Jay purchased his Mustang back in 2017, having always loved the shape and sound of them. However, despite having some thoughts about doing more shows and events, was put off by the fact that changing gear in his beloved car was like trying to grab a bull by its horns when someone has just waved a red flag in its face. “The car was really difficult to get into 3rd gear and when you did get it into 3rd, it was then very reluctant to change out of that gear” Jay told me.
Jay had actually bumped into one of our managers Darren, whilst at a dance event and discussing their keen interest in American cars and thus brought it to BE Automotive to take a look at the problematic transmission.
David (one of our engineers) began the process of removing the transmission from the car.
Unfortunately it was quickly discovered that not all the parts for fixing the mustang were available off the shelf, which may explain why this hadn’t been addressed before. Thankfully we have an in-house precision engineering team that were able to manufacture the missing components and the other bits were ordered as required.
As with most old cars, once you start looking into one problem you can quickly uncover other issues that might need doing and the mustang had a few that with Jays permission we addressed.
These included amongst a few other things:
- Wheel hubs been skimmed up
- Replacement studs
- Wheel bearings and seals
- Gearbox leaking oil
 Pitting around the wheel hubs and one had a crack in it. |
 David topping up the oil in the differential. |
After putting the mustang back together it was finally time for a test drive to make sure all was well. Immediately the gear change felt a lot better, and the mustang purred out of the workshop and began reversing up the drive. Having reversed around the corner, David went for 1st gear and there was suddenly a bang, and no gear was then selectable.
Back to the ramp and gearbox pulled back revealed a blown clutch…talk about timing.
The linkage had also seen better days, so with Jays permission we fitted a new clutch and did some work on the linkage, then it was ready for test drive number 2.
Well, I thought I would take this one out myself this time, well it is fantastic looking mustang, why should David have all the fun J. No clutch problems this time around and the pedal felt better than before. However, haven taken it for a drive, I still wasn’t totally happy with the gear selection we had delivered. Whilst 3rd and 4th were now working fine, it was still a concentrated effort to actually find 1 gear st and 2nd. Chances are that most people would have become use to being able to find those gears with time, but it just wasn’t quite right. Thankfully Matt our engineer came it with some modifications to the new mechanism he had created, which helped resolve the issue and then the Mustang was changing gear like it was a new car.
“Now that I can change gear without fear, I’m looking forward to enjoying the car a lot more and attending more car shows in the future” Jay commented.
One thing is for certain, in that colour it certainly grabs the eye and is sure to get a lot of attention wherever it parks up.