Chronicles of my Mustang: May 2012

Age Progression of the Car

One neat thing that happened on the St George trip, is my aunt giving me pictures of the car. I am incredibly thankful to my aunt for holding on to this car and allowing me to purchase it from her. I know she is still struggling with her decision to sell the car, which I completely understand. It honestly means so much to me to be able to have this car. I am so thankful she held on this car through the years so that it could be restored.

Anyways I figured I would show the age progression of the car so here it goes...

These two pictures were taken in April 1967 (when the car was only 3 months old)

The next three were taken in May of 1974 on my aunts wedding day

This picture was taken in the 1980's

This was April 2008

And current day (April 2012)

Just for comparison sake...

It's Showtime!

The 28th was the show. We got there early and got the car nice and clean. This is the view looking over part of the Tuacahn parking lot.

This is me standing next to the car

With my display (which I only put up after the car had been judged)

We got a picture of my dad sitting in the car. It was so fun having him at the show with me. He seemed to really like the car and it was a trip down memory lane.

Me and my dad with the car

Me and Mike with the car

Saturday night we had to move the car so it could stay over night. So we ended up towing the car with a golf cart. Someone has video footage of it which I really hope to get a copy of someday soon. Anyways this is the car tucked in for the night with the car cover over it.

The next morning ready to be shown again. We ended up staying in the same place we moved it to so we didn't have to tow it back to our original spot.

I was very surprised to get 2nd place in my class. The awards are made out of sandstone and are rather neat. It was nice being able to get an award. We were told that there were two things that made the difference between us getting 2nd versus 1st place. We didn't have time to get a spare tire for the trunk, and I left the floor mats in the car. I had gone back and forth on if those had to come out or not but finally just decided to leave them. So lesson learned, those come out when being judged.

Anyways it was an awesome show and an awesome trip. I am really glad we were able to get the car there even though it wasn't running. The car turned out amazing and I feel like the award really should go to Mike for taking charge of this restoration and making this car what it is. I feel so lucky to have my dad's first car and to be able to have it restored. I really loved having my dad at the show with me. I feel like the luckiest person in the world!

Autocross and Pony Trails

The 26th was the autocross. Mike's parents had us drive their Cobra to St George so they could autocross it. Mike had some fun autocrossing it. This is the best picture I could get of him doing the autocross. He made me go with him one round but I didn't like it. It scared the heck out of me! He said his goal was to make me squeal which I did. I will admit it, I am a chicken and going fast around a course with lots of skidding and sliding is not my cup of tea. Mike sure enjoyed it though.

The 27th was the pony trails. The morning of the pony trails we went and got my car off the trailer and situated at Tuacahn and went through classification. It was decided my car would be in Occasionaly Driven - Trailerd class. After getting that figured out we headed on the pony trails. Heather and Dana were in Nightmare and we were in the Cobra with the top down. We also stopped in Hurricane and picked up my dad so he could go with us.

This is me and my dad sitting in the cobra in Zions.

On the other side of Zions all the cars met for lunch at a ranch. It was a really good lunch. It was chicken or buffalo fajitas. I enjoyed it and I think my dad enjoyed it as well.

We then headed back to Harrisburg and I got showered and cleaned up before heading to Iceberg in St. George for a cruise in. It was fun!

Off we go to St. George

Tuesday, April 24th

Mike got straight to work on trying to get the car to run, since we were suppose to leave for St George later that day. He tried numerous things and ruled out everything,but then decided that there must have been bad gas in the used gas tank we had put in the car. So he pulled the gas tank. We couldn't find anywhere that had a gas tank in stock so we talked to Mustang Ranch which had one they said we could use if we bought a replacement for them when we got home. So Mike and switched that out. They put new gas in but the car was still having problems so finally it was decided we would just trailer the car. Mike's parents were nice enough to trailer my car, even though it meant the Pace Car staying home.

Mike putting the car on the trailer.

We really tried everything we could think of on the car. We even stopped that evening in Springville and tried one last ditch effort to get it running but to no avail. So the next day (the 25th) we ended up taking the car to a mechanic shop in St George. $200 later we at least had an answer but no solution. So everything checked out ok so it has been deemed that the sludge from the bad gas is making the valves stick, therefore the car is backfiring. Mike did however get to drive the car down the street before it died and had to be towed back to the shop. It was frustrating not being able to get it run, but we decided that we could not put anymore money into the car and Mike would just fix it when we got home.

This is the car while at the shop.

I realized I had not gotten a good picture of the car so I took a picture while the car was in the parking lot of the shop.

It still blows my mind how good the car turned out. I Love it!

Finishing Touches

This post is all the stuff that went on Monday, April 23rd

Gary came by with the remaining car parts. He helped line up the body panels, did some paint touch up, and put the stripes on. This is the hood waiting to be put on the car.