I have been waiting for this. I figured one of the magazines should be covering this years Carlisle All-Ford Nationals. One of the Mustang Monthly people was around the Saturday of Carlisle and I saw him snapping pictures of the four feature convertibles in Building T. The article covers the show as well as the pony trail from CJ Pony Parts.
It is a nice article with a couple of pictures covering the feature cars. Continue reading
This is not strictly feature Mustang related but I’m sure many of you can relate as our cars get older and/or usage of them decreases. There is a faithful reader of this site named Ron who sends me lots of good stuff via email and we have lots of good discussions over it. This is one of those topics we have discussed and a recent email from him on the topic prompted me to relay my experiences with oil leaks and rear main seals, in particular.
I have owned my car for five years and in that time I have had the rear main seal replaced three times. The first time was in the first month of ownership since it was leaking from day one and the remaining two times occurred over the five year period since. On one occasion the shop manager indicated the problem might be clogging of the metal mesh breather that sits underneath the PCV valve. If the pressure that needs to vent through there cannot due to the clog it has to vent somewhere and that somewhere is often through seals and gaskets. It was not in my case but Ron found that it was in his case (his leaked through the oil pan gasket) and I agree with him that many people might not be aware of it and, like me, have numerous service visits to try and fix the problem. I have seen this discussed in various places like stangnet and rec.autos.makers.ford.mustang but not too many others. Hopefully one more mention of this cannot hurt.
My own experience with my most recent leak is somewhat different. I noticed mine leaking again when I was putting my car away last winter (’06). I did nothing until spring. Barry, the guy who had his red feature car next to me at Carlisle and who has owned many fox-bodied Mustangs told me that he has had many rear main seal leaks and most occurred after/during storage and were cured as the car was returned to use. So, in the spring my approach was to…do nothing. Except, I switched away from the synthetic Mobil 1 I was using back to dino oil and I drove 600+ miles to/from Carlisle. Since then, I have had no leaks. Now, I am going to find some wood to knock on.
I had good feedback on the Cars ‘conversion’ of my feature car and since I offered to do another I thought I would share it. This time I did a red ’92 for cobra2top. Being red and all it made sense to base it on Lightning McQueen. I didn’t do the Lightyear tires, but, since I never like to do the same thing twice, I added a lightning flash. Kachow!
It’s been pretty quiet around here this summer. I have been driving the ‘Stang just a little lately; mostly as a means of ‘mental health’. It really helps to clear my mind. I haven’t been using the computer much this summer. There is just too much else to keep me busy.
When I am using the computer I am finding that I have become a big fan of Lifehacker. It covers a wide variety of topics that I find interesting as well as uncovering some gems that I likely never would have found otherwise. This post is about one of those gems.
I have always been fascinated by photo editing and, if you have seen my signs and t-shirts, you know that I have some basic experience with it. A recent post on lifehacker on photo editing with movie poster effects caught my attention especially since our little guy loves the movie Cars and anything that has to do with it. The effect is essentially how to transform your car into a Cars character. Come to find out that this idea is not new by any means and originated on the North American Subaru Impreza Owners Club forum in December 2006. Though, this was the first time I had seen mention of it so forgive me for being late to the party. It is so popular that the photos linked to in that original post have been accessed so many times that it has exceeded the limits on the original poster’s photobucket account!
Some of the purists out there might frown upon this. I know this because I am a purist myself. But, this web site is all about combining two of my hobbies (computers and cars) so it seems appropriate. I thought I would have to give it a try (for the sake of the little guy, of course 😉 )
For the squeemish I have broken this post into two parts. If you can’t bare to see our beloved 100% stock feature Mustang as a cartoon character then stop reading now. Continue reading