Project Lil Monster Mustang: mustang

Rollin to The Ranch

After waiting for months to cash in on my birthday present from my wife, the time had finally come. She gave me 3.73's and a posi for the Mustang for my birthday in March and this weekend, Fathers Day weekend of all weekends, was when it would finally come together. My Dad had sourced the parts and we were ready to roll. I picked up a new pair of struts to put on since the current ones were SHOT and snagged a stereo wiring harness to rewire the inside for some tunes.

I rolled out of town around 3 with the top down and clouds in the sky. It was a great drive aside from the bouncy front from the shot struts.

Got to The Ranch late Friday and overslept. Then up and at it at 9:00 in the shop to begin. Started with the struts. Eezy Breezy and done in 'bout 45 mins.

Up in the air and ready to get to work.

Out with the old. The nasty, shitty old...

In with the new.

Onto the real work. Movin to the back of the car. Need to get the brakes off and axles out to free up the current 2.63's and get those shitty gears OUT.

Wheels off and lots to do

Moving right along. Gonna be a great day!

Ring and pinion out. Ready to put the posi in and slap on the new aluminum cover

After a couple hours work, we hit our first tough bolts of the day. Driveshaft is a little stuck but thats nothing a little heat can't fix.

Dads gonna light this torch and then go play a game of old timey basketball

FIRE!

Little bit of heat...ok, a TON of heat and a wrench and a hammer and the bolts are out the drive shaft is free! So new pinion goes in and the bearings and seal go on. Or do they? They dont fit.
Too small or wrong spline? Whats the deal here? Not sure right away, but it isn't matching up.
We grabbed the bearing and seal from another complete rear I purchased a while back thats been chillin at The Ranch for about 7-8 months. IT FITS!!!!! And we're back in business.
Or are we? We're not. The ring gear and posi dont seem to fit.
What the fuck is the deal here. Things are starting to get funky. Ultra funky.
I know! We'll check the tag from the stock gear cover.

This is the tag. This is bad. REALLY FUCKIN BAD. My 1995 Mustang GT came with an 8.8 rear end and 2.73 gears from the factory. Thats all fine and dandy except this tage shows a 2.73 gear ratio and 7.5 rear end. Some ass wagon thought it would be a great idea to pull the stock 8.8 out and put a 7.5 in. Why? No one will ever know. But what I do know is that my new 8.8 gears will NOT be fitting in this 7.5 housing. FUCK ME!

So, what to do, what to do? Well, ive got that complete 8.8 sitting there. It came with some nice Global West tubular lower control arms, C-Clip eliminators on 31 spline moser axles and a 3.73 gear with a BEEFY locker in it. Guess its that or put the old shit back in.

Yowza. This is torn much further down than I had planned on. No turning back now.

Its a mach! All the mounts are the same so here we go. LETS DO THIS SHIT!

My sister brought her boys Dan and Sam (ages 5 & 6) to stay the night at The Ranch. Dad had to go entertain them for a bit since his wife wasn't home from work yet and due to the recent turn of events on the car, we were far from done. Had the car had the right damn rear end in it, we'd be done with the gears and I'd be working on the stereo wiring. So out he went and in with the new lower control arms I went.

Gotta loved that stamped tin from '95. These greasable lowers will work much better. Oh, and by the way, if you're thinking about changing out your lower control arms on your SN95 Mustang without a hoist. DONT DO IT. ITs a BITCH. The nuts and bolts sit inside the frame rails and the inside where the bolt is you need to over top the mufflers to get at them. It wasn't so bad with the hoist, but I can't imagine trying to tackle this job on the ground.

8.8 housing is in and we're pushing forward.

Locker is in and being capped in place

Rad TA Aluminum cover ON. Overkill Much? Yep!

So, it turns out that I put the damn lower control arms on the wrong side. Unlike the shitty stockers, these tubulars need to go on the proper side in order for the sway bar (anti-sway...we wouldn't want you to think that the sway bar actually causes the car to sway. Whatever, its a fuckin sway bar!) to mount up properly. As previously mentioned, these are a bitch to put on, so we decided to remove a bit of material from the gussets on the lower control arms to allow the sway bar to mount up. Dad grabbed a grinder. I laughed and grabbed the plasma cutter...

Plasma cutters are the best. They cut metal. Very easily. And make a shit ton of sparks. So pretty much the perfect tool!

We're about done with pictures now as things are about to go to shit. We just about had the control arms good to go for the sway bar when Dad comes up with a side plan. "Lets quit dickin with these arms and button up one side so we know for certain these axles and all are gonna work". Sure, we'd been fucking with cutting little by little out for the last 40 mins, so im down to switch it up.

Passenger side axle in, C-Clip eliminator bracket spacer thingy bolted on, knuckle and wheel studs on, dust shield on, slide the rotor on, caliper...NOT ON. It wont go. IT WONT FUCKING GO ON?!?!?!

Stop.

Whats happening here?

This housing came from a Fox Body stang and had drum brakes on it. Son of a bitch. This might not work. We're at the end here. Only thing after the caliper is the wheel. This can't be.

I think. I ask "can't we just get a different rotor in the morning?" The depth of the rotor hat was not leaving enough room between the inside rotor face and the mounting surface for the caliper. Technically, yes, one could buy a different rotor that should work. But what rotor? Who knows. Im sure someone knows, but without guessing and buying 10 different rotors theres no way to know how this could be made right.

So, at about 8:30 it was time to stop. My nephews had been nagging for Pops and YaYa had to go to bed. So out to the camper to try and find some clarity in this shit ball of a situation while the boys ran around and got ready for camper sleepin.

Oddly stitched up "photosphere" pic i took with my phone. Searching for answers. Not finding any...

Wasn't much talking about the car while on break. Couldn't ignore it cause I needed to get back to my family tomorrow (fathers day) to see my wife and kiddos and that Mustang had to get me there. We hung out till about 10 and the only words spoke of the car were from my Dad "we're gonna have to put it all back the way it was, its the only way you're gettin home"

I knew this already, but hearing it sucked nuts.

Now its dark, a bit stormy out and windy, so im solo in the shop as Dads gotta hang with the boys till they're asleep. Off i went, loosening all the nuts I've worked on since 10am. Some ive done more than once. I can't believe this is happening.

There it is at about 11pm. Back out of the car. Anyone need a nice 8.8 with 3.73's and a locker for a fox with drum brakes?

Worked till about 1:00 am and got most of the stocker back in. Thank God we didn't trash anything taking it out, cause why wouldn't we? A 7.5 rear end with 2.73's is only worth its weight in scrap. But it was fine and almost back in. Would just have to tighten some bolts and install the brakes in the morning.

Up around 7. Off to breakfast and back in the shop a bit before 9. Everything buttoned back up, car down.

"hey dad, grab me a size large shirt. i didn't bring enough clothes to work on the car this much" He brings me a swanky 2xl super bright crazy race shirt. Thanks Dad.

I installed a Hurst short-throw shifter that a friend said we could have if I gave him my stock shifter...thats an easy deal. That took about 20 mins and i hit the road around 11:30 am for a fathers day grill out with my wife's fam. It was about 85 degrees and super sunny which meant i was rolling with the top down since the A/C doesn't work.

So thats that. A true test of a Father and Sons sanity. Turns out, we're both completely fucking nuts, but i suppose we knew that already. No where near the outcome we were hoping for, but I wouldn't trade those days with my Father for anything in the world.

Off to find an 8.8 housing from an SN95 Mustang so we can do it all over again.

Better late than never. Yeah yeah, its been quite a while, but I've had many an iron in the fire.

All that aside, heres the party breakdown.

Bennet decided he wanted his 5th Birthday Party to be a Mustang Party! Dads first reaction...SWEET! Then it started to sink in. We are going to have to get creative for this one and literally make everything for this party. So thats just what we did. It was quite a bit of work, but I think my Little Monster loved it and it all came together very well.

Can't get into a race part without a ticket. And a VIP pass is always great too!

Bennets Stang is in the front yard to welcome the guests

Race Track table all setup and ready to Super Snacks

Bennet's name race flags. I made each one, laminated it, cut it and strung em up.

Nana and Bennet's sister just couldn't wait

We had some tasty Shelby SuperSnake Sandwiches. Hard to tell in the picture, but we did a checkered pattern with white and wheat bread sandwiches.

Gotta have Race Fuel to keep the kiddos goin! For the race fuel I dumped a bit of the water out of the water bottles and added strawberry lemonade mix. Then replaced the bottle label with the label I made

Some Mustang Nuts & Bolts to munch on. Nuts and bolts were cheddar chex mix.

Dipsticks. Pretzels sticks and a cheeseball.

Mustang Race Cake. Just had HyVee make a basic version of one of the designs from their book and then added our own Shebly Cobra and Mustang.

Mustang Cupcakes. Each kid got a mustang cupcake and then got to race their own mustang after they were done with the cupcake!

Some of the action from the 6-lane Mustang Race Track!

Meanwhile, in the basement...the kids were painting and decorating their own pull-back racecars. In the last picture you can see Reed with his Mother Dawn working on their car. This ended up being Reeds last party and last day in this life to get to play with his great friend Bennet. Reed passed away not even a week later from an extreme case of Encephalitis. We miss him everyday and know hes looking down upon us! I hope you had a great day with us Reed! Love you little buddy!