2015 Project Thread!

That's a good idea for how to find the leak. If there is one, that is. I should have some time to mess with the car in the next few days.

I'd love to leave my car in your capable hands and get it back with the issues that have been nagging me for years fixed. You have no idea how much I would love that. There definitely comes a time when a guy really wants to wave the white flag and let an expert come in and just FIX it once and for all. If I drove it down there though, I'm fairly sure I would blow up. haha

i know how I feel when someone else is using my car, the stress is bearable, what if the car gets hit......

I don't think I've ever let anyone else drive my Zeph, haha. That's partially because I'm embarrassed by some of its quirks though, haha.

I think if someone else was driving it and it got hit, I would feel better than if I was driving it and it got hit, haha. I can be really hard on myself. It would be annoying to have to start over, but hopefully enough of the non-stock parts would be salvageable. It might be liberating though. I wouldn't be stuck with the same old nagging problems I've always been fighting with on this car. Maybe I'd just sell the hulk for parts and start over in a completely different direction. Hell, I seriously consider driving it off a cliff every time one of the nagging problems comes back... haha

don't be so mad at your accomplishments, my friend once had a spotted dog, he was a good dog, he just had spots....
me; I'm the other way, I always think most people are more careful when driving someone else's car.

They can be careful all they want, but that wouldn't stop a bad driver from hitting them. haha

It's just so frustrating how much time and effort I've sunk into my brakes and fuel system only to be stuck with the same damn problems. It might not be so bad if those systems weren't so important.

I spent the day yesterday shining up my Fusion. It really came out nice! Good to get a coat of wax on before winter. Getting closer to having time for the Zeph.

do you guys use sealer or anything for the under-carriage?
have you tried the chalk yet?
I asked the detailer to vacuum my red one and clean the windows for the company bar b que, wowzer, he did a fantastic job, detailed the interior, shampooed the carpet & seats, polished the windows, wheels and shined the tires, it looks really nice now. maybe I should sell it.....nah....I don't need 20 bones that bad. I'm going to do my best to keep it clean and respect his work.

Cool! That always feels so good to drive a clean car. Last picture I saw, she didn't have any carpet. Or a passenger seat, haha. The best part is how it doesn't stink after being cleaned. I don't like fake fragrances, so I don't use a car freshener. I believe if your car stinks, you should figure out why and FIX IT. I can't wait to put new carpet in mine. It'll smell so nice after that! Right now it still smells like smoke (the sunvisors came from a smoker's car), mothballs, and "old car".

The bottom of the car is black, but I don't know if it's undercoating. It might be. Lord knows it should be for how rust free it is.

I haven't tried the chalk yet. I blew all my free time for the past week on other things. I'll have a couple of days next week though, so maybe I'll get to it then. No snow yet, and pretty decent weather for working outside, so maybe the stars will align and I'll get the motivation up to do it.

yeah when I first started to install the interior, I had the carpet shampooed/cleaned, and I took it to work to dry it out in the workshop in an empty stall, some f/stick drove over and said he didn't see it.
it bothers me when someone spends ssstupid money on interior trim parts and it always has that "smell", makes you wonder if it's just built in. a lot of guys use febreeze. I hate the smell of a new car, however I o prefer it over a mangled mouse caught up in the squirrel cage of a new car with less than 1000 miles.....I tried all types of fresheners........

That's a bummer about your carpet. Did it get ripped or anything?

I love the new car smell. It's probably a mix of rubber and plastic and other horrible chemicals, but that's the smell of satisfaction if you ask me, haha.

My carpeting is from a '95 or so Mustang. I had to pull it myself out of a car parked in a snowbank, haha. I got it for cheap, but it wasn't really that much better than my original carpet.

I went to change my taillights over to 80 watt LED, and while checking the brightness of the 60 ‘s compared to the 80’s I noted that the license plate lights would dim/flicker when the 4 way flashers were on with the taillights before I started. So I changed the ground wires for the resistors, I went straight to body for the ground circuit. It was a good idea, as all the lighting used the same ground wire. Resolved that small problem.
I changed all 4 brake/turn lights over to the 80 watt bulbs, the brake lights worked fine, however the l/s turn signals did not flash when the taillights were on, and the inner bulb always stayed bright???? Turned out to be a bad bulb. So I had to put the 60 watt bulbs back in. I thought it was a good idea to have a brighter light in the rear as winter is coming and it gets darker sooner. So now I’ve got to wait for a replacement bulb to complete the operation.
Should have left well enough alone.

Sounds like a typical operation for me too. hahaha!

When driving my car at night, I've noticed that the turn signal indicators are pretty blinding with that dash LED kit. I might swap them for some cheapies if I ever decide to take the dash apart again. No, I haven't been driving it lately, but that just popped into my head.

My computer seems to be taking a dump, so there's some more money that won't go to the car, haha.

what's happening with your computer? don't you have another one laying around.
do you have a check engine light.
even if you don't have a working check eng light, you can still scan it.

Oh, no I meant my PC. It was randomly turning itself off. I'm writing this on my new one! My A9P is all good as far as I know.

How much brighter are your new bulbs? Did your new ones show up yet? I know my LED taillight bulbs are pretty dang bright. I'm very happy with them!

cool, I thought you were seeing another issue develop with the car.
well im pleased with the 80 watt LED bulbs, in the daylight, they look ok, and at night they are great.
you see my taillights are sun-faded, and while using the 60 watt LED bulbs look great and function well, I have to try the 80 watts for my own info, there no test like the one you do on your own car.... I have a problem with excess, so this is just an extension.....
I'd venture to say that most 60 watt led are as bright as or slightly brighter than OEM bulbs, however they are more RED, and this is good, I want to try the 80 watt bulbs to see for my self using a higher watt bulb in a 35 year old faded lense.
i'd like to hear opinions from other people to see if they are "too bright or annoying" I believe most people are scared-off by the price; so................I found a cheaper distributor, the company is new I believe as their stock choice is limited;however price should not be the main choice rendering issue, quality & reliability come to mind.
here is a little know issue when you use the hardwired resistors, if the bulb burns-out, the flasher operates as normal, even with the bulb removed due to the added resistance, I haven't tried it with the transistorized flasher units yet, but it is an interesting tid-bit.

Yeah, makes sense about the resistor. As far as the flasher knows, the main load is still there!

I like the no load flashers a lot. They're not very loud, but they don't sound "dated" like I think the originals do.

i had planned on changing my frt springs this weekend and installing a new caster camber kit and raising the frt end up just a tad, some yard-bird threw the springs out. they were clean and set against the wall. we had a carne asada meal at work last week, and we sold all the scrap metal to help pay for it, I suppose they were mistaken for scrap, but who made that determination...
scrap is stored in the barrels and behind the building....
a couple of weeks a go I broke my Garmin GPS, I have found a company that sells the digitizer & LCD screens and also has the tools to disassemble the units and sends the parts to you at home. I had to replace the unit because I need one for all the doctors etc, but I have all the info and addresses stored in the old unit, and I cant download the info due to a broken screen, so I rather have the old one up & running and just give the new one to my son. my wife bought me the old one when she was having chemo etc. my first one was a Magelin, it was a gift because I helped a guy out when he needed to borrow some tools. I wasn't too keen on them at first as I know how to read a map.
the first time I used it was at night when they took my wife to hospital by ambulance to Tuscon to a hospital I had no clue was, the nurse gave me directions, when I got home, I let the dog out, grabbed some clothes and then it dawned on me...I have a GPS, the dude said it would take me right where I need to go and it speaks to you, man i'm glad I didn't sell it or swap it for parts.it worked fine till it got baked in the arizona sun. I haven't been without one since.
oh well, I gotta find some more springs.

Wow, if you're able to fix that Garmin, that would be pretty dang cool! I fixed my VCR once. It stopped working one day, so I opened it up, looked for any internal fuses, found one, replaced it, and it now works! Got pretty lucky, I think though, haha. I'm going to try to fix my old PC too. It was shutting off all by itself, and people are saying it's overheating or the power supply or hard drive are going bad. I blew the dust out of it, and there was a LOT!! It has a case that is kind of all vent, so the top of it is open for dust to fall right in. Good for ventilation, bad for letting dust in, haha. So, if it was just getting hot, it's fixed. We'll see. I'm going to install a temp monitoring program and leave it on for several days and then see what happens. If it all works out, I'm going to use it with my home theater for playing blu-rays and streaming and stuff. It might be old, but it's still a hell of a lot more powerful than the machines they sell to do that like AppleTV or Chromebox. It depends on whether I'll be able to upgrade the graphics or not. I've heard if the graphics are built in to the motherboard it's hard or impossible to do that. We'll see. Gotta keep myself busy with projects, haha.

Good luck changing your springs. Said it before, but that's my LEAST favorite job on a Fox. You should order one of those Maximum Motorsports front spring tools. They're like $15 and are a life saver. Are you going to continue to use the SN95 control arms? I still can't believe you have those on there, haha. I'm sure some springs will turn up for you. You're much better at procuring what you need than I am. I think I'm just not patient enough, haha.

My son used to build gaming computers for playing his games, big cases, larger power supplies, monster fans that had LED lights, sound cards, graphics cards, big memory cards, larger monitors, speakers, etc. he got some parts from dell, but I don’t know what parts. He had superfast internet, it was a real hot-rod computer. When his hand got hurt, I helped him a couple of times, but I don’t know what I did, I just changed some parts. So I think you can probably change out whatever you want. I know he was also worried about heat, so like I said he had some monster fans.
There was a group of guys who all built/modified computers for playing, and they said as soon as another part was installed, it was replaced by another part, the dammed thing used to sound like a small fan sometimes, I don’t know if he still has it, I do know it crapped out about the time he got his last job. so there is info out there if you want to modify your own stuff, our IT guy does a lot of weird stuff also, my workshop computer sounds like a fighter/bomber when its operating, maybe it's broken?????, but it sounds cool when you here it, sometimes it dives, sometimes it climbs, cruises, if it is broke, I don't want him to fix it, I want it to be louder!
I thought about getting into it myself, however it is a niche market, and you can’t stock any parts because people want specific brands of parts, so I was thinking about repairs, not the mods, then I lost interest, as I can’t stand all the hype about “my computer has stopped working and I’m going to have a stroke……”
Yeah I am also considering the fox body LCA going back on, however I am still irritated that nobody has owned-up about the springs yet. I just don’t know whether to keep the rubber bushings. With solid motor mounts, trans mount, I don’t need any more NVH. I will have to replace the ball joints again as they have been outside for a while. The fox LCA will allow for larger tires in the future.
Yeah, I got the parts for my GPS  from a company that not only sells the parts, they do the tools also, and some short videos on how to conduct the repairs.
I like my new Garmin, it has a lot of nice little features, however I have all the info for all the places we need on the old one, and it stores photos. I used to use it at work for checking speedo accuracy on customer cars, and for other speed related issues as it measures and records top-speed data which can settle disputes.

Your son's computer reminds me of one I saw online when I was looking. It had 3 times the RAM my new one has among other things, and it was $13,000! Haha. You can really get nuts with this stuff if you want. I was talking to a Fairmont guy on FB that said he has 4 graphics cards and SIX monitors on his, haha.

Sounds like your work computer needs some flowmasters, haha!

You can get the SN95 low friction balljoints from Ford or order them from Lemfoerder. If you'd like I can find the part # for you.

The Garmin sounds pretty fun. I sure enjoy playing with the Nav on my Fusion.

yeah I went in yesterday because the tire machine is making nose.....needs a fan......its a special fan 220 volts, oh well, I'll find one.
the GPS units in the in your car are pretty good, no faults on any of ours yet, remember this is coming from a died in the wool "map reader". both of my garmins have traffic, rest stops fuel, altitude, speed etc.
I just don't like a car packed full of accessories that are distracting or give false sense of security, we had a local boy who was killed while texting and driving. he was only 17, his sister survived. I know and work his dad, it really shook me when that happened.
sounds cool, get me a part number, I'll read-up on them. i'll go with the rubber bushings. I went to SCRAPA, to get some prices for LCA bushings, talk about choices, I had to go home and measure the bushings with a micrometer, I have the larger ones, apparently there is no rhyme or rhythm to the sizes.

Here's a link for the balljoint.

http://www.carid.com/2004-ford-mustang-suspension-parts/item-8509554.html

The Ford part # is F4ZZ-3050-A

I saw a stat recently where someone said like HALF of the people on Twitter check it while driving. Nice, idiots. I am not on Twitter, so I don't see the appeal. I can't believe they can't live without it while commuting. I don't do distracting things like texting while driving, but sometimes I do run into a situation like this one time I had a doctor's appointment that I was late for. I had a phone number for the office, but it was the appointment line, not the front counter. The person answering the appointment line kept hanging up on me rather than answering my question whether it was even worth it for me to come in for my appointment late. She knew the answer. She just had a severe case of "that's not my job". I had to keep calling until I was finally transferred to someone willing to help. All this while driving. Looking down at my phone to dial and all that. I have to say, if the wrong surprise had come along in traffic that day, it may not have ended well for me. I was definitely distracted, not to mention pissed off. I wanted to make sure though because the clinic is quite a drive for me, so it would have been pretty frustrating to have driven all the way there and not gotten anything out of it.

Cars that drive themselves will probably be a good thing for most people. Me, I wouldn't mind letting auto pilot take over sometimes, but only as long as I can drive when I want to. Imagine being an automaker developing an auto driving car though. You could just forget about making cars fun. People who buy cars that drive themselves wouldn't care about that. They'd just want a smooth ride.

I tried doing my lower control arm bushings once. I ended up bending my control arms all up, so that I wasn't comfortable using them. I ended up just buying new control arms.

You’re right about distractions; I hate to see moms driving cars full of kids not strapped down, running rampant in the car.
Thanks for the part#, I’ll run it and check the price. I’d like to do that fairly soon.
The reason they don’t want to help you out is that if you miss the appointment, you still have to pay. You can get there early and still sit an hour or so to be seen, and they don’t give you a refund, but if you are 5 mins late; you’re out of luck.
We had a similar situation a few months back when they gave us a card with the address on it and when we arrived, they said we were at the wrong office, even with the card they would not relent. We told the doctor an the next visit, and he was not impressed, he actually knows and likes my wife.
We have been having cold weather & winds here lately, it’s blowing pretty hard here at the moment, we may even get some rain.

Yeah, healthcare is such a mess. I don't know if it will ever be right again. I had one clinic I used to go to switch to cash only. Much as I liked the idea of their rebelling against the insurance mess, I had to move on because I never have that kind of money at one time to spend. Credit, yes. Cash, no. haha.

Those ball joints aren't cheap, but they're nice. I think maybe I need to swap in a tighter steering rack so I can really take advantage of them. But, it's not high on the priority list.

It's been unusually warm here, but I don't ever have any time to be outside. The warm weather period's done though as of today.

what do you mean tighter rack, like an SVO steering rack, they are great in town, but can be a bit nervous on the highway, but they are fun. NAPA does them as a reman unit.

Well, I ended up needing a rack last year or the year before. before I was ready to think about the best one for the job. Stymee had a Fairmont rack he'd give me for cheap, but I wanted something more performance oriented. I THINK what I ended up with was a middle years Fox Mustang one. There is a LOT of slop on center. Once it grabs, it works great, but it feels like there's 6 inches of dead area on center, haha. I guess I'd maybe go to an SN95 rack with the different kind of joint. You didn't have to deal with that because you just used the SN95 steering column, along with the different rack, I assume. Maximum Motorsports makes a hybrid shaft, but it's like $400 or some crazy thing.