Project Break a Boss

[ford20]

I guess I will just make this my general build thread from here on out. As I said before, I think that I can break just about anything. When I went to go put on my blowfish tow hook I ended up breaking one of the bolts from the Laguna Seca bracket while taking it off the car. It looks like someone replaced it at one point since I only had 3 out of 4 bolts installed and the 3rd bolt that I broke was a different kind of bolt all together.

If you look at the bolt heads, you will see that 2 of them are painted that brown primer color while the broken one isn't and even the bolt itself is different. I'm not sure if that is by design but it looks like the bracket was replaced at one point.

The install is pretty straight forward, you basically center the bracket up and line them up in the recesses in the bumper bar and you can bolt the two halves together.

Since I have a 2012 I had to use the supplied spacer along with the longer carriage bolts.

Oh, and I ended up braking a bolt from the blowfish hardware -_-

I sent a message to Steve and within like 4 minutes he sent me a message and we talked about and said he was going to send new hardware out on Monday. I got the in hardware in a couple of days and I was back in business. He even sent me two new bolts and inserts for the top of the mount which was very nice. The customer service from my side of things is absolutely excellent with Steve, I would HIGHLY recommend the blowfish bracket. It appears to be very well constructed and the hardware seems to be of pretty good quality (despite me breaking one) and the powder coating on this is very nice! I bolted everything up and used Blue Loctite #242 on all of the bolts for a little bit of extra security.

On the 2010-2012 with the Boss 302 front valance you have to cut a hole in it so that the tow hook assembly can fit through the bumper. It is pretty easy though so no big deal here.

Parts Used

• Blowfish Racing Next Generation Tow Hook Bracket - TOW-10-500
• Blue Locktite - 01-24200

While I had the bumper off I figured I would take the old turn signals out and put some new blackout ones in which was a pretty simple mod. Just remove these two plastic nuts, pop the old one out and put the nuts back on.

Old vs. New

Finished product

Parts used

• Black Side Marker Lights - 49191

 

[ford20]

Lookie what I got!

 

[pacettr]

Seksee

 

[ford20]

I thought so

Too bad you won't be able to see it a lot when it gets installed.

 

[ford20]

I wanted to change up the front end a little bit and I remembered seeing a set of headlights that AM and LMR had sold so I went looking for them. I found them on LMR, or so I thought. They were supposed to look something like this according to their webpage:

When I received them they looked just a wee bit different:

Not only were the lenses black black, they didn't properly fit! Notice the large gap between the headlight and the grill -_-

Anyway, I figured I would pull the black lens off and swap it with my factory clear lens since the internals are all black with clear turn signal lenses. So I pulled out the factory headlights and turned the oven on and set the temperature to 235 degrees. While I was waiting for the oven to preheat I removed the rubber gasket for the headlights.

Once I removed those, I ended up putting the headlight in the over for 10 minutes. I was wearing my work gloves but you could still feel the heat as you were prying off the lens. I ended up putting it in for 2 cycles at 10 minutes each and finally the lens popped off to reveal the lights.

In order to get all of the rubber out, I threw it back in the oven for another 10 minutes and it all easily came out without issue. I grabbed the rubber butyl I bought and began putting it in the recess where I removed the old rubber. Granted this stuff is a little thick at 3/8" but if you stretched it a little and pinched the bottom it went in without issues not to mention I have so much left over. This is what I used:

Made in America

From this point I grabbed my factory headlight and turned the oven up to 275 and put that one in there. After 3 rounds of 15 minute intervals I was able to get the lens off and put it on the new headlight housing. After squeezing it in together by hand I put it in the oven at 275 for 7 minutes and took it out again and clamped it down.

As you can see I only had one pair of vice grips so I had to improvise a little.

Anyway, as I let that one sit for 45 minutes I went to work on the second factory light. Remember when I said I can break anything

I had the entire lens off except for that one corner .... FUCK

I bought a factory lens off of ebay with a tab missing for $55 shipped and went along my way. I got the second headlight a few days later and without much, if any difficulty it popped out and went back on easy peasy.

It looks like with the factory lenses in there the gap is smaller so I think I am ok with it now and it isn't going to drive me crazy. Maybe it will but who knows. After about 3 going on 4 days of rain, the headlights have held up and I don't see any fogging inside of the housings so I think I am pretty good on this setup. I like them, they add a small distinct touch and a bit of the blackout look without going overboard IMO. Now I just need to get Amber turn signal lenses.

Parts Used

• 2010-12 Ford Mustang SVE Euro Style Headlights Black - S197 - SDT-MST10SM
• Damplifier Butyl Rope (3/8" X 15' Each) - ROPE

Tools Used

• 10mm socket wrench x3 bolts per headlight

 

[ford20]

In the mean time I spent about 3 weeks tracking down the bolts for the Laguna Seca splitter. When you look up the kit that FRPP sells it lists them as 20 M8x25mm bolts. I went around looking for M8 fine thread x 25mm countersunk bolts and was sort of laughed at when I kept asking because turns out nobody has them. I went to one place who did have them, but they said they had to order them from the UK and it could take 2 or 3 weeks to get them. So I turned to Amazon and found some! I ordered 20 of them and in a couple of days I checked the tracking. It turns out that they are shipping from the UK as well

2 weeks go by and I get the bolts ... turns out they are WAY too big.

So, I run to The Home Depot and look at their selection of bolts and I think I found them in 1/4" x 28 x 1" using their little bolt measuring thing. I go to my local hardware store since they have just about every bolt in SAE and grab 20 of those. I get home and wouldn't you know it, they don't fit. Wrong thread size

Fucking piece of junk bolt measuring crap never works. I even threaded it in 98% of the way down by hand without issue.

Well I run down to work and dig through our boxes of spare hardware from all of the European furniture and low and behold M6 x fine thread x 20mm bolts. So I grab them and head home hoping that they are the right thread size!!!!! Hallelujah!!!!! I put everything together and now the car looks complete finally! For the first time since like Last November the car finally looks like it is complete.

I ordered some brake cooling duct hose from Pegasus Auto Racing since the old one got chewed up something fierce by the splash shields so that should be here before the weekend hopefully. I also got some new Vinyl for the grill since I did a horrible job on it the first time which is another weekend project . I will have to pull one of them out and run to Metrix and grab the correct bolts and replace all of them but at least I have everything correct except for the length which will be corrected soon hopefully!

 

[TaylorGT]

Sub'd.

 

[swflastang05]

No shit that is sweet! I had no idea you could do that with the headlight lenses, or at least should be able to do that without breaking it lol! Man you seem to have the same luck as me, either way its looking good. BTW why are you storing your car out in the rain, get that thing inside!

 

[UltraKla$$ic]

So after 2 years you got the headlight "fixed" and the splitter put back on with n166er rigged bolts?????

10 PAGES OF FAIL!!!!!!!!!!!!11

 

[bujeezus]

^ouch!

 

[cbass]

So after 2 years you got the headlight "fixed" and the splitter put back on with n166er rigged bolts?????

10 PAGES OF FAIL!!!!!!!!!!!!11

Some kids liked to keep their matchbox cars in the package and look at the art of it. Some kids liked to throw theirs at concrete blocks to see how much abuse they could take. You are not in the same group as Sean.

 

[ford20]

No shit that is sweet! I had no idea you could do that with the headlight lenses, or at least should be able to do that without breaking it lol! Man you seem to have the same luck as me, either way its looking good. BTW why are you storing your car out in the rain, get that thing inside!

I see you are in the same camp as me. If we didn't have bad luck we wouldn't have any at all!!

This was the car last year

So after 2 years you got the headlight "fixed" and the splitter put back on with n166er rigged bolts?????

10 PAGES OF FAIL!!!!!!!!!!!!11

Some kids liked to keep their matchbox cars in the package and look at the art of it. Some kids liked to throw theirs at concrete blocks to see how much abuse they could take. You are not in the same group as Sean.

Fo sho! I put my matchbox car in the little launch thing and fling it around the track and off a sweet ass jump and into the wall and see what happens hahaha.

 

[ford20]

So this weekend I went to go and replace my old brake cooling ducts. They had seen better days that's for sure. The wheel well liners had rubbed up against them for 18k miles (I think. I forget how many miles are on the damn thing) and caused the rubber liner to wear away and caused holes in the ducts which I'm sure isn't that great for brake cooling.

New ducts were cut to 35" and I put them in. As you can see, this is why the old ones had been rubbed to nothing.

So I cut the wheel well liner to give ample clearance so that this wouldn't happen again. I need to get some zip ties and zip tie the hoses to the wheel well liners to keep them in place. I have to say though getting them onto the cooling ducts was a major pain in the ass!

All nice and new now

Parts Used

• Pegasus Auto Racing High Temperature Silicone Air Duct Hose, Orange - 3621-3.00-6 FOOT

I also got my braided clutch line installed as well this weekend. It was a fairly simple and easy thing to do. The little clip by the master cylinder was a pain to get out but still very manageable. Out with the old:

In with the new

I had no idea what the metal surrounding the factory clutch line was so I figured it was either for heat resistance or for abrasion control so to speak so either way I grabbed some gold Heat Tape I had laying around and wrapped the line at the same point as the factory one was wrapped. Who knows if it will help or hurt but I figured why not, what's the worst that can happen.

Parts Used

• JPC: 2005-2014 GT/GT500/BOSS BLACK CLUTCH LINE UPGRADE - CLK-B
• DEI 010394 Reflect-A-GOLD 1.5" x 15' Tape Roll - 010394

After that I cleaned the engine bay. As you can see, it was not at all pretty. So I ran some spray wax through that and cleaned it up all nice and nice. I then turned to the exterior and just washed it and gave it a quick claybar. I still have to do a quick spray wax to make it shine a bit more. Considering the fact that it has been sitting outside for the last year and 4 months I think it looks pretty damn good. You can see that it needs a correction when you get up close to it but hot damn it still shines pretty damn nice.

 

[Grabber5.sl0w]

Headlights look good man! I'm such a pussy when it comes with messing with headlights lol. Shit always goes wrong when I try stuff like that.

 

[ford20]

Headlights look good man! I'm such a pussy when it comes with messing with headlights lol. Shit always goes wrong when I try stuff like that.

Thanks! I'm pretty happy with the way they came out as well! I didn't think that it would work but thankfully so far they have stayed sealed. Considering everything that has gone wrong I'm surprised that this didn't get messed up as well hahaha.

 

[Grabber5.sl0w]

Thanks! I'm pretty happy with the way they came out as well! I didn't think that it would work but thankfully so far they have stayed sealed. Considering everything that has gone wrong I'm surprised that this didn't get messed up as well hahaha.

You pretty much have the same luck I do man lol. I always find ways to break bolts, lose shit, shit go wrong etc. I had a couple moments during my Airlift Install as it was the most intensive mod I've done by myself to a car. I'm excited to see this thing start up though. Luckily for you, she'll be in the best hands down at JPC.

 

[ford20]

70k bitches







So I went to go ahead and put on some small shit that I just grabbed from Tasca and when I removed the bag that was covering the motor I found this. Everything was bone dry so I am assuming it was from the condensation due to the melting snow or the rain we had here a few weeks back.

Does anyone have any good recommendations to get rid of the rust? I was thinking of some WD-40 and a brass brush since I am not 100% positive what the slide pins for the tensioner arms are made out of and I don't know what the little round items are in the block. I'm guessing they are either steel or iron, but I don't know and I would rather not risk scratching the aluminum.

Any other suggestions?

 

[eighty6gt]

Man, that stuff has to be coated in oil or WD, cosmoline. Things are damp all the time.. sorry about that. If the sliding components are rusty or pitted I'd replace them.

Also, shouldn't those tensioner housings be plastic?

 

[05gtowner]

How long has that motor been covered?

 

[skwerl]

Spray it down good with a silicone spray or wipe it down with engine oil. The light surface rust will dissolve in the oil and be fine, the oil will arrest any further rusting. The main thing is to coat every possible exposed internal engine surface with oil. It works once the engine is complete, it will work for an incomplete engine also.


Tell me, on a complete engine that has sat for a year, how do you treat it? You put oil in it and run it, right? Why would this be any different? It's only minor surface rust, perfectly normal. Don't let it frighten you.