Something for my dad

[crash]

about 2 weeks ago my mom had to call an ambulance because my dad was exhibiting symptoms of a heart attack. he was taken to the hospital and there they were able to rule out a heart attack but found he was anemic. The doctors were sure his anemic condition was causing his symptoms but needed to look into why. I am not sure if it was was an x-ray or an MRI but they found something in his colon.

Last friday he had an apointment to have an in depth MRI to find out what it is and of course it would take a day or 2 for the doctor to get back with the results. I was at work on saturday when he called me to tell me the news that they found it was a tumor and it was in his colon but we did not know the extent of it yet. He made another apointment that was today. Earlier this afternoon he sent a text to all of us (me, my older brother and 2 younger sisters) that he wanted us at there house to talk to us.

Thats when he told us that he was at stage 4 and the cancer was spreading and already in his liver. He is going in for chemo next to try and beat this thing and we are all very positive. he's a strong person and we are a close family.

About 10 years ago he bought a 66' stang with the intentions of restoring it. About 6 years ago they sold there big house and bought a place on a lake that they were going to fix up. Well the new place didn't have a garage like the old house so it was driven up to my sisters place where it sat with weeds/brush growing around it.

With the news of something in his colon and the doctors concerns it was what it was--my brother in law called me with a plan. He loaded the car onto a trailer and hauled it over to my shop--we were going to do what we could to get this thing back into shape and at this point we were not going to tell him till it was done.

Here is how it sat right off the trailer.

 

[crash]

We gutted the interior and pressure washed the whole car. This is our starting point.

Our origional intention was to suprise him--but with the news we got tonight I decided to tell him. He had no idea and the look on his face was priceless.

 

[Slowkrawl]

Sorry to hear about your fathers condition, but it is awesome that you guys are doing this for him. It will give him something to look forward to when he is well enough to drive it!

 

[JeremyH]

Best of luck to your Dad. That is a good looking project.

 

[Del Montess]

I'm sorry to hear about your dad, I almost lost mine to colon cancer twice in the last 4 years, we went through hell and back several times, but seems like he is finally on the mend.
Sounds like your dad has the right mindset going in, fight like hell.

that is an incredible project (and will be a fawking gorgeous car when you're done... I really love older mustangs). I can't wait to see updates on the car, and your dad's health (if you wouldn't mind keeping us posted with that).

If you want to talk about the experience, I learned A TON while going through it, and know quite a bit about colon cancer and possible complications (did a lot of research while it was happening, then going through nursing school added a bunch), so you're more than welcome to PM me if you would like.

 

[THE CRAWLER KING]

healthier eating can also help. By making the right choices. best of luck to your dad.

 

[Grizzly4x4]

Everyone keep stong and positive and I'm sure your dad will beat it. Our thoughts are with you guys.

Good luck on the Mustang project, I'm sure he is going to love seeing it finished.

 

[crash]

Thanks for the support guys--I really apreciate it.

Del Montess thanks and if I need anything I will let ya know.

 

[crash]

So tonight while Don stripped parts off the body my main thing was to start going over the wiring and trying to get it to start.



The stock fuse panel was just sitting and hanging--and its badly rusted out so I am going to replace it with an updated panel.

I threw a backup battery in it to just see if I could get it to turn over--nothing. I was not getting a crank signal to the relay. I started back tracing and was trying to see if I was getting voltage out of the ignition switch.



Well when I was "barely" touching the back side of the switch this happened.

I looked it over and thought to myself--I can fix this. So I cleaned it up/greased it and reassembed it and staked it back together--just like new.

So I threw it back in and it now turns over but won't fire. I pulled the cap off and cleaned the crud off the points and the damn thing fired off and ran pretty decent. While I was doing this my sister called my dad so he could hear it run---he was excited.



One cool thing we learned tonight---as soon as its done they are taking it to california to drive down route 66. So on top of the fact my dad is going to beat this--they have a plan for it...

 

[LowCrawl]

Crash,
Best wishes to your dad and your family. I am in the Lacey Olympia area, with a little coordination ill let you use our lift and garage to help with your project. we have every tool you would need to get this bad boy running, we are chevy people by nature but we can make room. PM me if you need a trailer to pick up the ride for transport and other details. take care brother and stay positive.

 

[crash]

Crash,
Best wishes to your dad and your family. I am in the Lacey Olympia area, with a little coordination ill let you use our lift and garage to help with your project. we have every tool you would need to get this bad boy running, we are chevy people by nature but we can make room. PM me if you need a trailer to pick up the ride for transport and other details. take care brother and stay positive.

Thanks for the offer IAN. Half of this is not only for my dad but the other hafl its us that are doing it. I have access to racks here at work and my own shop is setup for metal fab. So we should (should) be ok,lol....

Again thank you

 

[crash]

We are cruising right along. My dad came over on friday to see it and he was amazed with what we had so far. He really wanted to hear it run "thats damn nice"--I told him "not good enough" "thumbsup"

So my brother in law Don is taking care of the body and I am doing the rest--since he is better suited for that and--I am not a body guy.

I got it on jack stands to asses the brakes and such.

I got the interior all wire wheeled. Its not perfect but with the time we are working with--we are just going to have to seal it up the best we can without replacing any panels.

The drivers floor pan has some small holes but its still pretty solid. We will just have to seal it up for now.

One thing I am going to fix are the holes for the drivers seat where it mounts to the floor. The drivers seat base had broke and caused this.

 

[MadForce]

I lost my father from the exact same type of cancer. It will be three years in 10 days.
What you guys are doing is the work of God. You are giving him bits of life, care and love is all sick people need.
That's what my father said last.

 

[crash]

I lost my father from the exact same type of cancer. It will be three years in 10 days.
What you guys are doing is the work of God. You are giving him bits of life, care and love is all sick people need.
That's what my father said last.

Sorry to hear about your loss...


Well my dad went to the hospital yesterday to start his battle to recovery.

He is coming out tonight to see the car and a friend of my bother in law who is an excelent body man to look over the car.

 

[2500hdon37s]

not a big ford fan at all or a mustang fan, but ever scince my friend got a 65' mustang ive grown to like the 60's mustangs, and another friend got a 65 or 66 mustang, funny part? we're all 16. one is a green convertable, other is a black cupe. defnitly a cool build with a good reason! keep up th good work on it!"thumbsup"

 

[crash]

So we are trucking along.

I got the brakes done. I didn't replace the shoes(sanded them) but I did replace the front wheel cylinders. I also repacked the front wheel bearings and turned the drums.

I threw some paint on the drums.

I was kinda scared of this one since it looked pretty rusted and looked like it had never been touched in a long time.

The bolts actually came out with no issue. But I was right it had not been touched in a very long time--the fluid was the blackest 90w I had ever seen but it was not burnt smelling.

Cleaned the heck out of the diff and cleaned the cover and no prodject of mine is never complete without the use of hammerite hammered paint.

 

[crash]

I finally got the correct vacuum advance. I totaly dissassembled the distributor, polished all needed parts and reassembled it with the new vacuum advance/points and now it works like it should.

Got it reinstalled and set the timing to spec. I didn't set the dwell yet as I will do that after I get the carb off and rebuilt. This vacuum advance used hardline (3/16 brakeline) to go the carb. Long ago it was cut off so I am going to remake a new one and make it look factory again.

 

[crash]

There are small freeze plugs just below the headgasket level on the block. Now I would not mind this but its behind the exhaust manifold and looking at the bolts for it--ya I didn't have a good feeling about pulling it.



So I did everything I could to be gentle with the bolts. I did get it off.

I did end up having 3 bolts brake. One near the center and both upper outer ones(one front/one rear).

 

[crash]

Now you can see them very nicely. I am going to just go ahead and replace all the freeze plugs since I will have full access to them.

Now onto the fun part--removing the broken bolts. Luckily I have alot of experiance doing this since I have been in the biz for 20 years. The center one was easy. I just grabbed my torch with a rosebud tip and got the bolt cherry red. After that I grabbed vice grips and you justshock the bolt back/forth and it cracked loose and came out. The others were a bit more fun. Since they were on the outer edges you could see the top of the bolt but I had to remove the valve cover (which I was going to anyways to repaint it), the rocker assy and the outer valve springs. With this I was able to drill into the top of the bolt.

I first tried using my slick extractor. These things were in there and it busted it off. With this style you need to drill all the way thru the bolt which I did so removing the broken piece was easy.

I ended up having to just drill the bolts out completely and run a tap down the hole to remove the rest and yes they were virtually rusted in place.

I had mentioned earlier that there was an exhaust leak at the pipe to manifold area and I was going to drop the exhaust anyways. Well I found out why it was getting worse. The pipe/lip that the donut sits in is 1/3 gone.

I will have to see if I can locate a replacement.

 

[crash]

So my brother in law Don has been busting butt on the body and my other brother in law Jason has come over and also helped a bunch with stripping the body.



So Don's buddy came over tonight who is going to do the body work to get another look at the car. He last saw it with my dad some time ago when it was at my sisters. So we went over what needs to be done/roughly.



As it sits we will need to replace both doors due to bad rust on the inside/bottom of the doors. The rear panel behind the rear window/truck will also need replaced so weds we are going to pull the rear window. He also wants to replace the drivers side rear complete quarter and the lower portion of passenger side rear panel. This is all due to rust.



So he said we about a month out from sending it to him.