/edit Title updates will be to reflect  what has been a fairly straight forward build.

Bought a little 2bbl 289 66 mustang a few years back and we are just now getting around to getting it running.

Dumped the tank's fuel.  Reset the gaps for the distributor points.  New battery. Found bad mechanical fuel pump and replaced it.

Got it to breathe to life for a moment then it decided it isnt gonna want to start again.    Plugs are foulded bad.   Went looking at the carb and we are guessing it needs a rebuild to stop flooding the poor cylinders.

Checking into things it looks like the 2100 was used on a ton of stuff.   But this one has some vacuum fittings on it that are not being used make me curious as to if it maybe is off a smog vehicle from 70 onward.



Top forward facing vacuum tube that we blocked off for now had nothing attached.   Some images I see out there show it attached to something which appears to connect to the accelerating pump assembly.   Possibly a fuel bowl vent or 70s era smog part?


Then around the back side is another hose fitting which I didnt find til later.   Gonna check to see if it is a pass through the casting from the bottom side to the top of where the air cleaner attaches.




Wont know til I have this thing off if I have a 2100 or maybe a 2150 carb to see what the casting looks like.

Image searching for a 2100 returns so much crap it is hard to make heads or tails of it.   Then you get the typical Amazon bullshit sponsored ads on every goddamn page which do not help either.

This might help

Looks like it would be off a post ‘75 vehicle. If the choke comes off just plug everything else up except a ported vacuum for the distributor.

That did indeed.

So one of the spare carbs that came with the car is actually the original 2100.  Looked it over and found the tag with proper code stamp for a mustang dated for 65.

Didnt look it over much originally because it is missing parts like the accelerator pump and other linkages.   It just looks rough and like it may have been cannibalized for the 2150 that is on the car now.

There is a mustang yard about an hour south of me and I am gonna drive down to see if I can kick up enough parts to rebuild it.

If your original carburetor has not been bead blasted and painted silver either rebuild it or have it rebuilt. I see your in California I knew a guy that all he worked was older Fords and would have just about any part you would need, unfortunately he passed away a few years ago.

The old Ford 2100 and 4100 4 bbl carbs were the best damned carbs ever made.  I was going to get one off a 390 to put on my '66 Mustang 5.0 build but went with EZ EFI fuel injection instead.  I've got a tired and seized up 4100 in my garage, but it's the smaller one off the 289's.  

When I started driving I had a '65 Fairlane with the 2100 and did a 4 bbl intake swap and rebuilt a 4100 from a junk yard.  Car ran like a raped ape.  Then I swapped it for a Holly 600 thinking Hot Rod magazine was always right.  Should have never done that.

Got 2100 rebuilt.   Was having bitch of a time to get it to idle.  The way it would pop and snarl and be totally inconsistent as it reved with different timing wettings had me finally pull the vacuum line to the distributor.

As soon as I did that it would idle and rev juet fine and wmooth as butter.

Oil change plus a bout a quart and a half of Type F in the tranny and I pulled out of the garage and managed a few laps around the neighborhood.   Need aome more advance on distributor I am guessing but it is actually moving under it's own power.

I wonder if your vacuum advance has a broken diaphragm. Nice collection!

Definite possibility and will toy with it a bit over next few days.   Car has a shit balancer on it with like no timing marks at all and the pointer is gone as well.

So probably look into a balancer/pully then get the pointer and a proper base timing.   Then check distributor advance.

Car will probably drive fairly nice after all that.

Said fuck the vacuum advance distributor.

Went HEI distributor/box with mechanical advance.   Buddy came over to help get plug wires made and installed.

Made a custom bracket to mount the coil off the accesory mounts of the driver side head that are not being used.

Car fired up nicely and was close to perfect timing(no pointer on timing cover, ordered new one).

Took car out for a test drive and it drives remarkably well.   Vacuum advance and old dist were fucking up the idle and driveability.

Engine ran well enough to lay about 3-5ft of rubber from a stop.

Gonna go through brakes this weekend to flush/bleed and service.

Then gonna be looking at tires and wheels soon.  Makes zero sense to put new 14in tires on.  Gonna go right for 17x7 for future room for the Global West suspension and the disc brakes I will be going to in a few months.

My dad considered that the best carburetor ever made. Don’t know much past that.

Reading around online that seems like it is the case.

I was at the VatoZone the other day looking to grab something and a guy in front of me was talking about buying a new carb.  Shop guys were coming out with Edlebrock 600s and other shit to compare to his bring in.

Dude said it was for a Ford F150 and I took a closer look.   Yup...  one of the 2150 variants that they started putting emissions stuff on.

Told the dude that he could likely rebuild it pretty easily for 20-30 bucks rather than deal with the Edlebrock they were showing him.

Told him the 2150 will probably be not only easier to rebuild but to tune into running well on his 351.


My 66 is driving fairly nice now that we put the summit racing coil/distributor on it.

Drove it to get dinner the otber night and the ignition exploded on me, like fell apart so key would not work.

Had to yank cluster out then yank the wires to the ignition and hot wire the car.   Took me about 15 minutes of trying to fix the ignition before I figured I was gonna run out of daylight so I had better hotwire it and drive home.

New guage cluster coming, old one was beat to shit before all this, so gonna rebuild it at same time I put new ignition in.

Still wanting to get disc brakes and new wheels/tires.

So I am surprised this car has started or ran at all.

I knew it had se fucked up wiring but I didnt want to mess with it/touch it until I was ready to replace it.

So the gauges as I started tracing them and learning how they work led me to the most obvious and fucked up splicing I have ever seen.

As I played with two wires for the oil sender I fou d that the previojs dipshit used but/crimp connectors that had been crimped to the insulation.   One was so loose it just slid loose from the much smaller gauge wiring.

Then tonight as I started to feed my new engine gauge feed wiring around the engine bay I found something even better.    There were two wires that were held together SOLEY WITH TAPE.




Harness pulled from the car.   Yeah that constant on voltage line doesnt need to be secure.  Tape will work well enough.




When in doubt of the first splice, just create another one on the same goddamn wire.   Oh maybe it is tweaker wire where they were piecing together 4-5 pieces of 1 foot wire to make the length they needed?




New harness installed.   Maybe a 5 minute job to run cables and tag in on starter relay and proper sending units.






Other harness on the way for headlights/alternator.   New tires/wheels hopefully by end of the month.

Gonna be looking at suspension and front discs hopefully by december.   Rear discs will be done once i am ready for the 9inch.

Once suspension is in I am hoping to get frame straightened of it needs it and get subframes welded in to lock it all together.

With all that tweaker work, was the original pink wire to the distributor still in place?  That’s a resistive wire that drops the voltage to something like 7.5V so you don’t fry the ignition system.  Might be why you had issues with the stock distributor/points set up.   Now that you’re running aftermarket, verify you have the correct voltage.  Some run off the 7.5, and some require the full 12V.
Old Chryslers used a huge resistor in the line.  Ford hid theirs within the wire.

Interesting.

Will check into it later.  The original wire for the coil was hacked.  

Gonna be doing voltage regulator work tonight and see what I come up with as I go through it.

Will check to see what the Summit Racing HEI style ignition wants to see at the coil.

Today's case of WTF.

A silly little water temp sender for an aftermarket gauge...  something I really dont want to use given it is probably the cheapest pile of shit the previous tweaker could afford.

The adapter tardery screws into the intake manifold just fine.   However it is all wrong for using with the stock temp gauge, will peg the gauge instantly due to wrong resistance values.

So I get a new temp sender for the intake.   Go to screw it in and it is a cunt's hair too large.   Put the dumb adapter thing next to the supposed correct temp sender for like 65-95 302 family engines and you can see the diameter is off for the new temp sender.

Severe case of WTF.

May be buying a 3/8-18 NPT tap to see if it will open up and properly thread the intake.

There is an older guy 1 hour south of me with a mustang yard, like 40-50 65-69 mustangs, that knows what I am talking about and I may head down with this stupid adapter to see what it threads into in his stack kf spare intakes then find a sender that matches to that intake.

Pissed because I tried two different NPT temp senders just to rule out oddballs and none of them are a go.

Left is standard temp sender where you can see it tried to grab a single thread before it said fuck it "I quit."

Aftermarket crap sender on the right and the adapter it needs middle.

3/8 - 18 NPT tap came in today and I packed it with grease and ran it down into the threads.

Cut out a ton of possible silicone and went until I felt it cut for about an additional half turn to full turn.

Grabbed my sender and managed to run it into the threads.   So that is done and over.


Wheels came in today and will get tires mounted monday

This is what is waiting to go in it...

It was so close to being dressed and ready to go in my 95 that it isnt funny.

I will be ditching the EFI Victor intake, oil pan, and 95 specific distributor then hopefully a flywheel/flexplate and it should be ready to go in after a trans rebuild.

Blowing up the old 8inch will spur me to getting the 9in built.  

Planning on front suspension and discs will be done before that.

What timing chain cover is on that now?  Probably have to swap that too with one for the vintage WP rotation and a dip stick.

Every now and then.....

I’m no help with the carburetor, but here’s a picture of my son driving the 66 that my parents bought in 66.

Attached File

They chose wisely with that color!  Or you did later....

Red/Red from the factory.

Pops is looking for someone to repaint it now.

That one you posted is beautiful.

Not going vintage.

Part of the reason this car is in the garage is it takes the place of a Factory Five 65 Daytona I nearly bought.  But Ca smog laws are bullshit and getting am SB100 smog exemption is a process I decided not go go through.

Going to the 66 was a way of getting aome of what I was wanting out of the type 65.   Low weight, no sophistication, and large amount of power.   The 66 gives up some things but it is complete with a VIN and no smog.

The water pump on that is for an SN95 which is the shortest of all the pumps.  Will stay reverse rotation of mechanical/belt but likely going electric water pump and electric fuel pump.  Shorter water pump area will hopefully buy me more room for radiator and electric fans.  Goal is to have this car running a one wire 100 amp alternator.   Priorities on better lights, electric water pump, and a pair of like 50W components in the kick panels running off an amp that will have music loud enough to hear over the exhaust which likely be borla or corsas dumped ahead of the rear tires.

GlobalWest or MaierRacing suspension is gonna be the toughest call.  GlobalWest does the drop through shelby upper control arm drop but they also relocate the upper ball joint like an inch to the rear for more agressive caster game in cornering.    Maier does a spindle drop but not much else unless you want the camber gain through Shelby drop.

About 3200 for global west and about 4k for Maier Racing.   Maier racing goes to like a 12in 4piston wilwood disc while Global West can accept any of the standard kits designed for the mustang V8 spindle.

The quick ratio GT/shelby steering ratio will go in as well.

Car is gonna be a 1.5-2in drop with a panhard bar in the rear, subframes, and likely a hoop/cage for a harness bar and low or removable door bars.


Tires/wheels mounted today but waiting on a thin wall socket to get them torqued down.




With my CNC router mill I am looking to possibly make some custom badges for the car once I get my tool paths more perfected.

Did these keychains waiting for some epoxy to set into the recess.



What would like to make is something like this which will be more fitting for the car.


Paint I am leaning towards will be a grey or metallic grey with black antireflection hood/grill/trunk/taillight panel.

Nice!  I’ll take some pics tomorrow if I have time and post them here on how I did a fan on mine. I’m running the Fox serpentine on mine with a thick rad and you’re right. Not much room left.  I made a fan shroud by stacking 3 sheets of Sheetrock in the size of the radiator and then drawing a circle where the fan goes and then shaped it down to the contours I wanted.  Covered it with wax paper and then built up fiberglass cloth.  Turned out really nice.

Put about 30 miles on the car today.

Now that tires match it no longer wants to dive as hard to the right as hard as it did with the trash tires on it.

Today's task was to tear out old rusted to shit battery tray and put in a new one.  Had to drop the bumper support bracket on that side to reach a screw but otherwise was a 30 minute task.   Brushed out area under old tray and cleaned it before giving it some black rustoleum.




Part of journey across town today was to goto a body shop that does damn decent work.   Looking at around 9k to tear down and blast, install new 1/4 panels, wheel tubs, package tray/rear trunk divider, and then paint.  Would probably be a 3 month job as they tear it down.

Long way to go before getting to that point but once suspension is on it will be a focus on getting the engine/trans done and in.    Driving it around at 50-60mph today put a list of things I want to change in my head.   First is to get decent seats in it for a driving position that doesnt drive me nuts.  Just an adjustable seat back and head rest would be nice.   Then suspension that inspires confidence along with brakes that match the 320 tread wear tires.

Sometime this week gauges are getting worked on to see if I can get all the dash lights working rather than just the highbeam and turn indicators.

These little guys have been the bane of my existence.



I ordered a new interior door latch and saw how the clip is supposed to attach to the door with a plastic retainer along with the metal swing clip portion.   Never saw the plastic because it rotted away.   So finally seeing how they are supposed to work on the new inner door handle I am confident I can get all the doors working again.

Drivers door currently has outter and inner door latches working but not the interior lock latch.

Passenger door had interior working but not the exterior while interior lock latch.   Stole one of the clips off the spare passenger side interior latch I ordered and now i have a fully functioning passenger door.


Those clips?   I ordered some more at freaking 5 dollars a piece.   Couldnt find just the little plastic insert that slips into the hole and works in conjunction with the metal latch.



Got some SFE fuses today and surprisingly the AM radio fired up.   First thing I could tune into was some mexican radio station.   Only other thing was talk radio...

The 2.5 amp fuse is basically impossible to locate locally so ordered off a few of those hoping my dash will light up again.   14 bucks for 5 little asshole fuses.

Damn near every fuse in the block was blown.  7 amp fuse in the 20 amp location.  Just outright stupidity abounds.

Put around 30 miles on the car yesterday doing errands and close to 40 miles on it today.

You know, a .22LR round works in those fuse holders too?  

So today I took the horn ring off and started to look at maybe rebuilding the horn/signal switch.

My steering wheel is badly cracked clean through in two places on the spokes near the hub...

Didnt see how it effects horn function until I drove to go get a steering wheel puller.   As I am leavimg the store all of a sudden my horn sounds while driving.   About the time I was gonna laugh I see sparks shoot out the side of the goddamn steering wheel where it meets the column.

I have all my tools with me so I quickly find a spot to pull over and yank the steering wheel before I piss off everyone on the road with my random honking and spark induced swerving.

I get the steering wheel off and this is what I see first thing.




The way the steering wheel split it pulls the rings for the horn contacts so that they are no longer concentric.    They were not contacting the bushing/brushes in the turn indicator switch because the screws holding them in had them pulled too high.   No idea how but they were too high.    When I removed one of the screws it allowed the rings to drop and make contact.


Inspecting the switch inside the column the rocker that lets the indicator auto reset during a turn is broken but I can live with a turn indicator not returning to position during a turn.   From what I am reading the replacements are questionable quality and either dont work without tweaking or break quickly soon after install.



Those two pegs about 5 o'clock were my main focus of going in search of trouble shooting the horn.   I was worried they were not getting voltage and I had a cut wire or a short some place.   Now I know they work and moving forward I can switch things up if down the road I want to add a fuse to the steering wheel circuit and a relay to drive the horns so I reduce my likelihood of shooting sparks all over the goddamn place.



New 14in steering wheel enroute so my legs are not almost pinned by this nearly 16inch plastic pile of grabastic sparking bullshit.   Steering wheels evidently are some of the most overpriced horribly engineered fucktardery in the auromotive world as well.

Got my dash instruments to to light up as well as the gear shift bulb replaced.

Took car out for grabbing dinner tonight.

On way back I drove it on the freeway for the first time.

Car pulls strong up through 70 and beyond.

GPS confirmed the spedometer is accurate to within 1mph at 70mph as well.

Got the doors completely fixed for all handles and locks.

This is now my favorite thread...ever!

I've always wanted to own and restore an old '66 or '67 Mustang to be my semi-daily/weekend driver car...

Working on a 3D printed mockup for a modern radio mounted inside glovebox area.

Once I get bracket mount to the base done I can shift/move the DIN mount where ever I want.    Some of it I can machine out of aluminum if I want but PLA will probably work for 87% of the mount as long as I provide locations for bolting it together with some #8 and #10 hardware with captive nuts.






Real question will be if I can figure out a way to make a small storage compartment to the side of the deck to one side or another after I test fit for clearances and how to integrate the DIN sleeve.


Yanking the kickpanels off and starting to look into a pair of quarterpanel speakers soon.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/64-65-66-Ford-Mustang-COUPE-FASTBACK-Kick-Panels-with-Speakers-/170990723886

I will buy the premade kickpanels only if I screw up the current set beyond repair.

I really want to put my CNC router mill to good use as a learning experience for making functional parts and using adaptive tool paths.

New steering wheel went in today.

Much better feel for driving with the 14inch wheel.   No smacking your legs with your hands if you follow the wheel around with your hands.

Still dont have horn working because the brushes that extend up from the turn signal are uneven.   Have a new turn signal/horn unit but to use it will require pulling the wires and building the plug out for connecting it.   Gonna do that some other day.



Considering the heater core/heater box at some point as winter is coming.   The unit has a broken/rusted door in it and the defroster hoses are basically gone.

I have a '68 resto-mod Mustang, and some of what I did to it may apply to your '66. Take a look at https://opentrackerracing.com/ and http://streetortrack.com/.  After talking with both of them, I updated my suspension using the Shelby drop, heim joint strut bars, 1" drop coil springs, roller spring perches, roller idler arm, and a 1" anti-roll bar.  My car already had the Borgeson power steering conversion and Granada spindles. The rear simply used Eaton Detroit 1" drop HD leaf springs, poly bushings and upgraded shackles. It now handles like a modern car at a much lower expense than the coil over conversions and other retrofit options.

I put the same wheel in mine after trying a 15" just like it. Also have an Ididit tilt column.  Know anyone that needs a nice 15" steering wheel??

Looked at Streetortrack the other day.   Really like some of what they are doing.   Hard to say where I go but if I go streetortrack it will probably be an all in sort of affair with full front suspension and their wattslink rear.   9k worth of suspension.

The real key is if I can stay with a manual rack or if I will abaolutely have to go with power steering due to caster gain.   Could always add power steering later.   Going to a rack wpuld be nice to get a safer collapsing column in, may even go electric boost power steering column.

A partial cage/roll bar is likely going in so I can get a harness bar installed.


There is an easy 3k left on the engine before it is ready to go in.   Then trans rebuild with flexplate and torque converter radiator/trans cooler.

Same time needs to be some chassis/suspension changes with at bare minimum front discs and dual master cylinder.

As soon as the 331 goes in I better have a 9in ordered because the 8inch rear wont be long for this world.

Starting to sign up for overtime shifts so I can hopefully have an extra 1k a month to play with.

Annoying thing is I likely could make my own steering wheel on my CNC router mill.   A 14in x3in tall block wouldnt be too bad to machine out.   Finishing passes would take forever.

The 180deg flip and milling the back side would take some fixturing savy but I could easily have machined out the wooden front side and back side for the wheel.


May work on a new horn button that is part 3D print or machined delrin to insulate the horn contacts and then with a new aluminum center where the emblem is.

100 degrees out today so working inside.

These are some keychains I am making just to learn my CNC and finishing tool paths along with fixturing/zeroing the mill.






The running horse logo was recessed below the top allowing me to fill in a ton of epoxy over the top and it really should turn out pretty well.   The color epoxy takes on a gloss once the top coat of clear epoxy goes on.

Gives me an idea of what kind of accuracy and detail I can get away with for possible emblems and scaling.

If you're headed that direction, what about Detroit Speed's Aluma Frame: LINK

Because those quickly grow into 14000-18000 dollar optio s very quickly.

Suspension wise I am gonna look to stay a bit more stock and more true to historic configuration.


Bit of progress from last 24 hours 17 of which was printing a mount for 5 1/4in speakers.



Test fit to original kick panel where a style line is at let me grind the mount down and then take measurements to transfer to the next batch which will drop down over the panel better.







New radio came in and since it doesnt need to play CDs it is not very deep and very light weight.   Should have that mount printing tomorrow.

3 days of several 17 hour prints and things are starting to get ready for install.








Hate the damn dirty stinking carpet so a carpet kit is on the way.   Will be going in first weekend that I have sub 80 degree temps.  Not a job I want to do in 95-100 degree weather.

Got sick of the red carpet.  Woke up today and decided to yank it out.



Got to see the floors.  They were surprisingly dry and devoid of rust issues.   I could see where a previous idiot had put shag carpet down and used glue in a few spots to hold it down.



Ran some speaker wire to the trunk under passenger side carpet for a future set of rear speakers to wire into the deck.

Really want a new set of seats at some point but I want to see a bunch of options in person before buying.

Thinking black with a few red accents won't bug me too much.  

Put my order in for phase one of suspension overhaul with StreetorTrack.

Power steering rack, new bigger spindles to handle increased load of sticky tires, 13in 4 piston brakes with two piece rotors, brake master cylinder and a proportioning valve for the rears.


Was gonna stay manual steering but when I heard the manual rack would be about 4 1/2 turns lock to lock versus the power steering rack being like 2 3/4 turn lock to lock it was a no brainer.


I got the car's back end out a few days back in a wet parking lot and putting corrective steering inputs was too damn slow even with fast hands.

Going to quick ratio power steering is a no brainer.

Current planned upgrades should make car track/steer much better.


Then later it will be a huge cash drop for the rest of the suspension.   Full coil overs front and rear with 3 link rear full floating rear end.

Hoping I will be able to fit 245 tires on all 4 corners once the full suspension is installed.   275 would be even nicer but will be tough.l I think.

Good luck breaking that 8 inch with a smallblock, they're tougher than you might think.

I am gonna be north of 300rwhp and closer to 400rwhp.

No desire for one wheel peel so that means I am going to a trutrak.

Add to that regearing to a 3.25-3.50 gear ratio and it makes zero sense sticking to an 8 inch.

I could goto an 8.8 or a couple different 9inch options but the full floating rear option is actually respectfully priced compared to some of the traditional 9in options that are out there.