Haters Gonna Hate, My '06 Mustang

454cid said:

I use a 7/32 socket when I do interior screws such as those that hold on the heater core cover. I didn't even think of them being metric until later. I do have a 5.5mm someplace. I bought it for something specific, but I don't remember what.

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5.5 mm is for the blower motor bolts, I've heard some underhood stuff on TBI trucks.

Erik the Awful said:

Whomever came up with 5.5mm headed bolts to hold on a front bumper as a weak-sauce attempt to keep owners from maintaining their own plastic headlight lenses needs to be made an example of. A 7/32 socket (which is weirdly a thing I have) fits perfectly.

I'm kinda thinking that about five minutes after I get to heaven there's going to be a counseling session where I'm told that I'm not allowed to junk-punch all the engineers who pissed me off in life. I'll have to move fast and get as many as I can.

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Seems like an overly extravagant alternative to just buying a 5.5mm socket. I have them in most every toolbox of mine. Besides, there are far more egregious reasons to smack engineers in the junk.

Supercharged111 said:

Seems like an overly extravagant alternative to just buying a 5.5mm socket.

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My 7/32 socket came in a set. My metric tiny-socket set did not include a 5.5mm.

Supercharged111 said:

Besides, there are far more egregious reasons to smack engineers in the junk.

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Like I said, I'll have to work fast. It's like Pokeman, "Gotta catch them all!"

So far this year I haven't been able to turn the A/C on. The defroster vent tines in the dash broke out, fell down, and jammed the blend door on full-hot. I've been keeping the fan off and the vents closed this summer. The worst part is that I have to disassemble the entire front half of the interior to get the HVAC box out. I've considered buying a refrigerant recovery machine in the past, but at $1000, I was out. Then I checked on Amazon.

I got my $300 refrigerant recovery machine in last week. I don't need it to perfectly vacuum the system, I just need it to capture most of the refrigerant. Unfortunately it has R12 fittings on it and the refrigerant tank. Today I finally got my R12 to R134 adapters. The refrigerant tank had a bit of vacuum on it, but as soon as my vacuum pump started pulling, it got a fair bit of air out of it. I'm gonna keep the vacuum on it for a couple hours, and tomorrow evening it's supposed to only be 92*F, so I might take that opportunity to start sucking the refrigerant into the tank and disassembling the interior.

Erik the Awful said:

I've talked a bit about my Mustang, and today I actually thought to get a pic. I'm brand-agnostic. I don't give a crap about Ford vs Chevy vs Dodge vs Imports. If it's fun and fast, I like it. If it's custom and pretty, I like it. If it's rusty and ugly but still rolling, I like it.

It's a 2006 Mustang GT. Hate if you want, but it's been my extremely reliable daily driver since 2008. I got it with 4,000 miles on the odometer, and its nearing 195,000.

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I like it! But what matters most is that you like it and enjoy it and keep the car/truck world turning. I with you on the brands, who cares what brand if you like it. We should be encouraging each other on our individual automotive tastes instead of bickering over brands while being pushed towards mass transportation.

Cadillacmak said:

I like it! But what matters most is that you like it and enjoy it and keep the car/truck world turning. I with you on the brands, who cares what brand if you like it. We should be encouraging each other on our individual automotive tastes instead of bickering over brands while being pushed towards mass transportation.

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Totally agree, everyone has different tastes and all that matters is that they get to enjoy their vehicles.

While I personally won’t own or work on Fords I like your car, it’s a clean example! My neighbor has a cool 2023 F-150 and he took me for a ride in it and I was impressed. It’s got the factory ford supercharger kit, and I think he said it’s over 800 Hp, and still gets good fuel mileage. But I couldn’t own a Ford personally….

When I was buying my 2012 GMC 2500 in 2018 my friend said “I can likely get you into a brand new ford for a decent monthly payment”. It was a hard pass for me, I bought the best used GM truck I could afford to buy cash and I don’t regret it a bit.

Back to your Stang, enjoy, it’s a clean ride!

I took the dashboard all the way out and back in this afternoon. I discovered it's even easier than a GMT400. See that center vent? That's where all the tines from the defroster grille fall, but they weren't blocking the blend door. Come to find out the actuator was just bad. I took the opportunity to pick out the defroster tines, replace the actuator without extreme yoga, replace the gear indicator light bulb, clean out all the soda my wife spilled in the shifter, vacuum, pick up the french fry that somehow got under the center console even when I don't eat in my car, and paint the dashboard with vinyl paint to keep it from further disintegration. Interesting bit - the steering wheel comes out with the dash board.



...and the A/C still doesn't work. I ended up not even cracking the system open, so I put the refrigerant back in and now the compressor won't cycle on. I'm not sure what's up, and the sun set while I was still trying, so tomorrow I'll check the fuses. At least the blend door is working and it's not blowing hot air any more.

What's going on with that passenger door panel?

The vinyl piece that came on the door panels had a foam backing that deteriorated quickly, causing the material to fall off. The material is to finely cut-to-fit that there's no good way to reattach it. It's been missing for about ten years. I've considered painting it, but haven't thought of a way to make it look nice.