Weather Proofing

A nice weekend for a change and warm air made ideal working conditions at Mustang Maniac. The job was pre arranged for this weekend and it was all about weather proofing. Well, as good as weather proofing you can get on a fifty year old car! The first job was going to be the inside of door weather rail that holds the rubber strip in place to make it water tight. It was at this point of winding the handle of the driver’s side that we (OK Adam then) was not happy with the feel of it. The driver’s door has had a knock in the past right at the front by where the winder mechanism is located and the door was replaced due to the extensive structural damage inside. These are the pics after all the filler was removed.

before we started

line shows the damage

The window regulator was worn more than expected and Adam detected an unusual binding. In fact it was like watching a robber trying to crack an old style dial safe. He listen to the winder a few times, up and down then again. A decision was made to swap it out but it could be OK for a while. The last thing you want it to start taking the door cards off a few months after it’s all done to pull it all apart to replace the regulator. Now under a no load scenario when it was fitted the wear was not evident to me at least. But once connected to the weight of the window and the restriction of the rails it become more obvious. To me it felt OK, but to Adam it was not good enough. So I was tasked to remove the complete mechanism with the glass in place. A feat on its own! The mechanism came out with a bit of fiddling and loosening of the adjustment bolts. Taking the mechanism to Adam he looked it over and confirmed what he thought. Where the door was impacted it had placed a slight bend on the winding plate which has of centred the spindle to the winder handle. To replace it was a little easier as I could assemble the window scissor arms inside the door. This of course meant that all the adjusting of the windows a few weeks ago would have to be done again. Pictures? Nope – there would be no difference as everything looks the same still, it was all inside the door.

The second job was the original first job now, fitting the inside of the door recess trims. We looked over the stainless rails could see that the rails had been over tightened and the metal distorted around the screw holes.

These holes would have to be flattened out in order to lay flat inside the gaps. A block of metal was found that would fit inside the rails so that it would become the base of the makeshift anvil. A small piece of cloth was placed over the metal to soften the blows of the small leather faced hammer that would not show any hammer marks inside or outside. This took a fair bit of patience and the end result was pretty good.

A dry fit of the rail to the bodywork was fine as we wanted to make sure the very subtle twists to the metal were still where they should be. A layer of sticky foam was carefully laid over the back of the fitting to form a cushion against the bodywork and paint.

The rail was lightly screwed into position before we tightened it all up.

Next up was the sticky part – Impact adhesive. The rail has a slight lip each side and the weather strip is held in place. There are debates over it was stuck in place or not. I have seen factory original cars where I can safely say that they were stuck in place as well. The glue was applied to the rubber and the trim and we started from the front. You get one chance at it and we pulled it off. The fact is as I was helping hold the rubber to stop it twisting and sticking to itself I could get photos at this point. But I have found this picture of somebody fitting theirs, but you get the idea. I will get some of my pics next week.

With the strip in place it was time align the door glass all back up again. This took ages as I had to undo it all gain to get the new regulator back in.

top of door

rear quarter

The tops of the doors has a felt window scraper if you like to help take the damp of the car window and guide the glass from being scratched. There is a thicker strip and a smaller strip that clips into cut outs. In order to make the felt fit I have been allowed to let you into a trade secret in fitting them. Once these things are in they snap in place and area real nightmare to get out without damaging your paint, and you will destroy the felts. Dry fit is best to make sure the clips align with the holes. The top of the window will be right where the felts need to go. The tip is remove the bottom bump stop and wind the window down the extra inch until it’s just below the door skin.

removed lower bump stop

cut outs for the felt

Clip the strips in place making sure the chrome is the right way up. There is a about two or three millimetres difference at each end on the felts, if they are upside down they will not but up correctly to the edge of the door.

clipping in place

outside felt

both sides

Now raise the window up a little to the correct bottom position and refit the bump stop, the window will be seated correctly between the felts.

While we are on the subject of the water, we decided to fit a little more fancy stuff on the car, the windscreen wipers to be exact. The wiper motor has been tested to work fine and the wiper arm spindles stop in park. Adam told me a horror story of a guy who put new wiper arms on his Mustang and tried them out. The wipers were not in park and the wipers arms were gouged down his hood bending them up in the process. As such Adam is very cautious about this only half presses them on when he fits them. he will lift them off the glass and run the wipers a few times until they settle. Then he will position them correctly. The wiper arms only sit on a splined shaft and pressed on.

Better to be safe than sorry. The wiper arms are in stainless and just set the car off a little. They are not correctly positioned just yet though.

Next week it could be the trunk weather strip, or rear quarter felts, or dash pad, I will just have to wait and see.

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A Sticky Situation

The past quickly and the tiredness from lack of sleep due to our hot weather always seems to vanish when it’s time to go to Mustang Maniac. The trip was a lot longer than normal due to the fact that my normal run was traffic controlled due to a big airshow at Duxford war museum. I arrived nicely chilled thanks to the aircon being on full blast. The guys were cleaning the yard and Chris’ car was about to get a new home. Chris is about to follow in the same footstep and restore his 66′ coupe i6 that he wants to use as a daily run around. Good for him to be able to enjoy it everyday, and that’s exactly what it should be. Not a trailer queen never to be enjoyed.

Anyway the plan for today was to fit the main door windows and align them up near enough ready for the door rubbers to be added soon. The windows is really a two-man job and Yogi gave me a hand to get them in the door. First job was to remove the rollers from the window rails as they would be snapped into place on the window itself. Inserting the window is a case of front end of the glass goes in first at a forty-five degree angle until about two-thirds of the way in. Slowly straightened up the glass moving forwards and slipping the leading edge into the guide rails at the front quarter windows. This will allow the back edge of the glass to slide into the rear rail. With the glass now straight slide the rollers into the bottom slide rail and align the winder mechanism to the rollers and snap into place.

There are not many pictures as we had to hold the glass and nobody was around to take them for me at the time. Once the mechanism was wound a couple of times Yogi got to work and started to adjust the windows. This is a tricky job and takes a while as the front quarters and rear quarters all have to align to the window glass and sit properly in the door shuts. Yogi did it about twenty minutes and just buzzed around bolts and allen bolts to align the passenger side up. I learnt a lot from watching and thought I had it in mind what he done. We both swapped to the driver’s side and fitted the main glass into the door. Then it was my turn to align it all up. let’s just say it took me a lot longer than Yogi. I got the rear right and the front wrong or, front right and the rear wrong that would overlap the main window! I just kept adjusting things to see what they did and slowly did little bits at a time. The time (hours) flew by. Eventually I got it pretty close to what Yogi and felt pleased with myself. Not much can be shown for my time at all, except that glass is in the door. Adam told me that it can day a day to fit and align glass up, even for those guys! Yes, I know the windows are filthy dirty, I will clean them up next week with some of the wife’s glass cleaner which I forgot to take with me this week.

Adam had his delivery of some Monte Carlo bars that I was after, which he brought down to the workshop to fit with me. The bar has a curve in it at the front ready for the air filter I am going to have. I had a choice of stainless, chrome or satin black. I went for the satin black to match the rest of under the hood. There are two bolts missing at the top of the bar hat bolt to the body, they are custom-made to match the export brace bolts. They are due to arrive by the time I go and play next week. 🙂

By this time the day was done, but I was given some homework. Adam asked me what I wanted to do with the rear parcel shelf. I said I will have what ever they had at the time. Most of the time they are car coloured, or have been modified for a pair of rear speakers. Adam said how about something bespoke that you can make. I was listening intently now. Up in Adams stores he had an old damaged head liner same as mine that couldn’t be used. So he said how about wrapping the shelf with the headliner. Great idea so I took it home with me. The first thing to note is that the headliners are easily creased and take a fair bit to straighten them out after they have been packaged. I opened the liner up and selected the part of the roof liner that I use and laid the shelf on it. I marked around it roughly and cut it with some scissors. Don’t tell the wife though.

Next was to stick the material to the board. I used some spray on impact adhesive and done little bits at a time smoothing out as much as I could of the creases using a hair drier to warm it all up and expand the material. again, don’t tell the wife about that bit either.

With the front completely covered I then pulled and stretched the reverse and stuck that down too.

The end result I’m really pleased with. A parcel shelf that matches the head liner and will look like it continues all the way down the back. I haven’t seen this before on a car, but I am looking forward to fitting it I must say. The pictures don’t do the project justice, but you can get the point though.

The most difficult part of this was trying to keep the glue of the material that I managed to get all over me, and the hair drier. I will give you some tips here:

1) Use WD40 to remove the stickiness from your fingers, it works.

2) Clean up the hair drier and place it back in the same place you got it from.

3) Don’t try and deny you have used it when it smells of WD40.

4) Make sure you know how long the wife “pops” out for before using her stuff.

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Raising A Glass or Two

Another trip to Mustang Maniac at the weekend, I was loaded with tools, food and the enthusiasm to match. When I got there the sun was shining which just seemed to make everything much happier, if that makes sense. The task for the weekend was to finish the complete strip down of anything else left in or on the car. The last parts to come out were the brake pedal assembly, emergency brake and the glass from the doors. The emergency brake (hand brake) bolts to the firewall were held in place by a liquid metal that sets. I had a nightmare of a job to get to the bolt head having to chip it off. Eventually I got there and the bolts were removed and the handbrake cable itself. The brake pedal assembly is attached to the fire wall on the inside via four bolts from the back of the servo brackets and also to the back of the dashboard, this was easy enough to undo and remove, in fact much simpler than I expected it to be. The glass however I was little nervous about. They came out of the doors eventually after the guys told me the correct way of doing it, after I spent far too much time trying doing it myself. The bolts for the glass and the mechanisms were in all the wrong places and the fitted incorrectly previously, so it’s no wonder I had issues, well that’s my excuse anyway. My style of learning is not from a book, I can read the books, but it don’t go in. I can look at the pictures and it sort of goes in, but I need to compare it to the real thing. But, if I am shown how to do it, I remember it and it stays there, I’m a kinesthetic learner apparently so my wife informs me. I always assumed it was me being thick when it came to following instructions, apparently not, it just the way I process the information. Anyway I have added a link to the process of the window removal here or go to the quick link at the bottom. All that remains now is to remove the front and rear glass screens. Then she is a bare shell as she was the day she was made!

middle bolt

lift up the quarter

twist to free the bottom

main glass of the rails

bottom of the glass rail checked for rust

Sunday was a day of cleaning and painting the parts from last week, the prop shaft was undercoated with a self-etching primer on top of the POR15 and sprayed white. Yes I did want it white which would match my shocks, and yes I do know I will be cleaning it. But it’s what I want and I am ready for the cleaning. The days I can’t take her out for a spin, I will be cleaning her.

masked up ready

masked up

close up of primer

White gloss applied

3 coats of white gloss

bottom end

I took the brake pedal and the gas pedal assemblies apart and de-rusted them, then treated them to Under Hood satin black. They now look as good as new but took a little while. The Brake assembly was the worst on the inside of the bracket. I managed to get to the outside while I was doing under the dash. The clean-up of the rust parts was a bigger job and I needed to replace the inner bushes of the pivot pin. The process can be found here.