Journal: December 2000

	Choose Your Month Pick a Month June, 99 July, 99 August, 99 September, 99 October, 99 November, 99 December, 99 January, 00 February, 00 March, 00 April, 00 May, 00 June, 00 July, 00 August 00 September 00 October 00 November 00 December 00 January 01 February 01 March 01 April 01 May 01 June 01 July 01 August 01 December 01 February 02 May 02 August 02 January 03 Final Entry

  Sunday 12/17/2000, I've pretty much finished all the wiring that can be done before the dash is installed. This involved removing a bunch of extra junk from the wiring harasses. I didn't strip as much as I could have since I want to keep some of the niceties from the Mustang like the low fluid warning lights and dash light dimmers. The cool thing is that as near as I can tell everything that counts still works. I did loose the brake lights for a while until I figured out they were connected to the cruise control clutch switch that I removed. I found that for the most part you can get away with cutting any wires that aren't connected at both ends but you have to watch out for connectors that have more that one wire going to a pin.

I installed an adjustable thermostatic control for the cooling fan. Bought it from Autozone for about twenty bucks. It's pretty nice but it comes with a Mickey Mouse mutated zip tie to mount the sensor to the radiator. I'm trying a hose clamp on the aluminum upper radiator tube instead. It should provide a sturdier mounting point and it wont tear up the radiator fins.

I had been mulling over whether to use the Mustang gauge pod or come up with some other solution to connect the gauges to the wiring harness. I decided to follow the instructions and use the pod. It mounts backwards against the inside of the firewall. The wiring harness plugs into the pod and then extension wires run to the modified Mustang gauges in the dash board. The other option would have been to terminate the wiring harness in a terminal block and then run the extension cables to the block. This would require duplicating some circuitry on the pod and the in my opinion would not provide much of an improvement other than cleaning things up a bit behind the dash.

To give myself a break from wiring I replaced the crummy looking plastic radiator overflow tank that I was using. The mounting points on my Mustang tank were damaged but I was able to clean them up and drill some offset mounting holes so I could use it. I think the engine compartment looks a lot cleaner with the Mustang tank.

Next on the agenda is assembling the dash board. I'm looking forward to this for a couple of reasons :
1. I can do it inside so I don't have to freeze my butt off in the garage.
2. I think Factory Five's idea of reusing the Mustang gauges is a neat cost saving solution that looks pretty good.
After the dash is done I need to finish up riveting the trunk aluminum, make some modifications to the pedal box and then the body can go on for a trial fitting.

As a bit of a side note, I had a scare last week when my wife woke me up and said there was something banging out in the driveway. It turned out that we were having a hell of a windstorm with 80 MPH winds. The banging was the trunk lid of the Cobra opening and slamming in the wind. I got outside just in time to see the Cobra's hood lift off the body, slam into our van then go careening down the driveway. Luckily my neighbor Tom heard the banging and came over to help me roll the body into the garage. THANKS TOM!!! One of the front corners of the hood got crunched but it should be easily repaired with some fiberglass resin. I'm hoping the scrapes on the van can be fixed as easily. Another "live and learn" moment I guess. I've heard of people loosing their hoods when they are driving, but I never expected it to fly on it's own.

Here are some pictures of what I've been up to.