Classic Mustangs:
A Fun, Challenging Learning Experience

By Dr. Ron Steriti

Boy was I surprised when my fiance came home and announced that she had purchased her dream car - a red 1965 Mustang! It was my dream car, and we drove to the classic car dealership to pick it up. This has to be, by far, the coolest car I’ve ever owned. People stop by and talk to you about them, and give you a thumbs up at the stop light. It’s also a big challenge to own a classic car, and I’d like to share with you some of the things that happened and what I’ve learned from them.

First off, the rear lights didn’t work on the way home. And a nasty grinding sound came from the rear end when you hit about 40 MPH. The dealer had lowered the price significantly in trade for us taking it “as is”.

A quick trip to the local auto mechanic, one of those high-profile places on the main street in town, found that the light switch needed to be replaced, and that the rear axle had to be rebuilt. The latter was about $1,000. It was money well spent for such an awesome ride, I thought. But there seemed to be a lot of noise from that rear end still.

A few weeks later I purchased a set of points, and a distributor cap and rotor. I gave her a basic tune-up. She ran a lot better, and my fiance took her to get her hair dresser. A few hours later she called in a panic. The car had stalled in the middle of traffic and wouldn’t start. She had called a tow truck, and we had it towed to a friendly mechanic I knew. It turns out that the new points had fused together. Perhaps they were a bad set of points, he said. Perhaps I don’t really know how to adjust points properly, I thought. Either way, it was an expensive lesson, and I read up on how to adjust points.

You see, points are not that easy to deal with. In the 1980s they replaced points with electric distributors, mostly, I think, because points were an incredible annoyance.

The most interesting part was when this friendly mechanic took a look at the rear wheels and said: “Did you know your rear axle was installed crooked?” What? “Here. Look at the difference in distance between the tires and the wheel wells.” Sure enough, there was a huge difference. “I’ll fix her right for you. No problem.” I smiled at knowing a friendly mechanic.

Two weeks later the car was running terrible. I could tell by the sound that she needed a tune-up. After a while you can tell what’s wrong with old cars by the sound of the engine. There’s no computer, or exhaust emission control, or much of anything except the very basic required parts. An engine, spark plugs, distributor, and carburetor.

This time I asked around and was referred to a performance shop. I pulled in and a young kid was working on a 1966 Mustang. He had replaced the motor with a 351, with an air conditioner, and a high-performance carburetor. I figured that someone who works on these cars regularly would really know what he’s doing.

David was very cool. He popped the hood and checked the spark plugs. One was loose, and he tightened it with a wrench. He then adjusted the points with a feeler gauge, and said that older point systems sometimes needed readjustment once a month. He recommended replacing the points with an electronic distributor. A fairly expensive option: about $250 for the electronic distributor, plus more for a high-output coil. I drove away happy.

The car ran fine for a few months, and then we noticed gas on the manifold. The seals on the carburetor were leaking, probably from age. That’s what happens when a car sits for a long time without being driven. The gas eats the seals. Rebuilding the two-barrel was also pricey: between $150 and $300, depending on how you calculate it. The auto shops wouldn’t give me a firm estimate, only that the kit was about $40 plus about 2 hours labor. At $50 per hour the labor adds up fast!

I could buy a rebuilt Holley four-barrel carburetor on Ebay for that price. And a few weeks later, I had a beauty sitting in my living room. Then I realized that it wouldn’t fit on the two-barrel manifold. No problem, I thought, as I searched on Ebay. It turns out, however, that four-barrel manifolds for Ford 289 engines are quite rare. I lucked out, however, and found one listed as a two-barrel and the picture showed that it was actually a four-barrel. A week later everything was ready to go.

I decided to have David, the owner of the performance shop, install the manifold and carburetor. I had replaced a manifold before. It was easy. It’s about two dozen bolts. But I had no experience with Holley carburetors and figured that it might be better to have an expert do the work.

Unfortunately that was a real bad idea. Three days later I was told to come get my 1965 Mustang which ran terrible because the “Performance Expert” couldn’t fix it. “It might be the carburetor you got from Ebay is bad, or the old distributor doesn’t have enough power. I don’t know, and I’ve spent all weekend trying to fix it.” The estimates came back: $300 for a new carburetor, plus $250 for an electric distributor, plus labor, and that might not be the problem! I drove it home and didn’t sleep at all that night.

Fortunately I have a few friends that were motor-heads when they were teenagers. I drove the Mustang to their house in absolute desperation. They popped the hood while it started to rain. “First thing, your mechanic didn’t hook up the vacuum hose to the distributor.” What? You heard it right, he didn’t even plug the vacuum holes. Later, he explained that I had a Holley carburetor that was built for a boat, not a car, and that it didn’t have the special vacuum port on the carburetor for automobiles, which was why he hadn’t hooked it up.

Perhaps the most important lesson I learned from working on my Mustang is that experts can have explanations that sound really great, but are completely wrong.

My motor-head friend drove me to the auto parts store (which is next to the garage that installed my rear axle crooked) and we purchased the vacuum hose. I installed it in the rain and got soaked. I turned the key and fired up the engine. I had to admit it certainly sounded better, but it still ran terrible. I drove it home feeling somewhat better, but my motor-head friends were very clear. These classic cars are so simple and easy to fix. They would have fixed it for me if it wasn’t pouring rain. I drove home and parked it in my garage.

“You know”, I thought, “it sounds like the engine is misfiring or missing a cylinder. Perhaps one of the spark plug wires isn’t in all the way.” I popped the hood again (you do that a lot with these old cars, and almost never with a new one) and checked the wires. They were fine.

Then I remembered when I was a teenager and rebuilt a Toyota Celica. I replaced the timing gear and had put the spark plug wires in wrong. “I wonder if this supposed expert had made such a basic error.” I thought. I grabbed my Hayne’s Mustang Repair Manual and found the page with a picture. I got a pencil and wrote the numbers on the top of the spark plug wires and then traced them out. Sure enough, the wires to 7 and 8 were swapped.

“Yes!” I thought, as I fired her up again. It sounded good. I mean good, as in not terrible, but good. I was elated and took her for a drive. She ran fine with light pressure on the pedal, but she would pop through the carburetor and shake if you tried to accelerate quickly. “It happens when the secondaries kick in. I need to adjust or fix the carburetor” A four-barrel has two-barrels that work under normal conditions, and two secondary barrels that pour gas in to accelerate.

The next thing I learned about working with classic cars is not to give up. You can figure out the problems, because they are quite simple.

I asked for opinions from the people I knew. David the performance mechanic said he hadn’t swapped the plug wires, and that I still probably needed an electronic distributor. One motor-head said that you needed to adjust the timing and points to the carburetor by hand. Another motor-head friend said that there was too much gas pouring in from the secondaries, and that I needed to change the jet size down a bit. He called a friend who rebuilt Holley carburetors who said that the floats needed to be adjusted, because there wasn’t enough gas. I searched on the internet and found a few articles on tuning Holley carburetors that explained all of these things.

One of the better articles mentioned that a good tune-up was essential for proper carburetor function, so I drove it to the motor-head friend who wanted to adjust it by hand. He was very cool, and tinkered with it for a while and gave me his old feeler gauges. I wanted to hook up the dwell meter and timing light, but he said that you could do it better by feel. We drove around and he lit up the tires a few times and had a real blast. It was a great trade. I got his help, and he had some fun! On the way home, the car ran terrible. It shook at very low acceleration.

There’s a definite roller coaster ride of emotions you get with classic cars.

Then, I began to think for myself - “It’s not the carburetor, it’s the tune-up, since his changing the timing changed when the car shook.” I drove it home and got hooked up the timing light and Sears Automotive Analyzer.

That’s perhaps the most important lesson I’ve learned: to think for myself. You can ask a lot of people for advice, but you have to figure it out for yourself.

I decided to tune the engine exactly right. You see, everything is related. If the idle is off, it will change the timing. If the timing is off, it will change the dwell angle, which is a more accurate way to set the point gaps than either a matchbook cover, or with feeler gauges. It took about an hour of adjusting and readjusting everything until everything was perfect. I mean dead-on accurate. Not around 27û dwell, it was exactly 27û. The idle was exactly 650 RPM with the vacuum advance disconnected. And I used a white pen to mark 7û TDC on the timing gear (the book says 6-8û).

I unhooked all the electronic stuff and fired her up. WOW!

There is nothing that sounds sweeter than that low growl of a Holley four-barrel on a small-block Ford 328. My motor-head friend was right about one thing, you can hear when these cars are running right. It’s like magic.

I took her out for a spin, and she accelerated smoothly and evenly. She was fast and responsive, lean and mean, and absolutely fun!

I highly recommend the feeling of accomplishment and pride, and hope that you can one-day own a classic Mustang. It’s not for everyone. It’s for the few that really have something special deep inside them. Most give up for comfort and ease. They drive their brand new Mustang with the body style based on the 1965 Mustang I own. Trust me, they don’t even look similar, they don’t sound similar, they are hardly even related. But, they are both fun to drive!

PS I'd like to say a kind word about some of the mechanics I've talked about. I've found some of them cannot be trusted, and others are good mechanics that aren't familiar with older cars. Dave, in particular, was very cool even though he left me with a car that didn't run right. I know that he put a lot of time and energy into the car. Also, he has a DynoMeter which is awesome for fine tuning a fast car. And, from the number of sports cars in his shop, he does a lot of them and is well respected at the race track. He also rides a super sporty new Mustang that has that incredible growl of power under the hood.

About the Author:

Dr. Steriti is a graduate of Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine, an accredited medical school that teaches natural therapies. Dr. Steriti specializes clinical nutrition, botanical medicine, and classical homeopathy. Call (239) 659-2684 to schedule a phone consult today!

Dr. Steriti's web site is www.naturdoctor.com.