Introduction


The Mustang pictured below (bottom) was first purchased by my father-in-law, Buddy, in 1986, in Connecticut. Shortly after, he purchased a second six-cylinder convertible and sold the pictured one to my wife's cousin, Ronnie. Dad died in 1994. When Ronnie decided to sell the car to finance an in-ground swimming pool in 2006, my wife Sharon and I decided to buy it, and brought it home to Tennessee.
The car had undergone a cosmetic restoration before Dad bought it, and apart from some minor detailing since then, was still in the same condition when we bought it.
In June 2010, I found out it was a Sprint 200, Package A, 3-speed manual transmission. And after reading an article in the archives of the Mustang Times by Jim Smart, went looking for the Broadcast (Build) Sheet. I found it wrapped around the wiring harness behind the speedometer. After a brief search to find out what all the codes meant, I realized that surprisingly little is known or published about these documents. So I decided I'd try to attempt to decode it myself. This blog is a journal of that research.
All discussions below currently pertain to only 1966 Mustangs.

Monday, June 13, 2011

Springs - Front

One of the most difficult codes to break are the front springs. That's because there were many different applications to match up as the pages (above) from the Master Parts Catalog will illustrate. Then on 2/14/66 Ford changed the applications; which spring went with which options. That being said, it doesn't appear that they changed the part number - load rating - paint marking system they were using. What they did change was which options a particular spring was used for. At this point I believe that the build sheet codes specified a certain spring part number, and since this remained unchanged, the code remained unchanged as well. Therefore, I have begun the following table. I'm sorry but I don't have enough build sheets yet to provide the codes for the Green or Violet colored springs.

Code
Part Number
Load
Markings
O
C5ZZ-5310-A        
1279 lbs.
PINK

C5ZZ-5310-B       
1344 lbs.
GREEN
4
C5ZZ-5310-C        
1490 lbs.
GRAY

C5ZZ-5310-D                           
1413 lbs.
VIOLET
W
C5ZZ-5310-E                    
1491 lbs.
BROWN
X
C5ZZ-5310-F     
1413 lbs.
 RED
In order to verify the paint markings on your springs, it may be necessary to soak them in Evaporust. Above are some photos of a green 1344 lb. spring. It may be necessary to confirm the actual spring used in order to  verify what Ford installed. The MPC application table isn't enough of a guide; as Ford sometimes changed things for unknown reasons.