Unloading the car and starting a YouTube channel

I unloaded the car from the trailer this evening after work. I then pushed her into a parking spot on my street and tried starting her a few times with a battery I bought yesterday and a can of gas sitting in the engine bay feeding the engine, she started but never ran for long. I gave up on driving her up my driveway into my garage and got some help from my neighbor to push her up the driveway into the garage. 

Here is a link to my YouTube channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJnwI3ncLFPPiu5r-0PZV4g

Here is a direct link to the best video my wife took today of the car running. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6yVRTJ3pxmU&feature=share

Here are a few pictures I took today. 

Engine Bay with the can of gas sitting in her. 

Battery sitting on what's left of the battery tray. 

Lola sitting in the parking spot on my street. I have decided to call her Lola. 

In my garage. 

Registering a non-running 1968 Mustang

I took a half day off from work to deal with registering the car today. 

First I had to have a VIN inspection done by the Kansas Highway Patrol. To do the inspection they had to have the car off the trailer. I took all my blocks and tie downs off, pushed her back to the edge of the trailer, wiggled in through the barely opening door and push her back with my arm out the window and my foot on the brakes such as they are. She rolled half way down the trailer and bottomed out. Ouch, my poor car!

I climbed back out and unhitched the trailer after blocking a wheel on the trailer. The front of the trailer went up, the rear went down, and the car stared rolling away! Oops. Fortunately the hill was a small one and the car rolled up on a curb and stopped before it could hit anything. 

I pushed the car back away from the curb, put her in gear to keep her from rolling away, and the trooper came out to do the inspection right about then.

I had a bad moment when the driver's door didn't want to open for the trooper to look at that, but I think it had accidentally gotten locked when I climbed out.

The trooper verified the VIN on the title matched the one on the door and the frame inside the engine. 

The inspection cost me $20. 

Because the car isn't running they only let me do a non-highway registration.

After that I spent the next half hour or so slowly cranking the car back onto the trailer with a come-along and a couple of chains.

Compared to the inspection the DMV was easy. The lines were almost non-existent so I waited less than 5 minutes. 

The nice lady who helped me had only ever done one other non-highway title-only registration so she had to ask someone for a bit of help with that, but otherwise it was a smooth process.

When the car is running I can get a one day tag from the DMV, use that to drive up to the highway patrol station, get her inspected again, and then get her registered and get a license plate.

The title transfer cost $10 and the sales taxes were $98.

I did have to sign a statement saying I was not sure the mileage was accurate to have it listed as exempt on this title.

The odometer reads 78,596. That could be accurate, or the real mileage could be one or two hundred thousand more miles than that. Who knows with these old odometers that turn over at a hundred thousand miles. 

Here are a few more pictures just because. :-)

Door plate. I will decode this later. 

There's beauty in this old hardware. 

This is a good anology for the state of the car in general. Beautiful, but also in rather rough shape to say the least. 

Prices and a few pictures

I had to work today so didn't get to spend much time with the Mustang. 

Some money talk:

I paid $1300 for the car. She was advertised for $1400 on Craigslist, but when I got to Pittsburg KS, about a three hour drive from where I live in Wichita, KS in the truck hauling a trailer, the car was in worse shape than the pictures revealed. The guy started the car for me and she growled in a way that is pure beauty, but there is a LOT of rust on her. 

I was overwhelmed by the rust and was going to pass on this car but he offered to come down to $1200 and seemed like he really needed the cash and might have gone lower. I split the difference and offered him the $1300. He seemed happy with that and I am glad I bought the car.

I did a bit of rough googling for prices on things I know she needs for sure before she will be drivable and came up with at least $1300 more I will have to put into her as a starting point. That's before I even think about body work or upgrading to disk brakes or a performance DUI Ignition system. 

This is going to take a while both work and money wise.

Now a few after dark pictures. Hopefully I can take some better ones tomorrow.

Engine:

Front end with the Mustang emblem. 

I Bought a 1968 Mustang Today

Long day of driving to get her but I own a classic mustang now. 

On the trailer, ready to come home. 

Modifying wire frame slatwall shelves to work with slatwall inserts

I bought these wire frame slatwall shelves from Amazon a few weeks ago. 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00Q83L71E/ref=ya_aw_od_pi?ie=UTF8&psc=1

They seem to be high quality units and are well built. However, I had a problem when I tried to install them in my slatwall, they wouldn't go in all the way. 

The wire supports are too thick to fit into my aluminum slatwall inserts. 

I proved this by comparing the size of the wire against a spare piece of slatwall insert I had. 

I considered returning them but all the other options were either much more expensive, flimsier, or both, so I decided to make them work with my slatwall inserts. 

I put a cutting wheel on my grinder and cut down the supports to fit. 

I mounted the slatwall shelve in my vice. 

Cut it the supports. 

Changed the way it was mounted put a grinding disk in my grinder and ground it down some more. 

My kid took a photo of me grinding it down. 

It now fits in the wall. 

At that point other projects got in the way and this one was put on hold, but I finally got back to it today. 

I repeated the process on the rest on the shelves and they now fit. 

I then loaded up some tools on the shelves.

I love all the storage space this gives me.

Review: WEN 2290 Air Compressor Accessory Kit, 20-Piece

My old air compressor had an attached air hose, so when I sent it with my father in law to go live out at the cabin they bought in September I needed to finally get an air hose for the other one I had in my garage, an old Black Max 5 gallon compressor my brother picked up somewhere and gave to me when he got a better one.

Amazon Prime to the rescue. I ordered a WEN 2290 Air Compressor Accessory Kit, 20-Piece set for $15.44 because it was the cheapest set I saw on Amazon and I needed both a hose and an air chuck to air up tires. https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B000HE8BMS/ref=ya_st_dp_summary

The set comes in standard retail plastic packaging. 

This set came with a hose, parts for airing up tires, blowing parts, and a generous stack of spare parts. 

The hose is the cheapest lowest quality air hose I have ever felt. It feels like it's made of plastic instead of rubber like all the other air hoses I've ever held do. 

The tire airing parts include a double sided air chuck and a cheap feeling air gauge. 

The blowing parts included a generous assortment of different blower ends. 

The spare parts pile after everything else was put together seemed like an odd assortment to me.

The set also came with a roll of pipe tape and I had to assemble all the pieces. 

Once I had the set together I took it out to my air compressor to test it and found out the hose bib on my compressor was NOT the 1/4 inch size I had purchased. The 1/4 inch end on the hose didn't fit. 

Spare parts pile to the rescue. I swapped out one of the air hose bibs on my compressor for a spare bib from the spare parts pile using a male to male adapter from that same pile. Now my compressor works with my new air hose and tools and I also have the old bib for the other size air hose if I ever need it. 

Overall I feel like I more than got my money's worth out of this kit. The air hose may not take a beating or hold up for years, but then again it may, even if it only lasts six months though the rest of the parts seem solid and this will allow me to save money toward buying the mustang itself.

New Book and new tools

I ordered myself a mustang book as a gift to celebrate the birth of my youngest kid on Friday the 1st. (Other kids got Legos and mom got a new Mercy Thompson book.)

My book was Project Mustang by Larry Lyles. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1933958030/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1459796335&sr=8-1&pi=SY200_QL40&keywords=project+mustang&dpPl=1&dpID=51hYcuWeJVL&ref=plSrch

This book is great. I have read a lot of blogs on restoring old mustangs and they are both inspiring and informative, but even the best of them lack some of the "beginner" level information this book provides. 

On a different front yesterday I sent one of my air compressors with my father in law to live out at the cabin they bought last summer and are fixing up. The compressor I still have came from my brother for free but lacks an air hose so I needed to order one. I ordered a cheap off brand kit from Amazon using our prime shipping for $15.44. I figure even if it only lasts a few months it's only $15 and I can get a better hose later. https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B000HE8BMS/ref=ya_st_dp_summary

While I was placing that order I bought a cheap Porter-Cable angle grinder for $24.99 and a couple of grinder disks since I needed to be able to clean the surface rust off some of the practice metal my father in law bought me for Christmas to practice welding on.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B004X5NNGG/ref=ya_st_dp_summary