Tag: restoration

Fits Like A Glove

It seems as though I was working all day on a single bit of the car at Mustang Maniacs and seemed to get nowhere. when I bought my car there was a bag of old bits in the trunk and there was a single item that was brand new in bubble wrap. What was it? The glove box. Yep who ever had the car before me wanted to fix the glove box and not the wire loom that they set light too. I had kept the glove box safe and sound ready it to fit it. This weekend was that day. The glove box is made of black cardboard and has to be the most awkward job going for what it is. You can’t push it through the front opening so you have to feed it up under the dash. Then I realised that you can’t get to connect the lamp up as its right by the side of the box. So I had to move it out the way again. Fitting the switch was quite easy and just pressed in the hole. with that in place the single connection attached to the new dash loom.

switch
lamp connected

The next part was to work out the fittings. The latch is held in place to the dash via two screws that can move to adjust the door catch. the two screws are attached via a plate with two screw holes that align with the oval holes of the dash. For somebody with big hands this was a bad deal for me. Eventually I managed to fit both the screws in place and nip up the fitting. I could adjust this as I needed to later.

glove3

The original glove box was riveted in place at the factory, so now the replacements have holes and a screw thread attached to the glove box which aligns up with the dash itself to secure it in place. I had to hunt around to find some self tapping screws to fit the holes. The same was for the upper two screws that held the top in place.

glove6

The lower three screws were a complete pain as they were adjustable and needed to have a nut of some sort to fix them. In my many compartments of odd nut and bolts I found the same sized fittings and had to dislocate my fingers to hold them in place while I screwed them up. With this being made of cardboard it doesn’t take much to bend and weaken the card and looks rubbish. Having to treat the cardboard with TLC and try to move it into place was an art form in itself. I removed the hinge that I fitted last week in order to get more room and be able to see what I was doing.

With the bottom in place I managed to tighten the screws up and look to the sides. These previously riveted holes were simple fit as I only need a nice looking couple of screws small enough to fit. I found a couple in Yogi’s spares draw in his tool box and took the liberty to borrow them on a permanent loan basis. The two screws either side were followed by the support strap which fitted just above the side screws.

glove7

The easy bit, fitting the hinge back in place and the glove box door. Fitting the door was done in two stages, making sure the hinge cleared the dash and the front closed. Three screws for the hinge and three for the door front were adjusted and on first shut the door clicked into place. The only real result I had that day so I tightened up the catch at the top. Job done.

glove8

At this point I looked at the inside of the door and thought to myself, I need to make that look better. So I will take it of again and clean it to higher standard to make it look acceptable. I don’t want to replace it as it’s the original part of course.

The remainder of my time was wrapping wires with loom tape again that I knew wouldn’t be moved. So although the post is short and sweet, I thought it would take an hour or so ended up taking me longer to do than fitting the front suspension on the car! Is it just me or do we all have days like that?

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Ready To Rock

I’m back!  

I know I haven’t posted for a while, but there was and still are very good personal reasons why. So far it has taken me a few days to create this post on and off, that’s when I can even get round to doing it. Rest assured though, I am still here and I will continue updating my little ol’ blog as and when I can, hopefully things will slowly get back to normal then I should be posting more regularly and then back normal. Thanks to those of you that have kindly taken time to email me to ask how things are, I apologise for not posting sooner and disappearing without any warning, but the circumstances prevented me from do so, it was all rather sudden to say the least.

I could have named this post “New Shell” as the car is at a point now where she is ready to go to the paint shop within the next week or so. Compared to the original rusty or distorted metal work, this could almost be classed as a new shell. The Mustang Maniac guys have been keeping me fully updated while I haven’t been able to get down there to do my duties and help out. Thanks very much guys for the updates.

The last piece of work I had done was the hood which took an age to complete. The guys assembled the front of the car and the hood was re-fitted up. Now there was a problem, the leading edge of the hood had been bent down and was hitting the headlight buckets preventing the correct alignment and closure. The hood was adjusted but the fenders and cowling looked very strange regarding the gaps. The hood was taken off and the guys tried to straighten out the bend with partial success, and on the odd occasion it was quite brutally adjusted to align it all back up. But the hood was now sitting to high and it turned out to be quite obvious that the hood was distorted beyond an economical repair. When you are at this high level of restoration you want it to look right especially on such a large panel of metal that you will be looking at all the time you are driving. So a difficult decision was made – it was a new hood to be fitted, it’s a shame the original couldn’t be used. But I fully understand that these things happen during classic car restorations, the guys did try to rescue the hood before it was replaced.  Yes I could have kept the original that sort of fitted and I doubt that many would have noticed, but it would have played on my mind knowing that it didn’t fit 100% correctly with the gaps, I just knew I wouldn’t be happy with it. Like the driver door, it was an awful lot of hard work, but at least I am happy nothing more could have been done to make it fit perfectly. Come to think of it I have seen the odd restored car with worse looking alignments, I dare say some other restorers would have been happy with it. I now have a rather large bare metal piece of scrap.

However, on the plus side it means that my car is now ready to go to the paint shop with new metal that has already been protected from rust. Adam is now just waiting for the paint shop slot to become free in order for my car to go in and be transformed over the next month or six weeks before I see her back. Such an exciting time. I have potentially got the last set of pictures of the car in bare metal before she gets her new colour scheme.

angry face?

As the car stands the filler work is pretty good, but has been left in a state where the body shop can see what has been done and what needs a final filler coat. Standard practice for the Mustang Maniac guys who seem to do just that little bit more to make sure all the gaps were correct. When the car is back from the paint shop I will then Red Oxide the inside parts that need doing over the black floor pans and the rear chassis legs before the work starts in earnest to put her back together again. I seriously just can’t wait to see her in the new colour.

Photo Menu:

I have tidied up the photo menus to group them together in order to make it more logical to find stuff.

I have added the following these large photo step by steps under the Photo Menu – Bodywork Section:

  • Rear Quarter Panel restoration work, click here for the quick link. (A very detailed step by step)
  • Hood Restoration Work, click here for the quick link
  • Trunk & Tail Light Restoration, click here for the quick link (A very detailed step by step)

I have also updated the Fender Work sections under a single heading to bring it all right back back up to date.

Reviews:

I have added a review of a Neilsen Slide hammer tool, or click here for the quick link.

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Getting There!

A trip to see the guys at Mustang Maniac on Saturday was filled with a little bit of fear. I knew what was coming and last week I hurt when I got home. But, I felt pleased with the progress although it seems slow while you are doing it. This time there was much more of the area to clean and what was to come of was more of the tar, under seal, paint and what ever else they piled on it. The newer paint is a lot harder to strip back due to the advances in the process I guess. The work was hard and painfully slow all day or so it seemed, but when you pack up to go home, look back at the car there is lots that has actually been done. I even had Adam tell me that now I was a “volunteer apprentice” (I’m proud of that title), no using electrical tools as that was cheating! We did get to use them later on though for a few test areas after we saw bare metal. During the day, I had an interesting experience should we say. Although I am working in a very, very well ventilated area, in fact the wall is a massive full sized steel door, when opened the sun floods in and natural light helps with what you are doing, I even had a mask on too. I was using thinners earlier to clean up a section and decided to take a short break. The thinner fumes had obviously impregnated my clothes and the can of Red Bull that I decided to drink, certainly gave me wings should I say. Now I know how Pink Floyd came up with those songs they did should we say. A quick wander around to the other work shops to see what the dogs were up too and take in some fresh air soon brought me down again, I seriously don’t recommend that one! Next time I think it will be just water to drink. Anyway, I came home in the evening and I was hurting again, poor ol’ me, but with a massive smile. The results are amazing I must say on the car and I’m pleased again with the amount of work that got done when I look back at the pictures. Adam joined me later in the day and he did get some tools out to see what was under the rust. We found a couple of issues but nothing to horrendous, some good old filler had been used on a chassis rail so a section of that rear rail will need a new section welded in. The previous welding has a lot to be desired and we will take some of it off and put back in some proper welding. Tip, never give your classic car to a bloke who can’t weld!

top part where the panel was loose
bottom section holes
Adam doing a test patch
old floor supports and pan

 

Once we had bare metal we needed to protect the metal so a spray of Gibbs Brand was used and she will not rust up again now. In fact she looks almost new underneath now. Apart for the suspect welding that can be seen on the top chassis rail, and the bottom floor pan section. Next week I hope to move to the engine bay and fire wall for a strip down. I am developing a better technique each time I start using the stuff I am pleased to say.

pan25

I woke up today with arms that felt like they belonged to an orang-utan. As I was allowed to go and “play cars” all day yesterday I did promise that I would help the wife in the garden today. I had to put up a trellis, but the trellis was on its own to create a patrician. So I had to dig three deep holes for the posts to hold them up. So here I am having trouble holding the mouse let alone typing. The aches will pass for sure and I will be ready to go again next weekend. I even tried the sympathy vote on wife, I got “the look” and carried on digging. The trellis does look good, but right now – I hate it!

Quick Links:

Under seal Removal – Photo Menu – Under The Car & Chassis – Under seal Removal or click here for the hyper link.

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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.

Engine out
almost empty bay
steering rack
springs and shocks on the way out
suspension removed
spndle and suspension out
steering box
steering column
top of the steering column

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.

diff end with cups held in place
gearbox end
unable to even see the grease nipples.
wrap removed
removing a cup
cup removed
both cups

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

cleaned up shaft
gearbox end cleaned
grease nipple can now be seen
other side of box end
diff end cleaned
again grease nipple can be seen

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.

diff end
bare shaft
box end
starting the paint
half of the shaft
box end treated
shaft single coated
diff end treated
diff end

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!

rear lights in place
no lights and fuel tank out.

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.

Four screws each corner
lens and bulb out
removing the housing.

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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Two Steps Forward – One Step Back

It’s not as bad as it sounds though…

The weekend has been about me undoing work I have done up till now. OK, that sounds a little odd but I makes sense, my head says I needed to do it, but my heart said no. After speaking to Adam at Mustang Maniac I asked the questions “does my wire loom need to come out?” The reply was simple – “is the cowl OK?” I know there was a little issue of rust around it but it looked OK, in my eagerness to get the car wired I done the best patch up I could, deep down there could be issues. So the decision was made to take the whole loom out again so we don’t damage the loom and check the cowl out properly. If you have a dodgy cowl the rain could get in, run down some rust and ruin the carpets. Potentially every time I clean the car I would ruin a carpet, let alone being caught in the rain or use the window washers come to that. Also the dash has got to have a repair plate welded back in to look original instead of the wide gaping hole there at the moment where a modern radio was put in,  ideally the area behind it needs to be clear of wires. Once the car gets down to Mustang Maniac we are going to look at sorting out the cowl, rear quarters, any chassis welding work etc. then to paint the car properly. For that it will need it to be a shell in order to make it easier for the paint and prep work. You may ask yourself why did I do all the work I have so far? The answer is simple but the answer is threefold. The first is when I got the car there was nothing in it to work, so I wanted to know it was going to work, so I wired it up to prove that it does basically work mechanically. Secondly I didn’t know the Mustang Maniac guys at the time and I was (mis)led and “advised” by other people, – it turns out they obviously don’t know as much as they think they do, those people and companies shall remain anonymous from me as they don’t deserve any mention on my blog, at all. I could name and shame but then I will be bouncing their name possibly advertising them, but they know who they are! Thirdly, it’s a learning curve, I was going to do what I had to do to get the car on the road. Many conversations with Adam made me realise that it’s a bit of a false economy and I should do it properly. yes, it will take longer, but on the other hand, it will be more reliable and last longer, it will look so much better and be worth much more, in fact should outlive me!  The car was bought for me as a hobby to do up over time, which I am enjoying every minute of it, even when the car bites back and draws blood from me. In my infancy of car restoration things were done a little bit back to front in retrospect. BUT, the huge advantage is what I have done so far, I know fits and works. The last thing I wanted to do was have a nice paint job and go messing it up by doing stuff I wasn’t to sure about, scratching it, denting it and so on. One of those major things was wiring the car up from nothing, turn the key and it starts. That proved the point that the engine was basically OK and proved to myself that I can wire a car up. Other things like the brakes needed to be sorted out too. I know that I had of had the car sprayed and put the brakes on the car as I first did I would have ruined the under hood paint. The original brake booster looked fine, I checked it and cleaned it up, and when I filled it up with fluid it was fine, but when the pedal was pressed it squirted brake fluid out all over the place, like a kids water pistol in fact. Without a question of doubt it would have ruined the paint and I would have been gutted more than taking the loom out again. The brake booster and dual cylinder upgrade on there now works and should be a simple bolt back in job. So you see it’s not such a bad idea after all. Yes I took two steps forward, the one step back should only be a temporary loose of momentum though. In fact there are things I will do little differently when I put the wiring back in again. So it’s not so bad in the end after all.

remove loom

The inside is just as bad!

loomout inside

The American AutoWire loom was on its way out, and it all looks like a mess again. The advantage that I cling onto is that I can wrap all the wires back up again with insulation tape once in place. The engine will be coming out, so will the gear box, drive shaft etc etc. in order to spray the engine bay properly.

Inside the car with the main loom out, only the heater control loom and the rear link loom is still in place. The car is almost back to how it was when I got it! In a way I’m a little sad, but on the other hand it will be a better job than before. (I must keep telling myself this to keep the spirits up). Short-term I will not hear that bark of my v8 again for a little while anyway.

shell1

Review:

As it’s winter and it can be cold the good lady wife took pity on me and bought me a heater for the shed or garage while I am working out there on my beloved Mustang. The only thing is wanted something that was in keeping with what I had, retro in other words. There are these horrible plastic boxes out there that do the job, but I just don’t like them. I mentioned that I liked a particular style made by Honeywell and I was lucky enough to get it. Women have this knack to store things in their heads for ages, in this case it worked for me. Most of the time it’s evidence used against me when I am after something. Know what I mean guys? I have reviewed the Honeywell Heater HZ-510E1 under Accessories Reviews. Is it as good as it looks?

hh14

Quick Links:

Accessories Reviews – Honeywell Heater HZ-510E1 or click here for the hyper link

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A Round Of Golf?

Another weekend almost over but I managed to get work done on the car. I also managed to get a service done on the wife’s car, her cherished VW Golf. We purchased all the parts on Saturday morning, the air filter, oil filter, oil etc and I was left to my own devices on Saturday afternoon to do it all while she went out again. It did feel strange having to get my metric tools out from the different Snap On drawer and not the imperial sets though. The air filter was encased in a massive slap of plastic on top of the engine. There were more pipes and wires coming out of the engine than a robot research facility. To get to the spark plugs it was a performance as there was a channel of wires with their own coils attached at the top. They were hidden under another plastic trunking system, that in turn had wires attached to it all over the place. The whole thing was nightmare.

What I am getting at here is the basic principle of the engine has not changed at all. The cylinders are there, the pistons, the spark mechanism etc. OK, the engines may have gotten bigger and smaller, they may have changed shape a little in configuration, the ideal number of cylinders is still in debate. Fuel injection is squirted into the cylinders, four valves instead of two. But why hasn’t technology moved on to the principle itself? Yes we will have electric cars eventually but not for a while yet, that will be a major leap. The Mustang’s air filter sits on top of carburettor held on by a single wing nut, that sits on top of an inlet manifold with four bolts, it draws in fuel and mixes it, burns it then chucks the waste out the back. Fuel injection mixes it with the air and burns it and chucks it out the back. Same thing, OK, so it’s more efficient now, but I feel at home under the hood on the older engine. The new engines have computer this, and wire that, control box this. Are they more reliable? I don’t think so. If my Mustang timing goes out a bit, dust of my timing gun, turn the distributer and re-tighten. Done. New car, download the software, plug-in an expensive decoder, type in what you want. Reset the warning light on the dash. unplug unit and write out a huge bill. Luckily I have a great mechanic Will at Park Garage who looks after my modern cars for me when they play up, but I know he loves the classics too. I’m sure he would rather get a socket set on a v8 header than plug-in a laptop! What has happened to computers in the last forty years? Size of a building to start with, now there is more technology in a cell phone than put man on the moon.

Once tuned up a forty-seven year old Muscle Car will give a vast majority of modern cars a run for their money, even if they don’t it will give you a bigger smile while driving it than a plain old euro box! I didn’t enjoy the round of Golf as I did working on my car. There was no sense of achievement, or is it just me?

Sunday I worked on my car, well the parts in the Man Cave at least. The rain made sure I wasn’t gonna push her out the garage for today anyway. I was just tinkering around and decided to polish the chrome on my factory option aircon unit. That little polish gave me a great idea I will share with you. The front of the unit has the classic “camera case” black dimpled look. It had worn almost down to the bare metal around the dials and the nozzles. Now the chrome sparkles and the black suddenly looks wrong. I had this idea a while ago to polish it with black boot polish, it didn’t work and just rubbed straight off. Can you see where I am going with this now? Today I thought why not spray it? There is chrome lettering on the front as well as the badge. These would need to be masked off to stop the over spray. What black would I use, gloss, undercoat, primer? The original black is a matt black or a dull satin from what I can see. With the decision made I got out some plastic sheets, (ok it was a thin packaging bag), not the paper masking kind like you should use in a spray shop. I used the electrical insulating tape as that can be moved a little in place and was such a smallish area and fiddly to do. I masked it all up and done a tiny test spray with Eastwoods Under Hood Satin black on the back of the unit near the top out-of-the-way. Once it dried it looked brilliant. I completed the masking up at the front, I removed the old air direction nozzles and sprayed the front with a couple of very light spray passes. It still left the dimpled finished as the original had, but just blackened up the front. I still wanted the authentic look and I believe I now have that. All that is left to do is get some artists paints mix up the colour and paint in the colours of the badge. Try doing that on a modern car!

The best part of the whole thing is I found a date stamp on the back of the unit – 28th June 1966

aircon26

 Finished Article:

tape removed

Here are some pictures of the process, the full guide of what and how I did it can be found under the Photos – Inside the Car – Factory Aircon Tidy Up. The pics here don’t really show how thin the paint was as you can see the bare metal underneath.

old and tired
left side
right side
blower side with a nozzle removed.
lift out the spring
needs a clean
wrapping the dials
trimming out
masked and sprayed

Quick Link:

Factory Fitted Aircon Tidy Up click here.

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Good Ol’ Plan B

This weekend has been all about getting stuff off.

This weekend I am not sure what has come over me, I don’t know if it was the sunshine for most of the week and now it’s the weekend that got me in this mood. I think I have taken more bits of the car now than when I got it! The front valance is off (click here), the radiator valance is off, the hood catch is off (click here), the front drums are off again (click here) and then I started on the inside.

So the inside, has not got a headliner, no dash cover, no driver seat, steering wheel off, no rear parcel shelf and no dashboard again. The seat was removed as I needed clear space to get to the wires and under dash work. The seat frame had collapsed and my mate Will at Park Garage repaired it for me. The headliner, will be one of the last things I get for the inside. The dash is now out again so I can get to the wiper motor a lot easier. The wiper motor was burnt and melted, which I knew about when I went to look at the car and took a look under the dash. The bloke I bought it from said it wouldn’t take much to put right. Oh, how little I knew then. The fact this classic car restoration thing is supposed to be a learning curve for me turned out to be a reinforced concrete wall that I had run into head first just after I got the car. I now have manuals and I now have people in the know at Mustang Maniac who help me out with parts, advice I need and parts I should have but don’t even know it – yet. Sometimes it feels like trying to run up the playground slide in the wet! Don’t tell me you never don’t that as a kid. 🙂

What am I on about this weekend? I decided that the next job is going to be the wiper motor replacement, the fact the wipers are stuck half way across the screen annoys me and the fact I have not tidied up the wires since I re-wired her annoys me. The reason I have not tidied the wiring as I knew the wiper motor had to come out sooner rather than later, this weekend was that time. My research tells me it was going to be a difficult job so I put it off for as long as possible . At the Enfield Pageant I purchased some stubby spanners with this job very much in mind as well. Armed with my selection of spanners, screw drivers, pliers, various assorted ratchets & sockets, WD40, torches and just about anything for four bolts or three if I was lucky! The wiper motor is held to a bracket by three insulated bolts to a bracket. The bracket is held in place by four bolts. Two bolts at the top behind the dash and two at the bottom right up under where the brake pedal is located. Plan A: Wiper motor off, job done. Plan B: Bracket off not ideal but it won’t come to that.

So I sat down crossed legged on the floor pan and started to investigate. It was dark – torch (Snap On magnetic) sorted. It was very tight in there and I couldn’t see where I needed to go, extending mirror – sorted. 7/16ths stubby spanner to the inside of the bracket – nope! The arm of the back of the motor was sitting right on top of the nut I was trying to get too. Plan B was lookin’ ominous for implementation. Idea, Plan A/2, remove the arm then I could get to the bolts, I went to remove the nut on top, job done. Just had to lift up the arm of the motor spindle and I was in there. Nope, it weren’t gonna move. Poxy Plan B it was going to have to be. Remember what they said on YouTube – clips at the bottom and clips at the top. They will be a pain but can be done. There it was clip at the bottom, screwdriver in second attempt to open the clip success. I smiled. Then the top wiper arm pivot clip. What clip, there is no clip. So I cleaned the top up of grease and grime and repositioned the mirror. Moving the fingers to the top I felt it and my heart sank. A C-clip was on the top. It was turning quite freely and laughing in my face of concentration and patience. I tried long nose pliers and circlips pliers. No way, so I had to resort to improvised Plan B/2. This involved a weird contortion of the left arm and a small screw driver to lift the clip up on one side. But I had to have my other hand through the radio hole to hold the clip still from  spinning. So there I was hands in the dash head trying to look through a letterbox of a dash-board and a steering column jammed just under the collar-bone. Eventually after an unknown amount of efforts one side lifted up and then it pinged up into my hand. Ha, who’s laughin’ now then clip? There is no way that little swine that still has my flaring tool part is gonna have this bit as well. OK, so I bent it a bit but it was off, I straightened it with pliers and it is fine again. The wiper arms came of no problem after that, they were able to be moved quite freely once they were disconnected. Now the four bolts for the bracket top two were simple and the bottom two were a bit of a pain. To cut a long story short I have posted a guide on the process here, or go to the Photos – Inside Car – Wiper Motor 2 Speed Project. Once I eventually got the bracket out it was time to take it back to the man cave, I uncrossed my legs and then it hit me, cramp in my leg. I couldn’t stand up or get out the car, I had to spin round on my back an straighten the leg up towards the rear window with my head under the dash next to the brake pedal. The pain subsided and it was time to get out of the car. I was crossed legged for almost two hours according to my clock on the wall. I knew my legs were getting a bit numb but my concentration had taken my mind of it all.

The parts were taken back for photographing for the steps. Sunday I managed to get out the power assisted steering pump as well as this has a leak from the seal at the front of the pump, I will need a new one of these too. I have also got a set of photos for steering pump removal here, or go to the Photos – Engine Bay – Power Steering pump. So If your reading this Adam, I think you know what I need, a two-speed wiper motor, wiper under dash loom and a power steering pump for an Air Con fitting car. The wiper motor was worse than I expected, here is a couple of pictures of the damage to the wiper motor, other parts of the wiring loom were like this as well and can be seen in the original wiring pictures.

loom plug melted
loom plug melted
damaged and melted
damaged and melted

They don’t tell you in workshop manual give yourself a break to avoid getting cramp! The do’s and don’ts of wiper motor removal.

Do take a break, and don’t sit there too long with your legs crossed. Will I get the clip back on? I hope so and to be honest a bit worried about it, this time I will not sit crossed legged for too long, but I will keep my fingers crossed!

Quick links:

Wiper 2 Speed Motor Removal – here

Power Steering Pump Removal – here

UK Registration Plates & Dates – here

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Another weekend gone!

I have had a good weekend all things taken into consideration. Yesterday was cold, I looked like the Michelin man with all the layers on. I managed to paint the inside of the right hand fender with the first coat of POR15. I will apply the second coat next weekend and then both fenders will be ready to put back on. I am going to get a nice set of fender bolts from my mate Adam at Mustang Maniac so they look good as I don’t intend to keep taking them off!

I have added a tool review for a Fat Max screwdriver which is a nice bit of kit. I was dragged out shopping late on Saturday after I had cleaned the fender. As a reward I was bought a little storage case for all my Dremel bits and pieces. The larger case now holds all the fittings for both the fenders. Result.

Thanks to my wife again for spoiling me! But, in my defence, I didn’t have any road rage, I didn’t moan about the number of shops we went in and I didn’t moan about the shops we went back too. So maybe I deserved it, you tell me! 🙂

I have just updated this post to say that I have added some of the right hand fender work I have done this weekend. It’s unbelievable the difference between the left fender (click Here) and right fenders (click Here). I will add the first coat and second coat pictures once I have finished it. But have look and see the difference.

Hope you all had a good weekend.

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More Fender work and another book review

Today was cold, wet and miserable. So that could only mean one thing!

Playtime in the man cave and work on the car fender. I wrapped up warm, two tee-shirts, one jumper, one fleece and one old work coat. Ok I was warm but I looked like the Michelin man! I managed to knock off the old cracked underseal on the wing, and use the drill with a wire brush attachment to remove the loose and flaky bits. The old bits of road tar came of in no time. I had fun and games trying to remove the aerial though. The previous owner had tried to remove the damaged ariel and had rounded of the screw head! cheers for that. So I had to drill the centre out to get it out. Still, out now and the prep work has been done. Tomorrow I will put the first coat of the POR15 on with any luck.

I have added another book review “Mustang 1964 1/2 – 1973 Restoration Guide”, not really a book, but more of a collection of exploded diagrams. It’s an awesome manual and one of my favorite reference guides to see what went exactly where. Go to the link button or click here.

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New book review & fender update

I have just added another book review for: Mustang Restoration Tips & Techniques. Go to the button for the review or click here. So have little look and rate it as well as all the other reviews. I have already had a little feedback and the dark look theme is getting the nod of approval.

Inspected my fender today in the light. Noticed a couple of little patches I missed. Added the missing second coat. While I was at it I decided to add a THIRD coat to the parts of the fender that has holes for the badge work. That should seal it up good and proper just in case.

Note to self:

Don’t paint when it’s getting dark or install lights to my sanctuary that be my shed!

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