[ OUR CARS ] 1964 Ford Mustang
Owned by Quentin Willson (classic.cars@bauermedia.co.uk)
Time owned 10 years, 4 months
Latest/total miles 0/117,072
Latest/total costs £456/£12,890
Previously Fluid/filter changes, rear quarter window fix, LED rear light kit buy (April 2023)
Latest round of wiring woe fixes began in January
This is very much a confession of embarrassment. Keen readers may remember that in my last report I proudly told you that I’d fitted brighter rear sequential LED indicators to my 1964 Mustang for safety reasons. A simple job, I thought. Plug and play, the instructions said. They looked great, worked for a few minutes, but then went dark. I took the units off, checked the wiring, refitted, but still darkness. I suspected the flasher unit was at fault and rummaged under the dash, found the unit and replaced it with a spare.
Nothing. Not even a click. Lying horizontally across the front seats while squeezing one hand into the cat’s cradle of wiring behind the speedo is something you can’t physically do for very long. So, for better access I unscrewed the speedo binnacle, disconnected the cable to the gearbox, pulled it out and saw the wiring behind had been got at. A previous restorer from when the car was still in America had left snipped, unconnected wires and taped up connections. My heart sank.
And it’s been sinking ever since. Sporadic attempts with a multi-meter – car electrics have never been my strong point – yielded nothing. On the principle that you should never assume new replacement components are working correctly, I tried four different flasher units but, alas, they made no difference apart from further darkening my mood. So, I went into a terminal sulk and watched YouTube videos searching for inspiration. Still a blank. Several months of depression followed and in desperation I asked a small Stratford-upon-Avon garage that fixes the occasional classic to have a look. Craig at CMG Automotive cheerily said of course he could sort the wiring out and I breathed a mighty sigh of relief. That was in January.
Trip wires – mix of old and new connections
Craig found the job as tricky as I had. Worse, even reinstating the old indicator units wouldn’t bring the circuits back to life. The Mustang had been previously rewired, apart from the under-dash area, so I ordered a new dash loom from CJ Pony Parts in the US, but being an early 1964 model, my car had several different connecting plugs, so it wouldn’t fit.
My weekly trips to Craig saw both of us become increasingly frustrated as he went through each circuit, testing and securing every connection. We’re now at the exasperating stage where everything now functions – not least the indicators – but as soon as Craig pushes the speedo binnacle back into the dash a wire behind disconnects, and another circuit fails.
He’s been really wonderful, remaining impossibly positive during our ordeal. But we’re both feeling defeated. The Mustang has been off the road for 16 long months because I was stupid enough to think I could fit modern LEDs indicator units into old wiring without really having a clue what I was doing. I only hope that by the time you read this, 64 MUS is back on the road, hood down in the summer sun. Fingers crossed. Ever so tightly….
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