Flash

Only got a few hours on the Mustang this morning, so made a start on the mounting plate for the new fuse boxes. Plan is to hide them on the passenger side under the glove box for easy access. Not wanting to drill any fresh holes, I was able to make double use of two of the glove box hinge fixings and another fixing for the heater box. Then quickly replicated my cardboard template in aluminium. Managed a quick test fit before I had to pack up. Plate still needs a good tidy up before final fit.

Before I clean up the rest of the ashtray I thought I'd poke some holes in it. I'm never going to use the ashtray, so it is getting a second lease on life as the hidey hole for the USB power socket and my blue tooth dongle for the head unit.

Earlier this week I started putting the front bumper over riders and the metal ashtray through my vinegar process. They are looking a lot cleaner now, just some minor bits to sand, then I'll chuck some rust converter on them before giving them a good coat of 2 pac primer.

This morning I turned my attention to the panel that separates the cabin from the boot. I'm not sure how robust the original factory panel was, but my Muzzy has been fitted with one of Scott Drake's replica items. The little production label tells me that this beauty was manufactured on 11th February 2014. It is made of only the finest hand picked 2mm cardboard and has obviously passed through the loving hands of a skilled Taiwanese craftsman. It's clearly one of Mr Drake's superior quality products and I hope that he is well proud of this achievement. Anyhoo from the date stamp I'm guessing it was procured by Tom the previous owner and fitted at the same time as the 3 point rear seat belts and the twin baby seat anchors. I'm not altogether unhappy as it has made a lovely template for my slightly more robust replacement panel. So earlier in the week I hit my old mate Cameron up for a piece of 3mm aluminium plate which I picked up yesterday arvo. First thing this morning I got jiggy with my jigsaw and in next to no time I had my own interpretation of this part. I managed to use some factory holes in the seat back brace panels to bolt the panel into position. Marking the holes had to be done from inside the boot and much fun was had squeezing my lanky 6 foot 2 frame into the boot to get them marked. It was well worth the effort. The 4 lower seat belt anchor bolts will hold the bottom of my new panel firmly in place when I refit those. All that is left to do is to poke a hole and fit a grommet for my new rear speaker wires and I'll also cover the new panel with some sound deadening when my next batch arrives. Apart from that I'm very happy with this improvement. Thanks for looking.

My second roll of sound deadening finally pitched up yesterday, so I played a quick round of Tetris with my remaining paper templates and proceeded to lay down the rest of the floor. I'm out of material but would still like to cover the rear wheel arch inner panels and the removable panel that separates the cabin from the boot, so I'll order another roll. I can always use whatever is left over on the Thames van when I get back into working on that.

Another item on the list is the factory fitted hazard light switch. On the 65 Mustangs the switch is fitted under the dashboard on the passenger side. It's not the prettiest looking thing so in 66 the factory relocated the switch to inside the glove box. For some reason my early 66 still has the switch under the dash, so while I'm about it I'm going to relocate the switch to inside the glove box. Should look much neater. Photo's of my setup and the last photo is off the net and shows the updated switch position which I will replicate.

There are a few other minor dash related items that I want to sort while I am about it. One of the things that currently bugs me is the lack of lower dash trims. These are two stainless steel trims that go around the instrument cluster and the glove box lid respectively. They just neaten up the whole look and since I'm planning to spend a lot of time looking at the instrument cluster the visible sag in the dash pad just above the gauges will slowly drive me insane. Aftermarket trims are available but at $130 each plus shipping I'm thinking I'll have a go at making them myself. They don't look that complex First photo below is off the net and shows what the trim looks like. In the next two photos which were taken before the dashboard strip down you can see how ugly the absence of the trims look.

With the dash pad safely tucked away I stripped a few other bits and bobs. I unbolted the gauge cluster and flipped it forward. No loose wires that I can see. There is a small voltage regulator fitted to the back of the cluster and I have heard that when these go tits up you get weird gauge related issues. The regulator looks like a fresh unit and the gauges have been fitted with LED globes so someone has definitely been in here recently. The gauge cluster is old school with a separate wire going to each terminal so I'm going to order in a set of those C clip cable markers before I start disconnecting anything. Figured it will be worthwhile permanently marking the wires as I suspect I may be going back in here more than once. Do it once, do it properly, I reckon.

Managed to get the dash pad off in one piece which was a bonus. Turns out its a repro part that I suspect was fitted as part of the 2010 restoration undertaken in the USA. I found a sliver of the original dash bad wedged underneath the new pad.

I've been putting this job off for a while but today I thought I'd put on my big boy pants and start stripping the dash out of the Mustang. There are a few reasons why I want to tackle this. First reason is that I want to re-fresh the paintwork on the metal portion. There are some bad rub marks caused by the misalignment of the glove box. I've resolved the rubbing by elongating the holes on the hinge which has moved the lid slightly to the left so now its just the paintwork to resolve. Also someone has butchered the metal around the ignition switch for some reason, so I need to fix and repaint that section too. Careless removal of the instrument cluster some time in the past has also damaged the paintwork on the steering column surround. It will be much easier to repaint things with everything dismantled Reason two is that the interior lights, factory fitted ammeter and fuel gauges are not working so I'm thinking that there might be some wiring issues under the dash. Reason three is that I want to sort out the sound system wiring as the front kick panel speakers have never worked. Reason four, the woefully inadequate factory fuse panel is really hard to get to and from a quick glance under the dash there appear to be a whole herd of aftermarket inline fuses that feed the radio, a/c system and a few other bits and bobs. I'm not a fan of these so am thinking about installing a new blade style fuse panel that I'll rewire all of the non factory items to. Reason five is that the heater and demister controls are badly seized up so I'd like to give them a birthday at the same time. Photos of the paint and metalwork issues:

The couriers somehow managed to separate the two boxes of sound deadening with the result that one is still sitting in the Brisbane depot, so my installation has stalled half way. No matter I've still got heaps to keep me occupied. Woke up to another wet and cloudy day so figured I'd crack into something that I could do inside the house. So figured I'd give the carpet underlay some loving Now when I lifted the Mustang carpet a few weeks back the original factory underlay was looking sad and grubby with lots of pieces falling apart and some sections completely missing. The only piece really worth saving was the rearmost portion that covers the driveshaft tunnel as that one has a rubber backing that has kept it pretty mint. Yesterday we did a supply trip through to town and I was able to source a new piece of automotive underlay. It's pretty lush stuff but was a bit spendy for what it is, so I figured I'd take a punt at getting away with a linear meter. So this morning I started off by making some paper templates, then played a bit of Tetris to get everything to fit....... and .... whew, I just made it. Then some chalky, chalky, cutty, cutty, testy, testy, trimmy, trimmy and it's not looking bad at all. The weight of the carpet together with the bolting down of the centre console should help it to settle nicely. Thanks for reading.

Today I made a start on installing the sound deadening. I'm using a product called Under Dog, which I haven't used before, but I've got to say I'm really impressed with it. Well priced and appears to be a quality product. Will definitely trade again.

After a good few days of cloud cover and rain the sun has finally made an appearance here in Queensland, so whilst I'm waiting for Grant the painter to clear his backlog I thought I would give the inside rear quarter panels a birthday. They are shaped metal jobs that are painted from factory. Since my fresh front door surrounds are now a slightly different shade of blue my OCD spurred me on to colour these to match. At first glance the existing paint didn't look to bad, so I thought I'd chuck a bit of spray filler on the nicks and scrapes and then just primer the rest. Spotted with spray filler and she started to fry up. Figured it wasn't a big train smash as I could just tickle the reaction spots before laying the primer. Took to the fry with a carpet blade and that is where things started to get interesting. The factory paint started to lift in sheets. Looks almost like it has separated from the original primer. Managed to scrape down the whole panel with very little effort. No fry ups on the opposite panel but again the original paint lifted off easily. I've never seen anything like this. Anyhoo, they are all clean and shiny now and I've laid some fresh primer and a first base coat. Just waiting for that to go off so thought I would type this up in the mean time.

Thanks heaps for the suggestion. Chur.

Took to the particle board shelf with a 10mm drill bit to allow the sounds to leak through. Then slapped a bit more paint about the place. I've ordered some of that textured kitchen drawer liner stuff as per my sample to cover the panel. Should hide the holes and mounting bolts nicely. Hopefully that will arrive sometime soon. I'm not going to win any audio awards with this setup but at least it will look pretty subtle and the sound should be an improvement over my existing single dashboard speaker. Thanks for looking.

Bolted the speakers onto the ply using bolts with countersunk heads then used similar bolts to attach the ply underneath the metal shelf. The raised speakers now sit well below the parcel shelf.

Next step was to carve up a piece of plywood and chuck a bit of paint on it. Clamped it in place underneath the metal shelf and marked out the fixing positions based on the factory speaker mounting holes already punched into the metal shelf. I can also make use of the holes that were previously used for the baby seat anchors as I no longer need those.

So after sussing out the speakers I moseyed on over to the Mustang for a better look at the parcel shelf. The cover plate is actually a purchased repro part, but it has been slightly butchered in order to fit modern 3 point rear seat belts as well as dual baby seat anchors that the previous owner Tom fitted for his twin boys. I reckon I can still use it though. Lifting it out and looking at the metal structure underneath it is an almost unmolested factory panel so I definitely don't want to be cutting that up. The metal panel has a total of 5 factory cutouts presumably for speakers and the like. The centre hole is perfect for a single 6 x 9 but that helps sweet fanny adams. The holes on either side of the centre hole are a reasonable size so I'm picking I can do something with them. Started off by making a few cardboard templates, the middle one is modeled on the factory holes and the lower one on the 6 x 9s.

The head unit currently plays through a central mounted dashboard speaker. It's not ideal so I figured a set of 6 x 9's in the rear parcel shelf would be the go. Now it just so happens that I have a set of 3 ways sitting on the shelf, so I dusted them off for a closer look. The smaller speakers sit well proud of the tops and the covers look like like something you would find in Liberace's boudoir, so they will definitely look out of place in the Mustang. But fear not as I have a cunning plan.

In between working on the floors I've started to clean up the front bumper inner. The bumper and brackets have been replaced with Taiwanese repro parts. From the over spray on the brackets I can tell that the bumper was test fitted before the colour change back in 2010 and the lazy bastards then left the brackets in place. The outer chrome has held up really well, but the inner surface is looking a bit sad. Got rid of the loose stuff with some 80 grit then chucked some rust converter on the rest and followed that with a coat of epoxy primer this morning. Before pics:

Still waiting for the weather to dry out so we can paint the doors, so I'm chipping away at multiple small jobs to keep the momentum going. I've cleaned all the crust off the interior floor pans and chucked some rust converter on to the surface rust . Followed that with a brush coat of epoxy primer. Not the prettiest looking thing, but hopefully it will keep the floors nice and solid for years to come. I've ordered 4sqm of butyl based sound deadening which should arrive late next week so that should neaten things up considerably.

Thought I'd see what I could do about the nasty scratches in the stainless steel window surround so gave it a tickle with some 240 grit and then moved through with some 600 and 800 grit before a final go with some 1200 grit. Slapped a bit of Autosol about the place and it looks heaps better. There are still signs of the two deepest scratches, but I didn't want to push my luck any further, so I'll live with those. Luckily they are on the inside of the frame so wont be that noticeable. Luckily the passenger surround is undamaged.

This morning I repeated the same exercise on the vertical window guide for the opposite side. Being the passenger one the felt was less stuffed but still looked well past it. Not that easy to photograph with my shitty phone, but you get the idea. I'm looking forward to tackling something different tomorrow. Ta for looking.

The next step is also a bit tricky as you need to peel the back off the adhesive and at the same time get the new felt perfectly stuck to all three sides inside the channel. Any lumps will be fatal as they will prevent the channel from sliding smoothly. I started by peeling one end, but it soon became apparent that this was going to end in tears so I ended up asking Uncle Google how best to do this and he suggested cutting the adhesive backing into three strips and then pulling the backing off the centre strip first. Used a carpet knife to carefully cut through the backing without injuring the felt. Got Mrs Flash to give me a hand and between the two of us we got it spot on. One down and one to go.

So I proceeded to scrape out the old felt and adhesive using a few chisels. What a shitty job it is, but it needs to be spotless so the new stuff will stick properly. Ended up with this :