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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Eye Candy

I knew what i was going to be doing this week at Mustang Maniac and the week dragged by until I could get there. The task in hand was the interior dash area and see how we would get on with the rest of it. For a change I got there early as the traffic wasn’t bad at all the way i decided to get their avoiding the air show chaos that was bound to happen.

Adam decided the gauges were going to be the first in, so we tested them on the dash panel and they didn’t move. The result was that my voltage regulator for the dials that steps the voltage down to 5 volts was getting red-hot. Then it got no hotter and nothing worked. Adam and Yogi were now having a discussion on the issue. They tested the gauges and found there was an earth issue. Yogi undone the back while Adam held the dash to see what was going on. immediately they noticed that the oil gauge was touching the back case causing an earth out, which was shorting out the voltage control. Adam got one of his new and not mentioned on the WebShop electronic voltage regulators that he has custom-made. These units have a small LED built-in to show they are working to the correct voltage and a heat sync to keep them stable and an additional earth lead. Not an off the shelf part from anywhere else.

The gauges were realigned and tested with the Power Probe and they now worked with the new voltage regulator. Yogi declared that he had “saved the day” as he put it! 🙂 The next thing they noticed was the speedo was not working correctly and returning back to the “0” needle. Adam said we needed to change it and got me a new one and he left me to it after instructions on how to change it that is.

Changing the Speedo:

Undo the case screws around the outside and the whole back will lift off. This will expose all the very, very delicate dials on the inside that need a lot of respect due to age.

The back of the dial case has two screws that hold the speedo in place, remove the screws and gently lift out the speedo.

I undone the speedo and compared the parts just to see if there was any difference.

new on the left old on the right

refit of the new speedo

To fit is a reverse of the above and dead simple. I did have a conversation with Adam in the mean time on how to wind the clock forward to match the current original miles. He did tell me and show me how to do it, along with the possible issues it could cause by taking it all apart. I decided not to do it and fit the part as it is as these things aren’t cheap. I then placed the old on top and took a photo to prove old and new miles just in case anybody wanted to know.

Replacing the back case was careful procedure to make sure everything aligns up properly. The speedo was checked, all the lights and the gauges once again to make sure all was in order. The very observant ones will notice that the second from right gauge should be an Ammeter and not a voltage dial. I change this over as the Ammeter is very old school, they often blow, and my one wire alternator didn’t support it in the American AutoWire loom either. I have done a tutorial on how I converted this by clicking here for the quick link. All was OK and now it was time to mount the gauges back into the dash. Make sure you cover the steering column as the dash WILL scratch the column as you can’t maneuver it without doing so. Even if you can it makes it safer and peace of mind that’s all.

Fitting the retaining clips was main job and needed to be aligned correct to the main dash as the screws go in at a strange angle of about forty-five degrees. My volt meter needs an additional switched live feed and a separate earth that I attached before I fitted the quick disconnect to the main wire loom.

I changed the insulating tape from the above picture by the way as it looked horrible, but I didn’t take another a picture at the time, too much was going on and didn’t want to take my eye of the gauges or the dash. The worst part of all this is to attach the speedo cable, this is a small hand job to reach behind and insert the square centre and the retaining collar nut. I managed to do it while getting in a panic that I would scratch the paint around the dash.

The speedo cable is quite inflexible so I found that by moving the cable under the dash you can angle the dash into the correct position. I inserted the retaining screws only to grab the first turn to allow any movement that I may need.

With all the screws in place I could complete the tighten up and made sure not to over tighten the dash for fear of cracking the mounts, as my old dash had done. The completed job was amazing and Adam checked, passed it and we checked the gauges again. All was good.

The next job as I was on a real roll now was the steering wheel. Adam took me up to the stores and showed me his overwhelming collection of original and aftermarket wheels, all different colours and styles, big and small. I picked the one I liked and a horn button to go with it. We went down to the car and we undone the protective wrapping around the steering boss and the horn ring.

The centre nut was tightened in place once the wheel was mounted over the spline, then the three screws that hold the boss to the wheel and the column. Adam threaded the wires through the wheel and only nipped the bolts up as it would inevitably need to be moved to centre it all up in the geo workshop.

The horn button was fitted to the centre and we tested that it was working fine. Again a job that was a lot quicker than I was expecting it to be. All of a sudden I can now imagine what it would be like looking at equipment driving along. A true piece of eye candy! Maybe not to everrybodies taste, but it is to me.

chrome boss

wheel finish

The grin on my face was difficult to hide and Yogi now popped in to see what I was up too. I decided to push my luck and ask him how the console would be fitted. This console was part of the original equipment in my car when it was first ordered. He grinned and aligned it up where it should be, under the air con and around the selector lever. He started to drill the holes for the screws and screw them in before the console moved and we lost the holes. The dynamat had made the screws a difficult to locate in the first instance, but with a patience we managed to gently pull the console down.

We took turns to drill the holes and the first attempt I used the drill I managed to break the drill bit! So I had to confess my sins to Adam who just laughed and said “You learned how not to do it then!” We had to use slightly longer versions of the screws at a couple of points due to additional matting. The “T-handle” for the shifter was re-fitted and again tested all was OK.

The console has a set of lights at the back under the ash tray that work of the courtesy lights and looked pretty good.

console lights

under dash lights

You will notice that the wooden wheel had changed to black. This is because I was talking to Adam about the wheel and he said cover it. He told me he was getting some budget parts and stock in he was going to call “Enos Range”. He had a cheapy 15″ cover that would fit over the wheel just while they were moving it around and the MOT. I decided to get one and fitted it over. It was good quality and not what I was expecting, it didn’t even look out-of-place either

wood wheel

black cover

Last job of the day was the front kick panels. These simply clip to the side of the “A” pillar and are held in place by two simple screws. The carpet had to be cut a little to stop the overlap and allow the panel to sit flush against the chassis. You can see the holes have now gone and looks a lot neater. The carpet is now held in place but the panels area real tight fit to head light dip switch. But after a little levering around a bit, it’s all in place where it should be.

Next week who knows, right now I don’t mind. I am still grinning stupidly at the awesome corner my car has just turned, and I haven’t even got it on the road yet.

Thanks to Adam and Yogi who took time out to give me hand again.

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Four Years later

I can’t believe that it has been four years since I bought (well the wife did actually), took possession of my ’66 Mustang Coupe, 17th September 2011 to be exact. Two of those last four years have been down at Mustang Maniac getting the best attention to detail that any Mustang could ask for. I was looking forward to the day ahead to get things done, I wasn’t too sure what it was going to be, but I was about to find out. I arrived to see sitting on the side where I put my tools was a nice new super shiny gas gap. Adam smiled and said “There’s your first job”. The old gas cap was from a 1970 model, I didn’t mind it but it was starting to wind Adam up as we hadn’t changed it yet. There is a larger hole at the bottom of the filler where the retaining wire is held. This is a multi purpose idea, one you don’t lose it and two, it stops trophy hunters trying to steal it. Undo the bottom screw and slightly drill out the hole in the body panel. Screw in the cable and attach the locking bolt inside the panel. The difference was instant, and looks so much better now.

side by side

remove the screw

attach the cable and bolt

tighten the nut

The next job was now at the front, mounting the front bumper. The irons had already been bolted into place and through the stone guard. The bumper was a two-man job to avoid scratching my nice paint job. Yogi and me laid the bumper in place and the collapsible washers were placed on top of the irons. The bolts were lightly placed through the bumper and not tightened up just yet. The side mountings to the fender needed to be jiggled around a bit to make it fit on the driver’s side by pushing the bumper into place to meet the fender hole. Once they were all in place the tightening could be done. Yogi tells me I’m a lucky guy again as these can be a real pain to fit if the car is slightly out of alignment after an accident or similar. A job that makes a total transformation of the car. I even managed to get a reflection of the Corral in the bumper too.

I moved to the interior now and a piece of equipment I have been moving around to avoid damage is the aircon unit. The car is a genuine factory option aircon car, but i didn’t want all that under the hood. But, I do love the blower unit. I decided to use the blower unit in the car and make it work as a fan, if that makes sense. Yes there are going to be people who moan that’s not a aircon car as there is no “this, that or the other” under the hood. Well, all I can say is that if I want it, I still have the brackets to put it all on if I wanted too, but I don’t. These aircon units are held under the dash by two brackets, and held on the tunnel in the middle by an adjustable bolt. This looked pretty basic and I wanted something with a little more finesse should we say. I had kept the old hood stops and I was going to take the rubber of the top of that of and weld it to the bottom of the bolt. As it turned out the trunk bump stop is exactly the same thread as the support bolt for the aircon. I screwed in the bump stop and it looked like it was menat to be there. Next up the unit was carefully offered up the to the dash for a dry fit.

The power feed cable had been cut, this meant that there was no wire long enough to power the unit. So I had to extend the wire. There is never any crimping to extend a wire at Mustang Maniac, ever! I would have been thrown in the scrap bin if I had of done. The wires were stripped back about twenty millimeters and twisted together, heat shrink placed over the cable, flux applied to the cables. The (gas-powered) soldering iron was fired up and after thirty seconds it was ready to use. A lot of old cloth was placed under the solder area to avoid dropping any hot solder on the carpet. Once the soldering was completed and allowed to cool, the end of the soldering iron attachment was swapped to the hot air nozzle that shrank the heat shrink to the soldered area.

twisted wires

heat shrink and secured

The aircon unit was now able to be connected to the power. The brackets were padded out with a little foam pad to stop any vibration or rattles. The bolts were threaded through the dash and bolted from the inside.

I could then adjust the bottom stop to take the pressure of the bottom of the dash and equalise the weight distribution out. The end result was brilliant and I am glad that I made the choice to keep it in the car. The centre console will complement the aircon unit down the length of the tunnel.

Four years later and the car is not completed just yet. There is the trim for the seats, steering wheel, centre console, dash trim, gauges, rear quarter window rain felts etc all to be done. I can’t see it being ready just yet. but it’s oh so close now, I can almost taste the petrol! 🙂 Hurry up next week I have work to do.