After 10 Years In Jail, He Finally Gets To Drive His Ford Mustang Again
A couple of weeks back, we brought you YouTuber Michael Malone’s video where he took his friend Aaron, who’d been away on vacation for a decade, for a ride in his boosted Lexus. After ten years out of the car scene, Aaron was surprised to see how much the community had changed, especially when it came to horsepower levels in street cars.
Before being sent away, Aaron had been working on a project of his own, a 5.0 fox body Mustang. During his time away, the car was stored at a cousin’s house and basically forgotten until Aaron returned and decided to drag the car out and resume progress on the build.
Of course, after sitting up for a full decade, the car wasn’t exactly turn-key ready, but when you have a friend like Michael, all you need is a little time and some elbow grease to make things happen. The first order of business actually began on a previous video when Malone dropped the Mustang’s fuel tank to drain out the old gas and replace the fuel pump and sending unit. After a decade of sitting, this is a no-brainer, as it seems unlikely the old pump would even try to send fuel toward the engine.
Returning to the car to finish the swap and reinstall the tank, Michael and Aaron get the new components installed and the tank bolted back in place. From there, the two tackle some of the other issues with the car, including dropping a new battery in place. There’s a little more work to be done though, so the guys take a break and come back later with a fresh ignitor for the car’s ignition system. This is where we get a glimpse at the kindness in Michael’s heart, him spending his own money to pick up the ignitor for Aaron’s ride and drop it in to see if that allows the car to start.
The car stumbles to life, but doesn’t seem to want to stay running, so Michael jumps in the driver’s seat to try to keep the engine alive. After a few moments of revving the car to clean out the engine, it actually starts to idle and run, although it does still sound a little rough. However, the first big obstacle is out of the way, so they can focus on cleaning everything up and getting the car tuned up so it can be driven reliably, but Aaron and Michael do take the car out for a little drive and actually race the Stang against Michael’s 350Z.