Post #47, 5/28/12 Shop Transformation, AC Cover Plate

65 Mustang Restoration

It's amazing how often things don't go as planned,,, had a whole list of things we wanted to get done this weekend,,, but it didn't happen, instead, we ended up doing a major Spring Clean-up  in the basement, storage shed & the garage. Seven pickup truck loads on Saturday,, need I say more? But with the bad, comes the good,,, and in this case, the good was all of the new goodies that we got for the garage, which mainly consisted of a new toolbox & a 80 gallon air compressor, got the old shop radio hooked up, and a bunch of organizing got done.

It'll be nice to finally have a compressor that can keep up with the blasting cabinet and the body working tools.

 It'll also be nice to be able to find tools instantly, and the extra work space will come in handy,,, it's amazing all of the missing things that show up when you do a complete cleanup. 

One of the items I did come across today was the very nice, extra front AC Evaporator front cover that I got a great deal on. I have been wanting to get it on it's way to the guys that re-chrome these type of parts since it can take a few months to get back(always planning a head).

This cover plate really seems to be in very good condition,, even the two switches look to be in pretty decent condition. I had never messed with one of these setups before, I thought it was pretty clever how they used the little clips to hold in the registers,, very simple , but effective. Below is a pic of all of the parts that were part of the cover. The knobs look pretty nice, they just need a good cleaning.

We did get a chance to do one of the things that I wanted to do to the Stang this week, and that was to remove the rear frame jig that I designed & built for the car. I can't even imagine how terrible the job of replacing all of the parts of the back half of the car would've been without this contraption. I was actually surprised at how easily it came off of the car.

Below is how the jig looks from the back side.
 

The 2 round tubes of aluminum, are the bushings that go into the bushing holes on the rear frame rails.
 

And this is one of the Super Important mounting pads that goes up in the slot where the rearend rubber bumper is normally mounted.

 Now that the jig is out of the way, it should make it a lot easier to get to all of the areas of the rear floor,, maybe next weekend,,,,

Till then,,,,,

Post #46, 5/20/12 Out of Hibernation

65 Mustang Restoration

This weekend we finally cleaned out the garage & started the preparation to once again get started working on the Mustang. It's amazing how quickly things stack up on, in, and around the car over the winter, but now that's been taken care of & we're ready to get back at it.

 We were planning on just jumping into the bodywork, but I think we'll finish up in a couple of other areas first. We started by getting it up on jack stands & removing the temporary wheels,,, and I think we'll also finally remove the rear frame support(jig) that we built so we can finish up the bottom of the back half of the car. Since the rear jig was in the way, we haven't been able to finish prepping the floor for Eastwood's Rust Encapsulator & paint.

And even before we coat the bottom,, I want to get the new & proper rear brake hose bracket installed & attached to the floor. Nothing wrong with the old one, but it's not the right one or located in the right place for a dual exhaust system that we will be installing,,, and along with that,,, we also need to drill the floor & mount the (2) special brackets that the rear muffler hangers will be mounted to. I case you're new to this blog, this car originally came only with a single exhaust system that we are swapping with a new Stainless Steel dual exhaust system & therefore some mods need to be done,, some already were done clear back when we installed both of the new rear frame rail sections,, you have to plan ahead or cobble,, and I hate to cobble!

We also will be doing another once-over as far as making sure all of the body panels line up as good as possible,, I'd hate to do a bunch of bodywork only to find out something isn't quite right, and then have to redo something. We got a bunch of new parts over the winter, and we decided on a few other mods that we'd like to do, one of which, is that we are not going to run springs on the hood hinges any longer for a couple of reasons, mostly hood fit & alignment,, but also because Scott Drake came out with a nice Hood Prop Rod kit that we purchased,, so now I have to redo the hinges that we already went through(remember what I said about planning ahead).

Memorial Weekend is in a week,, so we should hopefully get a decent start on things then.

See ya soon,,,