I've decided to chronicle my adventures of shoving a late 70's 351w from a truck into a 65 mustang for two main reasons:
A) so that anyone else attempting such inane tasks and looking for answers might stumble upon my ramblings via the magical portal of google
B) I refuse to succumb to the oppresive social networking regime, and therefore have no twitter, Facebook, or myspace accounts to direct my friends and family to when they want to when they ask me daily "how the car is coming"
It all started in June of last year when I took at new job, and was provided with a company truck to use for all business related commuting. At that point my 2006 BMW 335i was relegated to weekend driving, and not really even that, because we usually take my wife's SUV out when we go as a family. So in September when I had put 125 miles on my BMW over a 3 month span, I decided that instead of paying the note on the BMW every month, I should get a true weekend car.
The original plan was to restore a 1969 Ford Ranchero that I inherited from y great grandfather and had started working on when I was 13 (that was 15 years ago btw) but never quite finished. The truck originally came with a 351w, but had been swapped to a 351C at some point in the mid 80's. During my junior year in high school (1998 ish) I had managed to nab a free 351w out of a 79 F-150. So I called up Dad, and sure enough the motor (or the disassembled pieces of it anyway) were still out in his garage. It was while the motor was at the machine shop being boiled, bored, and decked that I really got the hankering for a mustang instead of fixing up the ole' ranchero.
Turns out old dad worked with a guy who had a 1965 coupe sitting in his garage that his dead-beat son started and never finished. The car had a brand new interior (carpet, seat covers, headliner, dash, all the metal painted), all the body work was done, the car was painted from the windshield back, and they had even done most of the i6 to v8 swap work including a 77 granada rear end/brakes spindles etc. For a cool 3K I had a mustang that just needed a motor and transmission installed. The guy even threw in a complete 1965 289 and a 1983 302, both completely frozen up and needing rebuilds.
Since I had already dropped a grand into the 351w, I decided to stick with that for now, with plans to rebuild the period correct 289 later down the road and move the 351w into the Ranchero where it belongs. Dad even agreed to throw in a 4 speed top-loader that came out of his 1969 Mach 1 (that he totaled in 1974 but still had pieces of stuck back in the garage)
I'll post some pics of the car before I got started with it in the next post, then get started on the actual good stuff that will be interesting to people attempt to do something similar.
A) so that anyone else attempting such inane tasks and looking for answers might stumble upon my ramblings via the magical portal of google
B) I refuse to succumb to the oppresive social networking regime, and therefore have no twitter, Facebook, or myspace accounts to direct my friends and family to when they want to when they ask me daily "how the car is coming"
It all started in June of last year when I took at new job, and was provided with a company truck to use for all business related commuting. At that point my 2006 BMW 335i was relegated to weekend driving, and not really even that, because we usually take my wife's SUV out when we go as a family. So in September when I had put 125 miles on my BMW over a 3 month span, I decided that instead of paying the note on the BMW every month, I should get a true weekend car.
The original plan was to restore a 1969 Ford Ranchero that I inherited from y great grandfather and had started working on when I was 13 (that was 15 years ago btw) but never quite finished. The truck originally came with a 351w, but had been swapped to a 351C at some point in the mid 80's. During my junior year in high school (1998 ish) I had managed to nab a free 351w out of a 79 F-150. So I called up Dad, and sure enough the motor (or the disassembled pieces of it anyway) were still out in his garage. It was while the motor was at the machine shop being boiled, bored, and decked that I really got the hankering for a mustang instead of fixing up the ole' ranchero.
Turns out old dad worked with a guy who had a 1965 coupe sitting in his garage that his dead-beat son started and never finished. The car had a brand new interior (carpet, seat covers, headliner, dash, all the metal painted), all the body work was done, the car was painted from the windshield back, and they had even done most of the i6 to v8 swap work including a 77 granada rear end/brakes spindles etc. For a cool 3K I had a mustang that just needed a motor and transmission installed. The guy even threw in a complete 1965 289 and a 1983 302, both completely frozen up and needing rebuilds.
Since I had already dropped a grand into the 351w, I decided to stick with that for now, with plans to rebuild the period correct 289 later down the road and move the 351w into the Ranchero where it belongs. Dad even agreed to throw in a 4 speed top-loader that came out of his 1969 Mach 1 (that he totaled in 1974 but still had pieces of stuck back in the garage)
I'll post some pics of the car before I got started with it in the next post, then get started on the actual good stuff that will be interesting to people attempt to do something similar.