Please let me introduce myself...

[mkoebra95]

Hello fellow Tbird owners/fans. My friends and family call me Matt or Diesel or Hey You (substitute some explitive for "you" if I've crossed you wrong). I've been a Ford guy pretty much since birth: Dad worked in a Ford factory as I was growing up and we pretty much owned any car your heart could desire as long as it was built by Ford. Dad indoctrinated me well and as I started buying my own cars, it's been nothing but Ford/Lincoln/Mercury.

Anyway, pardon my screen name. I started my online forum roaming days as a Mustang Cobra guy. I know I should come up with some sort of kick arse TBird moniker now but I decided to keep my online life simple. I also own a 1995 Mustang Corba convertible that is on jackstands (and has been for several years) as I build a custom twin turbo kit for it. MKoebra95 has been the screen name I've used on several different forums since I learned to drive (and type) around the same age. Anywho, I used to post a lot on corral.net and turbomustangs (now theturboforums.com).

[starwars ref] That was before the dark times. Before I realized I was married to shedevil. [/starwars ref] Eventually I lost 120 lbs of dead weight (read: divorced shedevil who HATED my car hobby). As they say, the reason a divorce is so expensive is that it's worth it. After the "shedevil-welfare"(alimony) was paid, with the money I had left over, I spent "recovering" in downtown San Diego wineing and dining the various young lasses of the area. Living in a downtown Gas Lamp District condo was fantabulous for meeting chicks but hell on the car hobby...

Fast forward to today. I'm married to a woman who LOVES watching me work on cars, even if she doesn't know the difference between a carb and a torque wrench. My job moved us from the whale's vagina to the east coast. The Cobra finally has it's own half of a two car garage with all of my hand tools and welding/fabricating tools set up ready to add boost to the beast.

So why am I on this site...

I grew sick of not having V8 torque on tap. I have two V6s with as much power as my Cobra but with about 2/3 (really 1/2) the Q. So what's a Ford Man to do?

Dream.

Until...

I drove past this pretty sweet car on my way to work for over a month without stopping. I looked at her every day but no stoppy stoppy. She passed the 25' at 55mph rule. But I still didn't stop.

The catalyst for me to stop was when my Dad told me he was attending an old car/performance car club meeting each week. I teased him and asked if he enjoyed driving his Focus to the meetings while the other guys, including his two brothers, drove kick ass hotrods. Mind you, he has an unfinished Factory Five Racing A/C Cobra replica in his garage (02 model), 2 Turbo Coupes for parts cars for his kit cars #3 and #4 (don't ask me what happened to kitcar #2...), along with enough tools to open his own machine or mechanic's shop: 4 post lift, tons of hand tools, a 3 axis bridgeport CNC machine etc etc.

Anyway, with both my itch for V8 torque and the though of my Dad going to his car club meeting in a 4 door focus while his bro's drove '40 Chevy Special Deluxes and Monte Carlos, I decided to yield to temptation and stop to check out the fantasy car...

This is what I saw.
Side view:


Front view:


I drove it.

and it drove great.

It needed some minor and trim work, but nothing huge, SO...

I bought it with the intention of giving it to Dad so he had a cool car to drive to his car club meetings that he could tinker with in the mean time. I figured we could restore it over time together.

The best laid plans of mice and men...

He couldn't find enough free floor space in his 2500 sq ft garagemahal to keep it inside. So I decided to keep it at my place and drive it as I worked on the SVT Cobra.

Now, since that decision, one of my friends from San Diego came to visit me for my birthday. I was psyched to show him the my new toy. He (being a 20 something) was pysched to ride in something older than his Mom. It died leaving the drive way. Keep in mind that I drove it around several times with my brother and by myself prior to his visit with zero problems.

Oh well, it cranked over and off we went.

FOR 1 MILE.

It wouldn't crank.

AT ALL...

At least we were still in my neighborhood. We marched back to my house to get the Lincoln and the the jump battery. We eventually got the Tbird started and got it home, only after it died 2 more times, both at stops...

My buddy nicknamed it the "Millennium Falcon". It only seems to go when it wants to and NEVER when I NEED it to...

Oh well. We still made it to the bottle service party on time for my birthday...

So, thanks for reading this far. Here's a no bullshyte summation of everything I've written so far with what I'm looking for outta my Tbird:

-I'm a Ford man for life.
-Owned and modded a 95 5.0L Cobra.
-Life jumped in the way of my plans for a couple years.
-Met an awesome woman I love who loves my wrench swinging tendancies.
-Moved from SoCal to the East Coast and got a house with a 2 car garage.
-Bought a running 65 TBrid that needed some decent but not MAJOR cosmetic upgrades.
-Intent on giving it to my Dad so he could work on it and drive it to his car clubs; he wouldn't clean enough space in his garage for it, so...
-I decided to keep it. Project Car #2 was here...
-Running part started acting up.
-Now I find myself embracing the joys of owning and working on a car that others have done for over 40 years...
-My friend calls it the Millennium Flacon. I just call it the MF(er)... The crude drawn out portion of MF works for me both when something new keeps it from running properly (usually my friends and family are present) or when it is running ideally and I open her up her up on a highway near my house...

My goals are:
-Keep running, at least until the Cobra moves under it's own power.
-Restore it system by system, starting with the moving/operational parts
-Give it to my Dad to enjoy driving to his car club meets during his retirement time since I know I'm going to inherit the FFR 65 Cobra still needing to be assembled...

I look forward to reading and learning from you guys. I'll mostly be posting in the Flarebird section unless something else comes up...

-Matt.

[Gary Tayman]

Welcome to the forum!

I have a 64 which originated as quite a project -- and I distinctly remember the very first time I took it out "on the open road." Yes, I backed it out of the driveway, drove it around the neighborhood, and came back in. The next day my wife actually got in the car with me, and we drove "out" of the neighborhood -- I felt as though I had escaped the iron curtain or something. Here I go! Drove it down the road a few miles, turned right, drove down a main street and passed a car cruise in a local diner. I was tempted to pull in but I didn't -- if only because I was afraid if I shut off the motor, it might not start again. Another right, yet another, and as I heaed for home I saw a cop coming up behind me. Uh-oh! What happened? Taillights working? Did something fall off? What's wrong???? Then the cop turned off -- whew! Pulled back in the garage. What a ride!

Some 15 years later th car is still far from finished, but I drive it - and there's a car cruise nearby tonight that I'm going to.

Anyway, have fun -- and don't be a stranger.