confused as to how my ignition system after it ran so well yesterday they seem to be separate isolated systems.

Please help, thanks.

As far as the Blue Moon goes, yea it is tasty. I tried it a few years ago and really liked it. Every now and then I get a craving for it. That and the beer selection sometimes sucks and thats the best the store has :lol:
 
Well, first things first, get the battery charged to proper levels.

Second, don't worry about the ammeter gauge, they're notoriously worthless.

Third:
https://pic.armedcats.net/n/na/nabster/2009/11/02/3Ginstall.jpg
 
If you still have the stock ammeter, you might want to replace it or patch it out of the system - they tend to go on fire and they weren't rated for the amperage a modern alternator can put out.
 
Well, first things first, get the battery charged to proper levels.

Second, don't worry about the ammeter gauge, they're notoriously worthless.

Third:
https://pic.armedcats.net/n/na/nabster/2009/11/02/3Ginstall.jpg

Yea I'm gonna get it charged. I've been cranking it all this time thinking the alternator was working, it wasn't. About the ammeter, yep thats what I hear. And 3rd, I have that wiring digram. One of the questions I had was whether the alternator was internally grounded or not.

If you still have the stock ammeter, you might want to replace it or patch it out of the system - they tend to go on fire and they weren't rated for the amperage a modern alternator can put out.

I think I'm going to patch it out. Thats what I've gathered from stangnet
 
I recall reading somewhere the 3G alternator is internally grounded, but I couldn't cite any sources for you.
 
It looks like it has a ground lug so I'd fit a separate grounding cable. It can't hurt, of course.
 
Eh, that's fine. You could probably get away with a 10 gauge ground cable as it's generally just there to ground the control circuitry separate from the generation stage.
 
What size cable should I use? A guy on stangnet said he's using a 2 AWG ground cable. That seems a bit overkill to me.

This is a proper alternator ground cable.

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Go ahead and take the cheap way out and use sissy 2awg though.
 
Seems like kind of a silly question, but is there a proper way to charge a battery? My charger has I believe trickle charge which is I believe 6V and 6amps, then 12V and 6amps and then 12V and 12amps 'settings'. I think those are the correct numbers. Which should I use?

Also, another random question. Does anyone know if there is a reason that starter solenoids are mounted off kilter? Meaning angled towards the front of the car?
 
6V 6amps should be a good charge level.

12V 6amps is a fast charge, but it can be hard on the battery.

And 12V 12amps is for starting the car with a dead battery.

Can't help with the starter solenoid though. Sorry.
 
Generally always best to charge a battery as slow as possible, it causes less stress on the internals.

And about the starter solenoid, mine is straight?

https://pic.armedcats.net/n/na/nabster/2009/08/04/solenoid.jpg

EDIT: Went through a bunch of pages in the 'post your engine bay' thread on the mustang forums... 80-90% of the cars all had straight mounted solenoids, the only slanted ones were in 4 68's, one 67 and one 66. Seems to be no rhyme or reason to it, but if it bugs you go ahead and straighten it.
 
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Test fitted some new wheels

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Looks like they fit, I didn't use any spacers. I think I should be ok on the rears but I'm going to have to locate some smaller ones for the front. Rears are 17x9 I think I could get 17x8s on the front. Definitely improves the stance though.
 
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they looks pretty sweet. You should go 16X8 on the front. Bigs and Littles FTW!

Can I have your old Centerlines? :p
 
they looks pretty sweet. You should go 16X8 on the front. Bigs and Littles FTW!

Can I have your old Centerlines? :p

I sort of thought about the staggered look but I think I will like it more with 17s on the front.

Haha well I don't plan on keeping them. I won't *give* them away but I can cut you a deal if you really want them. Shipping would be a pain though, unless you want to drive down to Texas :D
 
I don't even have anything to put them on right now.

They are becoming more and more hard to find though (atleast up here) same with slotted mags.
 
Just giving a quick update, I'll elaborate some more tomorrow. Yes I have been working on the car just haven't snipped too many photos. I've been slowly taking care of little niggles like getting the alternator hooked up properly, redoing/rerouting some of the wiring I had done and timing it properly among many other things.

Yesterday it was running so well I took it out and did some power slides :D

Next drive I might just bring a camera along...
 
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