Jims Mustang World

 Happy Thanksgiving to all.  I've had such a wonderful year and I just wanted to look back at some of the moments I am thankful (or in some cases regretful) for this past year. When we first building our new home back in 2020 I held out a hope that our street address would be 2021 - the year we moved in. We ended up with 2023 so Jan 1st was a celebration of our home.  A major project to remove the old river dike and allow the Dungeness Rive back into its natural course was completed.  This included a new trail for Wolfie and I to explore.  The time we had together would draw to an end this year and I am thankful that our last years together were here. The adventure of "Drive your Triumph Day" is a challenge each year to get out on Sir John Black's birthday to celebrate, regardless of the weather! This year was a delightful day enhanced with friends for company! Activity on the Straites of Juan de Fuca usually means cruise ships and the like. A bit more unusual to catc

 I'm sitting here watching the first practice of the F1 grand prix in Las Vegas. That sphere thing is amazing!  I thought I would put together a collage of photos of some of the details I have found so far.  I've had the oil pan off the engine and now the transmission and bell housing are off to replace the clutch.  There's some oil pollution coming through the crank bolts and also the transmission snout.  A few more things to update that I'll get to.  L eft - The engine machining date is 4K23.  Right -  The crank is marked with an orange paint stroke and also has the polished rear counterweight and small "K" stamping. All the glass is original and has date codes of 4K and 4J.  The windshield is tinted "Sun Visor." The block casting date 4K22 is the day before the block was machined. The engine was rebuilt at some point and it appears that the block was decked because the engine build date stamping at the front of the LH cylinder bank is missing.  Th

 Happy 59th birthday to my 65 Mustang, build date 16L. Now, I know that the scheduled build date is not the actual date that the car rolled off the assembly line but we really don't have documentation to cut it any finer.  I guess what makes it significant to me is relative to the identical K-codes that were built and delivered from San Jose to Shelby American in Venice, CA.  Based on the info available, particularly from Mark Hovander of  History of the 1965 GT350 and 5S003 , that place my car in between the three prototype GT350's and the next group of pre-production cars that were used for magazine road tests and various publicity duties.  Cheers!

Sequim Prairie Nights 2023 Getting started with my 65 K-code was not hard, some of its shortcomings were pretty obvious. The engine was running poorly and the fuel mileage < 10 MPG was a sure indication of where to start. The carburator is a Holley 1850-1, which is a nice carb, but when I took it apart I found gasoline in the power valve cavity, so it's leaking. So a new 6.5 power valve from my stock and an overall carb tune up yielded some of the missing performance. I also found that the timing was not advancing with engine RPM and the static timing had been set at 20 deg BTDC. I took a look under the rotor in the distributer and it was bone dry and there was no felt pad. The advance was absolutely frozen. I used some penetrating oil over the next few days to loosen the advance and I got it to free up a little but I'm still not getting full advance an any RPM. My friend John has my brother's Sun 506 distributer machine so I'll take the distributor to him for a

 I never expected this to happen, I was not searching for another project car.  I've always had the dream to have a car like this, to stumble onto the opportunity.  I mean, my garage was full enough with two hobby cars and a wonderful modern Mustang, that was plenty.  But when this happened to me I felt like it was just the right circumstances. I had begun volunteering at the local genealogical society and getting to know the people there.  Now I run the place one Saturday every other week, and help out on other occasions.  Mostly I ride my biocycle to the genealogy society but a few times I brought my 2018 Mustang GT. My one co-worker- Roberta, must have noticed my Mustang and mentioned that her husband had an old Mustang and might be ready to sell it, would I want to come over and have a look at it?  I agreed and a couple of weeks later I arranged to visit.  I met her husband, John, and he showed me towards the garage.  He mentioned that his old Mustang was a K-code, just in pass

 In 2014 I was at the Fabulous Fords Forever show at Knotts Berry Farm showing my 69 Boss when I stopped to admire the new 2015 S550 Mustang GT that was on display at the Ford pavilion as part of the "50 years" display.  Wow, I thought, this is what I believed the Mustang should be! I loved every curve, every nuance, every angle.  I wasn't considering a new car back then but the idea was percolating.  Also at the show was a Ioccoa, a special 45th anniversary edition, also in silver.  Certainly nice bookends to the Fabulous Fords Forever celebration that year. I sold the 69 Boss in December of that year, 2014, so I was without a Mustang in my garage for the first time in 20 years.  I did have my 1969 TR6, which by that time was fully restored and fun to drive and take to shows.  Honestly, I thought that was enough.  But by 2018 I was researching a new GT type car. I made out a little description of what I wanted: "What I want in my next car I want it to carry two pass

 In 2007 one of my co-workers, Randy, told me that his neighbor across the street had to get rid of some of his cars that were stashed in the back of his property.  Apparently a local realtor was trying to sell a neighboring house and didn't like the eyesore so he reported it to the county to force him to get rid of the "junked" cars.  One of those cars was a 1970 Boss 302 in fairly complete condition.  I went to have a look and this Boss was buried to the floorboards in the desert sand and burned to a crisp in the sun but quite complete, including the interior.  The car was owned by a friend of Randy's neighbor who now lived in Arizona.  I made the contact and we worked out a price.   We were able to extract the Boss from the sand and load it on a tow truck on its wheels.  I made the mistake of putting it in my garage and over night hundreds of spiders came out and infested the garage.  I'm not sure I ever got them all out.  The engine, mostly complete including

 In the 60's we lived at Corona, Ca, which is about an hour away from Riverside Raceway.  My dad took me there for all the racing events; Can-Am, Trans-Am, Indy Car, NASCAR, even drag racing.  The trans-am racing was particularly memorable and imprinted on me the urge to have something like that to drive.  Naturally, since we had the 69 Mustang, my top pic was the Bud Moore Mustangs of 1969 and 1970.  Finally, in 2000, I brought home my 1969 Calypso Coral Boss.  I found the car on ebay and made the deal to include transport from it's current location at Brookings, Oregon.  The owner offered to fly me up there to see and drive it so I took him up on that - but that's a side story! The Boss was in really good shape cosmetically, but the engine was tired and a few mechanical things needed restoring, so I was really in my element doing all the power train and suspension.  By the time I was done I had a car that ran better than it looked and it looked very well indeed.  David Ne

 After graduating from Cal Poly, SLO, I started my career in flight test at Edwards AFB in the desert north of LA.  My co-workers were a great bunch and it wasn't long before I was good friends with one who had a 1979 Turbo Cobra - the old suck-thru carburator kind, with the big spider decal on the hood!  The car was cool and I drove it on some long trips through the mountains.  It had those TRX wheels also.  So I was hooked and the next year I bought a new 1984 SVO right off the showroom floor.  The dealer had painted a stripe down the side - it was the showroom beauty.  The picture shows the SVO, still with dealer plate, meeting up with my brother Bob with his turbo Daytona. That was a special time. I kept it stock for a couple of years but the 1985 roller cam 5.0 EFI Mustang GT was the hot thing and the SVO was not king - except for the suspension and tire combo.  So I found a wrecked 86 GT and took out the whole drive train, with the 8.8 axle and V-8 T5, the EFI also.  I used t

 I've had Ford Mustangs in my life most of the time.  Our family bought a 1966 coupe used (one year trade-in from Diller Chevrolet) when I was 10 years old. That was at Corona, CA.  I rode in that car throughout the western US, making trips to Crater Lake, Grand Canyon, the Grand Tetons, Loveland pass in Colorodo, Monument Valley and more.  I never got to drive it but still the same it was our family car. It was a 289 2V with the Cruise-o-Matic transmission.  After a year with the stock rims and cheezy hubcaps my brother, Bob, who worked at J&M Speedcenter in Riverside, brought home a set of chrome reversed rims.  That's what's in the photograph at the right.  That photo is dated Jun 69 so that must have been our last trip to Mankato, Kansas, before we traded it in and bought new our 1969 Mustang fastback. The fastback was such a beautiful color, Champagne Gold, and it was a 351 2V, again with the Cruise-o-matic transmission.  The Mustangs were primarily my mom's ca