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.

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.

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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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!

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.

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.

The gas pedal was a very similar process and can be found here for the full process.

Quick links:

The full stories of the work above can all be found on their own pages below:

Door Glass removal can be found here or under Photo Menu – Glass Work – Door glass Removal

Gas pedal can be found here or under Photo Menu – Engine Bay – Brake & Gas Pedal Refurbishment – Gas Pedal

Brake Pedal can be found here or under Photo Menu – Engine Bay – Brake & Gas Pedal Refurbishment – Brake Pedal

Gas & Brake exploded diagram can be found on the pages or click here to view it.

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Bits & Pieces

The weekend arrived and I couldn’t wait to get down to see what the guys had done to my car. I wasn’t disappointed. The car was well and truly in bits and the rear axle was on the leaf springs on a pallet. The engine was out and the front suspension was in bits on the floor, all the smaller parts were all in a large plastic tub ready for me to clean up. The steering rack was out, and all that was left was the steering column and the brake servo in the sparse looking engine bay. When I asked Adam what needed to be done, there was a walk around the car and the list duly flowed forth. The rest of the engine bay to be stripped clean, pipes off, the gas pedal out, steering box out and the servo without saying. All brake pipes underneath and fuel lines, the rear valance, oh and the rear lights out, oh and the gas tank out with the shocks out too, don’t forget the rear valance of as well as that was damaged beyond repair. In fact, if it had a bolt on it, it needs to come out. The day was going to be busy and I had my instructions, I was excited and off I went. I completed my tasks as requested with the guys giving me tips and tricks of the trade as I went along. When I got to a certain part like how do I get the column out, I was shown the parts in question, told the process and off I went again. In fact I have taken lots of pictures of the removal process’ and I will write them all up. But I have some teaser pictures here for you.

Sunday I decided to clean up one of the larger bits I had in my man cave the prop shaft. Last week I explained the process (click here for the link). I took the prop shaft into the garden on the sunny day and I needed to remove the old underseal from it. The rotary wire brush made short work of it attached to the drill until I got to the UV ends. At the diff end there are two cups that are held in place by the U-clamps on the diff. These cups come off but are filled with small needle bearings and need to be treated with care so they don’t all fall out. Once the cups are removed keep them safe out-of-the-way, then it’s de-grease and clean, and clean again, and more cleaning. The grease and grime were so bad that you couldn’t even see the grease nipples. The Marine Clean in a 1:1 mix made a good job of breaking it all down.

With the prop cleaned up and de-rusted it looked a very different part that’s for sure. Off to the man cave.

I retired to the man cave for the POR15 first coat. the problem was how to paint it? I had to make a rack to hold the prop in the air so I could get access all around the prop. The idea worked well if not a little delicate, I think I will spray the prop white, the same colour as the shocks once it’s done. The full process of the painting and clean up can be seen on the quick link below.

I shall be posting the steering box removal process, soon as well as the other little projects and clean ups.  I mentioned the lights earlier!

The process was very simple, four Philips screws hold the lens and trim in place, remove them and pull the housing and the lens off to expose the bulb, remove the bulb as well. Inside the car there are four studs with nuts on for the housing, undo these and the light housing will pull out. Dead simple. I will have to replace the holders as the as reflectors are rusty and no good for anything now unfortunately.

Quick Links:

Photo Menu – Gearbox & Prop Shaft – Prop Shaft Renovation. or click here for the link. This will be updated as the project goes along.

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Nobody Will Ever Know

The weekend couldn’t come quick enough for me and seemed such a long week until it finally arrived. Saturday I woke with a feeling of knowing exactly what I wanted to do, but I didn’t really want to do it. It was going to be messy, it was going to hurt and it would never be seen. But that is the nature of restoration that I have learned so very quickly. The job in question was removing Waxoyl from inside the car roof. As you may or may not know, I had fun and games removing it from the floor pans before I treated them with POR15 paint. This time it was above me and I wasn’t too sure how I was going to attack it. Red Bull drinks were lined up and snacks were lined up like little toy soldiers on my Blue Point work cart, I knew what was coming. Plan A; was to rub the wax off with a bunch of rags and degreasant, I tried but I only seemed to spread it about and not remove it fully. Plan B; drink Red Bull and find a scraper while eating a snack. This gave the poor ol’ bloke arm muscles time to recover from half an hour of what seemed like somebody setting fire to them, they were burning that much. The man cave has lots of things that I have stored, (not hoarded – Stored) to choose from. I found all sorts of flexible implements that I could try and felt rather pleased with myself walking back to the garage. Trials were undertaken for the best tool. First was a plastic separator for a tool compartment – that was too soft, but would make an excellent filler spreader tool. (Note made to self at this point, for a small spreader use this bit of plastic). Secondly I had a silicon sealer remover, this was OK but too small and hurt the hands due to the funny angles on it. Thirdly I had a pallet knife that was good but again to small and too stiff and dug into the metal on more pronounced curves as it was sharp. The winner was an old filling knife I used for decorating, it was flexible and formed to the very slight curves of the roof, it didn’t dig into the metal and scraped of a good amount each time.

roof4

I started from the back to the front and the flex of the blade followed the roof well. The whole process was messy as the skin grafts of wax were raining down on me and went everywhere. At the start of the work you can see the roof under the wax which wasn’t pretty but it worried me a bit as it looked rust coloured, so I wanted to protect it best the best way possible. I took a photo of half the roof done for a comparison with and without the Waxoyl to show what it was hiding.

The mess was unbelievable and the old towels I had put down were not enough to cope with the mess. The side pillars at the rear were also cleaned up but were going to get a slightly different process. Snacks were consumed and a fair amount of water taken into the system. Arms are now aching beyond belief.

Once the roof was stripped of the wax I had to degrease it with the strongest mixture of POR Marine Clean  I could mix up on 1:1 basis. This cut through the grease and left a very clean surface after a couple of treatments. this was left to dry thoroughly.

I used a full tin of Rust Prevention paint (picture on the process page, or click here) as this time as there was no real rust to be fair. The paint required two thin coats within ten minutes of each other. They looked a little patchy when drying but the end results was amazingly smooth and consistent to a whitish grey in colour.

The side pillars were a different story as the bottoms by the shelf was rusted a little more and need some treatment of the Granville Rust Cure. Once that had dried off too I used some Eastwoods Rust Encapsulator to spray behind the pillars into all the little gaps then sprayed the outside all the way down to the window winder area. The satin black cuts the light down in the car again. Around the roof where the inner rail is there was not enough prevention spray for all of it. So I decided to Eastwood those areas too, while trying to prevent a little over spray not that it would ever matter of course. Another note to self; start on the rear shelf soon.

The end result looks quite good due to a contrast of the black and white, the down side is once the head liner goes in – Nobody will ever see it and nobody will ever know!

Quick Links:

For the full process so far of the work; Photo Menu – Inside The Car – Roof & Sides Rust Treatment, or click here.

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Black Friday

There is a lot of hype about the Black Friday & Cyber Monday with Pre-Christmas sales advertised all over the internet. I must admit I had a look and was a little surprised that the so-called “sales” were not as good as they made them out to be, at least here in the UK anyway or did I miss some bargains? I would love to know if it’s the same situation in the USA too, maybe the hype has worn off a little in the current economic climate? Black Friday now seems to be Black Weekend and a Cyber Monday thrown into the mix as well, almost a long weekend of sales according to most of the larger retailers to kick start the Christmas rush. So with this in mind I decided to have my own little Black Friday, the trouble is I am not selling anything or even buying anything, I am just using POR15 black paint. See what I did there? OK, it was bit (very) tenuous but I kinda liked it, it was also Saturday when I started it, but I did plan it on a Friday night so that still counts right?. Last weekend I started the front of the floor pan and this weekend I done the middle part up to the rear seat. The weather was cold, there was a snow alert from the car, but I still went out in a fleece and t-shirt to finish the rear section, ’cause that’s what real petrol heads do, I think, well that’s just before the stupid ones get a cold! Then they (me) put a jumper on when nobody is looking. I took the front seat out from the passenger side and pulled the carpet up. Yes, I knew there was filler there from when I purchased the car and looked her over, the filler was around the welding work and I thought no more of it at the time, now I decided to probe a bit further just to make sure. My home-made filler removal tool which may look like an old school screw driver that I had broken the blade on it, but don’t let this simple tool fool you. This precision engineered tool took me all of about three minutes to make and that included the thinking time. Firstly I ground the end down to a slight angle across the blade snow plough style. After making sure that the harsh jagged edges were removed, I rounded it of a little, but maintaining a little edge to dig in with. This new tool allowed easy digging out of the flexible filler and also scrape close to the metal without gouging lumps out of it.

Note to Snap – On Tools; please feel free to contact me for the full specifications of this tool, you can make these under licence from me at very reasonable rates, or any of my other home made tools come to that.

The floor pan was replaced before I purchased the car, that part restoration of the floor was a job that I didn’t fancy doing to be fair. But, knowing what I know now and the help I could have had from friends and professionals, maybe I would have had a go at it. The underside of the car has been under-seal sprayed, while the inside has been wax sprayed. The roof headliner area has also been sprayed, but to better standard than the floor pan had been done. In some places the wax spray was thick and in others areas it was almost not there. The welding of the pan is not the best or neatest I have seen, and this raised a little suspicion on my behalf. I removed a fair bit of the filler around the welds and the filler was there to patch up the uneven welding and the grinding, so it was not much of an issue apart from the cosmetics, which will be under a carpet anyway. There was however a patch of larger filler right in the corners that I wanted to investigate. Digging away (with my new tool, from the new line of, “One Man’s Tools Collection”), revealed a little patch of horrors and cover up of some rust sections. I removed all the filler from the area to expose the full extent of welding and find the bare solid rust that I could work with, Lucky enough it was all pretty solid enough but had just been covered over and not treated, done in a hurry I expect. Sloppy work. Now that the bare rust was exposed the POR15 I used on the front section was also going to be continued through to the middle section. Once I was happy with everything in the rust area and the surrounding metal area, I started the long three step process again; clean, prep, paint, sand & paint again. The POR15 was again done over the course of the two days this weekend, and todaythe weather held out enough for me to be able to push the car half out the garage to help me see better where I had been and missed between the coats. I have attached the process in photos under the menu heading Photos – Inside the Car – Floor Pan Rust Treatment, or click here for the quick link.

I hope you all had a good Thanksgiving on the other side of the pond.

Quick Links:

POR15 Rust Treatment Review

Floor Pan Rust Treatment

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My Six Pack

At last this weekend things have gone a little better for me. The wife went out for the weekly shopping on Saturday and I was left on my own to get on with the car. I promised myself that I would start on the roof headliner areas, but the sun was out, all be it little cold. The car was pushed out of the garage enough for me to open the doors fully. Then a change of mind hit me and the headliner plans went up in the air. I decided to treat the floor pans. The carpet was pulled up, and the foot wells were cleaned out. The POR rust treatment was applied in its various stages and hopefully will be a first part of the whole floor pan to be treated. Now the foot wells should be rust treated and preventative at the same time. Sunday was again a nice but cool day so the second coat of POR15 was applied to the floor pans. As the drying was taking longer than I expected I didn’t get the chance to apply some POR Patch seal for the rougher edges of the welding. Next weekend I will and then start on the headliner unless I decided I will do the next floor section that is!

The six pack? No, it’s not a beer pack, case of wine or an abdomen wash board, it’s the pack of six POR15 118ml small tins that I used to treat the floor pans with.

I have created my review of the POR15 product and given a step by step guide of what I done this weekend with photo’s.

Quick link:

Consumable Reviews – Rust Treatment Menu – POR15 Rust Treatment click here

It has dawned on me that this time next week we will be in December and the Christmas holidays will be upon us sooner than we think. What made me think about Christmas this early? My wife, you can blame her for being organised as each year I get asked what I would like for Christmas, I supply a selection of items for online baskets at various places and she chooses a selection for me, from what ever she likes. That way I know I will be getting something I would like and the right version or style of it as well. A good example would be that there are so many cans of primer or similar out there, its a mine field to choose from let alone the wife trying to understand it all. The fact is pretty much everything I have made a list out for is Mustang related, funny that! Does anybody else have a similar arrangement or is it just me being a lucky boy?

I have added another little link on the sidebar of the blog, it’s a Dollar to Pound exchange rate link, you just put in the amount and it gives a current live exchange rate. Not just for the Dollars either, in fact most currencies. I use this site to give me an idea when ordering from abroad or the USA. It will need to be online for the rates but it loads up pretty quick and hardly any adverts on it either. Let me know what you think, is it worth being on there?

Just to be even more sad, I have added a countdown to Christmas. If I get enough grief for it I might take it down due to popular demand 🙂

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Rust Comparison Results

After a wait to see how the products performed, I have some results.

Well the weekend is almost over and I have been busy rubbing down and doing little bits in the car. One of those little jobs is the wrapping of the the under dash wires with black insulating tape to make it look stock. I find that job therapeutic, just like some people find gardening or painting as a therapeutic activity. Am I weird? Any other strange therapeutic stuff people do? Anyway, my other cars have been feeling neglected and so I just had to wash, wax and valet them. As a result I feel as though I have been arm wrestling with Arnie  – The Terminator. I ache, and before you say it – I know quit moaning.

The main point of this post is to say that I have some preliminary results for my rust comparison tests, they are a little controversial I think. I had taken the two big guns and put them in a head to head just like Practical Classics magazine did. But this was my own money that was funding this and I wanted them both to be exactly the same. But, my results are the exact opposite so far of Practical Classics results. The two main contenders are Rustbuster – fe-123 and Granville – Heavy Duty Rust Cure. They cost pretty much the same, look the same and even smell similar. But do they perform the same? Simple answer is No. Practical Classic magazine stated that the Rustbuster fe-123 was the winner. However, they were incorrect with their details on how they applied one of the products for their tests. I have explained this fully in the comparison test, the quick link is below for the Practical Classic test and my tests. I had previously purchased from Frost Auto Restoration Techniques the Granville Rust Cure and wanted to see what this new “winner” was all about. So I found an old inner fender splash guard from my Mustang that was really rusty. I applied the products at the same time on the same material. The video was then uploaded to my YouTube channel, One man and his Mustang. This weekend I have taken another video, part 2 and posted that on YouTube as well. The results are very clear that the Granville wins hands down. The Rustbuster was flaking up, peeling and shows signs of the rust reappearing after only a few months. I am very disappointed with the “winner” and its surrounding hype. I have various videos of the Granville in action too on the YouTube Channel.

I bet there will be people out there moaning and complaining about my results. But I have photo evidence and videos of the tests and results. As yet I have not seen any results from similar tests or company. I was going to review the Rustbuster as a separate product on my blog, but I don’t think I will bother now as the results are here. Anybody else like the Granville Heavy Duty Rust Cure? Or is there something even better. I know about POR15 but that is not recommended for the outer bodywork that is ready for spraying, and that came from the POR themselves.

close up 2
Rustbuster fe-123 close up

On another note does anybody have a good primer they would recommend preferably available in the UK?

Quicklinks:

Rust Comparison test article: http://onemanandhismustang.com/rust-comparison-test-granville-vs-rustbuster/

YouTube: Rust Comparison test Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8J9MvVlZLc

YouTube: Rust Comparison test Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dY2muLWmzwI

Frost – Granville Rust Cure link: http://www.frost.co.uk/catalogsearch/result/?q=granville&x=0&y=0&order=relevance&dir=desc

Frost Main Page: http://www.frost.co.uk/

Practical Classics Magazine Rust Test: Click here for the PDF

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Bumper Stone Guard

I have been out all day, OK, I was out till it started to get dark.

I was working on the Bumper Stone Guard from the front of the car, This bit of work need to be in two very distinct parts; the inside rust protection and then the outside cosmetics. For Part 1 I had rubbed it down, treated it and put the first coat of POR15 on it. All seems to have gone well and I am please with the results today. The metal was in great condition when I got down to it under all the dirt and grime. I will apply the second coat tomorrow ready for me to do a bit of work on it next weekend on the outside. I have called it (yep you guessed it) Stone Bumper Guard (part 1) the photo’s and process for what I did is under photos, or click here.

I have added an RSS feed if you dont want to keep visisting the site, that way you never miss a post and can visit when you can. I have been asked to put quick links at the top in the “home” bar. consider it done!

Hope your having a good weekend and got everything in place ready for the holidays!

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Last good weekend before Christmas?

They say make hay while the sun shines, I say “Restore Mustang when you can!”

Well the weather looked cold and chilly, but it wasn’t to bad after all. Only a coat and fleece on today to keep me warm. Lets hope the winter is not to harsh like they say it’s gonna be. Worst for 100 years no less. I will still be out in the man cave doing bits I can.

I promised a review of the Carplan Tetroseal Underbody Sealant, I have used it and reviewed it. After all the things I had read about it the hype didn’t in anyway stand up to my usage tests. In fact very disappointed; perhaps I should have spent more and bought something else? The POR15 is now my undercoat. Nothing on the forum pages I posted there to advise otherwise about this stuff. Maybe something else would have been just as bad, or better. I will never know now. What I do know for sure is that when I put the rear quarter panel on I will use the real thick rubberized coatings and research a lot more or ask me ‘ol mate Adam at Mustang Maniac. Read the review here or from the links on the side.

I amy review another book and post tomorrow, I only have two left now to review. Perhaps a tool of some sort. perhaps I will keep you guessing.

Remember, if the sun is out – get the tools out!

It's just like a giant lego kit!
It’s just like a giant lego kit!
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