What’s Missing?

Weekend ritual to Mustang Maniac was upon me before I knew it this week. I arrived to see the Adam shunting lorries around the yard trying to make space fora few more cars that had arrived. We walked to “my” workshop (I wished) and discussed the plan of action. We made a list and got some parts from the bursting at the seams stores. We wanted to get the rear quarter panel trims in place. The common mistake here is to just screw them on without the water shield kit. The water shields are a special paper with a coating to keep the moisture out. This kit will be for the rear quarter panels and the doors behind the cards when they are fitted.

The cars need to have some adhesive and this is like a mastic that is stuck to the paper with the wax side facing to the outside of the car.

Attaching the paper is quite simple as long as you line it up with the rear wheel arches. Peel the protective backing of and press to the framework. The die cuts will line up with the window winder and the screw cut outs too.

The main metal quarter trims themselves have a “fuzzy” which staples to the metal. The staples holes are already there on the panel and the corresponding holes in the replacement fuzzy kit. The staples will be pressed through the panel and bent over at the back out of sight. This will make sure the staples within the fuzzy itself will not scratch the chrome surface or the glass when the windows are wound up and down.

Drop the panels over the frame and align the screws holes up. Do not tighten the bottom ones up yet as the carpet needs to be clamped into position first under the panel. Pulling the carpet taught at the bottom and aligned with the sill top, then you can tighten all the screws up. Now the heading asked the question What’s missing? From the pictures see if you can guess (apart from the handle missing on one side, that don’t count).

Yep – the seats. These are at the trimmers now having the seat covers fitted professionaly. Hopefully these won’t be to long and we can get them fitted into place. Saying that the seats are not in place can be a problem for the progress of the car. But, not having them there has helped a lot as we can sort the interior out without fear of damaging the seats, or having to store them off the car while you work on it inside. The extra space provided by the void where the seats should be comes in very handy for the next task.

The sill scuff plates were next up on the agenda. These come in many styles from cheaper budget ones, or as Adam now calls them “Enos” range, or these full on Ford tooling beauties which are highly polished stainless steel. Stainless stell is used in razor blades and I found out why. The unfinished sides managed to cut both thumbs on the knuckle. I was more worried about the blood on the new carpet than the little chunks of skin shaved off. A bit of rag and a few swear words later I was back on the case to finish fitting them.

The sills have four crews at the top and five on the back. The scuff plates will cover the carpet and wire channels to finish of the look of the door area. The plates were dry fitted to work out where the weather lace will need to go from the interior quarter panels to the sill plate. Screw in the lightly untill everything is in place and then tighten up. Starting on the top and working to the back inside the car. The holes lined up well due to the Ford tooling and no need to get the drill out and make endless holes. Remove the protective cover from the scuff plates to expose the polished surface.

The final piece of the sill is the badge, there some various options over the course of time so I went with the correct badges for the year.

Once it’s all complete it will look like this.

We had another bling part to put on the brake pedal while we were at it, the polished stainless surround. This turned out to be a pain and took just as much time to fit as the scuff plates did. The rubber being new was still swollen and the trim needed to be massaged into place. Adam had the leather hammer to help speed things up a bit as it were!

I have not put all the pictures up yet as i wanted to get the seats in place and show the full effect of the interior. So you will have to wait a little while longer for that treat, sorry. But, things are moving along nicely now and the list of jobs is getting shorter and a lot nicer. Adding the “Bling” to the car has the instant wow factor, and I just can’t get enough of this drug they call “Mustang”. What a buzz 😀

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No Spelling Mistakes

The alarm woke me up with a start again, not the normal during the week alarm for work, this is the much more pleasantly sounding Saturday Mustang Maniac alarm which don’t give the hump when I hear it. I struggled to wake as the air was already muggy and hot. I eventually got in the car and set off, already the air outside was hot and the aircon was on. I arrived to see Yogi in the forklift moving tool boxes about and having a brutal clear out of his old work shop. Adam was opening up the workshop where my car was and I handed over the standard payment of the cakes, these were taken straight to the boys club for an early morning cup of tea and doughnuts. The discussion was had about my tasks of the day. We decided carpet and lettering on the hood. I was given the keys to Adam’s lock up where the carpets and cushions are stored and he simply said “pick your colour of carpet”. For some strange reason I felt like a little kid on the way to a sweet shop with a pocket full of change to spend. There was about thirty boxes of carpet to choose from, years and body style to their variations of colour. The colour I picked was “Ford Blue” and it just happened to be at the bottom of the pile!

I cleaned the car from all the old bits of wire and dirt that had accumulated in the grooves of the Dyna-Mat. The rolled up carpet was pulled out of the box and laid straight into the car. I unrolled the carpet which was in two parts. The rear and front which has the nicer finished edge.

The carpets have a sound deadening material on the back which sits in the footwells both front and back. Unroll the carpet and press into the footwells.

The front section was a little different and required some minor modifications due to the carpet being Fastback and Coupe and manual and auto gearboxes. The main difference was the way the carpet fitted around the gear selector. this had to have about an inch cut away at the front. Once done it was easily pressed into place around the selector.

There was a rubber grommet inside the box which has be cut out for the foot operated headlight dip switch. The back of the carpet has a cut out for position. You cut the hole and press fit the grommet into place. Make sure the carpet is in the correct position where you expect the switch to be mounted before cutting. This wasn’t so important for me as I had the multiple attempted holes all patched and I made two new ones where I wanted them.

Lay the front part of the carpet over the rear section and your pretty much done apart from making the holes for the seat studs to be fitted.

Yes there will be some trimming around the edges a little later but the MM guys advise to leave the carpet to settle for a week or so first. The front kick panels will hold the carpet in place and keep it neat.

The next part I was looking forward to and at the same time, very nervous about.

The hood already has the holes drilled out ready for the letters. The letters have two prongs on the back of each letter and is held in place by two tiny grippers only a couple of millimetres long and are sprung fit into the hood holes.

The grippers were test fitted into the holes but there was no way they were going to fit.

I had to get a sharp Snap-On rat tailed file and oh so carefully remove the excess paint from the holes to fit the grippers in the holes. One slip here and I could have gone across my gorgeous paint work. Needless to say this took me quite a while to do all eight holes.

opening the holes

hole opening

With the holes opened just enough I lightly pressed the grippers in and tapped them down with a rubber part of my pliers. (Shh, don’t tell Snap On that bit). They were curved enough and not to heavy to lightly tap the grips down.

The letters were next aligned to the holes make sure the legs on the back of the letters would fit. Once you are happy press fully home. At this point you need to make sure you can spell “F O R D”. In actual fact this is a bit of a myth, as the letters all have slightly different places for the holes and can only fit in the right place on the hood.

There was another optional extra at the time that I wanted to have fitted to the hood, this was the leading edge trim. The trim just gives the grill the extra edge finishing touch. The trim is held on by a few screws under the hood and makes quite a difference.

Next week I think it will be the radio and the splash guards. I just can’t wait till next weekend already!

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Through The Looking Glass

The longest day today in the UK and it seemed like the longest week ever until I got down to Mustang Maniac. I turned up in good spirits apart from the cycling event due to take place around the country lanes of Braughing area due to start in a few hours. The reason is cyclist’s complain of not giving them respect on the road, but I am sorry respect is earned not given. I came round a corner and there was three of them side by side down a narrow country lane obviously warming up. As I was sort of expecting something like this I was ready for it some sort of selfish riders which I regularly see on a Saturday morning. The only thing warming up was my blood – almost to boiling point. Did they move over? No, for about 1/2 mile while I was in second gear. When the road widened I expressed my displeasure to them with the window down. Grrrrrrrrr. That is a real pet hate of mine, selfish cyclists.

Anyway of the rant and onto the good bits, Adam was in his office with his Grandson Jack who was helping out with the stock order that was being put away. Adam is still waiting for the trimmers to complete the upholstery so we went to have a look at the car to see what could be done. As we walked into the workshop I could see the new windscreen had been fitted in place. The guys tried to salvage my old screen but it was so badly scratched and stone chipped they decided against using it. So I have a new shiny screen with a tint bar at the top that blends well into the paint job. The guys fitted the trim and it all clipped together really well and tells me that is a pretty good result I have. 🙂

Once I had stopped grinning like a silly school kid we decided on the plan of action, the trunk lock. The trunk lock was a relatively short process consisting of the barrel, grommet, sleeve, washer, nut, and the trunk catch.

The first step is to fit the grommet to the barrel which can only be fitted one way due to the key way. Then carefully pass the mechanism through the trunk so the key way sits in recess.

grommet in place

trunk

being fitted

With the barrel in place make sure the grommet is spaced evenly around the barrel on the paint work. holding the barrel in place there is an inner sleeve that is a tight push over the inner barrel that will hold it all in place. IT goes without saying that the angle of the sleeve matches the inner profile of the trunk and needs to be fitted the correct way up. If you are unsure the sleeve gap should line up with the barrel key way at the bottom.

without sleeve

sleeve to slide over

Now you can let go of the barrel and add the washer then the nut to the thread of the barrel. You will need a large socket to tighten the nut.

Now comes the only tricky part, fitting the catch. The catch only has two bolts one either side to hold it in place. The catch will need to be aligned up to the barrel bar which is flat on either side. Make sure the latch is over and vertical. I previously sprayed the catch a metallic silver for detail before I started any fitting work.

latch vertical

align to barrel

bolted in

With the catch in place fit the bolts and tighten up. The adjustment is made on the fitting in the trunk. In theory you shouldn’t have to touch it, a simple job that finishes the back of the car.

About this point as I was finishing up Adam popped in and said that he was taking Jack on a well deserved trip to the local fun fair. I volunteered myself to start on the rear quarter windows. The only thing Adam advised was don’t do anything up as it will need to be adjusted regardless. I opened up the glass and the main frame that bolts inside the rear quarter. The multi compartment box that I keep my nuts and bolts in from each section suddenly looked daunting. The sides were marked up left side and right side obviously, but dozen bolts and brackets. I checked the fittings of the bolts to the winders and that accounted for four of them. The three larger bolts would hold the frame, that still left loads. After fitting the frame and bracket in place my memory wasn’t good enough refit the rest without a prompt.

Hang on a minute I am working in an Aladdin’s cave of cars here. So I took the torch and scouted for a car with the inner quarters exposed with the glass in place. I didn’t have to go far as there was a convertible without the side panel in place. I could get a good view of the parts where they went. The only trouble was, in what order did they go? I fitted all sorts of things to the window fitting itself and tried to slide it into the rails. Nope, it don’t fit. So I had to take the bits of then fit the window and try again. Numerous trips to the convertible later I started to come back to me. Adam as ever seems to have this sixth sense of the Calvary arriving when you need them. He told me the rubbers needed to be replaced and told me to remove the old one. A single screw that allowed the rubber to slide along the edge retainer part of the window. Once refitted we tried the glass and in it popped. Adam then noticed that the runner wheels were the old style and told me they were brittle and need to be replaced. Only two each side so that was not a problem. Except the pins, these had to be pulled out to release the rollers. a good pair of long-nosed pliers sorted that out. I removed the pins from the news ones and Adam started laughing. He told me to put the pin back in. I protested that “the pin…”, he cut me short and just said press it over. The leading edge chamfer of the pin would open the clip and allow it to clip in place at the bottom recess. Two seconds later “click” it was in place. I held my head in shame and laughter. ALL this time I had removed the pins and refitted the pins like a good boy, I didn’t need to. Why doesn’t anybody tell you these things in books? Still we managed to get the windows in and fit the remaining rails pretty pain-free after that. Then it was repeat the other side. By the time we had finished it was about time to go home. I was well chuffed (here’s that word again Debbie!) with the days work.

The windows wind up, and windows wind down fine, and all relatively easy considering there was very little grease at this point. The right hand side will need adjustment more than the left side as it’s very close to the bodywork. Once the trims are fitted the window will not move freely. But, for now I have a car with some more glass in it and it looks like a car again and not just a pretty coloured shell.