Build Thread 1978 Mercury Cyclone. The pig is in the pen.
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Everything I do has rhyme, and reason.^^I'm not sure if he is a poet or a want to be gangster rap artist....
Everything I do has rhyme, and reason.
Based off a drug/garage fume induced hallucination.
No amount of fumes will make me forget I have a brand new S197 hood sitting in the corner of my garage waiting to be finished.
Just sayin'.
Yeah yeah, I like my Trufiber hood, so no hurry there. I have way more honey do's to accomplish, 4 year old soccer practices, and when I get time to myself Ford Ranger projects before I get back to that hood. But when I get small amounts of time at night, I enjoy reading about you having old man, kids grown and gone time to build 
left and right. Keep it up!
left and right. Keep it up!
The best time in my life was when I had small children. Permanent memories of the funny s hit they do, and how fun they are to be around are all you'll have left someday, enjoy them now while you can.
Tomorrow you'll be waving them goodbye.
Ive got a hilarious pic of my daughter when she was about 18 months old. Was carrying a ratchet and trying to find something on the four wheeler to "fix"
More engine junk.
You guys remember Frank-N-Pan? The merging of two different six cylinder pans ( one fox 3.3, and one maverick 250) to create one pan right?
Well this week I had a chance to finish it up, and ck it for leaks (which it did).
Finishing it up meant that I needed to add drain plugs to the "wings". an -10 oil drain return, and a dipstick tube opening for some future dipstick.
In keeping w/my reanimating things back from the dead, I also "cobbled" an extension of the 3.3 fox pick up tube. When I first dug this thing out of the old engine parts box it was full of sludge and chunks of old gaskets. I completely took the thing apart to be sure that there wasn't some other engine destroying piece of s hit in there, and put it back together w/ this redneck piece of black plumbing pipe.
What can I say,...it works.
I also undertook the fabrication of an aluminum valve cover, since none can be had for this thing.
I started off by hand bending .250 wall 2" 6061 flat bar over a piece of rollbar tubing. I made two sides and butted them up against two pieces of alum dowel. Then.......................................
Glued the two pieces together.
After that shi t was dry, I reinforced the back side w/ a metal mesh, and added more epoxy to the patch. Then I cut a top out of .125 wall stuff, and glued and clamped the lid to the base. The next day, I took it apart, ran my router over the outside to create a radius, and we have the beginnings of a VC.
Using the two holes on each end as locators, I drilled the rest of the holes through the top.
It's not good enough to polish (because the lid shifted while it was glued, leaving a parting line exposed) so I'll paint it orange like the rest of the engine. Maybe I'll put some fins on it to jazz it up like my intake,..I'm just glad I have a way to cover the head.
You guys remember Frank-N-Pan? The merging of two different six cylinder pans ( one fox 3.3, and one maverick 250) to create one pan right?
Well this week I had a chance to finish it up, and ck it for leaks (which it did).
Finishing it up meant that I needed to add drain plugs to the "wings". an -10 oil drain return, and a dipstick tube opening for some future dipstick.
In keeping w/my reanimating things back from the dead, I also "cobbled" an extension of the 3.3 fox pick up tube. When I first dug this thing out of the old engine parts box it was full of sludge and chunks of old gaskets. I completely took the thing apart to be sure that there wasn't some other engine destroying piece of s hit in there, and put it back together w/ this redneck piece of black plumbing pipe.
What can I say,...it works.
I also undertook the fabrication of an aluminum valve cover, since none can be had for this thing.
I started off by hand bending .250 wall 2" 6061 flat bar over a piece of rollbar tubing. I made two sides and butted them up against two pieces of alum dowel. Then.......................................
Glued the two pieces together.
After that shi t was dry, I reinforced the back side w/ a metal mesh, and added more epoxy to the patch. Then I cut a top out of .125 wall stuff, and glued and clamped the lid to the base. The next day, I took it apart, ran my router over the outside to create a radius, and we have the beginnings of a VC.
Using the two holes on each end as locators, I drilled the rest of the holes through the top.
It's not good enough to polish (because the lid shifted while it was glued, leaving a parting line exposed) so I'll paint it orange like the rest of the engine. Maybe I'll put some fins on it to jazz it up like my intake,..I'm just glad I have a way to cover the head.
So you are painting the engine orange because....................you could not find an LS engine for the Fairmont 
Haven't touched it since those pics. Been trying to get the porch complete, (another 5 yr project) and it's robbed me of my free time.
That orange is Chrysler Hemi orange. It was done to match the Competition Orange that will be on 2/3rds of the rest of the car when that day comes.So you are painting the engine orange because....................you could not find an LS engine for the Fairmont
And....
I could've easily found an LS for the Fairmont.
I know how those projects go, I have been doing a bunch of them myself. Today was a mix of house projects, and then working on the truck while things had to dry (drywall mud, dry erase board paint).
Well I did manage to sneak in a small amount of progress. All I really managed to do was start to get the front suspension bolted together, but as my luck goes...there's always something. But on a related note, since this car is essentially you baby daddy, the fox mustang purists can appreciate this update too.
Last week I rebuilt the LCA's and put new Energy suspension poly bushings, and 95 Mustang balljoints. Today I beat those suckers in place. ( And I do mean that in a literal sense) Then I squared up the K member using MM's method. Didn't matter,...even though the measurements showed the K member to be off significantly (1/4") I wasn't able to get it to move. I'll tell you one thing though, It ain't coming back out, and I'm not grinding on it.
As w/ several things on this build, I've been sitting on the front suspension, and brakes the longest. I bought all of that stuff at the end of last summer along w/ the wheels and tires, which was the very first UPS shipment to arrive at my door. The struts are just stock replacement KYB Gas-A-Justs, but they are for a fox body.Bolting them to a SN 95 spindle requires that a set of spacers be made, as the SN 95 spindle is narrower than the older fox strut. Additionally in my case, the bolt holes didn't line up either, and I was forced to grind the strut, and the spacers accordingly to allow them to fit.
The old fox strut was about 1/4" wider than the SN 95 spindle. Each spacer was about .120 thick.
Timken Hubs, UPR coil over kit, UPR bumpsteer kit, UPR CC plates.
Blurry assed pic.
I've assembled it w/o the spring because I need to establish a ride height so I can ck, and adust the bumpsteer out of the car. For now, everything is just loosely bolted together. I'll have to go to home depot and buy a piece of MDF so I can make the bumpsteer gauge to get the bumpsteer dialed in.
The tape measure is still laying at a diagonal after squaring up the K member, based on the plumb bobbed marks I made to the floor.
This pic actually gives you a good idea of how the satin black paint finished. You can just see my fingerprints right in front of the strut tower where I hauled my ass off the floor after bolting that side together.
Another stinkin' blurry pic. Sorry, stupid camera phone.
Your standard everyday Rock Auto Mustang performance ratio PS rack. No manual rack for this car.
That's all that got done.
Last week I rebuilt the LCA's and put new Energy suspension poly bushings, and 95 Mustang balljoints. Today I beat those suckers in place. ( And I do mean that in a literal sense) Then I squared up the K member using MM's method. Didn't matter,...even though the measurements showed the K member to be off significantly (1/4") I wasn't able to get it to move. I'll tell you one thing though, It ain't coming back out, and I'm not grinding on it.
As w/ several things on this build, I've been sitting on the front suspension, and brakes the longest. I bought all of that stuff at the end of last summer along w/ the wheels and tires, which was the very first UPS shipment to arrive at my door. The struts are just stock replacement KYB Gas-A-Justs, but they are for a fox body.Bolting them to a SN 95 spindle requires that a set of spacers be made, as the SN 95 spindle is narrower than the older fox strut. Additionally in my case, the bolt holes didn't line up either, and I was forced to grind the strut, and the spacers accordingly to allow them to fit.
The old fox strut was about 1/4" wider than the SN 95 spindle. Each spacer was about .120 thick.
Timken Hubs, UPR coil over kit, UPR bumpsteer kit, UPR CC plates.
Blurry assed pic.
I've assembled it w/o the spring because I need to establish a ride height so I can ck, and adust the bumpsteer out of the car. For now, everything is just loosely bolted together. I'll have to go to home depot and buy a piece of MDF so I can make the bumpsteer gauge to get the bumpsteer dialed in.
The tape measure is still laying at a diagonal after squaring up the K member, based on the plumb bobbed marks I made to the floor.
This pic actually gives you a good idea of how the satin black paint finished. You can just see my fingerprints right in front of the strut tower where I hauled my ass off the floor after bolting that side together.
Another stinkin' blurry pic. Sorry, stupid camera phone.
Your standard everyday Rock Auto Mustang performance ratio PS rack. No manual rack for this car.
That's all that got done.
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I had a great 10MP Olympus that took amazing pics that I started using at the end of the red car build. Somehow the lens got cracked, and now a blur appears in some part of the pic when I use that camera. So, I'm forced to use that stupid win 8 camera phone that can take a pic like the one of the strut at the spindle, then the very next one will suck.Mike is going to need a Samsung Galaxy S5 to complete this project.
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