What started as a 15 minute repair has turned into a downward spiral. The Mustang started overheating, so I went to my local auto parts store and bought a new thermostat, temperature sensor, and coolant flush kit for about $30. I about had it all back together, but snapped one of the new bolts, as I was tightening it with a torque wrench. The bolt broke almost flush with the cylinder head, making it impossible to remove with vice grips.
Broken bolts are a fact of life when working on an old car, and the early Mustangs seem especially prone to breaking bolts on the thermostat housing and exhaust manifold. I ended up removing the radiator and drilling out the broken bolt, thinking I could clean out the threads in the cylinder head with a tap and die set.
Unfortunately, I could not clean out the threads, or may have stripped them. In any case, I knew I had more broken bolts ahead of me, because I was planning on replacing the cracked exhaust manifold, which also bolts on to the cylinder head. My plan was now to removed the exhaust manifold and then send the cylinder head out to be reconditioned.
That put me on the slippery slope of car repair, the one where you start with the intentions of doing a small repair job, only to slide down into the abyss of a full on rebuild. I found a good engine shop, which quoted me about $400 to redo the cylinder head. This would mean the Mustang would have the top half of the engine rebuilt, while leaving the pistons, bearings, camshaft, and crank untouched and original to a 56 year old car. Should I do a full engine rebuild while I'm at it? Do I leave the engine stock, or make some modifications to improve performance? In addition to the engine itself, should I upgrade the carburetor and ignition? How far do I want to go?
Sometimes deciding what to do can be harder than actually doing it.
