A Look Back

A lot has happened with the Mustang recently. I’m going to try my best to explain everything that has happened.

So, I made a decision while sitting in the lobby of my dad’s work one day. I decided that I was going to do a T5 conversion. A T5 conversion is where you convert the transmission from an automatic 3 speed to a manual 5 speed. The reason you do this is mostly for the fun factor of shifting gears. The other reason is for the highway cruise-ability. The T5 transmission allows you to shift up to a higher gear so that you can go faster a lower engine RPM. This saves tons of gas and stress on the motor.

I bought myself a 5 speed transmission out of an ‘85 Fox Body Mustang for $200. With a Hurst shifter. I was super excited!

During this time, I have also gotten the 351W from the truck looking beautiful. I bought the truck which was an 89 f250 just for the engine with the idea of putting it in the mustang. I decided not to because the engine was just too big for that little engine bay of the Mustang and I would have to make to many modifications to make it worth it.

I got the intake and water pump all sand blasted and painted silver. I painted the Edelbrock logo red so it will look snazzy! I also painted the rest of the engine black and put it all together and it looks amazing!

I put the engine in the car a few times but I decided that the motor is just physically to big for the little engine bay of the Mustang. I ended up selling the engine for $1000 with the transmission that came with the truck. I was looking on craigslist.org and I decided that it would be cheeper to buy a complete Mustang and remove the engine and transmission and everything else that I would need for the swap. I found a ton of candidates but one stood out from the rest. It was an 1986 Mustang with a T5 transmission and a 347 stroker tgat was carburated and had lots of go fast parts. It was only $3500! I called the guy and talked him down to $2800 which I was really happy about. He even agreed to drive it all the why to my house from Mims FL.

Over the past year I have had to buy and sell a bunch of stuff to keep my 65 Mustang project rolling. I’m going to try to list what I have bought, fixed and sold over the years as well as I can, to summarize how I got to where I am today.

Looking Back

It all started a few years ago when I got an old riding mower from my uncle that someone had left at his house. I was so excited. My dad and I picked it up early one morning and we learned that you should always make sure the seat is attached before you start driving at high speeds. We learned that as we were on our way home when the seat flew off the trailer and almost hit another car. We got it home and I immediately started working on it. I had no idea what I was doing. I bought a new battery and hooked it up backwards, that’s how little I knew. After not being able to get it to start I gave up and put it at the street for $50. I’m pretty sure that if someone came by and bought that mower I wouldn’t be doing what I am today.

The turning point was when my neighbor Mr. Lorenzo came over and offered to help me get the mower running. My brother helped me push it down Mr. Lorenzo’s driveway to his house where we started working on it.

I learned so much in the time that Mr. Lorenzo was helping me. He taught me how to clean a carburetor and how and engine works. After some long nights we got the mower running. It was the best feeling I had ever felt. I was so excited. I painted the mower and then I put it at the street once more. I put it on eBay and craigslist and I sold it! I was so excited when my dad and I delivered the mower to the guy in Howey-in-the-Hills FL. I was pretty nervous too. Thankfully the guy who bought the mower was really nice. He bought it and I got the money and I felt great. I was so excited. We drove around the block then headed home past the guy’s house who bought the mower and we saw him on that mower mowing away. It was a pretty awesome day for me. I took the money from this and actually bought my first lawn mower. It was an MTD Yard Machines mower that I bought for $60 that I saw in the paper.

My dad and I drove down to Orlando one night and picked it up. It looked a lot beter then I thought. It was just after Christmas becasue I remember having the mower on the trailer and as we were driving home we were picking up Christmas trees that people had thrown out. When we got home we stood up all the trees in our front yard like a big forest. It was pretty neat. My dad does weird things like that. My mom thought it was cute until the trees started to rot weeks later and screamed for us to get rid of them . . .

Anyway, I remember working on the mower and it smelling like Christmas trees the whole time I had it. I eventually got that running and then I sold that. I took some of that money and bought another one!  I did that 4 more times. What was really funny was that one day I was on craigslist (like normal) and I saw the first lawn mower that I had ever sold. For sale again for only $100 bucks not running. I contacted the dude and he said that he eventually got a lawn service and let the mower sit for a while. I had to buy it!

In a very short time I was able to get the mower running again due to the fact that I had already worked on it before. I sold that mower once again for a little profit. At this point I had leaned quite a bit about engines and cars just from the internet so I took some of the money that I made from the mowers and bought a 1977 vw beetle that had been converted into a truck. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. You can read about that in my older blog posts.

While I was in New York City I found a good parts car for my vw build. I was pretty unexciting in New York for me because I couldn’t work on anything at all so I did a lot of research on Volkswagens and I found tons of parts that I would need. I ended up buying that other VW and used it for parts.

During the fixing of the vw I relized that I was quickly low on cash. I decided to step up my selling to the next level buy buying a 1996 camaro. The Camaro was pretty cool.  It was red it had T-tops 5 speed manual transmission a v6 and it was cheap. Really really cheep. I only paid $600 for it. It had some paint fading and the transmission was shot. I painted the front and rear bumper I took a transmission as well as a set of wheels and other parts and a flow master exhust off of a red necks camaro that he was parting out. I got the transmission installed at the local auto shop because I had never done it and I didnt want to mess it up. I got the car all fixed and had some fun driving it and doing doughnuts and burn outs and stuff. I made it look really nice and put it up for sale. I ended up selling it for about $2000. I took that money and bought my 65 mustang that I have today.

All during this time of working on these larger projects I had also been buying and selling many dirtbikes, atvs, go carts and what not. I have sold three honda 100cc dirt bikes. One yamaha ttr 90, two eton 90cc atvs, a couple of 110cc Chinese atvs, three mini bikes, a go cart, a yamaha blaster and I am currently working on three jet skis and a Honda cbr 600 f4 sport bike. So I have been very busy these past few years