Steering Column

This week has been difficult as I was poorly and wasn’t sure Mustang Maniac was going to happen on Saturday. Being the hero that I am, I talked myself into my weekly homage to Mustang Maniac, it was a very short conversation mind you. With that in mind the duties were going to be a little lighter than normal. Adam was busy moving large mounds of dirt to somewhere that obviously needed the large mounds of dirt. We broke away from the guys to discuss what was going to be the plan for the day. We decided that the steering column is constantly being moved from one side to the other of the car and is just asking for damage and was causing a little concern. So the plan was – fit the column. Not a heavy job but a delicate due to the paint work involved. The parts I had were all there except the mounting screws and some special square ended bolts that cleverly hold the top to the column. Adam send me on a mission to his stash of engines and components where there was a scrap ’67 column still attached to the steering arms. I was allowed to pinch the difficult and rare parts to make mine fit.

The steering column is just a tube that goes over the steering box bar and also holds the steering wheel in place with the turn indicator fittings.

steering bar

column

At the steering box end there is a rubber grommet that seals the column from dirt and grime and is just a press fit into the end. This grommet also helps to hold the column in a central position. There is a metal plate and a gasket that fits to the fire wall that is a draft and grime gasket. When the column is slid over the bar and gets to the end make sure that you don’t press the gasket through the firewall, it’s a tight fit. The column also has a rubber gator that sits on top of the firewall sound insulator and presses in place. Simple but an effective idea. Just slide the column over the top of bar. thread the end through the gasket and onto the steering box. There will be resistance here as the box fitting is quite tight too.

column in place

column gator

The column can only fit in one position which is held in place by a bracket. The bottom part has a key-way to hold the column in position and the top part of the bracket goes between the column and the bottom of the dash. The brackets have a coating of a rubber to protect the column from any damage.

The next part is to fit the business end of the column is in two main parts, a block that fits to the top of the column and a sleeve that fits behind it to hide the wires routing to the bottom. In order to protect the paint I used a sheet of paper that wrapped around the column as I slid the neck over the column.

The top part of the column collar slides over the centre bar and fits inside the column tube, this holds the bar in the centre at the top. Make sure the bearing in the middle has enough grease in place. The two special square retaining bolts are slid from the back into the cut outs at the top of the column. With the bolts showing place the corresponding nuts in place to screw the collar down. The collar will only fit in one place as the indicator stalk fitting is recessed out. Don’t tighten all the way up yet as the centre of the collar has a position ring that sits inside the bearing.

turn lever recess

retaining bolts

Next part is the fun bit. Threading the turn signal mechanism wires down the inside of the column. To be fair it’s not to bad with the technique I have for it. Inside the column is a separate tube that holds the wires to the side of the column. I take a couple of wire and tape them together, move up an inch or so and tape the next couple. Repeat for the rest of the wires are taped up then thread down the top opening until the wires poke out the bottom. undo the tape and pull the wires through evenly.

wires threaded and greased bearings

taping up

With the wires almost pulled out then position the turn indicator onto the collar and gently do up the three screws evenly. Do not over tighten the screws as it will distort the plastic mounting. Ensure that the horn ring connectors are free to move up and down. Slide the bottom part of the collar up and insert the two long screws into the remaining holes and tighten up. Remove the paper from the column to leave no scratch marks on the paint.

With the steering mechanism all in place screw in the indicator stalk. Now you are ready for the steering wheel to be fitted, but more of that at a later date.

It doesn’t look much but I was taking my time to complete this task. A very visual part of the car and an important to get right. The main bean headlight switch from the American AutoWire kit comes out about five inches short to ten inches if you want to have a nice routing. So with the column in place in cut the supplied wires fittings and added around a foot of extra cables colour coded the same as the AAW ones. I attached more correct style fittings and refitted back into the connecting block. That took up the rest of the time I was down there.

Next week we are aiming to fit the door seal rubbers to the door weather strips, that will show some progress on the car with any luck that is a bit more visual.

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Water Works Problems

A day a Mustang Maniac is one of life’s pleasures, car talk, lots of cars and above all great company. Saturday the guys were sorting out the yard and moving stuff around again, the yard looks so much bigger now. The inevitable tea break allowed a relaxing few moments in the sun to listen what the plan was going to be for the day. The task was to finish up the electrics Once the neutral safety switch had been fitted. The fitting was two bolts slid over transmission selector lever. The twin pairs of wires were to be connected to the loom to stop the car turning over in anything other than Park or Neutral or the gear box. As the wire colours and fittings don’t match to the loom it was a case of using a Power Probe to manually switch on the back up lamps, and then make sure the car wouldn’t start in any gear. The initial educated guesstimate was correct and allowed the wires to be spliced in with proper tight fitting connections. The wire loom could now be sealed up to make it look stock. Adam was around to help out with Neutral Safety and as the battery was connected up a decision was made to check the headlights. Nothing, the neat cable work under the dash was pulled open and the relays were checked, nothing. The relays were removed and more Power Probe work was used to search out the live feeds. When manually triggered the headlights worked, that was a good sign at least. Adam asked if the fuses were OK, and of course took the statement “Yep, they are fine” as it was intended as a statement. Adam had a customer turn up to collect a large batch of body work and got “Lord” Yogi to come in and offer a look. Many shouts of “they on yet?” Resulted in a forlorn “Nope” response. This went on numerous times, and with lots bleeps later, still nothing. Then a consultation with the “book of words” reveled the problem. When the loom was fitted the “Live feed restricting connection and disabling function device”, ( I just made that bit up) or better know as a “Fuse”, was not in the fuse holder board. Yogi plugged in the correct rated fuse, the switch was turned and the lights came on, no problem. This explained the lack of a live feed. Needless to say “Lord” Yogi dished out some friendly abuse yours truly, all totally justified of course. When Adam asked what the problem was, no matter how much you try to disguise the fact that the “fuse” was missing by making up fancy words for it, a certain amount of banter often followed. Adam nailed the problem straight away earlier on, but choose to take the word of somebody who hadn’t checked their own work, it was a school boy error, OK. Everybody is allowed one now and again. Lol.

The latest delivery of Adam’s also included the custom fitting Monte Carlo stainless steel bolts that matched the export brace. The correct positioned holes were fitted and the bolts tightened up. The effect is pretty darn cool.

Right side of bar

Left side

Export brace bolts

The next job was the wiper functionality and washer jets. The two-speed wiper motor was restored and looked pretty good. The down side was the two wires didn’t say what was the poss or the new side of the motor. So the plan is to put a pipe on the bottom of the pump and rest it in a jug of water and manually Power Probe it into operation. Yep, it made the correct noise, but made a complete meal out of and did nothing. The connections were swapped around and still nothing. Adam filed in his new storage area – the scrap bin. A sparkly new pump was sourced from the ever-expanding stores and the experiment was repeated. This time a gush of water duly sprouted forth as it should do. Two more holes had to be drilled into the inner fender panel to make it fit correctly.

The water bag was hung on the hooks and the rubber tubing fitted.

The pipe work was run around the loom location and run to the cowl. Washer jets were proudly displayed to Adam who looked at them and filed them under his new system “B” for Bin. Although they had cleaned up Ok the ends were flattened and wouldn’t have made a correct jet. So new ones were fitted. Two simple screws held the brutally simple pipe just under the cowl bars.

To finish up the day the loom was recovered with tape and neatened back up. Figuring all the issues out took up a fair bit of time. To complete the day the windows were cleaned up and the car has taken on a whole new look. Again not too much to look at this week as it was tidying up and correcting issues with the “Electrical restriction unit” or fuse.

Adam came around at the end of the day and decided to authenticate the restoration. He bought down one of the coveted Mustang Maniac labels. It simply has a number on it. Mine is 35, this is a badge of honour to say the work is worthy of the assigned number.

A great way to end the day – well chuffed.

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Hot Of The Press

You may remember that I helped Mustang Maniac out at their local car show at Enfield Pageant of Motoring 23 – 25 May this year. I was there with the usual loyal customers and good friends of MM. We all had a great time and spoke to lots of guests about the cars we bought along and all about repairs, parts and restorations. My car was there as an exhibit to show what it’s like to be part way through the nut and bolt restoration process. It turns out that “Classic American” magazine were also there covering the event and taking some pictures. It turns out that one of those pictures was of my car. My wife treated me to the annual subscription to the American Classic magazine as a birthday present a little while ago. The subscriber magazines arrive about a week ahead of officially hitting the shops. As usual I unwrapped the August edition of the magazine and assumed the position on the sofa. A habit of mine is that I just start flicking through the pages in order to work out what I was going to read first. I turned a number of the pages and when I got to page 70 I saw my car, in print. A full-page write up of the event and half of that page is a photo of my cherished car. I was so excited that the wife jumped out of her skin as I yelled out “Yes – my motor”. She wondered what the fuss was all about, she soon found out as I wedged the magazine right in front of her face as she was watching some TV. I think she got fed up with the fifth or sixth viewing of the article.

The Classic American August edition #292 is in the shops from July 16th 2015.

Some pics again of the Enfield Pageant 21-23 May 2015 on the Mustang Maniac stand.

John moving her around

Of course I can’t take credit for it all on my own, I have had help to get this far. So, it’s a big thanks to Adam and all the guys at Mustang Manic for getting me where I am today. Let’s hope there are more pictures to grace the pages of magazines in the future. It would be nice of course, but not to be expected or taken for granted.

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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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Getting a Handle On Things

A scorching hot week at work and I’m glad to say that he weather was gorgeous at Mustang Maniac. I arrived to find that the guys were shunting cars to a local school where they displayed old in the shape of the Shelby GT500KR and new being the UBB Mustangs, their F350 truck and the Falcon pick up were also on the list so the kids could take pics of them sitting inside the trucks. When Adam had a chance to breathe we discussed the plan of action for my car. A bit of a no brainer really as we wanted to get the glass in. First of we needed to connect the remaining door bars up, all of which you can’t see and are inside the door. So I’m afraid it’s another short post from me, but all you can see is two handles fitted and it took all day! Some days things go well, yesterday was a slow day.

The door locks were back in place previously and we opened the doors by pulling the latch inside the door. So now we wanted the door handle connected to the bar. The mechanism on the driver’s door had to be replaced as the spring had broken. Not a major problem as it didn’t take long. Previously the fittings had worn so the prior owner had bent rods in order to make things work. The down side is non of it was now working. Adam was helping with the adjustments and we locked the door only to find we couldn’t open it again on the driver’s side. It turns out that in straightening the bars out now showed the issues on the door catch itself. We had to dismantle the bars inside the car and manual move the levers around to unlock and open the door. We took the inside of the door mechanism apart again and had close look.

It turns out that the spring had been bent out-of-the-way for some weird reason on the locking side of the catch, then the cams were all bent out of shape too. This all meant – new door catch. Epic! We fitted the door catch and could see just how much things had been butchered inside the door with regards to the operating bars. The new lock was an incredibly tight fit for the new door lock to be fitted, with some “enthusiastic” persuasion it eventually fitted into place. We straightened the bars out, then put the correct curves back in them and refitted the lot back together. Perfect. The bends to the cams on the old catch were hardly noticeable, but it was enough to jam up enough to stop the tumbler turning as the bar had not returned to the correct position.

inside lock

handle

The next job was the door handle itself. One screw and a stud with a nut in place to hold it to the door. We fitted the handle and started to do it up only to find out that the metal on the new moulding was catching on the inside of the door. So when it was tightened up it was being pulled upwards of the door instead of backwards into the door for a tight fit. The gap was a bout 2mm that needed to be sorted out, we moved the door housing over a fraction on the screw and it still wasn’t enough. So out came the handle again. This time we had to get ingenious, we re-aligned (OK, bent) the housing inwards a fraction and the button hinge mechanism by a corresponding amount. This actually sounds worse than it was, the clearance was greater on the drivers handle than the passenger one when we compared them side by side. So once the gaps were made the same all worked perfectly with the rods connect back up.

The passenger door had its own issues. There was a bar missing for the door handle button release, so Adam let me go and rob a bar from the inside of a one the cars in the Graveyard. This was no easy take as the years of weather had rusted the clips to the bar and took some patience to tease the clips off. The door catch itself was missing the spring grommet so Adam got a new one of those and we had to take the door catch out to fit that again. Once all the parts were back in place the handle screwed on no problem and took only a quarter of the time from the driver’s door.

So now I have a car that can be opened by handles and can be locked. All slightly irrelevant as there is no glass so you can climb in any way.

That’s it for this post, so much work that took ages and nothing to show for it except a couple of handles. Next week we should be able to get the glass in as everything else in now in place. Hopefully there will be more visual updates, but the adjusting of the doors and glass can be painfully slow as well.

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Through The Looking Glass

The longest day today in the UK and it seemed like the longest week ever until I got down to Mustang Maniac. I turned up in good spirits apart from the cycling event due to take place around the country lanes of Braughing area due to start in a few hours. The reason is cyclist’s complain of not giving them respect on the road, but I am sorry respect is earned not given. I came round a corner and there was three of them side by side down a narrow country lane obviously warming up. As I was sort of expecting something like this I was ready for it some sort of selfish riders which I regularly see on a Saturday morning. The only thing warming up was my blood – almost to boiling point. Did they move over? No, for about 1/2 mile while I was in second gear. When the road widened I expressed my displeasure to them with the window down. Grrrrrrrrr. That is a real pet hate of mine, selfish cyclists.

Anyway of the rant and onto the good bits, Adam was in his office with his Grandson Jack who was helping out with the stock order that was being put away. Adam is still waiting for the trimmers to complete the upholstery so we went to have a look at the car to see what could be done. As we walked into the workshop I could see the new windscreen had been fitted in place. The guys tried to salvage my old screen but it was so badly scratched and stone chipped they decided against using it. So I have a new shiny screen with a tint bar at the top that blends well into the paint job. The guys fitted the trim and it all clipped together really well and tells me that is a pretty good result I have. 🙂

Once I had stopped grinning like a silly school kid we decided on the plan of action, the trunk lock. The trunk lock was a relatively short process consisting of the barrel, grommet, sleeve, washer, nut, and the trunk catch.

The first step is to fit the grommet to the barrel which can only be fitted one way due to the key way. Then carefully pass the mechanism through the trunk so the key way sits in recess.

grommet in place

trunk

being fitted

With the barrel in place make sure the grommet is spaced evenly around the barrel on the paint work. holding the barrel in place there is an inner sleeve that is a tight push over the inner barrel that will hold it all in place. IT goes without saying that the angle of the sleeve matches the inner profile of the trunk and needs to be fitted the correct way up. If you are unsure the sleeve gap should line up with the barrel key way at the bottom.

without sleeve

sleeve to slide over

Now you can let go of the barrel and add the washer then the nut to the thread of the barrel. You will need a large socket to tighten the nut.

Now comes the only tricky part, fitting the catch. The catch only has two bolts one either side to hold it in place. The catch will need to be aligned up to the barrel bar which is flat on either side. Make sure the latch is over and vertical. I previously sprayed the catch a metallic silver for detail before I started any fitting work.

latch vertical

align to barrel

bolted in

With the catch in place fit the bolts and tighten up. The adjustment is made on the fitting in the trunk. In theory you shouldn’t have to touch it, a simple job that finishes the back of the car.

About this point as I was finishing up Adam popped in and said that he was taking Jack on a well deserved trip to the local fun fair. I volunteered myself to start on the rear quarter windows. The only thing Adam advised was don’t do anything up as it will need to be adjusted regardless. I opened up the glass and the main frame that bolts inside the rear quarter. The multi compartment box that I keep my nuts and bolts in from each section suddenly looked daunting. The sides were marked up left side and right side obviously, but dozen bolts and brackets. I checked the fittings of the bolts to the winders and that accounted for four of them. The three larger bolts would hold the frame, that still left loads. After fitting the frame and bracket in place my memory wasn’t good enough refit the rest without a prompt.

Hang on a minute I am working in an Aladdin’s cave of cars here. So I took the torch and scouted for a car with the inner quarters exposed with the glass in place. I didn’t have to go far as there was a convertible without the side panel in place. I could get a good view of the parts where they went. The only trouble was, in what order did they go? I fitted all sorts of things to the window fitting itself and tried to slide it into the rails. Nope, it don’t fit. So I had to take the bits of then fit the window and try again. Numerous trips to the convertible later I started to come back to me. Adam as ever seems to have this sixth sense of the Calvary arriving when you need them. He told me the rubbers needed to be replaced and told me to remove the old one. A single screw that allowed the rubber to slide along the edge retainer part of the window. Once refitted we tried the glass and in it popped. Adam then noticed that the runner wheels were the old style and told me they were brittle and need to be replaced. Only two each side so that was not a problem. Except the pins, these had to be pulled out to release the rollers. a good pair of long-nosed pliers sorted that out. I removed the pins from the news ones and Adam started laughing. He told me to put the pin back in. I protested that “the pin…”, he cut me short and just said press it over. The leading edge chamfer of the pin would open the clip and allow it to clip in place at the bottom recess. Two seconds later “click” it was in place. I held my head in shame and laughter. ALL this time I had removed the pins and refitted the pins like a good boy, I didn’t need to. Why doesn’t anybody tell you these things in books? Still we managed to get the windows in and fit the remaining rails pretty pain-free after that. Then it was repeat the other side. By the time we had finished it was about time to go home. I was well chuffed (here’s that word again Debbie!) with the days work.

The windows wind up, and windows wind down fine, and all relatively easy considering there was very little grease at this point. The right hand side will need adjustment more than the left side as it’s very close to the bodywork. Once the trims are fitted the window will not move freely. But, for now I have a car with some more glass in it and it looks like a car again and not just a pretty coloured shell.

Who knows what next week has to offer? but I am looking forward to it regardless though. 🙂

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Bright Lights & Chrome

After a long week at work I didn’t think the weekend was ever going to get here. I had the car packed the night before to get to Mustang Maniac without any delays. Well that was apart from me dodging, rabbits, pheasants and any other form of livestock that decided that it wanted an early death by car! I managed to avoid all of them and my horn got used more time on that trip than the previous ten trips I reckon! Anyway I arrived to sea of people at the offices with Adam’s desk surrounded by customers at one point. I waited my turn to even say hello and discuss my plan of action. The plan was simple, rear bumper! This sounds like an easy task, but they can be a real pain if the bumpers are out of shape or don’t fit to the light panel. As the rear end of the car had been rebuilt this was going to be a moment of truth. I decided to take some pics of the process as I went along. I did get a helping hand from Yogi and Adam who popped in to see how I was doing. Apparently I was being a bit of wimp when it came to tightening the bolts up. The chrome bolts were sitting slightly proud and looked OK. The guys said that is not good enough and give it proper tightening up which pulled the bolts into the bumper and sat flush. The second side was a bit easier as I knew what to expect. I call it a learning process for me.

The whole set up comprises of a set of deluxe chrome bumper bolts, bumper irons (which I never had), mounting bolts and set of mounting pads to go between the bracket and the rear light panel.

The rear number plate fitting was screwed in first and only held in by two self tap screws. The wire will need to be long enough to get through the rear light panel to be connected to the rear side lights part of the loom.

Next up was the bumper irons, these will only fit one way and are shaped to the bumper itself with the angles.

The bolts are pushed through the squared out holes and the sprung washers are fitted over the bolts. Again these will only fit one way up due to the collar on the chrome bolts.

sprung “wave” washers

bolt

washer in place

The bracket has to be massaged into place to fit the irons and to try to get the bolts to sit flat. This a bit of an art that I didn’t have before. Yogi loosened it all off and readjusted the positions and cranked on some pressure, this was to collapse the bumper washers to the irons forming a good fit, and to also pull the bolts down into the bumper itself. Both sides are exactly the same and there is no left or right hand sides on these parts. The mounting bolts are put through a large washer pushed out the light panel, a mounting pad made of dense foam goes over the bolts. The pads are tight around the bolt and will hold it in place to the light panel. The two-man job to align the bumper to the bolts goes without question, and the top bolts are tightened finger tight to hold the bumper in place. At this point Chris was extra set of eyes sitting further back behind the car to advise, “up a bit, down a bit, over a bit, wooo – too much” etc. This turned out to be a great help. We needed to move the bumper over a bit as it wasn’t exactly central so Yogi give it little nudge to adjust it up before the final tension on the bolts was done up. From underneath the bumper you can see the bolts into the irons. The two bolts each side are able to move inside the slots for the bolts to allow some movement to align them up. A trick of the trade was used to help align the bumper, but I have been sworn to secrecy on that one. I will say that it’s a great trick though.

The down side is photo’s couldn’t really be taken as we were holding the bumper. The result was brilliant, a fantastic fitting bumper, as good as I have seen anywhere. Well chuffed with it.

The rest of the day was involved in me completing the wiring at the back of the car and wrapping it with loom tape. As the LED light board had its own wires I soldered the connections in place to remove any opportunity for a poor connection. Heat shrink tubing was used to seal the soldered wires and then the full loom wrap. All of which you won’t see because it hidden out-of-the-way. Just a minor detail that nobody will see or notice except for the people who know, such as the MM guys who won’t let me get away with shoddy workmanship! Adam wanted to check out the rear loom was working fine and he used the Power Probe to make the LED boards in place.

Back up lamp.

Side Lights.

The indicator lights never seem to show up as amber very well on these pictures, but trust me they are bright.

The Brake lights are very bright too, so a huge upgrade to the standard Mustang lights.

All in all a great day as a major part was fitted and it looked like I done something. Next week I’m not so sure what I am up too, but I have some more under hood tidying up to do. It’s all part of the adventure of bringing the car back to life. Waiting for next week already! That moment of truth of was talking about earlier on – no need to worry, it all fitted up without any major issues.

Thanks to the Guys, Adam, Yogi for the extra pair of hands and Chris for the extra pair of all-seeing eyes. 🙂

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Face Lift

A hot sunny day was promised for my weekend and I was looking forward to doing some work at Mustang Maniac. What we had planned was to fit the rear bumper, that meant that the car was loaded up with my big shiny bits that had been hanging on the wall for the last two years. I arrived all nice a cool as the Aircon had been on full whack all the way down there. You may have noticed that I am in a different workshop now. I have been promoted! I am now in Adam’s finishing workshop where there is more room to have the doors open and not worry about the sides.

A conversation with Adam about the plan for the day changed slightly. We decided it was time to put the lights into the front of the car and tidy up the wire loom. Of course the wire loom work means that there is virtually no difference to look at except the people who know. I mentioned to Adam that the wire loom wasn’t long enough to go to the right hand side of the car for the lights. Adam looked at the routing I had done for the wires which was lovely and neat and tidy by the way, and said they were in the wrong place that’s why. Originally I had ran the light loom through the chassis under the radiator to keep it all neat and hidden. Trouble is that the depth to go down the lower front chassis and back up again behind the battery meant I was about eight inches to short to meet up with the side or park lights. The main headlights would be fine as the wire was plenty long enough, so as I didn’t want to cut into the wires a re-route of the cable was the only option. I replaced the loom tape with the much nicer cloth loom tape to match the rest of the loom now, oh by the way – I seem to have shares in wire loom tape company now, the shares have shot up since I started on my car. With the routing in place where it originally should be the cables reached fine and I could actually cut them down a bit to the correct length.

branch for the loom

wire loom route

Replacing the Head Lights

If you need to replace the parts like I did as most had gone to the great scrapyard in the sky then there are complete packs for the headlight assembly.

The headlight bulbs are mounted behind the headlamp door which in turn exposes the retaining ring which is nice shiny bit of chrome, if you’re lucky. To replace the sealed beam is a fairly quick process, four screws on the headlight door and the three on the retaining ring. The bulb will fall forward and pull the loom plug off the back of the three spade connections. To refit, repeat the process in reverse. The bulbs I would be using are the H4 sealed unit bulbs to retain that stock look on the glass lens. There are modern alternatives that can be used in place but could require the bowl to be cut to allow them to be fitted correctly. As I have LED’s at the front so I will use them as daylight running too.

What I aim to do here is to show the complete headlight rebuild with the Scott Drake hardware kit. Attach the four new clips to the outside of the headlamp assembly making sure they are the correct way round with the threaded part to the back. Once these snap into place they can moved around by a couple of millimetres to enable the headlamp door to align to the fender correctly.

no clips

clips replaced in black

The next part is slightly more tricky as the adjustment studded threads have to be fitted. The retaining clips for the studs has a white washer/nut in the middle. These clips are pressed into the holes at the top and side for the adjustment. The legs on each side stop the fittings falling through the to the back of the buckets. With the legs on the front side the backing part of the fitting needs to be pressed behind the headlamp bucket assembly. If these are to tight bend the legs slightly forward to enable the fitting to sit further back into the hole and allow it to slip behind the back plate into place. There is a small amount of movement here to allow the bowl to fit.

There are two long threaded studs that have a recessed groove at the top. Screw the two studs into the nylon washer/nuts a few threads.

Next it’s the headlight bowl itself, the only tricky part of this is the spring which I will explain in a couple of mins. Around the outside of the bowl there are two cut out lugs and a rectangle cut out. The lugs will locate in the collar of the studs. This will enable you to wind the stud either way to adjust the angles of the beam now.

The bowl is a loose fit at this point, so a spring is required to pull the tension against the studs and to stop the lens itself moving around. The spring is located into a hole at the back of the bucket and pulled through the bowl opening at the bottom to create the tension. Previously I had made one of the spring tools, but as I had left it at home it was the old school way of a fitting, a good ol’ pair of pliers. If you are going to use pliers, I would strongly recommend a long nosed pair of pliers with a very good grip. The spring itself is quite strong and needs a little bend just to get the hook of the spring over the edge of the bowl into the retaining eye.

Pull the spring through

Correctly seated

With the bowl now in place you can add the bulb. Attach the loom connections to the back of the bulb and massage the wires into place at the back of the housing. (I couldn’t get pictures of this part as I didn’t want to drop the bulb).

Holding the bulb in place fit the chrome ring around the outside of the bulb lens and to the bowl, screw lightly into place on the bowl to stop the bulb falling out. Repeat with the other two screws.

The bulb is now in place and needs to be aligned up correctly. If the bulb is just a replacement then it should not need to be an adjusted. Adjust the beam with the studs to angle the lens on two axis points.

With the ring screws now in place, in future you should be able to unscrew each retaining screw a few turns so that the chrome ring will twist a little and lift over the head of the retaining screws. This obviously makes it much easier for replacing the bulbs at a later date.

Once the bulb is aligned the last job is to refit the headlight door. Screw into place lightly and align the headlight doors back up with the with the fenders bevelled edges. That’s it – job done, quite simple.

The wire loom took up most of the day and to route the cables nicely. The bulbs on the other hand didn’t take long and have given the car a complete facelift and now it looks like a mustang again, even without the grill. We connected the battery up and checked the park lights and they worked fine. The main headlights didn’t work yet as they needed to have an earth connection under the dash for the relays. But, it was exciting to see the car spring to life with the lights, almost as if she winked at me!

Thanks to Adam & Yogi who showed me the tips and tricks of the trade fitting the headlights.

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Lighting the Way

During the shortened week after the bank holiday Mustang Maniac was calling to me in my thoughts. I just wanted to get down to the workshop and get going on my car. Not sure what was going to be done, but it couldn’t be much more mechanical stuff. The yard was in a bit of chaos as the cars and trucks from the Enfield Pageant were all over the place and being moved around. I had a conversation with Adam and we decided that the weekends work was going to be lights! I didn’t have my headlight bowls with me so it was now going to be a case of rear lights and side lights. I had to make a decision what I wanted, that was an easy one – LED’s. Then it started to get a little more complicated with front lights how I wanted it to look. To be honest I hadn’t paid that much attention to that part yet as I thought it was a way off yet. So Adam showed me the options and the differences and the choices were made.

That all means that pretty functional bits are going on the car! I was loaded up with parts and variations there of. I excitedly took them to the workshop. First up was the front park lights, the fitting had a default orange lens in place but I wanted the cleaner look of white lights as the orange would clash with the blue. The park lights are also the indicator lights so I needed orange there. This is where Adams LED bulbs come into play. They are the same fittings and screw straight into the housing.

The clear lenses also have the “FoMoCo” logo, the pink arrow in the side by side comparison pic below shows the logo. Adam tells me that he has lost count of the number of people who fit them upside down! The indicator part of the bulbs has the orange LED’s the drive lights are clear white. Problem solved there then. Before we started I got out my new gadget that I had seen the guys use before. Power Probe, this is an electrical tool that allows you to check connections and positive or negative activate a part to work. In other words you connect the earth and power to the probe and press a switch and touch the item which then comes alive.

We installed the bulb and tested them out with the probe before fitting it. So far so good.

The housings have the gaskets inside for the lens to bite onto. I have just rested the lens of the orange one in place to get a comparison. Yes there will be people saying it’s not correct etc. But, I want the clean look so that is what I am going to put on.

bulb in

gasket going in

gasket in

original orange

upgrade clear

arrow for FoMoCo logo

The wires were bound up with the wire loom tape then the rubber gasket was fitted. Each of the lights will only fit left or right hand side correctly. The same goes for the gaskets that have to be located in place with a cut out.

back

gasket

being located

in place

The wires slip through the front valance and are threaded up to the main headlight area. the back of the fitting has a semi circular bracket held in place by two screws.

Repeat for the other side in exactly the same way.

left

right

The rear back up lamps are almost identical to fit together. This time I was going to use the ordinary tungsten bulbs as the amount of time they will be on is not worth the upgrade, I could at a later date if I wanted to of course. The only difference here is that instead of a semi circular bracket these fittings are domed washers that move around to locate the best angle to the rear valance. This will then be tightened up with as small socket as you did for the front.

The drive and brake lights are little bit more involved. The reflector is an insert from the outside sitting on a gasket. The reflector housing is bolted to the back via four bolts and a pronged rear light washer to hold it in place. ordinarily the bulb just presses in and it’s a job done. But as I am having LED’s the board site on the outside of the reflector rendering that part obsolete. To make the fitting of the lights easier the rear fender end caps were removed and the gaskets replaced. Hands up how many people knew there was a gasket between the two? Not me I didn’t know, there is supposed to be a gap between them and not pulled up dead tight. A custom-made grommet was fitted in the centre of the reflector along with a sealing mastic to stop the damp getting to the LED board. If you notice in each of the corners a tine screw is put through the bezel and only tightens a couple of turns which stops a fraction short of the paint work. But over the years the tiny screws got lost a larger self tapper screws were just wound through the rear panel.

The Power Probe was out again and the lights were tested before the final fitting. I have an impromptu video of the event that I will place on YouTube as soon as I get round to editing it. The boards all worked fine. There is a modification that needs to be made in order to make the LED’s work. An extra wire from the brake switch has to be routed to the back of the car so there are four wires and not just two or three. I haven’t soldered the switch wire yet, I suspect that will be next week. To fit the LED board in place, a thin gasket layer applied to the back to hold it in place on the housing.

LED board

LEDs located on the housing

A foam gasket seal is placed on the board front, the lens is fitted into the bezel and tightened up to housing, this is a bit of a tricky operation. Did I mention these are the posh “FoMoCo” logo lenses. I think I wiped Adam out of his stock of them now. Don’t worry he has more on order if you wanted some.

lens in place

back up lamp too

Both sides fitted and it now looks like a part finished car.

Just before the Enfield Pageant last week I looked inside my car and found a little prezzie waiting for me and I just had to share it. The guys at MM and their customers who I have also got to know quite well now, they know I like a bit of cleaning and painting of old bits to look new. My blog is full of it. So as a joke one of them left this in the car with a note; “As you like painting bits I thought you would like this. Enjoy …….” Lance’s name was on the compliment slip, but I won’t mention it was him. Dohh!! A brilliant sense of humour and I thoroughly enjoyed it, to be fair I do dish a fair amount out too so it has to be expected. But I will think of a way to mess with his mind in return. 🙂

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Videos & A Great Soundtrack

On my last post I mentioned that I had a couple of videos to be created and uploaded. The good news is that they are now on my YouTube channel to be viewed as well. I couldn’t wait to do them.

A quick note to point out here, the carburetor was set up at idle and will run all day long like that. But, when the transmission puts the carb under load it will need a few more tweaks for choke, mixtures and float bowls etc. to become more stable. Hence the car sometimes cuts out when cold while engaging a drive gear. It’s an easily sorted out problem of course, but the car will need a few miles under its belt first before those small final adjustments are made once things settle down.

Turn up the volume & enjoy 🙂

The Workshop Move:

The first is of the car being moved for the first from the workshop under her own power. This video was kindly taken by Yogi at Mustang Maniac on Thursday 21st May 2015. The car had all the fluids checked and topped up before attempting to engage the drive from the transmission. The car was lifted off the ground on the ramps and the drive gearing selected for the transmission without load and given some gas to change gears. With the transmission and drive shafts looking OK, it could be stopped and lowered back to the floor. The car was then started up and driven out of the workshop ready to be loaded onto the truck to take her to a show.

The video can also be found on YouTube by clicking here,

First Public Showing:

With the best 2:30 sound track!

Enfield Pageant 21 – 23 May 2015 my car makes its first appearance to the public. The car still has no glass at this point so had to be covered at night and during any weather problems. The car starts fine from cold of course but needs a warm up for the transmission fluids too. This video has a nice extended soundtrack to hear the exhaust note on grass which tends to dull the sound a little. You can hear the difference when the car starts on the flat-bed and when it starts on the grass. If you look in the background you can see some people starting to gather around the car while Adam warms her up.

The video can also be found on YouTube by clicking here,