After about a month of only driving my 68 around the neighborhood where I could easily be towed back home, and working out little bugs, today is the day when it will make the maiden voyage out. Still has a wicked oil leak (gotta get the pan out) and a noisy exhaust leak, but I don’t care. I’ll paint the streets with a little oil.
Good luck. Paint away young Padawan!
The best part…to this point I’ve come in almost 2000$ less than I expected. More money to make it look pretty while staying in my budget
Isn’t that a great feeling! WOO HOO!
This is why I encourage people to get the car running. Just a trip around the block will keep you invested in doing more.
Congratulations. It’s always a great day when you get your classic Cougar going down the road. Enjoy the trip and get some pictures.
Steven
Excellent! And super smart to stick around the neighborhood within towing distance. Oil leaks are good – the oil paints the metal on the underside of your car and keeps it from rusting 
I live in Arizona…what’s rust?
Rub it in!!! The Fairlane in my sig pic is from AZ also. No rubber left anywhere, but lots of solid metal 
That is great that you have only made trips around the neighborhood and the big trip is coming soon. Enjoy the drive. Oil leaks are ok, it is like your Cougar is blessing the asphalt with little drops of Mercury holy water. Keep us all informed on how your longer drives go.
I drove it around all day on Friday and Saturday. It gets a little warm sometimes, I suspect that the thermostat is sticking intermittently (replace it tonight) and I need to tinker with the carb a bit, sometimes (often on an incline) the engine is flooding, so I’m also going to take a look at float levels. I put new front shocks in it Saturday, and now I need to do the rears, but things are coming together.
Haha oh yeah, I also need to bite the bullet and wire in my headlight door kit so I can do away with the bungee cords that currently hold the doors open.
By the way, your cat isn’t leaking oil. It’s marking its territory! Glad to your cat is moving under its own power. Right after new striker and door latch on my cat, I found my '65 Galaxie is leaking fuel (tank) so one project finished, and now I await a sender for my new tank (if you think Cougar parts can be hard try finding a tank that is listed for a '65 galaxie. I ended up going with a '69 full size tank. No listing for a replacement. PERIOD!). So the adventures don’t stop.
Just remember this: You got her up and running. Nobody else did. Is there really anything more satisfying? Good luck with your future projects, and post some pics. I love to see the progress.
Now I’m having some kind of fuel system problems, so gotta get that figured out. I can’t take all the credit for getting it running though, I’ve had some help, my ol Man has been under the hood a time or 3, and a good buddy of mine has been there for the entire journey. If it wasn’t for those guys and advice from every corner of the internet it would still be on jackstands.
In the process of putting on headers, I discovered the cause of my oil leak, and fixed it today. I noticed that none but the 4 corner bolts were threaded in all the way, I put a socket on one and realized it was bottomed out about a millimeter before it made contact with the pan, 16 lock washers later, not a drop.
That’s a simple fix. I’m glad it was nothing more than that to get your oil leak fixed.
Steven
It still drips a little, but it is easily like 1/20 of what it was
I agree with Steven.
Pat, I know where you’re coming from too. Been waiting a long time to FINALLY drive mine too. Front seal in tranny leaks like crazy, and the C4 needs an overhaul, but I don’t care. I’m with you, let’s drive em, and fix em as we go!
Ray.