Thread: 1974 Mustang II Build

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Originally Posted by jerry clayton

Back in the days of those "Slinky" type wrist watch bands------early 60s----one of the guys I was working with at United Airlines shorted out the hot battery cable with it and burnt his arm very bad-----it was pretty gross

I forgot about this until just now. Sometime in 71 we were establishing power on a DC-10 and some jerk with a large wrench hanging out of his back pocket with the box end up jumped into the center accessory compartment. He landed on the bottom power relay across two phases which shorted out the relay, burnt the end off his wrench and destroyed a 3 phase 4 ought cable set from the #1 engine. We had to pull the bad one and replace it with one from another plane that was in wing joining and order a new one for that plane. He cost us two days of extra work and I think they fired the jerk.

3 phase and 400 cycles---------

Originally Posted by jerry clayton

3 phase and 400 cycles---------

You bet and nasty. I got bit a couple of times, burnt a hole in my finger once.

I never had any issues on the planes but when I was ground equipment mech, we had to maintain the ground power units( before APU days) and they were 75kva 400 cycle---------those power cords to the airplane had 6 wires of wich 2 were small to establish control for the contact

Biggest problems with the generators were that even when -20-30 degrees gate mechs would start them up put them in 3rd gear and floorthe throttle-------now with about a thousand pound armture shat assy----there was lots of clutch slipping and they would wipe out the clutch every couple months----

Funny you bring this up. I got nailed by one of our old Hobart GPU's 2 weeks ago. It had a coolant leak I was repairing. When the A/C tech fired it up I was up on the unit checking for leaks. I found a loose connection after it lit my ass up. Ours are 90kva and 400hz. They only run the APU's when needed. It consists of about 5 minutes before the GPU is pulled off the gate. They have been reducing APU run time for a while trying to save on the cost and maintenance on them.


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Cade came over for the last couple of days. Yesterday Cade got to learn about door panels, lock rod clips and speaker installation. He did good.

DP by M Patterson, on Flickr


Cade has been needing less and less guidance which is a good thing. There is still a laundry list of stuff to do on the car and after my hand surgery, about all I'll be able to do is point and tell him what needs to be done for a while.


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Mike you laied the ground work just sit back and enjoy he'll do just fine

We got back on the Mustang again this weekend. We hadn't been doing much with it the last couple of months due to my hand, the weather and Cades' grades. Cade took the written test for his learners permit but didn't study enough so he's got to take it again. Having the car ready for the road has become a priority for him again so I suspect a flurry of work getting it ready is in his future (along with a bunch of work for me to pay for the parts).


A while back we found the rear wheel cylinders were just starting to weep a little bit so we tackled those yesterday. When you've been doing brakes for 50 years or so like a lot of us you can usually get the wheel cylinder bolts and brake line off by feel.

B2 by M Patterson, on Flickr


When you're just starting out you usually need to actually see the pieces you're taking out.


B1 by M Patterson, on Flickr


When the wheel cylinders were changed and the drums back on I got to do something I'd been waiting for the last 16 years.......being the one sitting in the car pushing the peddle instead of running the bleeders and keeping an eye on the brake fluid level.....hey it's the little things in life.


When we got done, I handed Cade the brake spring tools I bought when I was 16 and just starting out (yeah, I still have them). I told him they probably need to be in his tool box now.



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Good lessons, Mike! I remember learning the same things as a kid and usually someone saying "the pedal feels good, now check the fluid and we'll bleed them one more time".

Good on ya, Mike! I'm enjoying this thread.

I've recently been informed that I have to redo a truck for my grandson. I hope to be teaching him a few things in the process.

No working on the car, or even driving it yesterday. A few things I've been working on came together over the last couple of weeks so things are going to get busy around here over the next couple of months. My hand's better but still healing so Cade coming over on Sundays is a blessing. Today was strictly a work day........pretty much by the time we were done Cade was ready to just call it a day.

Besides a few other small jobs Cade spent most of the morning putting caulking in about 500 ft of expansion cracks on the concrete pad out in the arena.

cc by M Patterson, on Flickr




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Poor guy.
I think it's good that he knows about hard / monotonous work, and the satisfaction it can bring to a job well done..

I hoping he can take it as a lesson of life , file it away and somewhere in the future, it comes back as a story he shares with a friend or family member and it starts like, "oh, this 1 time my grandfather had me on my hands and knees pushing caulking into the joints of his concrete floor"...

You know he's going to blame his future carpal tunnel surgery on you from caulking cement don't you LOL

He's a good kid, and rarely complains about the jobs I give him.

Every once in a while he does hear "how lucky he's got it". He's heard a few stories about me growing up on a farm. Mostly the one about riding a hay rack all summer stacking bales when I was his age or the walking the 50 acre bean field row by row pulling volunteer corn out of the rows.

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Originally Posted by Mike P

,,,,,,,,, walking the 50 acre bean field row by row pulling volunteer corn out of the rows.

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That reminded me of one of those childhood "teachings" I got too. When tasked with a similar job I thought I'd get out of it by saying, "But these are good plants." I was quickly instructed, "If they're growing where they're not supposed to they're a weed!" Keep pullin'...…...