Thank you for the memories...

It has been quite some time since I have posted anything on this blog. Not even sure if anyone follows it anymore. But I feel it's fitting that I make this post, to put and end where it all began.

I have accepted an offer on Big Secz and will be bidding farewell to a great car. This relationship has been like any other, filled with ups and downs and plenty of heartache. But it is time for me to move on to other things and hopefully one day start building my "dream" car.

Through all of the bad, one thing is for sure, I have had some wonderful memories behind the wheel of this car. It has been an adventure that I will never forget for the rest of my life.

I find it amazing how a person can become so attached to a car. There comes a point where it's no longer a car anymore. Every wrench turned is not merely working on a machine, but a moment of spending quality time with an old friend. One that you talk to, at times helps you relax, and sometimes aggravates you. But it is time to close this chapter and start a new one.

Thank you for the memories...

3rd Annual KWB Show and Shine

This Saturday was the annual car show at my daughter’s school. I have attended this show each year since it started. This year’s show had been rescheduled due to bad weather on the original scheduled day. This worked out perfectly since I had prior commitments on the original scheduled day which would have prevented me from attending. So I was actually praying for bad weather that day so it would be rescheduled, and viola prayers were answered.

It was a hot and humid day with lingering clouds flirting with the opportunity to dump rain on us. However it held up and within an hour after getting home from the show the sky opened up and the rains came.

I believe last year there were somewhere close to 100 cars at the show, not sure if it was the chance of rain that kept people home or not, but this year I think there were barely 50 cars. It was disappointing as the proceeds of the show go to benefit the school’s PTO. This year there were horse rides for the kids for $3 and a silent memorabilia auction, again with all the money going to the PTO. I wish there would have been more of a showing.

The number of awards this year was upped substantially. They gave out TOP 40 plaques (25 plaques for classic cars and 15 for late model cars) in addition to their usual specialty awards for Student’s Choice, Best in Show, and Parent with the Coolest Car (which I won the first year). This year I won a Top 40 award.

So my record for this year so far is: 4 shows and 4 awards

Skills USA Show North Stafford High School: Top 30
Cowles Ford All Ford and Mustang Show: 64 1/2-73 Modified Class 1st Place
Stafford Tires Plus Car Show: Top 25
Kate Waller Barrett Show and Shine: Top 40

NCRMC Show

This past weekend was the Cowle’s Ford Mustang and All Ford Car Show put on by the National Capital Region Mustang Club. This was my first time attending this show, and this was only the second car show that I have attended so far this season. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the majority of the cars would be parked inside. The back half of the dealership housed about 60 or so Mustangs. It was nice to not have to worry about sunblock for a change.


The majority of the cars at the event were late model Mustangs, though I did see a few interesting classics. In attendance was a ’66 GT 350 which was a one owner car, a ’69 Cobra Jet Convertible, and a ’69 fastback that was featured in the September 2008 issue of Mustang Monthly.



As for the late model cars in attendance, it seemed like there were a lot of Shelby GT 500s. I happened to have been parked next to a Shelby Super Snake, which is a nice way to spend about $80k and parked outside was a GT 40, those you don’t see too often. Perhaps the coolest of the late model Mustangs was “Barricade”, the Mustang featured in the first Transformers movie.


The show itself was nice, Hard Times showed up and gave out free food and drinks were available for free but donations were appreciated. The show seemed to be running a bit behind, however the awards were handed out and the show was concluded by 3:15 which wasn’t bad. This was a points based show, which are the ones that I prefer because it takes out the “politics” that are frequently involved in car shows. It helps to even the playing field, and so you aren’t competing against anyone but yourself.

I was registered in my regular 64 1/2 – 73 Modified Class, and surprising placed 1st. This is the first time that I have placed that high at a show. Last summer I placed 2nd in the same class at the Central Virginia Mustang show in Richmond.

Coming home I ran into a few issues with the car. The new power steering system that I installed seems to still need some work, and I now have an exhaust leak. Other than that the car ran fine. I think once I get the steering sorted out and address the exhaust leak, I can have a nice worry-free summer. Of course with these cars you never can tell.

My next show isn’t for a couple weeks as I will be attending my graduation next weekend. I’m receiving a Master’s Degree from the University of Maryland University College. It is also the same day as the 3rd annual car show at my daughter’s school. I have attended this show the last two years, and really didn’t want to miss it this year, so I’m praying for rain that day so the show will get rescheduled. It was a tough choice for me to decide to attend my graduation or go to the car show. I guess that’s how you know if you’re a die-hard or not.

Let the Fun Begin

After what seemed to be a long winter the time had finally come that us car enthusiast look forward to…the start of the car show season. Getting the Mustang ready for the season was not without issues. Having a two car garage to work in, however meant that I could work all winter to get the car ready.

I spent this winter, while the car was in hibernation, focusing on details on the interior. This included installing a new dash pad, all new knobs and switches, new door lights, new wood grain door inserts, new gauge and clock lenses, and a new sound system. I have already started making a list of things to do next winter.

As the weather started to warm up I decided it was now time to pull the Mustang out of the garage at my parent’s house and bring her home for the summer. She started up with no problems and all was going well until I heard a loud scraping sound. My father’s trailer was in my blind spot and I backed into it. My back driver’s side tire caught the hitch and pulled it into the wheel well scraping the paint off the car. I had to jack the car up in order to get the hitch out of the wheel well. So of course it was not off to the body shop. A fairly simple repair ended up being about a third of the rear quarter being cut out and replaced. Not from the accident, but from crappy previous repairs.

So that brings me to this past Saturday, the first car show of the season at North Stafford High School to support Skills USA. This is my third consecutive year attending this show. I like the show, not just because it’s close by, but it is always well organized, and it’s for a good cause and the students do a great job.

This year was a cold one and the frequent wind didn’t help the matter either. I went with a friend of mine that owns an amazingly restored ’69 Roadrunner. It was his first time at this show, I think aside from the cold he enjoyed himself.

I had never won anything at this show, mainly because the show draws well over 100 cars and the quality of cars has gotten better each year. I noticed the judges started inspecting cars fairly early in order to ensure they finished on time. I observed the judges as they inspected the Mustang and a couple of them even told me how nice it was. It would appear that my hard work this winter would pay off.

There ended up being just over 140 cars this year and some of them were extremely well done. One of my favorites was a ’39 Ford with Levalle (pronounced lee-valley) flames. Short bit of history, they are called Levalle flames because Mike Levalle, an artist, developed the method of airbrushing realistic flames. This car won Best in Show.


The awards, like every year, were really well done. The specialty awards are built by the students and are really professionally and tastefully done. There were approximately 10 or so specialty awards and they also had Top 30 plaques. I was able to break the ice this year winning a Top 30 and my friend with the Roadrunner won Best Restoration.

Then the next morning we had 2” of snow on the ground, go figure.

The Stampede

Now that Big Secz is back on the road this weekend was going to be full of car events. Friday evening I went to the cruise-in at VA BBQ. I had only been once this year and thought I would try it out one more time. I typically don’t attend this cruise-in due to the location and a few other reasons that I won’t get in to. I saw a lot of the usual suspects at the show, but one caught my attention in particular. It was an old Ford school bus, but this was far from your average school bus. It had been slammed just inches from the ground, and chopped to the point that it was barely recognizable as a school bus. The owners of this bus take it around to local shows and events and collect school supplies for schools around the globe. They even sell t-shirts out of the back of the bus to help promote and raise money for their cause. I just can’t imagine how fun it must be to ride down the road in this thing. I ended up leaving a little after 8 PM and headed home. I had to be up early Saturday for a show in Richmond.

Saturday morning we got up with at the butt-crack of dawn and headed to Spotsylvania to meet up with a group of other Mustangs and head down to Richmond for an all Mustang/Ford show. We had a nice group of cars. Ten in all which consisted of a ‘95 Saleen, ‘04 Bullit, two ‘70 Boss 302s, ‘70 fastback, two ‘69 Mach 1s, ‘65 fastback, late ‘60s Torino, and my ‘70 convertible. We chose to go via Rte. 1 South all the way to Richmond. What a great ride, some nice long stretches of country road. It was nice riding down as a group of old Mustangs and loud exhaust. We turned plenty of head along the way.

Unfortunately we had a few issues along the way. The first of which was the ‘70 fastback. Fuel pump quit working, which turned out to be a result of a blown fuse. A quick rewiring and we were back on the road. A little time later, my buddy Olaf’s ‘69 Mach 1 Cobra Jet started having some ignition issues. After a couple stops, he told us all to continue on to the show and he’d catch up, he had a few tools on hand if he needed them.

The show was hosted by the Central Virginia Mustang Club and held at the Central Virginia Commons Mall. It was very well organized and structured. There were ample classes to help level out the field of cars. It was all based on a points system, you had to score a minimum number of points to even qualify for a plaque.

They had parking all under control, and they gave each car two spaces to ensure that everyone had enough room to open doors and walk around to look at the cars without causing any damage. The only downsides to the show was that there were no food vendors, being that it was at the mall the assumption was people would go to the food court. Which is what we did. However even to get a drink it meant a trip to the mall to the vending machines. It would have been nice to of at least had someone selling cold drinks to prevent multiple trips to the mall entrance. The other downside, and I understand the reasoning, was they banned all canopies and tents, due to liability concerns. These canopies are common at shows and they have been known to cause some damage when not properly secured. This wouldn’t have been so bad if it wasn’t so damn hot out and there were shade trees around. I was parked near a tree but I think it is the only tree on Earth that doesn’t give off a bit of shade. So to cool off it also meant going to the mall to walk around. Of course one of the major plus sides to the show was that it was at a mall. My wife had no problem spending the day inside the nicely air conditioned mall partaking in what she likes to call “retail therapy”.

I missed being present when my car was judged, I had just finished eating lunch and walked out the door of the mall and saw them put the tag on my car and walk away. I would have liked to have been present so that way I could perhaps talk to them a little to get an idea of what they look for. They did announce that they will mail you a copy of your judging sheet. So that will be cool to see.

When the time came to hand out awards I wasn’t expecting to get any sort of recognition, there were a lot of nice cars in the field of 185 cars. Uniquely enough I had the only 1970 convertible at the show. I had gotten a lot of compliments about the car throughout the day, more compliments than I had ever received at any one show. This could be because it was specifically a Mustang/Ford show. Because the show was based on points, this means that you could have multiple first, second and third places depending on how many people had the same number of points. I was in what I would consider to be a tough class, I was in the Occasionally Driving (OD) ‘64 ½ - ‘73 Modified class. They announced the few people that won first place, one of which was Olaf, in our group, and his ‘69 Mach 1 Cobra Jet. Yes that means he actually made it to the show. He was joking about how they should hand out awards for the most persistent. He ended up pulling over five different times on the way to the show. Then they started announcing 2nd place winners, and then my name was announced. I couldn’t believe it. By the time all the awards were handed out, every driver in our group had received an award which was really cool. It just goes to show you the quality of vehicles that we all had. A lot of time and dedication.

Later that evening I decided to stop by the Brusters Cruise-in in Stafford to see a few friends and tell them about the show. The night was great for it. I prefer this cruise-in, not only because I know more people, but it’s a bit more comfortable. The club hosting this cruise, The 610 Cruisers, give out a hand full of trophies every Saturday night. Some specialty trophies, and some drivers choice. I have never received an award at this show…..until now. I was able to end my night on another high note walking away with an award for best Mustang.

Shows should never be about the awards or trophies, it should be about the company and camaraderie with others that share the same passion. But……it does feel good to be recognized for your hard work too.

On the Road Again!

She’s finally back on the road. I feel like I’ve been waiting a lot longer than I actually have to get to this point.

First we had to figure out the cause of the coolant leak. Luckily it was due to minor human error. The drain plug from the rear lower part of the block wasn’t installed. This was an easy fix and easily accessed once we had the car up on jack stands. The passenger side is a different story; the starter would have to come out. Once we installed the driver’s side plug we took our chances and started to fill her with coolant and luckily the passenger side was good to go.

Getting her started was a fairly easy process once we adjusted the timing and realized that we had the ignition and starter wires crossed on the solenoid. We played around with some adjustments and she was good to go.

We took her out for a road test after which we checked the fluids, added a little more transmission and power steering fluid and she was done. There are a few bugs that need to be sorted out but for the most part nothing that would prevent the enjoyment of driving her.

The speedometer cable is showing signs that it’s about to go, the transmission linkage still needs some tweaking and the accelerator pedal needs some adjustments. I’m adding this to my winter “to do” list while she’s off the road.

After a quick visit to the transmission shop so they could ensure the shift points were correct, I took her to a local muffler shop to have the headers installed. I’m surprised at how different the car sounds. But naturally this would not go without yet another issue. After the tech pulled her out of the bay he couldn’t shut her off. I played with the key and immediately knew that the issue was the ignition switch. So he left her running and when I got home I disconnected the electronic ignition.

One of the few parts that are not being remanufactured for ’70 Mustangs are…..ignition switches. The only way to get one is off of another car, and even if you can find one good lucky trying to get someone to come off of it, and if they are willing they want top dollar.

A few months back my original ignition switch had quit working and a buddy of mine luckily had one on hand that he gave me off of one of his parts cars. I kept my old switch and rebuilt it.. It appears to work fine but I have never tried it actually in the car. After pulling the cover off of the steering column I immediately noticed that the pin was missing that attaches the switch rod to the ignition barrel plunger rod. So I took the one off of my old switch and problems solved.

After spending half a day cleaning her up, I took my oldest daughter for an hour long cruise in her through some back country roads of Stafford County. It was the perfect weather for riding with the top down.

I couldn’t wait to take her to the local cruise-in to see a few folks that had known about the project and had been asking about the progress. She’s running well and oddly that’s what I have to get used to. I was so used to the previous quirks and tricks to driving her that having a car that I can get in and just drive like a normal car is foreign to me.

I’m still hesitant to get too excited as I’m sure “Christine” will rear her ugly head again. But for now......life is good.

Murphy’s Law

I got the motor back this weekend, one week behind schedule. In my head, naturally I was thinking we should have her up and running by Sunday…….wrong. I forgot after all this is Big Secz we are talking about, and as my history of ownership has proven this would be anything but an easy or straight forward project.

Mating the motor to the transmission went without a hitch, then came actually dropping the two into the car which created its own set of challenges. After overcoming a small series of obstacles we moved on to other things on the “to do” list, which seemed to be nothing more than Easter egg hunt looking for problems.

The first was the new aluminum pulleys that I ordered, in short the top water pump pulley didn’t fit but the bottom crank did. So naturally the aluminum crank pulley is smaller in diameter than the original so as you can imagine this created belt sizing issues. The power steering belt fit well, the alternator belt was a different story. So after yet another trip to the auto parts store for a new belt, we were still about 1/4” out from having it totally adjusted, so backyard mechanical ingenuity kicked in and we fabricated a bracket to give us the difference we needed.

Finally after buttoning everything up and chasing a power steering pump leak we reached a point to where we thought we were coming down the home stretch. I discovered that my new automatic gear shift rod didn’t fit and the linkage to the transmission isn’t working correctly.

Then we had to chase down an electrical issue, as in the “issue” was I had none….power that is. After about an hour of fiddling with that, the end result was having one wire not connected properly.

The best I saved for last, poured in antifreeze, and out came the antifreeze, all over the floor out the back of the motor. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!