Stainless Tank

The weeks are dragging now as I can’t wait to get to Mustang Maniac and do more to my car, things that are done now are very visible. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen, but a conversation with Adam and Yogi soon had me focused on the plan of action. The fuel tank I had with the car looked OK, all be it painted a little tired looking, but on full inspection using their internal camera showed some rust around the sender fitting and internal lower seams. To be on the safe side Adam ordered me in a special fuel tank. Not sure what to expect I was sent of to go and pick it up from the stores, oh boy, I was not disappointed. A full polished stainless steel tank was my new bolt in part.

We had to clean up the trunk from light dust to allow the sealer to stick the paint and that in turn would not allow any fumes into the car and stop vibration.

Yogi applied the sealing strip around the edge and we both removed the plastic wrap from the tank. Now at this point we were both very careful as the inner stainless edges of the tank are razor-sharp. The tank was eyed into position and laid onto the sealer strip, the holes were lined up ready for the bolts.

The next step was the filler tube, gaskets, screws, clips and rubber. Previously I had cleaned up the tube, clips and rubber. Adam had a look at my cleaned up rubber tube and chucked it in the bin with a laugh. He was of course right, although it looked pretty good but not brilliant, I would always thinking to myself that it should have been a new one. We fitted the gaskets onto the filler pipe and feed the tube through the rear panel, the rubber was slid up the pipe and the clips roughly fitted. The screws to the back panel were tightened only as a rough guide to stop it turning. The rubber was slid down the pipe to the tank and clamped in place and the pipe screws fully tightened up.

The next job of the day was a slow process but brings this classic Mustang back into the twenty-first century. The task was a specialised stick on matting that will stop any road noise and metal resonance through the car. This particular matting was a special order via Adam, the matting is only a couple of millimetres thick with a very sticky backing. It’s applied like sticky back plastic and heated with a hot air gun to make it easier to mould the mat into place. Yogi showed me the first steps and left me to get on with the task in hand. I found this very therapeutic with instant visible results.

First step make sure the floor holes have the correct plates in place with a little sealer around the edges to stop water ingress.

Second step was to lay the matting. We started from the centre and worked our way out to the edges. Peel a little of the backing and position in place then roll the matting across the surface smoothing down as much as you can.

The hot air gun softens and allows the mat to be pressed into place with the idea to make as much surface contact as possible.

before smoothing

after smoothing

Like laying a complex carpet the pieces should fit together and form a complete coverage, this set of pictures shows my thought process. I started with the front foot wells, bulk head or fire wall up to the insulating matting, then moving onto the rear foot wells. The seat platforms were covered each side and the last parts was the remaining section of the centre tunnel.

Under the rear seat will need to be completed as will the door panels and inside the kick panels, but as the time was getting late (very late), I decided to call it a day (or night) for now. The results so far look amazing. OK, so this matting is not cheap and weighs in a little, but the benefits are well worth it for a weekend cruiser.

Over the last couple of weeks I have been asked what was used to get the effect of paint job. Well you need somebody who knows what he is doing, in this case that was Paul who had patience and dedicated time to complete such a fantastic job. The ingredients he used are listed below, but this does not include the cleaning chemicals, rolls of masking tape, rolls of masking paper or surface wipes etc etc.

The paint colour was Acapulco Blue with a slight twist of metallic, the amounts used are as follows:

Etch Primer – 2lt

Surface Primer – 15lt

Rubberised Underbody Coating – 6lt

Thinned Base Coat – 7lt

Mixed Clear Coat – 8lt

2k Black Primer – 1lt

2k Satin Black – 3lt

2K White Semi Matt – 1/2lt

Matt Clear – 1/2lt

Brushable Seam Sealer – 1lt

As you can see Forty Three litres of sprayable materials in total and one litre of brushable seam sealer.

I was thinking last night that as the trunk now looks so good, there is a very good possibility that I wont put carpet over the whole trunk floor, just so I can see the fuel tank and great the paintwork. The stainless steel fuel tank will visible from behind the car of course. What do you think I should do, carpet or not carpet the trunk?

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She’s Back – In Full Colour!

After a what seems like and eternity and day my car is back. Now I must point out that Adam at Mustang Maniac has been leading me a merry dance here. They have been telling me the paint is bad, the primer is reacting with the top coat, the work load is so much it will be another month etc. the bunch of wind up merchants and all little lies. In the mean time, of course the car has been going along as smooth as silk without any problems at all. The guys confessed that it was so it could be a surprise for me and an “early Christmas prezzie”. I am so glad it was a surprise, I wouldn’t have been able to sleep otherwise. I turned up to see Adam as usual to do a bit more work on my rear axle, but Adam said “I got something to show you in the yard”. I was shown to Yogi’s workshop where a car was sitting under a static dust sheet. I had a double take to realise that it was mine. Now I’m not saying my jaw hit the floor, but it have a bruise on my chin, OK, a slight exaggeration there, but I think you get my point! I should have realised what was going on when the whole gang walked over to me, before I walked into the workshop. I am not ashamed to say that they witnessed me just melt into the floor. I didn’t know what to say – and yes, that does make a first for me.

The car is stunning.

The paint job is so much better than I could have imagined it to be. So much so that I forgot to take full set of pictures, but I will soon sort that out don’t worry. To quote Yogi “it’s as good as it gets”. The outside is Acapulco blue and almost pearlescent depending on what light you look at her in. The inside is wonderful cream on the dash and door tops to match the headliner I am after. I have managed to get more pics from Adam during the painting process who has now let me have them. Paul has done an amazing job he honestly has.

The final prep of the primer.

Masked and painted.

Underhood is going back the traditional satin black for the stock look.

All assembled and painted.

Arrival back to the Mustang Maniac yard into Yogi’s workshop. The guys had put her over the hydraulic ramps so she could be lifted up to fit the underside and rolling gear.

When I got there she was covered in a static wrap sheet to stop the dust ready for the grand unveiling. Then I was let loose to take some pictures but I forgot the inside in my excitement.

The paint is just like cream and liquid to look at. The under seal of the car is immaculate, the interior is incredible with the cream dash and A pillars. The roof has even been done in a black to match the floor pan even though you will not see it. The attention to detail is second to nothing I have seen.

Side view and wheel arches, even the underside is brilliant.

rear arch

front arch

rear

from inside the trunk

Under the hood is amazing and seems a shame to put the hood down on it.

I really have had an excellent early Christmas Present from Paul at the paint shop who has worked flat-out on my car, and ALL the Guys at Mustang Maniac and Yogette who have kept the big surprise for me. Their hard work, knowledge and guidance has allowed me to have a shell that looks this good, so much better than I ever expected it to ever be. The big day that I had been waiting for had finally arrived.

Thank you all so much.

I was told that “now that the car is painted the hard work begins”. But hey, I am happy – just bring it on! 🙂

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A Glimpse Of Colour

As each batch of photos of my car in the paint shop are sent to Adam at Mustang Maniac I get more excited. The new process for letting me get to see them, a single teaser photo, followed by the rest of the batch once Adam has sorted them out, or thinks I have sweated it out long enough. 🙂 I know Adam has been keeping a real close eye on the progress and has supplied the colour swatches for the interior paint. The preparation and speed of progress on the car is just amazing, so much so that I am beginning to wonder, will I get an early Christmas prezzie in the form of my car fully painted? These few pics show more primer and blocking work before the colour top coats are applied.

The trunk has had the inside cleaned up to remove any light rust and the bits I inevitably missed. The shiny steel almost looks to good to paint, but seeing the top coat of colour on an outside panel soon changed my mind.

Engine.

Now the paint has dried out, but not yet fully cured as that won’t happen until the engine runs and gets hot of course. In the mean time I replaced the parts I intended to: The water thermostat and chrome thermostat housing, water temperature sender unit, water heater elbow connection and new distributor vacuum advance valve.

thermostat anti airlock hole

chromo housing

vacuum advance

water sender left below distributor cap

The egine now looks like new, all except the old distributor cap and rocker covers that I put back on for now, that’s just to keep the dirt and dust out until we are sure the valves don’t need to be adjusted. Then the proper ones will go on in the car later.

I AS I have been busy behind the scenes too, I have added a couple of walk through photo sets for refurbishing the starter motor and replacing the water thermostat on the engine.

Quick Links:

Photo menu – Electrical – Starter Motor Refurbishment click here.

There are lots more photos in the above link.

main case

brushes

All apart.

Photo Menu – Engine Bay – Water Thermostat Replacement click here.

Again more photos in the link above.

engine block face

old housing and thermostat

Those sharp eyed among you will notice that the distributor looks a lot better than it did. It has of course been restored, as soon as I have sorted those photos out I will post a photo walk though of that distributor refurbishment process. Watch this space!

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Some You Win…

I try to post on a Sunday evening so I can give an update on the work completed by Mustang Maniac during the week and the work I do at the weekends. The reason I haven’t posted is quite simple. Trying to catch-up on the huge amount of I have taken and the huge amount to work the MM (Mustang Maniac) guys have done. Most of the photo work has been completed now and hopefully the delay will be worth it. Where do I start?

The first thing I noticed when I turned up was the back of the car was sitting in a white primer where Terry had cleaned and seam sealed it up.

The back of the trunk is to get blown over of the Acapulco Blue when the car goes for the full paint job. In the mean time a couple of light undercoats of colour will be applied to the areas that you can’t paint once the rear quarter panels are welded in place, such as the chassis drop off points and the top of the rear arches that can be seen when you open up the trunk. The hinges I prepared last week were cleaned up and given a spray and hung up to dry.

The next part to be spotted was the upper cowl that had been fitted in place and welded to the lower cowl. The Black resin coated parts in black are now all welded in place and brazed as they should be. Tape was placed over the vents and masking paper placed in the vents to avoid any and dust and rubbish getting into the fresh paint. The paper will be pulled out at the time of fitting up the rest of the car.

As I wanted an export brace on the front of the car going from the fire wall to the shock towers this one was going to be fitted correctly. What I mean here is that the export brace was fitted to a thick piece of plate also welded onto the top of the fire wall to add the required strength. Many export braces fitter later in life are just bolted into the original shock tower bolt holes and the fire wall. Under load the firewall will bend and give which defeats the whole point of the export brace being fitted. The welding you see here is exactly how it was when they were first fitted, no neat seam all round welding, just the little lines of weld you see in the close up. The brace is only resting in place as its not needed at this point of the restoration.

When I arrived on Saturday Terry was competing the repair plate to the roof and quarter panel lead area. Yes you read that correctly – lead, not filler and welds as modern restorations will do for you, but this lucky little lady was going to get the forgotten art of leading and brazing the quarters in place. The filler and welding are not ideal and could blow through with damp and rust at a later date. The Common place to have the rust appear is at the top of the B pillar as the water runs down and sits at the back of the strengthening sections and so it will eventually rot. Welding and filler will be especially susceptible to the damp. Red oxide paint was applied to prevent any more rust. The replacement plates in this area are common and the secret is make sure the plate are lower than the rest of the roof in order for the lead to run into any holes and fill the cavity up with strength. It’s this attention to detail that sets these guys apart from everybody else.

before the plate

sunken plate

Anyway, I was given my task to strip the doors down to find any of Adam’s nasty little surprises as he likes to call them. The door, oh yes the lovely left side drivers door. The stripper was applied to door and the first layers of paint was removed no problem. Then I spotted it – filler. Ok, the filler was to mend any cosmetic issues for paint, so I kept telling myself. So the door got more stripper and more scrapping. The filler patch got bigger and bigger until it was across three quarters of the door. I asked Terry to take a look who said “You have to get it all out to see what is behind it”. So the door got more stripper applied to loosen the filler, then more and more. The scrapping knife was lifting the filler out like a spread of butter until the next layer of filler needed to be softened. Now I was going through the stripper like you wouldn’t believe as the filler was soaking it all up. The breakthrough to the metal was a good moment to behold and I thought I had cracked it, but no. The filler was about half an inch thick in some places, then I found out why. The car has had a knock in the door. There was regular holes in the door skin to pull the dents back out again with a slide hammer. At this point Adam was called down to survey the damage. Then he said “all the filler has to come out to see the full damage”, that’s consistency. Two hours later the filler was all out. The door panel was now fully exposed and any pressure on the door and the door popped inwards as the metal was stretched beyond repair, the filler was holding it tight. If I had of known this then we would have replaced the skin in the first place on the outside of the door.

before we started

The door had to come of to strip the skin. Adam went and got a skin and brought it over “it’s your lucky day – it’s the last one.” The door was mounted and the skin was knocked away from the door by breaking the spot welds. The inside of the door would show the damage if any done to the structural part of the door. The skin was popped off a little while later being careful as they were trying not wanting to damage the door frame. The skin was lifted off and with the inside exposed we could see the heavy rust at the bottom of the door and the thin metal about to break away. Not good. The side strengthening bar part of the frame had been bent on the initial impact and had not been straightened out at the time. Even worse. The arrows in the pictures show the areas of concern, the bent frame and rust holes.

arrows show the rust

line shows the damage

In case you are wondering how much came out of the door? This much.

The decision was made the door could not be salvaged with the amount of rust inside and the damaged bar. Yes, of course they could fabricate new parts and weld in place, but the man hours would out way the cost of the door. Terry went and got a new door. I had spots before my eyes or was it “£” signs, i’m not sure now??? Terry then offered up the door and fitted it along the B pillar and the sills. Adjustments had to be made with the door catch to make it shut correctly.

So to sum up:

1 x 5ltr od paint stripper = £30

8 hours stripping time

1 x door skin = £120

Terry’s time – a lot!

1 x new door = £400

1 x scrap cart full of my nice clean, paint free, bent door skin that has more bullet holes than Al Capone’s getaway car! One man was not impressed. BUT, some you win – some you loose, the original drivers door was a write off and that is the chance you take with old cars unless you know the history. I soon got over it once I had seen the new door in place. Oh, yeah it looked good. The other door Adam stripped down for me, that one was fine and OK to prep for paint. I think he was feeling sorry for me at this point, I did give him his door skin back though!! AND it only took him an hour or so to get this far.

The door surround was cleaned up while Terry was prepping the door for fitting, this part of the bodywork came up pretty clean all round the inside and I was pleased with the results.

The door fitted with the clean pillar and inner door frame cleaned up looks amazing.

new door

aligned to b pillar

It was a silly long day and I would a special thanks to Terry, Adam & Frank for helping me out. I had a good laugh and it was great to see the new metal on the car and some colour.

I hope the wait for the post was worth it, it was for me. 🙂

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New Paint Colour Revealed

The weekend still arrived slower than ever after a Bank Holiday at the beginning of the week. I was excited to get down to Mustang Maniac to see what had been done to my car. The lower cowl was going to be replaced as it had rotted through and that piece of work was known about. With the cowl off the guys could see the fire wall and the back of the dash clearly in daylight. On full inspection of the dash they could see it had gone a little thin underneath and rusted pretty badly all along the inside. A discussion was had to either replace the whole dash, or weld parts onto the old dash. This would mean shaping metal and replacing the radio slot that is always butchered on the classic cars. The decision was made to replace the complete dash, not a cheap option but it was going to be worth it in the long run. As ever Adam had a full dash in stock and was fitted, welded and brazed into place. It’s a little difficult to see black on the dark underside but you can make it out.

The top part of the firewall had to be fabricated as it was little thin in the top crease, so again it was decided by Terry to cut the top off the firewall and replace it with fresh metal and shape it to the new lower cowl. Metal work skills being displayed in all their glory and you can’t even tell it has been replaced. With the lower cowl now firmly welded in place it was masked up and then given the first of a couple of layers of primer. It was at this point I was sent this teaser photo by Adam to show the primer had been applied to the cowl, this is the first piece of fresh metal to get proper paint.

I turned up very excited and itching to see the car expecting to see the cowl in primer. I wasn’t disappointed the lower cowl was painted in the colour that I wanted, Acapulco Blue. Obviously I am biased big time here, but it’s a bit different and a stock ’67 Mustang colour, I am absolutely delighted with it. This was the first time I had seen the colour on my car. A pretty special moment.

Acapulco blue

new dash and cowl

I got a bit carried away having a little bonding session with the fantastic paint job much to the amusement of the guys who followed me in to see my surprised look. Adam broke the news to me about the very busy day ahead of me. The trunk was to be removed and then strip it back to bare metal to see if there was any “little surprises” waiting for us as Adam puts it. What he means is, are there any pin holes or rust that have been covered up. I started on the top side and then worked my way to the underside. The underside took a lot longer due to all the corners and curves that made it hard work. I am pleased to say after a few hours hard work that the trunk is solid and no rust at all, except for a two very light surface areas where the paint had chipped off on the top side.

The next job was to red oxide the inside firewall as I had stripped it back to metal last week. The end results are pretty amazing I must say.

I was spoilt this week in my own little sanctuary, a nice guy Chris was given the dubious pleasure of working with me for the day. It’s normally quiet in the work shop, but last weekend it was a nice change to have somebody to share a conversation with all things cars. Chris made a great job of stripping the right side B pillar and the rear panel under the rear screen. Thanks for your hard work Chris. Throughout the day the normal visits from the guys was in full flow and towards the end of the day I was given some “homework” by Adam. That homework was to take home one of the fenders and strip it back to bare metal. Adam was right it was a busy weekend for me with a few more to come like it. Things have stepped up a notch, big time!

Sunday, I got up with a full day in front of me and the backs of my legs aching. My homework was to be completed along with the trunk hinges and sprung bars that connect them to hold the trunk open. The hinges were to be stripped and all paint removed as it has to be painted the same colour inside the trunk. I though I would try to be clever to strip and clean the parts with the sprung tension bars in place. Unfortunately this turned out to be a nightmare so I had to remove the bars.

I held one of the hinges in the vice and lever out the first bar. This was enough to start a cascade of events. The sprung bar unleashed itself like a coiled cobra and the end of the bar slapped me on the left hand at the base of the knuckle, the instant pain caused me to rub my hand as the other bar sprang away hit the man cave rubbish bin, this in turn was sent flying leaving a cloud of old sanding dust and rubbish all on the man cave floor in the doorway. After the initial clean up and the bruise on my thumb and wrist getting darker by the minute, I took the hinges back outside to complete the strip down. Both hinges came out pretty well and I was well pleased. To protect the inside of the hinges I gave a coating of Eastwood Rust Encapsulator to prevent additional rust on the inside of the hinges. The sprung bars were given an undercoat of red oxide and then a top layer of silver.

first hinge

before and after from each side

both cleaned

sprung bars

inside treated

The homework was a dilemma, how to remove the paint from the fender. I decided on my Dewalt dual action sander with a 100grit discs. I intended to go down to the undercoat and then use a lighter and lighter grades to get to the bare metal. Some of it went to plan and some of the paint came straight of and I went to the metal. I will have to fine buff the tiny swirl off the metal work now this weekend. The purpose of the homework? to see if there were any little surprises waiting for me. I am pleased to say I didn’t find any on this original panel so far. I still have the top edge to complete but that could be later in the week or next weekend.

right fender

starting the clean

holes for the emblems

A big update again and a lot has happened, I intended to post on Sunday as normal. But, I had so many pictures to edit it was very late to start writing this little lot up. Forgiven?