cap, rotor and wires, on my mother's stock '90 Mustang 5.0. I almost forgot how easy it is to work on those cars even with the smog equipment intact. We've come a long way though. In 1991, her car ran a best of 15.3 at like 89 mph bone stock (and that was quick), even with the air silencer still in. The days are gone where we spend a couple thousand $$, rip totally into the motor and click off low 12's.

Sorry, I know it is off topic, just reminiscing.

 

LOL yeah right, and i thought u meant on the L!!! I did my 6# pulley and IT22s this weekend. I've been working on cars since i was 4, mostly 60s vettes and old ford hot rods. the plugs on the L are a NIGHTMARE! and i took off the fan and lifted the shroud up to get to the pulley, and it still took a 3' long pipe on the 1/2" drive breaker bar, with me pulling my whole 210 lbs with my feet against the jackstand on the drivers side to finally break that sumbitch loose (26500 miles on the truck). i will post pics of the converter lock tool i made as well as my original motorcrafts, which were absolutely PERFECT!!! was getting about 14.5 mpg before the new pulley and chip.

 

I am used to changing the plugs on early 70's late 60's motors, mainly Pontiacs. On the average, this can be done in less than 15 minutes. Imagine my surprise when I went to change the plugs on the L and it took me nearly the better half of a saturday! Though since then I have gotten it down to 1 hr.

The first time I changed plugs, I was 15, it was on my '74 GTO. After I was done (I knew nothing about cars then) I decided that the plug wires were too messy and need to be re-organized So I disconnected them from the distributor and re-routed them. Learned my lesson quick on that one

 

LOL at brap! I made the mistake of showing my younger brother how to change oil in his Pinto(many years ago)--drained the old out, changed the filter, poured in the correct number of qts, and then noticed the oil runnung out onto the ground .

Dan

 

LMAO

 

Should have seen the problems I had when putting points in my first car..........."What do you mean, you have to set them?"

 

I worked at a full service Amoco station while working my way through college. Yes, this was back in the days when there were still the full service corner gas stations with service bays. One night, twin teenage brothers came in with a K-Mart bag with two quarts of oil inside. They asked if we could put it in for them.

Since we were presently swamped with full service customers, we told them to hang on for a couple of minutes. Well, I guess they couldn't wait. They had the hood raised and we noticed one of them leaning over the fender with a can of oil in his hand.

While still working the full service island, we noticed a trail of oil coming from underneath the brothers car. We went over to them and what we saw was the funniest thing I've ever seen.

They were trying to put the oil in the engine through the oil dipstick tube.

 

My youngest son bought my oldest son's 74 Javelin AMX this summer. Somehow, he burned up the points (I discovered).

"What the hell are points? Condenser? What's that? Timing light? What's a timing light?"

I had to laugh! A whole "culture" has died out, or something!

So, I showed him how to do all that stuff; could only set the dwell by "ear" as I didn't have a dwell meter and the points were not gap-able with a feeler guage. Kinda fun, however, to dust all that old stuff off and use it one more time.

A timing lilght must be worth ZERO $$$$ these days, but if you need one, they're priceless.

 

my dad bought his timing light in 1961 and we still use it today (it's a Snap-On btw )

 

I own two 69 Chev V-8s and two 56 Ford F-100 pickups. One of the 56's has an 80s vintage 300 cu in inline six I had built by Racing Head Services in TN and has Clifford headers and an Inglese triple Weber carb setup. Made about 300 hp at the crank when fresh. No power nothing.
If I set up everything in advance, I could change all six plugs in about 3 minutes flat which I had to do fairly often when driving on the street with the Webers.
I too still have all the good old neat tuning stuff that no-one uses any more.
As for my now re-cycled '99 Lightning (Hi Darin) and my present Blackwood, I don't think I would even like to attempt to change the plugs especially on the Wood.
Actually, checking the oil level is a bit of a challenge. How many of you remember when you could have used a dipstick for a sword or a pole vault pole. God, I hate these new spaghetti consistency dipsticks.
Bill