The Bits I Missed

A couple of weekends have gone by where I have not worked on my car. So much so that I have had comments like “Are you feeling OK” or “Are you getting withdrawal symptoms?” Last weekend was the Enfield Pageant where I took some photos on a previous post, the week before it was a logistical car issue I couldn’t get down there. Anyway, over the weekend I went down to see the guys at Mustang Maniac and got some cleaning up work done on the underside and some more on the tunnel area. In other words, the bits I missed that needed the clean up weren’t worth taking a picture of as it wasn’t to exciting to look at, just sheets of metal with a little rusty paint in the corner. Not boring from my point of view of course, but from a photo and a post point of view it could be. Now the panels are clean enough, they are now at an acceptable standard to Adam to move on to the next stage. We are hoping to take the car of the spit and put her on the jig next week to start on some of the removal of the bad bits of chassis and adding the good bits. But, things can change quite quickly so I will have to wait and see. I will definitely post some pictures on here when that all happens. This could be an exciting stage of the project if all goes to plan.

Yesterday I started a clean-up of the hand brake, parking brake, emergency brake or secondary brake depending who you talk to. It wasn’t too bad to look at but I managed to free it up a while ago. So while the car is in bits – all the way down to the nuts and bolts, I decided to refurbish it properly. Same ol’ story of paint stripper, de-rust, mask up and spray. I stripped the whole thing down by removing the pin and retaining clip, remove the wire it’s pretty much there.

 

before the clean up

The only part I have to think about was the mini fire that had melted the back of the handle. I used progressively finer grades of sand paper to get it smooth again. I can’t go to far otherwise it will get thin and crack. But, it has all come up pretty well and will look good under the dash now.

All I need to do is work out the colour for the lettering of the lever. Red, white or leave it black. Any ideas for the colour? I shall reassemble this and post a pic of the final version next week.

I need to make an apology now as I had been told that the link to the Batmobile article wasn’t working. So I have re-done it with a couple of extra facts and dimensions about the car. It should be fine now, I think. Let me know if there are any more issues with it again.

1966 Batmobile

Quick Links:

Articles – Original Batmobile 1966 or click here.

Photo Menu – Inside The Car Hand Brake Refurbishment or click here

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Classic Car Show Enfield ’14

 Enfield 24 – 26th May 2014

This weekend I was not down at he garages of Mustang Maniac but I made a visit to the Enfield Pageant where I went along to see the set of cars they had there. I was surprised that they took the UBB (ultimate Bad Boy) 1000bhp Mustang there, it was raining and they told me it was quite a handful in the wet! I wanted to get some spray paints and look for anything unusual for the garage or man cave. There was some metal garage signs that I liked the look off but my wallet had very stressful time while I was thinking about it, needless to say the purchase was not made. It seems that the these shows are becoming more of a family thing with fun fairs, garden stalls, toy stalls etc. Obviously they are there in case the rest of the family get board while the petrol head of the family has a fix on all the stalls there. Everything from engines and gear boxes to bulbs individually laid out in trays. Due to the weather the waterproof clothing stall done a few brisk sales for some reason. The down side was there wasn’t a huge amount of cars there to start with due to the rain. As it brightened up there were more cars to see as they were nursed out of the warm garages. The theme this year was the First and Second World Wars. The exhibits proved popular, at one point it was difficult to get into, I suspect that had a lot to do with the weather. The war tent had a rare Vauxhall war car and was the first time I have seen the Vauxhall emblem in 3d as it were.

The tent next to the War Exhibition was an American themed idea, there was a great Rock & Roll group there banging out some hits as well as some classic American icons. The Oldsmobile even had a propeller on the back, not sure what that was all about. anybody in the USA help with that one?

Outside there was a lot more cars and lined up made a good looking row.

There was a rare car there that I had never heard of before,”Murena”. So the story goes, there was a couple of very rich guys who got together to make a sports estate car, no rear seats required as it was just so they could go fishing and hunting with space for their equipment. It was said they liked sports cars but they weren’t practical. So they built their own.  Oh to be rich!

Mustang Maniac’s cars were out in force, and I can see they have lots more of their own cars on their blog page. I sat with the guys for a while during the rain storms and enjoyed the company. Thanks Guys.

The British cars were there too but in limited numbers at one point. Even took a picture of the only Stag I could see there for Stag Owners Club, who have a blog here http://stagownersclub.wordpress.com/ Why do I mention these guys? If I hadn’t of bought a Mustang I would have gone for a Triumph Stag as a restoration project. But, it turned out I have Mustang Muscle cars burning in my veins.

More American cars splattered around the field, This huge Greyhound Truck was bigger than I had ever dreamed of, the brown rat rod was painted like that and was quite sound metal wise.

TV Stars; The hugely popular “Only Fools and Horses” comedy show had one of the original Reliant (3 wheelers) there.

only fools and horses

The other classic is the original 1966 Batmobile, there were three fibreglass models made of the original and I believe this is one of those from the London Transport Museum. I have added an article on this car as it was Ford based Lincoln Futura concept car with a 390Cid Ford v8 engine.

The whole day was summed up for me in this one photo. The guy has a classic rover estate which was the first one I had seen, he was walking back to his car carrying another rear wing for the one that has gone rotten beyond repair so he was saying. The classic car got a badly needed part. For me that is what these shows are all about. I was really pleased for this guy.

Enf201433

My final thoughts for the day was little disappointing as it was wet at times and the owners of the classic cars looked like they didn’t want to get them wet. that itself did mean that cars were little limited for choice. I did hear that Saturday was a better day and Sunday was not so good. It was a shame there was not more, but I would think twice about taking mine down there in the wet I must admit.

Quick Links:

Articles – The Original Batmobile 1966 or click here

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Home Made Oven

For various reasons I couldn’t get down to Mustang Maniac this weekend, so I was a Mr Grumpy big time, so the wife was telling me. I’m not so sure she was correct in her statement, but I was at a loose end with myself. OK I was little tiny bit grumpy and that’s all I will admit to. There I have said it and it’s the only part admission I am gonna make. Ahem, moving swiftly on. I decided it was clean up time and spray for a few bits of the car. All day on Saturday I was de-rusting the rear shock absorber mounts that were in a bad way. This was the usual POR15, primer and spray. This is usually a three to four hour gap between the two coats of the paint. I managed to get it done in a single day as my home-made oven was at full temperature. OK, my oven is in fact my man cave, and I didn’t make an oven after all, but it felt like it. I have a temperature gun some readings I took inside the man cave were 25deg to 33deg Celsius. So I painted outside and moved them inside the shed and left them to bake. It certainly done the trick alright. The spraying inside the man cave was just as effective as the spray coats were going of in around ten minutes between coats. Why no pictures? Well the plates are just squares with a hole on the ends at an angle that the bottom of the shock bolts into under the leaf springs. It really is a boring bit of metal to look at, and I don’t say that about too much stuff on a Mustang!

Today was little different though, again the oven was hot as the sun was shinning down and not a cloud in the sky, a beautiful day in fact. Perfect for plonking my stuff in the middle of the lawn and start wire brushing, degreasing, cleaning & painting. For some reason the wife was Mrs Grumpy at this point! I decided to finish the gas pedal spray and add the silver strip at the top of the pedal arm to match the brake pedal assembly. It was sprayed and left inside the oven and it dried pretty quickly. The idea is for the silver to start just after the firewall inside, I think I got it right, I don’t want it to show from the outside. There is no need for the silver edges at all on the pedals, in fact you won’t see them unless you look underneath the dash. I only put them on there for a little detail, just because I could and I know they are there.

finished brake assembly

The other part I stripped down today was the gear selector mechanism. This is the chrome lever with the T-handle on the top. This was pretty bad-looking, but in fact it was only a little rust on the surface. Wire brush got most of it off and the Eastwood Rust Encapsulator applied, in the oven! It all came up well, but I have not assembled it all yet, I wanted the spray to cure properly before I scratched it off while it was still soft. I will post the completed pics next week to show what it looks like. I have added a page for the process so far here, or can be found at the quick links below.

gear mechanism
rubber bung
rusted
before cleaning
cleaned underside
top of the base
before cleaned up
cleaned up parts
first spray

If all goes well I hope to be going to the Enfield Pageant on the 24th – 26th May 2014. I had a great time there last year rummaging through all sorts of old stuff. I did hear that Mustang Maniac will be there again this year, which will be good as last year I managed to grab a hot sausage sandwich from their big American SUV motor home. Pop along to see the guys and see what they are up too. 🙂

Oh, by the way I am not associated with the event in any way, it’s just a good day out. Should I take some photos there?

Quick Links:

Gear Shift Refurbishment click here or go to Photo Menu – Inside the car – Gear Shift Refurbishment.

Enfield Pageant link click here.

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Grind Down

Weekend arrived and I eventually got down to Mustang Maniac mid morning. Logistical issues that are too boring to go into right now. But I got there that’s the main thing. I had a look at Adams new addition to the fleet a nice ’65 GT350 in white with blue stripes, he started it up and I now know what I want my car to sound like, loud and a deep rumble. I was standing there like a school kid when  he opened the door and said get in. OMG, I was giggling like a school girl and I just wanted more. I do believe we lost a little traction in first and second gear going up the road, I suspect the roads were a little slippery that’s all. I have never been so excited in a car in all my life, the ride and noise was everything I hoped it would be and much, much more. What a car, what A car! After I had managed to wipe the silly grin of my face I got down to some work. The poor welding had to be ground down to as smooth finish as I could get it. I have now mastered the angle grinder technique and pleased with my days work. I have a few before and after pictures below. The smoothed out section may need a few more spot welds on it and ground again as a few sections were missed. I managed to forget to take my earplugs down to Mustang Maniac, so I had to improvise. I tore a couple of fingers of the latex gloves, put a small nut inside, wrapped it up so it was soft and stuffed it into my ears. It worked a treat, but I must say I looked a right pillock, or so I’m told 🙂

Sunday arrived and I finished of restoring the battery tray that looked pretty bad. Obviously trying to keep as much original as I can so I decided to strip it down and see what was there earlier in the week. I am pleased to say it was in good condition apart from a little rust that had pitted the very edges. So I rubbed it down, treated it, primed it and two coats of satin black. I think it came out well. There are a few dimples on the tray still, but I think it adds a little  character.  I also decided to catch the Spanish F1 Grand Prix, I promptly fell asleep it was that interesting! What has happened to Formula 1? So all in all a good Sunday was had by me.

I have been asked what I used to strip the paint and under seal off the car. It’s called Starchem Synstryp, I have done a review of it as well and it’s in the quick links below.

Quick Link:

I have added the full set of pictures for the battery tray here, or click on the Photos – Engine Bay – Battery Tray.

Paint stripper review click here or go to Consumable Menu – Starchem Synstryp Paint Stripper

Starchem-Synstryp1

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Sparks Will Fly

The weekend is here and I have an extra day to work on the car. I arrived at Mustang Maniac and found the guys preparing some cars for collection by their owners. I had a chat with Adam to see what needed to be done on my car first. The last bit of scraping then maybe a change if I managed to get it all done. I cleaned up the front engine bay panel and found some hidden numbers marked on it under the paint. I had a conversation with Adam about them and it turns out these are the original factory markings. This is good on two accounts; The first being that the front panel is original and has not been replaced due to an accident. The second is that the markings match up to the fender, secret numbers and the door plate. I have taken some pictures of the original markings during the cleaning and then I have gone over them in a colour to make them stand out a little better. The top set is actually 5A but it looks like the 6 prefix has rubbed off. These numbers which are the model type the other numbers are options for the car, interior colour – black etc. The third picture is after the clean up. I wasn’t sure if the numbers would still be there after the final cleaning up. No matter what I did to the marks they stayed there. Impressive stuff for forty eight year old grease proof marker.

original markings
marked up 5A 26 8

I cleaned up the rear chassis legs to the point where they will be replaced. Then it was the right side wheel Arch for a clean up. Same procedures again, stripper, scrub, scrape and repeat. What was left is a little surface rust but it’s basically solid. There is a whole that needs to be patched up though, in the chassis leg that has been uncovered as a result of the clean up.

After that it was time for a change, the poor welding on the floor plan is to be ground down to see if there are any holes that are in need of re-welding. Adam was on the case to start the process to see the quality of the welding. The set of pictures here show just how bad this batch of welding is.

The grinding wheel started and the slow process to gently grind down the high spots without damaging the panels. The sparks were flying alright. The initial quick test patch was completed to his satisfaction. I was shown the technique ready for me to take over after putting on my new welding gloves, ear plugs & safety specs. I will post the pictures once I have completed some of the work. It made for a nice change and things look like they are starting to step up a gear.

I can’t wait for more of the same, but when somebody does it so easily and makes it look simple, it’s difficult to follow in those footsteps. I am a fast learner and I will step up my game.

 

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It’s A Wind Up

Saturday was the now usual routine, up breakfast and then bolt out the door!  Two reasons, one – I won’t get collared for any “little” jobs before I go, two – I can’t wait to get down to the Mustang Maniac guys. Unfortunately I didn’t quite make it to the car before I heard the words, can you clean… “Yeah I will do it tomorrow” loaded the boot and I got in the car, did I really just promise something I thought to myself. Anyway, I was going to start of by cleaning up the engine bay to see what little goodies was in store for me this time. The same technique of stripper, remove and add more till you see metal. This was going to be difficult due to all the profiles that had to be rubbed down, wire wool was used more than the scraper this time. This made my hands cramp up a few times, but the results are really good I must say. There is a question mark of the right side inner wing where the battery tray sits. The wing under the battery tray had been repaired with a large ugly plate. The rest of the wing looks sort of OK but could be a little thin and may be better to replace it. This is the before shots of the engine bay.

battery tray plate

And after the fire wall was cleaned up.

I worked counter-clockwise around the bay and this time I took a few more intermediate pictures as I got a bit carried away with the fire wall part and forgot to take intermediate pics.

The end results of the days hard work looked to have paid of nicely and you can see where and what I have done.

With any luck I may start on something different next weekend, but that will all depend on if Adam is happy with what I have done so far. I know we have a little more to do around the rear chassis rails. Perhaps the rear chassis legs will be on cards so I will have to wait and see. The results are amazing that there is so much good metal under there for a nearly half a century old car.

Sunday was more cleaning, I started by finishing the other front quarter vent window click here for the full process. After that I decided to clean up the main door window winders on both sides. The driver’s side was in a much more dirtier condition than the passenger side. The process here was to clean the grease off and remove the hardened dead grease and make sure the mechanism winds both ways. I used POR Marine Clean in its strongest mix 1:1 and got to work. I ended up having to use a scalpel to remove the harder parts and more recessed areas. Eventually it all came off and looked pretty good. I did notice that one of the plastic washers for the winders to locate in the rails was missing. I will have to get a replacement before I re-assemble it.

left before clean
left side
left
left reverse side
Right side before clean
right side reverse

After the clean up the mechanisms worked well again. I did not grease at this point as I will do that nearer the installation time to avoid the fresh grease being contaminated. I just both complete mechanisms a coating of Gibbs Brand to stop any rust and allow the lubricant to work its way into the rusted joints.

left cleaned
left
left reverse
left
right reverse
right full mechanism

After cleaning up the window mechanisms I then got the window cleaning stuff and started to clean the windows in the kitchen. I did promise I suppose but now my arms and hands are killing me. I was hoping that the wife was only winding me up, but no. It seems that If I can clean all day on a Saturday then I can a few windows at home. Fair point I guess and there’s not much I can say to that is there?

Quick Links:

Photo Menu – Glass Work – Door Window Mechanism Clean up or click here for the full set of pictures.

Photo Menu – Under The Car & Chassis – Under Seal Removal or Click here for the full set of pictures.

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Revealing

A long bank holiday is good for a rest, well sort of as I spent two of my days of down at Mustang Maniac of course. They were long days, early(ish) starts by the time I got there and quite late leaving. I had to put the headlights on it was that late! Anyway this week I started on the front end of the car to remove the under seal to see what we had. It turns out that as I was getting to the bare metal we discovered that I have a genuine matching numbers car. The numbers being the two secret VIN codes that match the visible one as well as each other. This was also verified by the fact that the decoding of the paint colour matched what we found underneath the under seal and the previous paint job. Why are matching number important? Well if there has been stolen, been in an accident or part of the car has been replaced, then this is a way of identifying that the problem. It’s easy to cut out and replace the visible VIN number, but to do that on the other numbers means removing the fenders and bodywork to get to them which can be a real pain. I was a happy (Easter) bunny!

original colour
matching number 1
matching number 2

Last couple of weeks I have been getting to bare metal on the floor pans as you know. This weekend I managed to get the front end of the car cleaned up and stripped of the under seal. The process is exactly as before, plenty of elbow grease, a good flexible wall paper knife, patience and above all lots of good paint stripper. As I was working at the front there was lots of grease and dirt and mud wedged in places that should have been drain holes. I needed to clear these all out then get to work on the under seal. Some of the old original under seal was easily chipped of and no stripper was required until I got to the primer, but the newer stuff was hard work. I spent a complete day on each side of the shell to get it clean. We did uncover so rusty places that will need a patch put in. but nothing to horrendous I am glad to say. I have added the full set of photo’s to the main page under the “Photos Menu – Under The Car & Chassis – Under Seal removal”, or click here for the quick link.

This set of pictures was the left hand side:

original colour

This set of pictures was the right hand side:

As it was raining on an off over the days I was there the pack of dogs soon found a place that was dry for them to sit in, my little work area! It’s quite funny having to step over dogs when you need to get tools from one place to another. If you look carefully you can spot a couple in the photos now and again.

On another note:

I need to work out the female psyche, when women are upset and they have a few tears, A man asks “What’s up?”  the answer returned was “Nothing”. As far as bloke is concerned that is the end of the matter then as nothing is wrong as you have just confirmed. BUT, if a woman brings it up again a while later saying “Not as though you care, when I was crying!” is unacceptable. I witnessed this first hand and the face that the poor bloke had as he was looking on in amazement at the woman was a picture. I felt for the bloke, I wanted to give the geeza a little bro-mance hug to say “I feel for you mate, here’s a beer”. He was getting it big time, both barrels in fact. Why is there the need for the word “nothing” meaning “I have the right hump”, and now I am going to start a row. I just don’t understand. If anybody can explain this to me I would be most grateful.

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Happy 50th Birthday Mustang

50years

Fifty years ago today 17th April 1964 there was a debut of one of the most iconic cars ever produced and turned the phrase “Pony Cars”, that car of course was the Ford Mustang. The Mustang was unveiled by Henry Ford II at the New York Worlds Fair costing $2,368.

launch

Nothing before or since in the automotive world has rivalled the Ford Mustang’s launch spectacular across all media platforms. The car was even taken apart and reassembled on top of the Empire State Building. A feat which is due to be repeated for the 50th Anniversary by Ford.

The publicity was in the big magazines at the time (forgive the pun), such as Time, Life, Newsweek etc. TV adverts teased the viewer with “coming soon”, newspapers you couldn’t get away from “the” car for the masses. Dealerships were primed and ready to go for the big day. Ford’s publicity department absolutely nailed this launch and they have never looked back, except to see just what a massive impact the car had on the start of the American Muscle Car market. The Mustang has been copied but never equalled in status, design and that classic name “Mustang”. Ask anybody to name an American Muscle Car, you can bet that “Mustang” would be the first words they say. Every generation young and old seems to know what a classic Mustang is and can point one out of any model style going down the road.

The dealers were inundated with requests for the sleekly-styled new vehicle, to say it was an instant hit would be an understatement. In Garland, Texas, 15 customers thronged to bid on the same Mustang. The winning bidder resorted to sleeping overnight in his new car so that it wouldn’t be sold out from under him before his check could clear. Ford initially forecasted annual sales of about 100,000 units. On the first day alone, dealers took 22,000 Mustang orders. Shortly after its introduction, the fledgling vehicle’s success was official when it was featured on the racetrack as the pace car for the 1964 Indianapolis 500. During the Mustang’s first 12 months on the market, sales built to an astounding 417,000. Within two years, sales had catapulted to one million.

dubbed the 1964½, because it was launched at an unusual halfway point during the year. ” performance and luxury variants, which featured the most extensive roster of options Detroit had offered to date. Three distinct body styles were manufactured; convertible, hardtop and fastback. an original print ad declared, and it was true.

Everyone who owned a Mustang believed no one else had a vehicle like his, and yet the Mustang had enduring universal appeal. Despite its status as an icon of automotive lore, the Mustang remains as wildly popular as ever with enthusiasts everywhere, from the already five generations old of Mustang to the sixth starting in 2015.

Happy Birthday Mustang.

Long live the pony!

Sources:
Ford, Corporate.ford.com, Life Magazine, Wikipedia, Indianapolis speedway

 

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Getting There!

A trip to see the guys at Mustang Maniac on Saturday was filled with a little bit of fear. I knew what was coming and last week I hurt when I got home. But, I felt pleased with the progress although it seems slow while you are doing it. This time there was much more of the area to clean and what was to come of was more of the tar, under seal, paint and what ever else they piled on it. The newer paint is a lot harder to strip back due to the advances in the process I guess. The work was hard and painfully slow all day or so it seemed, but when you pack up to go home, look back at the car there is lots that has actually been done. I even had Adam tell me that now I was a “volunteer apprentice” (I’m proud of that title), no using electrical tools as that was cheating! We did get to use them later on though for a few test areas after we saw bare metal. During the day, I had an interesting experience should we say. Although I am working in a very, very well ventilated area, in fact the wall is a massive full sized steel door, when opened the sun floods in and natural light helps with what you are doing, I even had a mask on too. I was using thinners earlier to clean up a section and decided to take a short break. The thinner fumes had obviously impregnated my clothes and the can of Red Bull that I decided to drink, certainly gave me wings should I say. Now I know how Pink Floyd came up with those songs they did should we say. A quick wander around to the other work shops to see what the dogs were up too and take in some fresh air soon brought me down again, I seriously don’t recommend that one! Next time I think it will be just water to drink. Anyway, I came home in the evening and I was hurting again, poor ol’ me, but with a massive smile. The results are amazing I must say on the car and I’m pleased again with the amount of work that got done when I look back at the pictures. Adam joined me later in the day and he did get some tools out to see what was under the rust. We found a couple of issues but nothing to horrendous, some good old filler had been used on a chassis rail so a section of that rear rail will need a new section welded in. The previous welding has a lot to be desired and we will take some of it off and put back in some proper welding. Tip, never give your classic car to a bloke who can’t weld!

top part where the panel was loose
bottom section holes
Adam doing a test patch
old floor supports and pan

 

Once we had bare metal we needed to protect the metal so a spray of Gibbs Brand was used and she will not rust up again now. In fact she looks almost new underneath now. Apart for the suspect welding that can be seen on the top chassis rail, and the bottom floor pan section. Next week I hope to move to the engine bay and fire wall for a strip down. I am developing a better technique each time I start using the stuff I am pleased to say.

pan25

I woke up today with arms that felt like they belonged to an orang-utan. As I was allowed to go and “play cars” all day yesterday I did promise that I would help the wife in the garden today. I had to put up a trellis, but the trellis was on its own to create a patrician. So I had to dig three deep holes for the posts to hold them up. So here I am having trouble holding the mouse let alone typing. The aches will pass for sure and I will be ready to go again next weekend. I even tried the sympathy vote on wife, I got “the look” and carried on digging. The trellis does look good, but right now – I hate it!

Quick Links:

Under seal Removal – Photo Menu – Under The Car & Chassis – Under seal Removal or click here for the hyper link.

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London Marathon Charity Run

Please help raise money for this great, but very small charity for visually impaired children.

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