Life changes, things evolve and sacrafices made

I haven't posted here in a while, life is being just that, Life.

I have had a few ups and downs and now I'm in the stabilization phase of things. I want to bring the people more content but I have limited amounts of important things to this process; Direction, currency and being winter now warmth to work in.

I would like to hear what ya'll have to say for direction in resurrecting this and making content that you want to hear about.

Project danger ranger

Just picked up an 88 ranger. This should be fun. I am back on the blog for now and I'll see if I can hey the time to put together quality post for your viewing Pleasure. Stay tuned for more as I can post.

and the return.

we'll after over 2 months delay, I am finally heading home. I'm MOS-Q as a 91B: wheeled vehicle mechanic. which means I tried not to fall asleep while the Sargent tried to kill us with power points, learned that Army technical manuels are a pain in the ass when you know what to take off in order to repair the truck. The army, as a mechanic, includes changing parts when they break, inspecting the trucks to make sure the operator hasn't broken then beyond the normal wear and tear, fill out forms for parts and tools, waiting for parts while trying to look busy.

 I head for Fort Carson, Colorado, Not too far from my parents and my wife's parents in Utah. It should be quite the ride living out the army life. Hopefully I get to have good experiences in my current contract.

As for my beloved project, I have a huge box of parts waiting for me at home and I will be there by the end of the week. pictures should be following shortly, as I have a fair bit of time on my hands till I have to report to my Duty station.

delays, delays and changes..

Well, It has been a hell of a long time since I posted here. last I recall I hadnt made much progress on the mustang, I was a newly wed and working my fingers to the bone for near to nothing.


The Good news is I found another job, I am now a part of the united states army. The bad news is I am tied up for another 10 Weeks in my Advanced Individual Training for Wheeled Vehicle mechanics. This is not going to be all that fun as I am A fair bit ahead of most of the class as far as mechanical experiences. The good news about being a high speed fixing machine is I came into the service as a Private First class which cranked up my pay. The bad news is I dont know where I Will be stationed when I finish up training. the problem this will present is I may not be able to take the mustang and the assorted parts with me to my destination.

The solutions are still being mulled over until I get my orders, The preferable outcome is I will be within driving distance of Utah and stationed on a base that will have facilities for my needs(which many do). the worst case is sell it all and start over when I get to my duty station, which in that case I may get something that i can acquire parts more readily.  more then likely something with a fuel injected motor already in it that i can do a cut in for my megasquirt and add all of the lovely shiny parts that I could ever dream of.

I wont know the descion until the last few weeks of my super hooah training. I'm currently at Aberdeen proving ground, but it will be shutting down very soon. so i will me moved to Fort Lee for the duration of my training, this has added another 6 weeks on top of my scheduled time here but the good news is it will help to shorten my promotion time.

But that is my would in a couple of minutes. 

Im Here

Im still around, my wife and I are living happy in our apartment and enjoying finally getting to live together. I continue to work for the same place making a some-what Higher wage and Buying parts whenever I can. the mustang is still at my parents house here in Price(utah). I honestly miss having the time(and money)  to work on the poor ugly thing. but priorites are just that and I have to eat and have a warm place to sleep. I'll try to post a few interesting pictures of things i have run across at work and whatever else i find myself compellled to share with those of you who find themselves Entranced but what I type here.

Started repairing some of the damage and getting the mustang back to a roller

well so far Ive played with one of the dents and got it half way beat out. The rest Ill have to break out my stud welder and put some pull pins on.

The suspension on it has a fresh coat of paint and the lower arm I messed up so bad taking the bushing out of has been replaced. Right now Im waiting for the upper arm bolt kit and the bearing kit. It should be here today or tomorrow as it is in colorado and I am in utah.

The carport is cleaned up and everything is half-way back to normal around my house. we are waiting on the engineer to finish decideing on how to put the roof of the house back together and then hopfully we can get  the cash from the Carport because we cant rebuild it due to Fire code.

As for my personal life, Im begining to plan my wedding once again. Its all hinged on me passing the hard classes of my asscoiates degree, weather or not I can get a job that pays me more than minimium wage and weather or not I can find a place to live. Its hard to Stay motivated with so much extra stress in my life, But I've got to suffer through the bad and welcome the good.

Well as I said, The mustang still lives. Im working a few of the dents out and got some parts today.

Ladies, Gentleman and assorted others

the mutang did indeed live. here are the pictures of the damage. Most of which is minor in compairson to what it could have been.

Is this the end of the mustang?!

Well After a Fair few months of getting nowhere, Fate Intervened and Left me Wondering what now.

The many month of snow finally began to thaw and give me some hope to return to my beloved mustang and give her the love and attention she deserves. Unfortunatly The carport also decided to make sweet love to my mustang.......all I can say is BOOM!

We'll have to see what the end result is, The insurence company and the contractor they hired just left and said they would have a baseline quote for us by the end of the month.

I dunno If ive ever shared this with you readers

but most of my engine design is done on a computer. This is kind of a newer way to do this. I figure its better then scratching my head and throwing parts in my cart on summit racing. Ive read reviews on a few different programs, they all seem to claim to be within 10% accurate. I dont have acess to a dyno to prove or disprove but It honestly seems likely. Ive never had anything come back at an odd number.

soo anyways back on point, I thought i would at least(try) to put up a Design I've been putting together for a while. Very basic, But very effective for what its for.

The program is a little outdated( desktop dyno 2000), I have a newer one That is less user friendly as this, But I still enjoy using this one. The other one that I also use from time to time(when im shopping for camshafts) is comp cams Camquest. This is set up similar to desktop dyno but instead of you typing in the cam specs you select a cam from comp cams products. still effective, IF your planning on using a comp cam.

Havent gotten a whole lot done

Been busy with college, Down to my last 3 classes. My job has been very stressful as my boss has this bad habit of harassing me mecilessly and assigning me, Possiably the most qualified guy there, To do the grunt work around the shop.
I may be the youngest guy there and I may not have the hands on wrench turning they are looking for, But I dont think that entitles me to the mistreatment I get. The only thing Im really even thankful to my employer about is the fact I have a job. I mean when your 6 month out from being able to become an Automtive service Excellence (ASE) certified mechanic and have Passed all of your Nation automotive technical excellence foundation(NATEF) testing with flying colors(78% or better on all of em). The only major problem I have is panicing (due to my mental disablities) when wrench turning starts getting complicated.
I am by no means a bad mechanic, I can daignose and fix most problems with a reasonable amount of accuracy. I can usually disassemble any system in an automobile, Given the oppertunity. All that is nesscary Is being able to find the tools and put hands to wrenches and go.

on a differing note, Ive got my subaru motor put back together(changed some gaskets, Glad I did....intake gasket looked like it was blown). Planning on dropping it in tomorrow morning(assuming my guts quit hurting so I can sleep.Wrath of pizza hut I supose...)

Other then those few things, Life has been stress free.

so I mentioned my truck got wrecked

So Heres the pictures from the actual wreck(took a bit of doing to find em)

This is why you shouldnt put your new chevy against a 1985 F-250. The guy in the white shirt is the driver, at this point he is still up-right but very confused

He hit it hard enough to move the front 5 feet and the rear 8 feet. His truck ended up in my parking spot when all was said and done

another local car show

Heres some of the local color for you to enjoy. Thanks goes out to my mother for going out and taking some pictures while I was working

busy busy busy

yup still just busy, the mustang is on the back-burner for a bit till I get a few more important life things squared away.

In other life related news, a few months back my truck got crashed into...Bent the frame 3 inches and sprung the rear leaf spring.

So i got A new(to me at least) F-350 to drive( my Daily driver was the truck for the winter, my subaru threw the front pulley.) It had a poorly wire holley fuel injection set-up on it. We decided to get back to the basics and stuck the 650 holley carb off the bronco(another project my father and I are hung up on and she ran great after that.)

soooo......

Finally tooksome pictures of a few things

the valve covers oil pan and intake, along with part of the cylinder head are painted, leaving the headers and the block at the only engine parts not painted(yet)

The bearing alignment turned out to be a connecting rod problem, I had one rebuilt and now Im going together once again. As it stands right now I have 8 pistons in the bores fully dressed, still bare cylinder heads, painted valve covers, oil pan and intake manifold. The drivers side suspension nearly rebuilt(all of the wear parts changed).

On another note I've Invested in a bowling and grippo megasquirt II standalone ECU(V3.57) and the realated wiring componets. If all goes well with the intial start-up and break in on my engine I'll move on to adding wasted spark ignition (EDIS-8) and Throttle body injection(1983 continetial. this should help to bump up the fuel econemy to a fairly decent level(assuming I possese the skills to make the engine run with the fuel injection system). Only time will tell im afraid.

Unforunatly I have yet to take the time to provide the pictures that I so often promise. I apologize as I am forgetful.

On yet another note my father and I have started a side project swapping a 460 into a 1979 ford bronco. Its all but finished if the radiator we purchased hadnt fill our transmission full of coolant. we're planning on drying it out the best we can and running it. but I doubt that the outcome will be in our favor.

As for the old engine(351c) we're looking at swapping heads to a slightly different engine and having a fair bit of fun frankensteining yet another vehicle.

Gads, More problems as it were

Hopfully this is the last of them otherwise I'll have to tear my hair out.

Im still having trouble with the bearing alignment on a couple of rods, I've Got them all 100% on the right way but I made the mistake of re-using a bearing with a bent alignment tab.

The good news is I got hired on at a local Shop doing tires and a bit of mechanicing. They do alot of business with the county and many state agencies so it'll take a while to gain there full trust and be able to do mainly mechanicing. Hopefully I can get a chance to show them my true skills. If not I'll continue to do tires and clean-up and pray that I get a fair raise at some point (7.00 bucks an hour is boardering on slave labor in my opinion....But it buys parts and pays bills).

A little off topic but

The school I go to(College of Eastern Utah) was ranked in the top 20 schools in the nation in a recent issue of tomorrows technician. Its rather exciting not only because of the fact that its rank that high nationally but also the fact that we are Very small in compairison to some schools.

last we left

I was getting ready to assemble the engine....I think....

the good news is I got all the pistons put back on rods and Im ready to go back together.

The bad news is Im out of money, Budget cuts at the college took the last of my work-study with Most of the budget for the automotive program. We have to put in a request for one paper clip....its that bad....

Done with classes till January

Yup, Finished up finals last week and scored Very well on the NATEF tests for both engines and manual transmissions. 30 out of 40 on transmissions and 33 out of 40 on engines.
In Addition to that I Did some work for a guy on his toyota who was very very satisfied with how well it ran afterwards, At this rate I may be stuck here merely by reputation rather then detained by the fact I havent been sucessful in finding a mechanicing job as of yet. I could always go back to plumbing for my uncle, Doesnt make use of my degree of course but is a job I do fairly well.
But yes back to the mustang, I havent gotten the new set of pistons on the connecting rods, I havent even posted a photograph of on here. But it'll have to wait until I get there. I Just havent had the desire to get out of bed now that its starting to get cold outside. Those blankets sure do grab hard when is gets well into the 40's(thats just a guess of course but likely an accurate one). Stay tuned all, somthings gonna happens sometime, eventually.......