Teardown Begins

I've spent a few evenings in the garage disassembling the Mustang. I started from the front and removed the fenders first. To do that, I also removed the grille and lights. After getting them off, I decided to buy new buckets for the headlights as they were pretty badly rusted. Someone had tried to fix them with fiberglass but that just would not do. Luckily Trade Parts had them in storage so it should not take long to get them.

Before fitting in the new fenders, I think I'll try to clean and paint the inner wheel wells. That might need a power washer or stream cleaner. We'll see. After removing most parts from the front, I also disassembled some parts from the rear.

After getting the damaged rear valance off, I also test fitted the new one on. It will need some tweaking but should be usable. I have a lot more parts to get off the car but at least this is a start.

Pony Moves Into a New Stable

It's been a while since I worked with my Mustang. I realised that there was no way I could prepare my car for the full repaint in my garage so I set out to search for a new one. The one I rented last winter was already gone so it was not an option. After placing a wanted add to Mustang Forum I found another one a few kilometers away from my home. I checked it out and decided to take it. Not that I had much choice in the matter as heated garages are pretty rare in the rental market...

As the Mustang was not registered at the moment, I got a pair of temporary plates and drove to the new garage. Luckily there is no snow on the ground yet. There had been some a few days ago but it melt away. The drive was uneventful and now I had plenty of room to work in. There were a few other cars in the garage too but the building was large enough for even more. I think first order of business is to tear the car down and possibly try and remove the old paint...

Home Again

I visited my friend again to finish up the rust repairs and to get the car back home. I acquired temporary plates for a day as the inspections time had already passed. We visited the garage and cleaned the welds and applied some more paint to the bottom of the car. As the interior had no paint at all, we just sprayed some etching primer in there. I would apply some Temadur over the primer back at home.

The following evening I set off and drove the 150 km from Tampere to Järvenpää. Some of the trip was done in the dark and the new headlights were excellent! Adding relays for them made a huge difference! Everything else also worked like a charm so hopefully I would not have problems in the inspection. Before it, I would have to install at least some of the interior back in the car.

A few days later I got around to also paint the driver footwell and after letting it dry, I bolted both seats in the car and threw in the rear seat too. This way the car at least seemed a bit more roadworthy...

I reserved an inspection time and drove the car there. Unfortunately everything was not fine with the Mustang. The main found problem was the rear brakes. There was a 42% difference between the driver and passenger side brake force! This is extremely strange because my friend had tested the brakes back at Tampere a few days earlier. Everything had been fine then and now, a short trip later, driver side brake was much weaker.

There were other smaller problems too: horn did not work, windshield wipers were perished and the front wheel bearing were a bit loose. Hopefully the bearings can just be tightened and the others should not be too difficult to fix either. Disappointed I drove back home and started planning for fixing the problems.

Rust Repair Continues

I drove to Tampere on sunday and had a full day of working with my friend there. The Mustang still needed a few minor holes fixed and the driver floor replaced. The wheel arch had been welded so I decided to try leading it smoother while my friend concentrated on the welding.

After the small holes had been fixed, he ripped the old floor out and sand blasted the frame under it. Luckily it was in much better condition than the passenger side. Some minor pitting was visible but nothing needing immediate attention. After painting the frame he cut the new panel to fit correctly and welded it in.

In the wheel arch side the welds had already been cleaned.

I started by cleaning everything with acetone and applied some flux paste with a brush. Then I heated it with a heat gun until it turned bright. I moved from side to side trying to prevent the panel from getting too hot.

With the flux on, it was time to clean everything again and then start leading. Again I added a small section at the time until the whole weld was done.

With the lead on, I grinded it smooth.

Unfortunately when everything was done, my friend noticed that the sheetmetal had warped a bit above the top of the arch. I had to apply so much heat to the metal that it had formed a small dent. Hopefully it can be forced out from the trunk later.

The weld area is still not completely smooth and will need some filler to completely hide the fix. At least it won't need the half a centimeter it had previously...

And speaking of filler, we dug out some of the cracks from the front fenders. It was not pretty.

Again a huge amount of filler that had been poorly applied. A lot of it was completely detached from the metal below. The old paint had been incorrectly prepared so the filled was peeling loose. The driver side fender also had some poor old repairs and rust holes so it seems pretty certain that I have to replace them both. And the old owned had known this too as a new passenger side fender came with the car and I also managed to find the driver side close by so both are waiting in my garage.

We still need to paint the new floor and do some minor things before I can drive the car back home. Hopefully already after next weekend.

The amount of poor fixes and filler everywhere unfortunately seems to indicate that a simple overspray paint job wont do. Most likely I have to have the whole car media blasted to bare metal and work from there...

Front Seat Upholstery Installation

Before taking the car to Tampere I stripped the interior almost completely. The Mustang pretty much contained only the driver seat. This meant I could try changing the upholstery on the passenger seat. It had clearly been changed at some point, most likely in the 90s during the last restoration, but the color had faded badly. CJ Pony Parts had a nice video of the operation in YouTube so I followed its instructions.

There were no tears or holes in my seats, but they just looked ugly with the discolouring. I considered buying some vinyl dye but after asking around, I found out that it would have cost almost as much as the new covers and most likely getting the right color would have been difficult. So, I ended up ordering new front seat upholstery.

After disassembling the seat, I decided to begin with the back rest. I removed the back cover and cut the dozens of hog rings that held the vinyl on the frame. I was careful not to damage the old upholstery if I happened to need it later. I also found a Distinctive Industries tag in it so as I had suspected, they had been replaced earlier.

I was glad to find that the foam and seat frame were in really good condition. All I had to do was install the new cover.

I also reused the old listing wire. I pulled it out of the channel in the old cover and pushed it in the new. Then I followed the install order mentioned in the video. I hog ringed the top of the listing wire to the frame and then pulled the cover over the foam.

Then I added more (many, many more) hog rings to the listing wire and the back of the frame. Finally I removed the metal pins from the old seat back and installed the new on.

Couple of small wrinkles were left to the top right corner of the seat back that I could not get out. Let's see how those settle after some use but I wasn't too disappointed for my first try at upholstery project. It kind of felt that the new covers were a bit larger that the old. Most likely the foam has compressed a bit during use. Perhaps adding a thin layer of new foam would help?

Then I had to do the same thing with the seat bottom.

I unbolted the tracks and cut out the old hog rings. After carefully removing the cover I was rewarded with a really good condition foam again. I followed the same routine as before and installed the new upholstery.

Then all that remained was assembling the seat.

All in all, installing the new upholstery was not that difficult and it made a huge difference with the look of the seat. Now I just have to do the same thing for the driver seat when I get the car back.

New Tires

I got fed up with the non-matching tires on my car and decided to do something about it. I found a good article about early Mustang tire sizes from Mustang Monthly magazine and read through it. I wanted something classical looking but, as I actually wanted to drive my car, they had to be radial tires.

I could not find many options available in Finland so in the end I decided to buy a set of 205/75-14 sized Nankang N-605 TourSport white walls from Dukopart OY in Lahti. They are Taiwanese tires and at least according to some friends that have them and what I read from online forums should be pretty good. They weren't insanely expensive either as most special tires are so I was convinced.

I have not installed them yet as the car is in Tampere but I'll do that when I get the car back.

Rear Wheel Arch Repair 1

While I was rebuilding the brake caliper, my friend started working with the passenger side rear wheel arch. The lip was pretty badly corroded so it had to be replaced.

There was a lot of body filler spread all over the quarter panel. Some smaller patch panel had been welded at the rear corner of the arch and the repair had been hidden with the filler. It'll be interesting to see how much of the stuff is on the car when the time comes to paint it.

After getting all the body filler off from the area of the repair, my friend cut the patch panel and marked its size to the car.

The quarter panel hole was cut a bit smaller than the patch panel. My friend stamped the flange of the patch so it would slide under the original steel. The inner wheel arch also needed a small patch to its lip. Luckily nothing more major problems were found. Annoyingly my patch panel did not reach all the way down at the rear of the arch. There was a little corrosion there too so it might need another patch.

The new panel was quite close to the original and didn't seem to need a lot of tweaking to make if fit with the inner arch and the shape of the car. Hopefully the quarter panel would not warp when welding the patch.

Brake Caliper Rebuild

It was time to continue the rust fixing so I drove the Mustang back to Tampere. I joined my friend in the garage for an evening and while he began working with the rear wheel arch, I decided to rebuild the driver side brake caliper. The passenger side caliper had been dragging so I rebuilt it during winter. After that the driver side started dragging. I should have done both at the same time...

When rebuilding the passenger side, I learned that pulling the pistons out could be pretty difficult. This time I used the brake pedal to push them out before removing the caliper. I pulled the brake pads and applied some pressure while my friend made sure all pistons came out evenly. Next I could remove the caliper and sand blast it clean. Then it was finally time to disassemble it.

Unfortunately the cross over line snapped in half while I was taking it out. It had corroded pretty badly and the end fitting would not even turn any more. At this point I was extremely happy that I had bought new lines a few weeks ago. A disaster avoided!

I removed the old seals and cleaned everything as well as I could and it was time to put the caliper back together.

I had new Raybestos seals and four new pistons. After pushing the seals in their grooves, I lubricated the pistons and pushed them in. The new cross over line needed some bending but otherwise assembly went smoothly. I bolted the caliper back to the car and then applied some silver paint on it.

I had also bought new braided brake hoses but couldn't start using them yet. It seemed that the brake line fitting on the car was also pretty corroded and would most likely also break the line if I tried turning it. I'll have to replace the lines later before installing the new hoses.

Adding Relays For Headlights

I did a final checkup for the engine by removing all plugs and peeking under the valve covers. Everything seemed OK except that plugs for cylinders 3, 4, 5 and 6 were a bit greyer than the rest. Weird because they are exactly at the opposite corners of the engine. I need to get the carb tuned by a professional.

With the engine side handled, I decided to do some electrical work. Some previous owner has replaced the original sealed beam light bulbs with later H4 type headlight. This meant a lot brighter lights but with a much higher current requirement. Unfortunately the original wiring and switches were not made to handle that current and it was only a matter of time before something would burn out.

I went through the same problems with my Corvette and solved the issue by redesigning and building a new harness. I didn't want to do that this time as the original harness was in pretty good condition and I wanted to retain the original look. Or at least be able to return everything to original easily. Then I found this article which covered Reenmachines conversion harness. The idea in it was really simple. The new harness took the relay activation signals from the original headlight connectors and added new, larger wires from the relays to the headlights. Zero modifications for the original harness was needed so I wanted one.

Only problem with the kit was the price: 225 dollars for a few wires! Luckily the harness was so simple that building one would not be a big task. First I drew a diagram of it.

The light red and light green wires control the relays and are pushed in the original passenger side headlight connector. I used 18 gauge wires as not a lot of current go through them. The main wires are 14 gauge and there is a 20 A fuse in the main power feed. I decided to hide the relays under the battery tray and measured the wire lengths accordingly. So after a trip to the car parts store and a few hours of building, this is what I got.

I used some nylon wrap to protect the wires and to make them seem a bit cleaner. The lone black wire that comes out of the harness at the junction is screwed to the original headlight ground bolt on the radiator support. It is missing the connector as I had to cut the wire to correct length in the car.

I decided to use a glass fuse as its box was the simplest and every other fuse in the car are of that type. The yellow wire is still missing the connector in the picture as I needed to measure its correct length.

This picture shows the passenger side harness. Unfortunately I could not find a male H4 connector so I had to use individual terminals. The new headlight ground wire just makes a short loop inside the wrapping and connects directly to the old harness.

I also noticed that the H4 terminals are a bit wider that the normal 6,3mm versions. I could not find those either so I had to solder the already wired terminals from the connector to my own wires. Annoying as this meant that the wire colors change. Why couldn't they just include the separate terminals that I could crimp to my wires?

On the driver side I just had the H4 connector and one terminal to the ground of the original wiring harness.

Installation

I began the installation by removing the headlight housings. Then I turned the lights on and measured the voltage in the original connectors. The car was not running but I saw an 1,5 volt drop compared to the battery. That causes a huge difference in brightness and the difference would probably be even more with the engine running.

Next I had to remove the battery so I could install the harness. The relays were placed out of sight under the battery tray and from there the wires come up to the top of the radiator support and split towards the headlights. After connecting everything up I measured the voltage again. This time the difference was under 0,1 volts. Excellent result!

While at it I also replaced the bulbs with better ones and screwed the housings back. I turned the lights on and the difference was huge! I was really happy as building my own harness had cost only about 30€ in parts.

Original wiring

New harness with relays

Temadur For The Floors

The new floor panels only had a thin layer of rust prevention paint and had to be given some better protection before longer drives or rain. My friend recommended that I use Tikkurila Temadur. He had painted the floors on his Mustang with it and it had proven really durable. It was pretty expensive but I bought a small can of it and its hardener.

After mixing the two components in 1:5 ratio, I brushed the paint on. The smell is pretty bad so using some breathing protection is a must. I was rewarded with a really nice and hard looking surface.

For now I just painted the passenger side but I think I'll paint the whole floor after the driver footwell has been replaced. I must also spray some undercoating to the bottom of the car later.

Oil Change And Fan Shroud

It's been really hot in Finland for the past weeks and luckily I've been on holiday. Unfortunately the Mustang didn't seem to like it as much as me. I took a few short trips around town and noticed that the engine temperature was higher than normal. It seemed that the fan and radiator could not keep up with the engine in stop and go traffic in 30 degrees celsius (85 F) temperatures.

I ordered a fan shroud and bracket set to help with the cooling problem. When they arrived I noticed a small problem though. I had assumed that my radiator had three rows but later realised it had only two! This meant the brackets were too long and I had to order a second set. Luckily it was only about 15 dollar mistake.

While waiting for the brackets I decided to replace the oil and filter. I drained the old oil into a bowl and could not see anything wrong with it. There were no visible metal shavings or any other particles in it. It seemed that the engine rebuild and break in succeeded! I'll also check the plugs and valve train later.

After getting the correct brackets for the shroud, it was simple bolting it in. I also decided to replace my fan with the one I got with the crappy engine. Its blades were much larger so hopefully it would draw more air through the radiator.

I took another test drive with the new setup and the engine still runs a bit warmer but the shroud did help somewhat. At least I shouldn't have to worry about boiling the engine anymore.

Intermission

My Mustang returned home, temporarily. I visited my friend and he was going on a trip for a week so I decided to take the car back home. The engine now had about 1000 km on it after the rebuild so it was time to change the oil again and I could stop babying it around. He said that the engine had been working fine while he had the car so hopefully I would not find any nasty surprises.

The worst of the rust problems on the car had been fixed. My friend started by cutting out the passenger front floor. It was full of holes and needed to be replaced. Drilling out the spot welds had been a really annoying task but had to be done.

The frame below the floor had been sand blasted and painted with a light coat of paint. I’ll spray some more later. The new floor panel was not exactly the same as the old but with some hammering had fit in. My friend welded it in from the below and again sprayed a light coat of rust prevention pain on. I’ll spread more later again.

There was also some pretty bad rust holes in the passenger side frame below the floor so the corroded part was cut out and new metal welded in.

Still left are the driver side floor and the right rear wheel arch. I'll work with the car myself for a while and then take it back for the welding to be finished.

Bye Bye Mustang

The Mustang is gone. Gone to Tampere for rust repairs that is! I'm pretty confident that the engine works now so it was time to plan for the future. To have any hope of passing inspection this year, I would need to have the floors, rear wheel arch and a piece of the frame repaired. As I can't weld and do not have a place to do it, I talked my friend in to helping me, for a fair price.

At least I have some time to renovate my garage now while it's empty. It is full of crap that I brought in from the rented garage and I'll have to organize it. While at it, I should also upgrade the lighting so I don't have use a portable light for everything. Let's see what I get done before the Mustang returns.

Test Drive

I had some final preparations to do before driving the car. Like installing the export brace and shock retainers. Then I checked that all fluid levels were correct and measured the ignition timing. That proved somewhat difficult.

At first I could not get the engine to idle at all. It started and would stay running at high RPM but if I let the speed drop, the engine died. I tried turning the distributor but soon ran out of room to go further. I had to pull it out and rotate the rotor a few teeth. Finally after many tries I got the engine to idle at about 1300 RPM and could jump out to try and find the correct timing.

I had removed the vacuum signal from the carburetor and checked the timing with my adjustable timing light. It showed about 25 degrees! I needed to turn the distributor a lot more and jumped a few more teeth to get the initial timing to about 10 degrees. Then I could start dropping the idle speed and finally got the timing to 8 degrees at 600 RPM.

I connected all the hoses back to the engine and dropped the air cleaner on the carb. The Mustang was a complete car again.

My first drive was only about 10 km to home and back. It did not reveal any problems. Engine temperature and oil pressure were normal and there were no weird noises. Except the driver side exhaust manifold which was blowing. The exhaust pipe lower bolt is so close to the block and the clutch equalizer bar that it is really difficult to turn. I'll have to find a way to torque it later.

I've been gradually lengthening my drives with the Mustang and last weekend I drove about 350 km with it. In total I've racked about 500 km with the new engine and it has been working flawlessly. As this is still part of the break in I've kept the engine speed below 3000 RPM. After driving another 500 km I'll replace the oil and see what the engine can really do.

My test drives so far have been concentrated on larger roads and I've been avoiding stop and go traffic. After a long drive, I've noticed the temperature rising slightly when stopping. I think I'll add a fan shroud to help cure that.

The T-5 transmission has also been an excellent addition. The shifter works well and the overdrive drops engine speeds really low. At 80 km/h (50 mph) the engine turns 1300 RPM and at 120 km/h (75 mph) only 2000 RPM. The new clutch and machined flywheel also work nicely. No more jumping and slipping when moving from standstill.

All in all, my plan to build an engine with good low-end torque and attach it with an overdrive transmission seems to be a success. The Mustang is fun and easy to drive in all situations and has been trouble free thus far. It is pretty noisy though as most of the interior is missing. I'll have to replace the floors and then address that issue...

Shortening The Driveshaft

The engine was now ready for a test drive but the rest of the car not quite. As I swapped in a T-5 transmission, I was not sure if the driveshaft would fit. I had bought a new yoke for the T-5 so I pushed it in. The original yoke could not be used as it was too long.

To measure the correct length for the driveshaft, I pushed the yoke all the way in and then back out about an inch. This gave it enough room to move without bottoming in the transmission. Then it was time to drop the car on the ground and dig out the tape measure. I crawled under the car and got a measurement of 127 cm (50 inches). Originally the driveshaft was 129 cm (50.8 inches) long so I would have to take 2 cm (0.8 inches) out of it. Not much but I was expecting that from what I had read from net discussions.

The machine shops I had used previously did not have the equipment to balance a driveshaft so I searched for a new one. I managed to find Komet OY in Helsinki and after a call their prices seemed reasonable and they promised the parts back in a week so I delivered everything to them. Another problem with the transmission swap was finding out the correct U-joints. Original joint could be used in the rear but the front one was a mystery.

I bought one joint based on net discussions but after comparing it to the driveshaft, I noticed that it was not even close. To get a correct one I took the shaft and yoke to the store to be measured. We defined that I needed Precision model 505 joint that they luckily had in store. With that, the driveshaft could be assembled. It spent a week in Komet and after getting it back I cleaned it and sprayed some paint on it.

Installing the driveshaft was simple. I pushed the yoke in the transmission and then attached the two u-bolts in the rear. This was a good time to finish some loose ends around the transmission too. First I swapped the gear at the end of the speedo cable and pushed it in the transmission. The cable hole was on the driver side of the T-5 but had been on the passenger side in the old T-10. Luckily the cable was long enough to reach around the transmission.

Then I used a pump to fill the transmission with Dextron 3 fluid and it was almost ready to drive. Final detail was the shifter. I wanted to retain the original look in the cabin so I bought an original appearing shift handle and knob with a 5 speed pattern. With them bolted in, the car was finally ready for a test drive!

Engine Break In

After a long project it was finally time for the most exiting part: first start and break in. I asked a friend to join me so I could work with the throttle and he could check the timing and make sure everything seemed OK in the engine bay.

We began with the fluids. We filled the cooling system with water and poured some oil in the engine. I'll replace the water with real coolant after seeing that the engine works. Using just water is not an option in Finland and it would corrode all the parts in the engine in a couple of years anyway. We also used some Comp Cams break in oil additive to add some ZZDP. I don't trust todays oils with flat tappet camshafts so I'll be using it after every oil change.

To see that the oiling system worked we decided to pre-oil the engine before starting it. We had a power drill and made a long extension by attaching a few shorter ones together. We taped them together so none of them would drop in the engine. Then we needed a long 1/4 inch socket that would fit over the oil pump shaft.

With the contraption ready, we dropped it in the distributor hole and used the drill to turn the oil pump. But it didn't work. We tried turning it both ways but got nothing. Some nervous moments later my friend realised that I had not filled the oil filter with oil! Without it, the pump was running dry and could not start pulling oil from the pan. After quickly filling the filter, the pump started working normally. I rotated the engine by hand while my friend ran the drill so oil would get everywhere. After only a few seconds oil was flowing out of every pushrod. Phew.

It was time to fire up the engine for the first time. I stepped in the car and turned on the ignition. After some basic checks like turning on the lights so see that we had at least some electricity I turned the engine over. There was no gas in the carb so we didn't expect an immediate startup but after only a few seconds my battery started acting up. I had charged it for six hours before installing it to the car but it ran out of juice almost immediately. Damn.

Luckily I had another battery that we could use. It worked fine even thought it had been unused for the whole winter. The engine did not fire immediately but soon started banging through the exhaust. My friend fiddled with the distributor and then the engine started!

I immediately took the engine to 2000 RPM and kept it there. I made sure oil pressure rose to normal while my friend checked the timing advance. It was about 20 degrees which worked for break in purposes but I would have to measure it at idle later.

What I read from break in instructions, you should keep the engine RPM between 2000 and 2500 for 25 to 30 minutes. Unfortunately after about 7 minutes the engine temperature started to rise too high and I had to turn it off. It was getting late so I decided to let the car cool until next evening.

Before continuing the break in I did some investigation. I pulled the valve covers to make sure all rockers got oil and removed the plugs. They were a bit grey which could mean the engine was running lean. I opened the idle screws a bit and decided to continue as nothing was obviously wrong.

The engine started fine and I took the RPM to 2000. But again after 6 or 7 minutes the temperature rose too high and I had to kill the engine. I assumed that the fan and radiator just was not powerful enough to keep the engine cool without wind. I decided to continue the next day again but this time I added an electrical fan to push air through the radiator.

The fan helped a bit but still the engine ran hot. I started to get a bit worried but did the break in routine in four steps anyway. After them the engine had ran a bit under 30 minutes so it was time to investigate it. I checked the plugs again and they were the same as before. Under the valve covers everything seemed fine too. One of the valves had started ticking during the last break in run so I would have to adjust the valves again. Then it was time to drain the oil and see how it looked.

I let the oil out while still hot and luckily didn't see abnormal amounts of metal in it. I also removed the filter and drained the oil from it. It had a bit more metal flakes but I hoped everything was still OK.

It seemed that the break in succeeded but I would not know for sure before driving 500 to 1000 km. And before that I would need to get my driveshaft shortened. While I was putting the engine back together I had an epiphany. I had forgot to install the PCV valve hose previously! This meant that there was a huge vacuum leak below the carb. That could be the explanation why the engine was running lean and hot. I'd see that on my test drive.

Engine Assembly: Final Details

With the exhaust manifolds installed, all the major parts were attached to the engine. I still had a million small details left though. I started with the fuel pump. To make sure it would not leak, I spread some Hylomar on both sides of the gasket before installing it.

The original fuel pipe from the pump to the carb was in good condition so I just cleaned and used it. Then came the oil pressure sender, carburetor, fuel filter, radiator, hoses, throttle linkage, wiring and spark plugs. I bough new NGK APR6FS plugs which should have the correct heat range for my engine. I also made sure that the plug gaps were all 0,75 mm (0.03 inches).

I had bought a Pertronix Ignitor 1 module and a new coil but decided against installing them yet. I would use the original coil and points in the distributor for the engine break in. I knew they worked so I thought it would be safer that way. I turned the number one piston TDC and dropped the distributor in.

I also decided to install the clutch equalizer bar so I could disconnect the transmission from the engine during break in. It was really dirty so I cleaned and painted it. Its bushings were also really worn so I got a new mounting kit.

Final pieces were the battery and valve covers. Connecting the battery revealed a major malfunction in my new starter relay. Right when the negative lead touched the terminal sparks started flying and the engine turned over. I tested the relay and it was short circuited all the time. Luckily my original relay still worked so I installed it back. Now all that I had to do was pour in the fluids and the engine was ready for its first start!

Exhaust Manifolds

To keep a stock look in the engine bay, I decided to use the original exhaust manifolds. They were restrictive as hell but would suffice for now. At least I had an easy part to upgrade later. Unfortunately the manifolds were really rusty and ugly.

To clean the rust I decided to dip them in acid. But not the strong stuff, just citric acid. I bough some in crystallised form and mixed it with water in about 100g of acid per litre of water. Then I left the manifolds to soak for 24 hours. Almost all of the rust had disappeared and the rest I wire brushed off.

To really make them shine I also decided to paint them. I bough some Tikkurila Termal paint and brushed it on. It was almost like water and small droplets flied everywhere. If using it, protect all surfaces carefully. The results were pretty nice at least.

The paint would only cure completely when heated to about 200 degrees celsius (390 fahrenheit) but running the engine should take care of that. The old bolts were also pretty rusty so I bought new ones. Attaching the manifolds to the engine was pretty simple but I had to shorten one bolt. The shock tower was so close to the passenger side manifold that the long bolt just would not fit.

As I had suspected the transmission support caused problems when attaching the exhaust pipe to the manifold. The pipe contacted the support and would not align with the manifold. In the end I had to create a dent to the pipe to attach them together. I'll probably have to replace the front section of the pipe later so they wont rub against each other.