Flash's 66 Mustang

[Flash]

Yesterday arvo the courier dropped off my replacement set of lowering blocks and the supplier got it right this time.

So this morning I chucked them on.

Result is 2 inches of additional low.

Much better me thinks. 

Best I crack into the front now as it's looking a bit like a gasser.

Before and after shots for your viewing pleasure.

[Flash]

Today's plan was to fit the refurbished heater box. But, before that during the strip down I had noticed that the firewall sound deadening mat thingy - although in good condition - was hanging loose and flopping about. Traced the issue to missing plastic plugs that push through the  mat into factory drilled holes in the firewall. In one of my parts orders I included a set of the upgraded metal plugs, so I figured I was good to go.

Not.

Turns out I should have looked more closely at the mat as the mounting holes have been torn open to the point where the plug heads are not big enough to hold the mat in place. Faffed about with some stainless steel washers on the plugs but then the little prongs wouldn't push through the firewall due to the thickness of the washer. Bugger.

I could have trimmed the little tabs a bit, but I figured just go straight to plan B.

Ended up fitting some stainless steel button heads with said washers and it worked perfectly.

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With the firewall mat now secured I moved on to fitting the heater box.

Nice !

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With the heater box in place, the next step was to fit the duct control cables and blower wiring. 

First step was to refurbish the control cables and mechanism. I had already sourced a repro front panel and knobs finished in Taiwan's finest chrome, but at first glance the little levers that poke through the panel appeared to be badly tarnished. Turns out it was just a bad case of built up grime. A bit of autosol on an old toothbrush had the levers looking mint. 

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I then turned my attention to the blower switch and wiring harness. 

First thing I wanted to figure out was how the bloody thing works as the wires run directly from the control panel to the heater box with no obvious input wire feeding the switch in the control panel

Had me really confused for a while, so I asked Uncle Google and it turns out that it's quite an interesting setup. The back of the blower motor sits in the engine bay and is permanently wired with a positive. It's the switch that is earthed through the dash mounted control panel. The three speed settings are achieved via a set of coiled wires that hide behind the little red plastic tab on the heater box. Bloody clever these Mericans.

Photos of the crusty looking switch and wiring harness:

[Flash]

Spent a bit of time cleaning up the switch and wiring and then replaced the perished cable wrapping with some fresh cloth tape.

With that behind me I fitted the new face plate and control knobs and mounted that sucker.

And that is the first bit of new bling fitted to the dashboard.

Cable action is nice and smooth too. So I am one happy camper.

Onwards and upwards.

Thanks for looking. 

[Flash]

I got a call to say that the knock off centres for my new wheels were ready for pickup.

Fitted one to check out the look and to be honest I'm not a big fan.

They look really wicked on a 17 inch diameter wheel, but on my 15s they just look too overwhelming. In my opinion the centre of the knock off looks way out of proportion to the rest of the wheel and also the bars end up sticking out too far, which makes the 8J wheel look positively skinny.

They were worth a try, but I much prefer the look of the uncluttered wheel.

Luckily the supplier is a really good guy and has agreed to take them back for a modest re-stocking fee.

Thanks for looking.

[Flash]

Only got an hour in the shed today so tickled up a few more dash related items.

First up I gave the instrument cluster a bit of loving. Removed the gauge bezels and lenses to clean 50 year's worth of dust from the gauge faces. Pulled the ammeter out and gave it a blast of compressed air and it's now working so I can only assume something was gumming up the works as it didn't work before. Got that all cleaned up and assembled ready to go back in.

Replaced the pitted knobs and surrounds on the light and wiper switches with new Scott Drake replicas that two owner's back purchased in 2013 and never bothered to fit.

In between I chucked a bit of primer and some satin black on the right hand front bumper irons in prep for refitting the front bumper.

Small, but necessary steps.

[Flash]

My poor old back has taken a bit of strain with all of the hours that I have spent under the dashboard, but despite this I've been steadily plugging away at the new wiring loom and fuse boxes that feed all of the non factory items. Finally put the finishing touches to it today, so was able to do a basic electrical test.

The ugly looking hazard light switch is now tucked away inside the glove box and after installing a replacement flasher unit and a new feed from the new battery fuse panel, these are now working for the first time in many years I suspect.

My sound system and the new USB socket for my blue tooth dongle are also working as planned and are now fed through the new ignition fed fuse box hidden under the glove box.

My pre owned 6 x 9 rear parcel shelf speakers work really well and I'm happy with the sound. In contrast the original kick panel speakers no longer sound that flash so I'm thinking of disconnnecting them and reinstalling the mid dash sterio speaker that I removed earlier in the piece. I'll try that tomorrow and will report back.

One issue that I do have is that the gauge cluster lights are no longer working. I suspect a loose connection on the light switch so I'll need to look at that tomorrow.

Lastly, I've rewired my door switches and included a switch that allows me to switch off the interior lights if I so choose, something that wasn't standard from factory. I've also replaced the dodgy old under dash light with modern LED strips.

It was a bugger crawling under the dashboard to get a photo of the new fuse boxes and it was pretty dark under there, so apologies for the crappy quality photo.

 

[Flash]

First order of business today was to replace the "tinny" sounding kick panel speakers with the better quality centre dash speaker. Gave the tunes a quick test and I'm much happier with the sound quality now, 

While I was at it I installed the new demister duct kit that lives under the centre speaker grill.

And that's one more item ticked off the list. 

[Flash]

A photo of the factory original under dash light socket and a few photos of the new LED underdash lights. I quite like the blue "mood" lighting which will set off the blue carpet and upholstery once that is all fitted. I also installed a light in the glove box and in the same photo you can see the new location for the emergency flasher light switch.

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As previously mentioned I've tucked away a USB power socket and the bluetooth dongle in the factory ashtray which I lined with some high density foam to stop things from rattling around in there.

Sneaky peek inside with the ashtray open.

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A while back I mentioned that I wanted to replace the missing stainless steel dash trims as the dash looked pretty tatty without them.

I couldn't find anyone in Straya with stock and my Scottish ancestry prevented me from splashing out a cool $92.99 American dollars per side plus international shipping on top of that. So I ended up making my own out of some aluminium U channel leftover from our house reno.

First step was to make a cardboard template of the shape which I then replicated in a piece of scrap timber. Sliced the U channel up, a bit of shaping with the help of a few G clamps, a bit of trimming and finally a few holes poked through for good measure.

I'm pretty happy with the results.

[Flash]

Hey, hey it's centre console reconditioning day.

First up I gave the little rear light some loving.

The original lens was in pretty poor conddition and the housing was pretty grubby and patina'ed.

Did my best with a bit of hot soapy water and an old tooth brush then dabbed a bit of autosol about.

Chucked in some blue LED globes to match my under dash lights before fitting a new lense.

 

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Next up was the rear ashtray.

The bowl was pretty crusty and the lid was sporting a light smear of old chewing gum. Nice !

Filled the bowl up with some vinegar which I left overnight and it managed to lift the really loose stuff. At the time I toyed with the idea of sanding and then painting the bowl, but decided to rather line it with a small piece of plastic drawer liner as I'm likely to just use it to hold coins or other small articles. 

Someone had replaced the hinge pins with some dodgy looking bits of wire and had managed to bend the ears resulting in a very floppy lid. After scraping the old chewing gum off the lid and giving it a clean the lid came out looking not too bad. I straightened up the ears and used some small galvanised nails as replacement hinge pins and the lid is now nicely secure.

It still looks pretty rough inside, but with the lid closed it presents really well.

In hindsight now looking at these photos, I think I might try sanding and painting the bowl. I'll just need to take care not to paint the exposed edge. But I'll leave that for another day.

Thanks for looking.

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The rest of the console work was pretty straight forward.

Gave the chrome bits some autosol loving and touched up 50 years worth of scratches and chips on the black accents with some craft paint.

It is missing a stainless steel front cap, but at $200 for a replacement, I'm going to live without it for a while longer.

 

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Another sunny day here at Rough & Ready Restos and work on the assembly of the Mustang interior continues.

This morning's focus was on the moulded metal interior rear quarter panels.

I'd repainted these earlier in the piece so they just needed a little bit of final loving before assembly.

First up was to replace the well shagged internal weather strips with the replacements that came in the same kit as the door strips. I had removed the old strips before repainting the panels so it was just a case of instaling the new ones. These are fixed to each panel using metal staples that were supplied in the kit. It's a bit of a pain in the arse as I had heard that the factory drilled holes don't always line up with the staple locations on the repro seals. In my case this turned out to be true. So the only option was to poke a few new holes in my fresh paintwork ... grrrr.

Anyhoo, I got it done without incident and then it was just a case of slapping on a bit of sound deadening to replace the manky old felt underlay that was factory fitted.

Last item to go on was a new plastic washer to protect the new paintwork from the window winder handle. I'd like to replace these handles at some stage as they are a bit crusty looking and a fresh repro one is only $21 so well worth doing. So I've added a fresh set to my future shopping list.

The driver's side panel is now installed, but I have to leave the passenger one off for now as I'm waiting for a replacement window bump stop to arrive, but I'll save that interesting story for my next update.

Thanks for looking.

[Flash]

With a few free minutes to spare I thought I'd fit the steering wheel.

The original centre needed a bit of loving so I tickled it up with a bit of autosol and used some craft paint to touch up the black accents that were looking a bit shabby.

And that's another item ticked off the list.

[Flash]

Earlier in the week I mentioned an issue with a window bump stop.

Thought I'd share the whole story with you.

As you know the Mustang has a pillarless setup with both the front and rear side windows able to roll down. A good few weeks back I refurbished the windows mechanisms and associated components. The driver's side worked perfectly but over time I had noticed two issues with the passenger side. First issue was that the door window would wind up perfectly, but after opening and closing the door a few times I noticed that the window would drop about half an inch. The second issue was that when winding the rear window up it would sometimes not line up properly with the frame around the door window resutling in both metal strips clashing. Anyway, it started to bug me so over last weekend I decided to investigate further.

First step was to give the door window a closer look and I quickly discovered that by pushing down on the glass I could get the window to wind down. Not good. My first thought was that I might have installed the big "clock" spring incorrectly, but sadly not as I discovered after pulling the mechanism out. Asked Uncle Google and he reckoned the problem was likely to be a faulty regulator. They aren't that pricey so I ordered a new one in from my mate Rob at Sydney Mustang Parts. It arrived today so I swapped in the new regulator and that has solved the first issue. 

 

[Flash]

The second window issue being the intermittent misalignment of the passenger side rear quarter window was slightly more tricky to solve and only because I am not the sharpest tool in the shed.

So my first step in trying to resolve the issue was to fiddle around with the window alignment, but try as I might I just couldn't get a consistent result. After faffing about for about an hour I decided to strip the whole glass and mechanism out.

The first step of the tear down is to remove the window bumps stops. It was at this point that I realised that one of the two upper bump stops was missing.......... and that is when the penny dropped for me. The missing bump stop was allowing the window to tilt slightly forward towards the end of its upward motion ...... bloody bastard !

The missing soldier is circled in red in one of my photos below

Now I'm very fastidious when it comes to stripping things down. Everything gets bagged and labelled and all of the parts associated with a particular item are stored away together in their own plastic bin. Since neither the bumpstop nor its mounting bolt were left over in the container I'm almost positive that this bump stop was missing before I stripped the window down. I searched around in my storage location under the Thames van in the hope that it might have fallen out of the storage bin, but no such luck.

So now to find a replacement.

Easier said than done.

You can get repro replacements ..... US $75 for a pair ...... gulp. Bugger that .... I only need one.

Then by a stroke of luck I spotted an eBay listing for a single pre-owned one here in Aussie. It was listed at  OZ $31 including postage which is still rather spendy for what it is, but I figured what the heck, take the coward's way out rather than spending hours fabricating a replacement.

Anywhoo, it arrived earlier today so I slapped it in and hey presto .... the window now aligns perfectly every time.

I am now a happy bunny.

Thanks for looking.