The weekend has gone and I have finally got a chance to catch up on the blog. The man cave has been my residence for the last week or so. I have run out of the consumables that I needed to finish the floor pans inside the car. A change of plan that switched my attention to the smaller things I can do in the mean time, the first was the air filter pan which is finished, apart from the final top coat colour what ever that may be. However, I did promise myself not to do any of the pretty things on the car before the basics have been done, such as paint, mechanics, rust etc. But every time I walk into the man cave there is a grill that hangs on the side with this dirty Mustang Corral on it. The grill is no good as the top part has finally broken (when I picked it up), so it won’t be able to be fixed onto the car now. So now I need a nice shiny new one, (never mind then), the original grill has had a poor spray job of black paint from the front which has also gone over the underside of the Corral, but saving the pony Corral was the most important thing to me as it’s the cars identity after all.
I took the Corral apart and noticed a broken mounting leg or support which was repaired by body filler! The outside of the Corral was cleaned up and the leg was repaired with some JB Weld. The pony was fine, just very dull and no shine so I used a mixture of chrome cleaner and Gibbs Brand to bring it back to life. The results were really good and came out better than I had hoped for, so obviously I am well pleased with it. The full process of the cleaning and repairs I have added a page to the Photo Menu – Body Work – Mustang Corral, or click here for the hyper link, there are over forty photos in total. I did however take a few arty shots of the iconic horse while it was out as I may want to change the header at a later date with my own car and grill. What do you think?
The chrome cleaner was removing the dirt but seemed to be moving the dirt from one end to the other. A different approach was required, the Gibbs Brand cleaned up most of the dirt first and the chrome cleaner done the rest. As some of the metal work was pitted slightly I didn’t want to make it worse by catching the chrome with a cloth and leaving a chromeless spot and so it was treated carefully. The brushed effect wasn’t given any rough stuff either for the very same reason, the Gibbs Brand was the staple cleaner for those areas. I could see that brushed effect would scrape off if abused and ruin the look of the two-tone finish as a few tiny scratches revealed that point after the dirt was removed.
The finished result is a well-groomed pony looking forward to more open road adventures.
Quick Links:
Photo Menu – Bodywork – Mustang Corral click here
