Now you know why I had a race only car and it did not look pretty
It would have been nice if it was painted and not in that sh** brown primer that would rub off if you leaned on it but I did not have the room or time when I lived in CT to paint it.
I never had the time down here to even get it running again before I sold it
Unless I come across something really cheap my racing days are over unless I get stupid and go through the 401 and see about dropping in in the Gremlin but the Gremlin would need a lot of work to get it back driving as it has been sitting think about 15 years or more.

At one time I seen 2 DJ Jeeps on CL that I thought of dropping the 401 in to go racing but they wanted too much for them and Mary would most likely kill me

Guess we find out this afternoon if our show will be Saturday or if the rain has moved it to the 11th.
Then it looks like rain for the next few days. If it is a steady light rain it will not be bad but if it comes down in buckets there will be a lot of flooding.
Mary just told me Monday the hurricane is going to be here. After my doctor visit and feel up to it I need to check supplies just in case.
Hope everyone will be safe
Dave ----

 

I guess no one agrees on the storm track yet, but most of the forecasts I see show SC getting the brunt of it and us just getting the outside edge. Will definitely be a rainy week and starting this evening. Tom is here for 10 days, he arrived yesterday. He complained his grass seed looks like sh-t, and I said when you were here it rained every day for a week, after you left we got no rain for 3 weeks! Now you are here again and it looks like rain every day again. So I think he's the bad luck charm

I didn't get time yesterday to do hardly anything on the 85 Fox and today I have errands to run as well, maybe I can still make some progress later. Meanwhile I am free to post this now, as I was under strict silence orders before. Tom bought a 89 Mustang 5.0 hatchback. He just picked it up today and brought it to his house less than an hour ago. He claims it is for his son Kurt but I have a feeling that Kurt will never be driving it. I wouldn't have wanted any of my kids to drive a RWD V8 car as teenagers and I think he's seeing that now too. Kids always tear up their first car plus the odds are they're going to have a fender bender, so in my opinion it was always "give them a hooptie to bang around in until they prove they can handle something nicer".

Hey a 401 Gremlin at the drag strip is something that would turn heads for sure, as not many young people have ever seen one! It would be a a lot of fun but I hear ya there, a lot of work and effort and already have other projects in line ahead of it anyway.

 

I have been watching the weather both on my phone and on TV and you are right, SC looks to get most of the storm and us rain but they think wind for Monday so we will see.
When I went to my son's for Logan's birthday he was watering the grass in the back yard, front has trees so not a lot of sun for grass to grow.
I had to remind him he has a well and when the water is gone it's GONE!
He told me he did not want the grass to die and I told him dont cut it so short but it will come back as mine had every year so far.
I do like I did not have to cut the grass for a few weeks so tell Tom he did not need to pay someone to cut it each week is that you?

A fox body for a first car would be pretty cool but you are right 99.9% of the time.
If he puts the time in to do ant repairs needed and even more if he has to put the money in also they then have equity and tend to treat it better as they could lose everything he put into it.
I was given a 68 Dodge long wheelbase van with a camper top you could stand up in for my ride.
Not a race car by any means. I had to pay for all repairs and fix it, gas and insurance and if it broke I was walking.
Then again I was also doing some auto cross when I got out of high school, then off road and last drag building each car / truck.
I am that .1% that did not wreck anything I drove.

Now my brother is a different story but 1 was not his fault someone ran a stop sign and totaled a shop car.
The other was a front wheel drive and when they first came out they had TQ steer, mash the throttle and the steering wheel would turn and the car take off in that direction, banged up a customers car taking it to the paint shop.
Dave ----

 

I've never wrecked any vehicle I have owned, but I destroyed / beat the ***** out of my first vehicles. Now I'm mad at myself for all the stuff I destroyed!

My well has gone dry a few times over the years, always from either mistakenly leaving the hose running, or from a leak causing it to run constantly. Typically, turn off the power to the pump and twiddle your thumbs for 24 hours, then turn it back on. Underground aquifer usually refills it slowly.

I just saw that the latest storm track forecast has it turning and going further out to sea. I hope that is true and accurate.

 

I got to say I might have been ruff on the cars but knowing I would have to 1- fix it and 2- pay for the parts and not having the money I was not that ruff on them.
Then again other than the van and a few shop cars when we had the shop and even then they were my cars that I got in trade for work done on buddies cars / trucks or no one wanted but they were too nice to scrap so they were mine.

Even the guys I hung out with and raced with were the same, ruff but not to the point they break as they too had to fix it / pay for it and walk if not on the road.
Other than the van I always had something else to drive when I had the shop and dealer plate but most of what we had I did not want to drive as a 20 something guy

I never had a house with a well so my son does not know much about them but makes since if you dont have water to pump into the house you got no water!
I just wanted to remind him of that but he may have to run out to learn

Other than to see if it was raining now, was getting into the shower @ 6am, and what it might do HR to HR I have not looked what the storm is doing.
I know last night the news said there was something over us that could push the storm farther out to sea but they have been wrong too
We can use the rain just not all of it in a short time.
Dave ----

 

We definitely do need the rain but like you said, not all of it at once!

I'm disappointed in how my kick panel came out, very visible scratches and it's rough to the touch, like rubbing 60 grit sandpaper. I think texture or not, I am going to have to run some 220 over it and try to smooth it a little and then respray it. But on a positive note the color does appear to be a good match for the other dark gray interior pieces.

 

That texture is hard to not loose when dealing with the plastic panels and even worst when they turn to chalk like on the trucks.
You need to take the "chalk" off for anything to stick and there goes the texture. That is why I was looking into a spray on texture.
Just a thought maybe hammer tone texture paint might hide some of the scratches and add texture back?

Being kick panels they are down low so not really seen so if even if a little of the scratches show it should not be too bad I would think.
I wont tell anyone to look if you pay me jk

At first I thought that panel was blotchy, white & gray, but it may be the way the light is hitting it?
If it is blotchy it is because it was too humid when sprayed. Water vapor gets trapped between the layers of paint when it dried before water had time to escape.
If you slow down the drying of the paint it will not blotch but you cant really do this with spray cans, spray guns you use different temp reducers, low / med / high temp or paint in an AC room with less humidly.
The young guns dont know all the tricks as they only paint in climate controlled spray booths and was proven when I bought the supplies for my truck as they did not know of high temp reducer.

Well we did get a little rain yesterday have to see what Mon & Tue bring as they are talking 83% & 78% rain for them days.
Rail Days in Selma is looking good so far at 19% for rain.
Dave ----

 

It's not blotchy it's a nice even coat of gray, but I put the camera at an angle to catch the light so you could see the scratches more clearly.

I have not gotten much done since Tom has been here, I said to my wife yesterday he is a "time vampire.. he just sucks hours away from you". But I did get my wiring blocks installed, I got a piece of ABS plastic panel from Lowes to mount back behind the dash opening, will be easy to access them to wire up the gauges and it's far enough back to not interfere with the gauges themselves.


I don't have many complaints about the wiring done on this race car as most everything has been straightforward although there has been a lot of "daisy chaining" especially for the illumination wires, but this really annoyed me when I found it. I had a large gauge black wire connected to the "bottle warmer" switch on the nitrous panel, and I though "wow that is a nice heavy wire will be great to use it for my ground lead" but I am so glad I traced it out before using it. I know this picture is very busy, but look at the black wire coming in along the upper part of the pic. Follow it over, it goes to an orange wire, which goes through a fuse, and then on to the solenoid. This is a hot wire! Who uses black for hot?


Speaking of black, I made a boneheaded move last night. I ran a black from the firewall upwards to use as a ground, and had the excess run through the opening and hanging down. Once I finished my connection on the other side I went back around to the drivers seat, grabbed the black wire hanging down, and estimated the length so I could cut it and add a terminal. Snipped it and then.. D'oh, I just cut the GPS antenna for my speedometer! lol. Too many black wires! I spoke to Amazon and luckily able to get a replacement which will be here tomorrow.

 

"time vampire.. he just sucks hours away from you"

I dont remember the wiring on my drag car as I did it so long ago but I dont remember it being bad as I did not want something to happen when at a track.
Then again the new owner might be saying the same thing WTF was he thinking

I first made a blueprint of how the wiring was going to be run but it was mostly for the start / run and charging part as I did not have NOS or electric fan or water pump so was pretty simple.
This blueprint went with the car along with the racing logs and time slips I had from over the years.
All my gauges were mechanical other than tach and only needed wiring for lights for night racing. 1 switch turned on the gauge lights and 1 taillight and the taillight got power through the factory wiring to the taillights.

I like the buss bars and in colors yet.
What will the colors be used for? I take it the black is ground.
Do you know low voltage ground is white? Look at trailer wiring as it uses a white wire for ground that confused me when I first started wiring trailers to cars / trucks.

WOW cut the GPS wire! I would have been pissed.
I think mine plugs into the speedo so could be replaced but mine is maybe 20 years old so dont know if I could get one or not?
I have special head lights that have turn signals in them as I want to put driving lights in the bumper where the turn / parking lights were. I have not seen any since I got them.

I also have rear turn lights that will blink like the new Mustangs, got them before the Mustangs came out with them. They had them on the late 60's Cougars, but they were machinal not electronic like mine are.
I dont think the company I bought the turn lights from makes this type anymore and I would like to add 2 more bulbs per side as the car only had 2 bulbs per side and I think 4 per side would be brighter for just taillights but the blinking would look better too. More custom things planed to add to the Javelin like flush mount front & rear glass that I started.
Dave ----

 

Yeah that time vampire came to mind Saturday when we spent almost 4 hours running a 1 hour errand.

The wiring blocks are red for hot (switched) white for illumination and black for ground. They only come in red or black so I got an extra red one and sprayed it with white spray paint. White is the generic color code for dash lights in the aftermarket gauges. Of course red usually means full time power and yellow would be switched, but I had what I had and went with it!

I cut the GPS antenna and yes it does plug into the speedo so it's separate and can be replaced independently, but when I looked online it looked like a few different styles of plugs, I wasn't sure if it was standardized or not, plus the price range for an antenna and wire was crazy. From 10 bucks to 250 bucks. But I talked to them and they are sending me a replacement at no charge (so I'm assuming mine is in the $10 range).

Those mechanical blinking Cougar lights I remember, and Shelby I think brought them over to use on the Mustang but with some slight differences in the chrome trim. They both used the basic 1965 Thunderbird tail light just modified it a little each time. People used to like to get them and cut up the back panel of a Mustang to install them. I don't know when someone came up with the solid state electrical sequence blinker circuit board for that, I want to say it was around 1990, but that definitely made it the retrofit easier.

All of the nitrous wiring on my car has been cut, I know when I got the car the guy told me it has a nitrous system but needs to be wired up. He wasn't that specific. But each solenoid has the wires cut and then taped off and shoved down out of the way. So I've got to start from scratch on that and I have a pretty good idea of how I need to do it. Assuming it is plumbed correctly. I have 3 solenoids; a nitrous solenoid, a fuel solenoid, and a purge solenoid. Then a WOT switch on the side of the carburetor. So I would wire the "arm" switch to the WOT switch and then connect that to the nitrous solenoid and fuel solenoid both. Unless the nitrous solenoid AND purge solenoid have to be opened for purge? I am not sure how this all works.

*Edit - One more thing; there was a wire from the "arm" switch going up to the back of the MSD box, I can't see where it is connected, but I'm assuming maybe it is a signal used to tell the MSD to pull the timing back whenever nitrous is engaged.

 

4 hours for a 1 hour run would drive me over the edge
How long is he down for this time? If till after next weekend is he coming to rail days to hang?
If his "son's" Mustang is on the road he could bring it.

On the purge the carb NOS dose not, should not open but the purge should be close to the carb to get any air in the line out so the motor dose not get a shot of air with fuel before the NOS hit.
Now when I ran NOS on my Toyota Land Cruiser for sand drags this was before NOS was "the thing" we did not have purge valve / system.
I would arm the system and just before I staged I hit the button, had the button on the shifter not on the carb, to purge the system.
The RPM would come up so I knew it was purged then I would stage and run. We also did not know to take timing out when running NOS.

NOS has come a long way since I ran it back in the early 80's.
I know where my bottle is, should still have some in it, but I dont know where the plate is or the brackets that hold the bottle are as I have not seen them in years.
We also had problems filling the bottles back then. The place, where you would get welding tanks filled, said they should not be selling it to us as it was medical grade and was worried we were using it for '"fun".
We showed them pictures of the trucks and the systems on the motors and there were only 2 of us that took the tanks to be filled they then filled them for us.

We only had 1 motor backfire up the carb and I dont remember if it was because he did not have the RPM up a little before hitting the button or the motor blew up off the line?
I do know the Buick motor was pulled and a Chevy installed at that point.
Dave ----

 

He will be here for railroad days on the 4th but will not be here for the rain date on 11th, I think he leaves the Monday in between. I believe he is planning to bring the 5.0 Mustang out to Selma. I kinda thought that was why he got it, so he would have something to bring out when he is down here, and just using it as a gift to his son as a ruse

The way my nitrous setup is supposed to work, the solenoids can only have power when the throttle is at WOT. That way you don't dump it in too soon by mistake. As for the timing, I am less sure now than I was before, because last night I scrunched down a little further and realized there are 4 wires going behind the MSD box, but coming out underneath it to a wiring terminal. Not going to the box itself! So I don't think it is being used to have the ignition timing pulled back after all. I think that is something I need to look into because I have always understood that you want it a little less timing when you have nitrous. I guess depending how much you are squirting in.

 

Back in the day we did not have them dial back timing boxes or even knew we should dial back when using spray.
If you dont have it I would find the install info for the ignition box to see what them extra wires are for.
I think you said you had 3 wires?
Just a guess 1 could be for a 2-step rev limiter so when on a trans brake it limits to what you have it set to.
So that only happens when the trans brake has power.
Another wire could be for the dial back timing and would be armed when the NOS is powered up on the master power to the NOS system.
No clue what the 3rd would be for and why the info for the box and what wire dose what.
Dave ----

 

I don't think any of those wires were for the timing, as they aren't going to the MSD box itself, just routed behind it to get to a wire block underneath it. I think the connection is going through the firewall next but I did not trace it today. Also I googled for it, my box is MSD-6AL and it says that does not have capability for a nitrous arming wire signal to reduce timing, that it would use a separate MSD retard module for me to plug in to. I'm not sure I absolutely need that, like you said I could just manually pull the timing back 2 degrees before my run when I plan to use the nitrous.

 

Yall have been busy. Same here just not on vehicles.

I'm ready for this rain to move out. Maybe by tomorrow. Weekend looking good.

May try to build the transom for my canoe this weekend so I can use my "new" trolling motor.