So my plan for the paint for the  Mustang goes as such:
I need to finish welding a couple pieces where the roof meets the body. From here, I will start stripping panel by panel, fixing anything and priming the panels. Once everything is primed, I will start painting it white. It will no longer be Lime Gold, it will be Gloss White. White, as long as you have a light primer, hides imperfections much better than a dark color. I am going to go with the $50 dollar paint job idea. It’s not like the Mustang is in pristine condition, nor do I have boatloads of money or time to spend on a paint job. I think the white will turn out great, and from here, I think a Black/White theme will look great. I am thinking a black top like it is now, black on the piece that has the rear lights/gas cap, maybe black rims. Also, instead of regular Rust-oleum, I will be using
: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000BZTJT2/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

It’s cheaper than Rust-oleum at the store, and should hold up better than the regular stuff. I am hoping to get the body work that needs done (mainly the welding that needs done and to change out the driver’s door panel) and be able to paint before I officially move out of the other house. So that gives me about 2 months….

I haven’t had the speedometer working correctly since right after installing the 3 speed. Shortly after installing the 3 speed, I noticed it would read much faster than I was actually going. That, in my mind, was a whatever sort of thing, until I realized that it would mean miles would go up a lot faster as well. I “fixed” it in a way that it no longer gave me the speed…

Anyways, I bought a drop in speedometer sender on the ‘bay that for every revolution, I would get 16 pulses. My thought is to use an Arduino, LCD, and SD Card to create not only my own speedometer, but odometer. The stock Speedometer in the Mustang only shows the total miles, there is no trip-odometer. I know the pulses per revolution of the sender, I know the speedometer gear that is attached to it has 16 teeth, and the speedometer gear on the output shaft of the T5 has 6 teeth. I also know that the rear end has 3.55 gears ( as I was the one to put them in!). Know I just need to figure out the math, and put the circuitry together.

My end goal is to have sort of a computer system in the Mustang. The system will feature:

• Speedometer
• Odometer
• Trip-Odometer
• Oil Change Notification
• Air/Fuel Ratio
• Engine Temp
• Ambient Air Temp
• MAF possibly
• Oil Temp/Pressure
• Fan control (Engine Fan)
• Clock

Got the wooden steering wheel installed today, ran into a few issues with the Grant mounting kit that it came with. I bought the wheel used on the ‘bay for pretty cheap, so it was unfortunately missing the two extra collar pieces that go between the wheel and column, so I will have to look into cutting mine down to fit. The real problem came from the fact that on the back of the wheel (well on the adapter that mounts to the wheel) it had the slot like the original steering wheel for the turn signal cancel piece, but it also had two roll pins tapped into it. The first order was to remove both pins as I did not need them, and didn’t want them to damage the turn signal cam, especially with how costly they are for the tilt-a-way and what a pain it is to run one through the tilt-a-way colum. I found that for some reason the adapter didn’t have the proper length between the back of the wheel and where it seats in the turn signal cancel piece. It was about a half an inch or so too short. After some quick research online, all of them are like that. Not sure why they are, but in the end, the cancel piece was too long and being only plastic, I didn’t want it to break from the force of the wheel, so I clamped it in the vice and cut it down some and seems to work just fine! I think it looks great, and should hopefully be much more comfortable compared to the original black wheel.

Had a nice drive into work today in the Mustang, first “real” drive with the T5!

Had a problem after filling up where it didn’t want to start, but remembered what I had read in my owners manual (since, unlike most people, I actually read the damn manual!) that when you have problems starting, push the gas pedal to the floor and try to start. And what would you know? It worked! So I kept on cruising into work. The only other issue I ran into was that it wanted to pull to the right, I suspect the one tire… I really need to get new tires….

A fun part of the drive in, besides everything, was this jerk in a Tesla decided after getting in the right lane after turning, he really wanted in the left lane, and instead of getting behind me or just staying in the right since no one was in that lane, he decided to jump in front of me. After he was done being a show off, I decided to down shift and fly around him and man was he pissed!

This is the engine bay as of 1/15/2015. It’s dirty, the air cleaner still needs stripped down and painted, I need to strip down and use a different valve cover as the one on there the oil breather gets blocked by the monte carlo bar. At some point I will also be painting the top of the radiator. Looking closely, you can spot the power brake booster in the back, and the HEI module on the export brace. You can also follow the air cleaner hose to the front where it gets a nice cool intake from in front (instead of behind) the radiator. Also, if you look carefully I only have one horn, I have the other on the bench, but at some point I want to put an air horn on it…People tend to pay a little more attention around here with a big horn then the OEMs

Put in the dual exhaust system a while ago…It starts with a 6 into 2 header from ClassicInlines, going into their modified OEM dual exhaust setup. Sounds great and really makes it sound like a V8!

At some point I will put on a pair of nice exhaust tips, but for now, it’s great! This also shows the pop open gas cap I installed!

My original door inserts were in pretty bad condition. They had the chrome peeled off and a bunch of the clips had broken through the panel board holding it to the door. For a while I figured I’d just buy the new panels and that would be that. Then one day I had the idea (while making a panel for the rear deck) to use to 1/8 inch panel. I used the old door panel and traced it out on the wood, and went to work with my Jigsaw cutting out. I had to refine it once cut since the original panel was not in the best shape, but once fit, I used self tapping screws around the parameter to attach it to the door. I tried to figure out a way to attach it from the back of panel, however I could not find an easy way, nor a way that would hold it secure enough or have it bend enough with the profile of the door. I also had done a preliminary drilling of holes for the door handle, window crank and door pull before mounting and just sort of eyeballed it to open up the holes to fit.

Once fitted to the door, I removed the panels, sanded, and lastly hit it with a few coats of black stain. After this, and after much research I found I should use Spar Varnish to top coat the stain. I managed to find a spray can, but you can also use a regular can like what I used for the shift knob. The nice thing about Spar Varnish is that it should hold up to the UV, heat and hand contact they will endure.

Now I just need to paint the doors!