The Bits I Missed

A couple of weekends have gone by where I have not worked on my car. So much so that I have had comments like “Are you feeling OK” or “Are you getting withdrawal symptoms?” Last weekend was the Enfield Pageant where I took some photos on a previous post, the week before it was a logistical car issue I couldn’t get down there. Anyway, over the weekend I went down to see the guys at Mustang Maniac and got some cleaning up work done on the underside and some more on the tunnel area. In other words, the bits I missed that needed the clean up weren’t worth taking a picture of as it wasn’t to exciting to look at, just sheets of metal with a little rusty paint in the corner. Not boring from my point of view of course, but from a photo and a post point of view it could be. Now the panels are clean enough, they are now at an acceptable standard to Adam to move on to the next stage. We are hoping to take the car of the spit and put her on the jig next week to start on some of the removal of the bad bits of chassis and adding the good bits. But, things can change quite quickly so I will have to wait and see. I will definitely post some pictures on here when that all happens. This could be an exciting stage of the project if all goes to plan.

Yesterday I started a clean-up of the hand brake, parking brake, emergency brake or secondary brake depending who you talk to. It wasn’t too bad to look at but I managed to free it up a while ago. So while the car is in bits – all the way down to the nuts and bolts, I decided to refurbish it properly. Same ol’ story of paint stripper, de-rust, mask up and spray. I stripped the whole thing down by removing the pin and retaining clip, remove the wire it’s pretty much there.

before the clean up

The only part I have to think about was the mini fire that had melted the back of the handle. I used progressively finer grades of sand paper to get it smooth again. I can’t go to far otherwise it will get thin and crack. But, it has all come up pretty well and will look good under the dash now.

All I need to do is work out the colour for the lettering of the lever. Red, white or leave it black. Any ideas for the colour? I shall reassemble this and post a pic of the final version next week.

I need to make an apology now as I had been told that the link to the Batmobile article wasn’t working. So I have re-done it with a couple of extra facts and dimensions about the car. It should be fine now, I think. Let me know if there are any more issues with it again.

Quick Links:

Articles – Original Batmobile 1966 or click here.

Photo Menu – Inside The Car Hand Brake Refurbishment or click here

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Roll Over Mustang

The weekend was exciting and an eye opener at the same time. The normal weekend now I visit Adam and the guys at Mustang Maniac to work on my car. The week was filled with long days and long nights until Saturday Morning. I was up with the sun and spring in the step itching to get on my way. I even packed my tools the night before to save time for the morning. After what seemed like a long journey I arrived at the office and found Adam on the phone who was making arrangements to pick up the rotisserie from the other yard. All was agreed I hoped in the big F350 truck and of we went to get it. Mandatory tea breaks over we arrived back in good time, the sections were taken off the back of the truck and taken to the panel shop where my car is. The rotisserie is in three sections, the two ends and a large centre bar to keep the ends from moving apart.

We started at the back and checked the brackets lined up with the rear bumper holes, the bolts were passed through the holes and tightened up hard to the frame.

initial line up

bolted in place

We then moved to the front and lined up again where the bumper irons are attached. Here we had a problem. One of the bolts was sheered into the nut on the chassis rail so it couldn’t be bolted in correctly. I looks like that there were previous attempts to remove it as well which didn’t go well should we say! Eventually the guys managed to get the bracket in place and found that there needed to be a longer steel bar made as the bracket was catching the front rail. A thick piece of steel was cut into lengths and drilled out to match the holes and was welded to the brackets on the front of the unit.

new plate

bracket on the unit.

plate bolted to the frame

With the car still on axle stands the hard work was then to line up the car and balance it close to the centre point in order to make it easier to roll. With so many adjustments on the rotisserie it takes some serious working out. You have to make sure it’s high enough that when it rolls over the chassis does not hit the rails and the roof is also clear. Once the adjustments were close enough the whole thing was bolted up tight and the centre rail double checked. The pneumatic pumps at the end of the units lifted the car into the air and off the axle stands. Slowly she was turned over and the underside was exposed for the world to see. It’s one thing to look underneath on a ramp, but on its side it reveals a whole lot more, the parts I thought would be OK need looking at again now they are in the broad light of day, well under heavy strip lights anyway.

front

back

With the car rotated and exposed, every little hole or rust spot was picked up. Discussions were made about what will be replaced in what order once all the bare metal was exposed.

What was Adam’s parting shot to me before I left on Saturday evening? “Now the hard work begins.” I honestly thought it already had.

Sunday.

Today is Mothers Day in the UK so it was pretty much a right off as far as getting to grips with some dirty cleaning and polishing in the man cave. But hey, I was treated out for a nice meal so I shouldn’t complain. I will just have to make up for lost time over the Easter weekend now, that’s all there is to it.

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Just A Shell

Need I say where I was over the weekend? Yep, Mustang Maniac to take the final parts off the car. The front and rear glass was to come out and I was little nervous about that to be honest in case I cracked one. There are two ways to get the glass out; the easy way and the hard correct way obviously. The hard way is to fold the rubber back a bit at a time and lift the glass out, it takes time, patience and luck not to crack any brittle glass. The principle is the same for the front and the back glass. We looked at the car and decided that the rear rubber was showing signs of age and a few splits in places, this one was going to be the easy way. The front was going to be a pain though. The front has either been replaced or the original put back in. The reason I suspect is that they were trying to find a leak inside the car. This leak was enough to make them take the rubber and glass out and seal it all back in place with copious amounts of mastic. They must have shares or own the company looking at the amount they used. Anyway, due to the mastic there was no way I was going to be able to save the rubbers at the front although they didn’t look to bad. The easy technique is to lift a flap of rubber that is over the top of the glass insert a sharp knife at such an angle to cut the top rubber section of the bezel of as it were. Once the rubber is cut of you can just lift the glass out, but first you have to free it from the rubber by gently tapping it up with your hand. The rear was simple and straight forward and came out without any issues. The front on the other hand was a pig of a job; the mastic was so thick I had to do it small stages and very slowly to avoid putting too much pressure on the glass. Eventually it was all cut away and I had to be just as careful when trying to break the mastic hold on the glass. With a sigh of relief it came free and the glass was lifted out. The worst part of the job was to remove all the old mastic and rubber that had been stuck on the front. The leak by the way didn’t look to be coming from the glass, the vents at the front obviously let the water in and it runs of to the sides were it sits unless it runs out through a drain channel. As a result the cowl will go rusty in the corners so when it rains the channel to drain away is circumvented and goes inside the car. I know I may have to replace the cowl, but that needs to be inspected for repair or replace shortly. The link for the full process of getting the glass out and more pictures can be found here, or the quick links at the bottom.

The rear glass being removed.

place knife where the rubber lifted

lift and cut at the same time

lifting the top of the glass from inside

rear glass removed

The front glass being removed showing the generous usage of mastic.

looking for a place to start

along the top removal

rubber seal cut away and left on mastic

rubber and mastic removal

before the clean up

Today I was cleaning up the steering column. This needs to be stripped back to bare metal in order for it to be painted and coordinated to the interior colours. The column was in a bad way at the bottom end where it goes through the fire wall to the steering box. The grease now gone hard, dirt, grime and anything else had to be cleaned off. POR Strip was used and wire wool to get back to the metal. Inside the column was full of old grease and needed to be cleaned out as well. The steering wheel end has a collar which holds the horn assembly and the indicator lights stalk. The horn section I have thrown out as the wires were brittle and were on an old Grant Steering wheel which I want to replace with a nice wood one. My arms ache but it was a job worth doing. The final part is to coat it from rusting with Gibbs Brand Lubricant until it needs to be painted. I just love that Gibbs Brand, see here for my review and articles. The brackets and plates I will finish them next week.

top of the steering column

steering box end of column

steering wheel end

steering box end cleaned

wheel end cleaned

cleaned collar together

other end

top side with cleaned centre bearing

underside

soaked in Gibbs Brand

The exciting news:

Now that my car is a shell with nothing in it or on it apart from the doors that is, we could well be putting her onto a rotisserie soon to allow me access to the underneath in order to clean it all up and look for the repairs needed. The rear quarter panel needs replacing and lining up with the door, once that is done the doors will come off as well to get to the pillars and work on them too.