My second car was a 1967 Ford Mustang Sports Sprint. I had no idea at the time what a Sports Sprint was. Still not quite sure. I saw an ad in the classifieds for a 1967 Mustang for I think $1200. I went and looked at it. It had a big hole in the windshield like a base or rock had landed on it. The car could stand to be cleaned up a bit. I offered the guy $900, and amazingly, he accepted. After signing the papers, and exchanging the money, I asked if there was anything about the car I should know. Did the gauges all work, etc. I said everything worked great.
The car had 2/3rds of a tank of gas, so I drove it home. I was almost home when the car stalled out on a steep hill. I couldn’t get it started again. I had flashbacks of my previous car dying just after I bought it. I called my Mom, and she towed my car home. I seemed to be getting spark, and checked various things. After a while I got down under the car and knocked on the gas tank. It sounded empty. I added some gas, and tried to start the car. It started right up. I learned the fuel sender unit was bad. I bought a new one, and installed it. Many of the parts were interchangeable with a Ford Cougar which made things easier sometimes.
The car came from the factory with a 289 engine and a 2 barrel carburetor. But somewhere in it’s life, someone replace the 289 engine with a 302 cubic engine. I was told it came out of a 1969 Mustang. The transmission was a 3 speed stick. That was totally weird. It was geared high. If I stopped on a hill, I had to gun the engine, and pop the clutch or I would stall out. Second gear was only for getting from first to third. I could take the car up to 50 mph in first gear. The car ate clutches and flywheels. Something about the weird combination of engine mated with the transmission. It seemed like they would only last a year or so.
I had the car up to 90 mph a couple times, and it shook badly, like it was going to fall apart.
It was the most unreliable car I have ever owned. It the mornings after a rainy night, the car wouldn’t want to start. I think moisture would collect on the top of the coil and would short it out. I would dry it off, and sometimes get it to start. Usually after trying to start it a handful of times, the battery would be drained. Occasionally I would get a jump start. But more often, I would be push starting the car in the parking lot after an all night shift.
I had good times in that car though. I remember driving it around Mt Rainier blasting The Doors and The Beach Boys (this was in the 1980’s btw). Or driving it around Tacoma, scouting pawn shops for a Fender Stratocaster. It was a fun car to drive.
The car was destined to kill itself. The first time, a rusty control arm collapsed send the car into a 360 degree spin on the freeway. I hit the barrier on both side of the car, munching the front end. I totally redid the front end replacing fenders, control arms, sway bar, and even corroded sheet metal in the engine compartment.
The next time was when it shot a tooth like a bullet out of the differential. The rear-end locked.
But the last time was when it somehow got into second and third gear at the same time while I was driving on the floating bridge. The rear end locked, and I skidded into a barrier, and the car flipped up onto it’s side. The tranny was toast, as was the side of the car. I sold the car to a salvage yard that specialized in Mustangs.
I miss having it sometimes. It would probably get really crappy gas mileage, and cost a fortune to keep running though. Hondas are much more reliable.
My first car was a 1974 Mustang II. I actually WANTED a Mustang II. I had initially saved up about $500. I started car shopping specifically for a Mustang II, but then due to an accident (not in a car), I ended up in the hospital, and the money was gone.
Later, I saved up money again. A buddy of mine and I went to a can auction. I found a 1974 Mustang II and bought it for $425. It was green, had a V6 engine, and a vinyl top. It was actually a sporty looking little car.
I was driving my new (used) car home on the freeway with my buddy following me. About 5 miles from the auction lot, my car suddenly lost power, and I pulled over to the side of the road. No matter what we tried, we could not get it to start again. We towed it home.
I had it taken to a mechanic, and the mechanic said the timing gears slipped. The engine was toast. He dropped in a used 6 cylinder engine, and got it running. My $425 car got more expensive, and I only had driven it 5 miles.
This became my daily driver. Over time, I found that oil was not getting to the top end to lubricating the rocker arms and push rods. So the push rods would wear down. I would periodically pour oil over the rocker arms, and re-adjust the tappets. I got pretty good at this. And it got about 19mpg I think, which wasn’t bad, since gas wasn’t that expensive then. The 1974 engines had had a bunch of anti-pollution stuff added on. But a previous own had apparently removed a bunch of it.
One day on a trip to the ocean, I got stuck behind a lady doing 10 mph below the speed limit. I was stuck behind this lady for close to 20 miles. It was a windy twisty road where it was not safe to pass. Cars stacked up behind this lady She would slow down for every curve. If the warning sign suggested 40mph, she would slow down to 30 mph. Signs said it was illegal to delay more than 5 vehicles, but she ignored these signs, and never pulled off in the spots for this. Finally we hit a straight away where I could pass. I went to pass her, and she sped up. I found myself doing close to 80 mph trying to get around her. I had a truck coming at me, when I finally managed to get over in front of her. It was then when I heard a loud rattling coming from my engine. I knew what it was. I pulled over to the side of the road and popped the hood. I had tools with me. I always had tools with me with this car. A push rod had popped out of place. It took me about 10-15 minutes to put the push rod back, and readjust the tappets. If there was ever someone deserving a little road rage…
I eventually replaced this car with my 1967 Mustang. The 1974 Mustang II lay dormant in my Mom’s driveway. When my 1967 Mustang was wrecked beyond repair, I tried to get the Mustang II running again. The engine had frozen. I didn’t know how to fix it then. I ended up having it towed away to a wrecking yard. Too bad we didn’t have the internet back then. I could have easily looked up the solution unfreezing it.
I spent my lunch hour at a dental appointment. I finished, and was heading back to work. But something caught my eye. It was a goofy looking little car. I had to turn around and go back to see what the heck it was.
I turned out to be a little three wheel car. The kind with two wheels in the front, and one wheel in the back. The back wheel setup looked like part of a small motorcycle. It even had a motorcycle type exhaust pipe. The badges said it was a Scoot Coupe or a ScootCoupe. The words on the badge were munged together. I snapped a few pictures so I would remember it. It only had two seats and no cover.
When I got back to work, I looked the ScootCoupe up. They have a website. It’s ScootCoupe.com, go figure. They have the words separated by a space, so I guess it’s Scoot Coupe and not ScootCoupe. The website shows two different models. The P50 model has an approximately 50cc (49.3cc) engine, and the P150 model has a larger approximately 150cc (147.5cc) engine. The P50 has a list price of $6299, and the P150 costs $6599.
Not sure how practical they would be. The P50 will do about 30mph with two passengers, and the P150 will do about 55mph. As far as gas mileage, it says the EPA rating is 82mph, but you can expect maybe 55-70mpg. I am guessing using hypermiling techniques, you might be able to exceed the 82mpg. Maybe 100 mpg? That would be cool.
But the Scoot Coupe is has no top. So you would be exposed to the weather like on a motorcycle. Technically and legally it is motorcycle/moped. Maybe it would be a fun toy, but with no roof, and a top speed of 55mph, I don’t think it would be very practical as a daily driver.
I have had this idea for a while of modifying a cruise control into a throttle lock. My best gas mileage comes not from holding a steady speed, but from holding a steady throttle. I use my ScanGauge to find my TPS (throttle position). If I want to got about 35, I hold it at about a TPS of 13. If I want to g0 40, then TPS is 14. 45-55 mph, I use a TPS is 15 or 16. I will try to just hold my pedal at that position, which is not easy. I love the ease of cruise control, but gas mileage can be better.
My idea is to modify a cruise control to hold the throttle at a fixed position, instead having it adjust the throttle to maintain speed. I think the cruise control receives pulses from the speed sensor, and it uses those to tell speed. If the frequency of the pulses increases, the speed has increased, so it lets out the throttle a bit. If the frequency drops, it increases the throttle. What if I made a small add on to send a fixed freqency to the cruise control. I could get the throttle adjusted to where I want it, say at a TPS of 15 by the ScanGauge. Then I would activate the cruise control. It would read the frequency from the speed sensor, which is now the output from my add-on device. It would read a certain frequency of pulses. Since the pulses would neither increase, or decrease, it would hold the throttle at that postion. It seems like it would work. I could also have a switch that would switch between the speed sensor input and the fixed frequency input. That way I could use it as either a cruise control or a throttle lock.
Another option is to buy a used cruise control, and gut the circuitry from it and make my own. I am guessing it is basically stepper motor of some sort. Of course, I haven’t done any electronics work like that for years, and it goes a bit beyond anything I ever did. I would still want to be able to hit the brakes, and have it release the cruise control. But I would no longer have it as a cruise control.
Too bad someone didn’t already make something like this.
According to my ScanGauge 2, I averaged 44.6 mpg on my drive to work today. I think this is the best I have ever done on the route. I did leave home a little late, so maybe traffic patterns were a little different than usual. I know there were a few places where I was able to drive a little slower, because I didn’t have someone riding my butt. I just took it very easy. I accelerated a little slower than usual, and coasted longer to stops. I think I also managed to catch a couple lights nicely so that I didn’t have to stop completely. Maybe the small aero modifications to the front of my car have helped a little too. The warmer temperatures have been helping my gas mileage. It was kind of discouraging over the winter to see my gas mileage fall from 40 mpg to about 32 mpg. 32 mpg is still great gas mileage for a 2000 Honda Civic. Way better than the EPA estimates. But 32mpg kind of sucks when you have gotten used to getting 40 mpg. But the 44.6 mpg this morning was great. I don’t expect to get that on the way home. I can be getting great mileage all the way home. But then the hill up to my house which has a 300 foot climb, usually causes my gas mileage to drop by 2 mpg or so.
Just got home from work. I was averaging 41 mpg when I got to the bottom of our hill. By the time I got into my garage, my gas mileage had dropped to 38.9 mpg. As I said, that 300 foot climb drops my gas mileage by about 2 mpg. It’s funny. The drive is 13.5 miles, and that .5 mile climb is killer!