John2002 project thread.

[John2002]

Thats the way it goes, there is always gonne be someone that says" Oh I couldda" or "Why did you do it that way" or "you shouldda called me" Live-learn-and hope someone can fix what I just broke....Its not the money so much with me, I know what I can do and what I afford...its just the fact that I know something will break when I do that and do it anyways.....I know we have all been in that "Why didn't I just leave it alone" situations(s) It was fine but ...thats what gets us all the time...IT COULD BE BETTER!!!! I'm about 90% into removing the interior in 2 days....I want to lay down some heat and noise deadener over the winter as just the next project on the car...It was fine the last 4 years , not having any issues with heat or noise with the top down .... none at all... but I wanted to do it...yep, MAKE IT BETTER....OMG...If you would have walked up to my car you'd think it was found at an impound lot after being stripped....I watched a 7 minute video on LateModelResto about removing the center console...so now I able to take the whole interior out because of that video????? I know its going to come out nice but not the "NICE" I have seen in my brain nice....I haven't broken anything yet, still waiting on my buddy to find out if he has the radio puller tool...because I don't need another one time never use again tool....In mind I know yeah, that looks easy and in my tool boxes I got the tool for the job....but the car is , was and probably will always be something I want to work on no matter how much I hiss and cuss about doing it....

I'm 53 years old, 6 foot 3 inches and 280 lbs and just barely make in under the car with the jacks stand at their heights setting. Fitting in the car with the top down is the only way I can get into it with out hitting my head. Leaning over the engine bay for hours at a time makes my back hurt and waxing it twice a year get me to the chiropractor soon after that but putting gas in it makes me shake my head over and over again...BUT I still do it.......

We all think its gonna help, make it better, and cost less because I saved money doing it myself....WRONG OH KEEBLER!!!! Wrong OH!!!!! WE do it because WE WANT TO!!! Its just about the best feeling when someone walks up to you at a car show and says what we all say..."did you do that" And the smile back says it all....Cause we all know what it took.....no one understands what it takes if they bought it done...the term I here so often on car auctions....BUY ONE DONE... ah YEAH....if you can afford it. I want to drive mine like I built it and know everything I did to it took a fair amount of time for me to complete...I'm not a Know-it-all by any meansbut when you drop of some hulk of a wreck at a car builder and and say "BUILD ME MY DREAM CAR"... then pick it up a few years later...thats not what I want... Just a fun in the sun car, something to fiddle with and get that "THUMBS UP" as we pass by...
Oh, my new distributor got here on Wednesday and I alredy want to put that in....it never ends!!!!


Good luck with your build and the all the time you and your dad will have with it....
My dad want me to get rid of mine...I said only for a 66 Lincoln Continental convertable....."What do you want that for" is always his reply....

 

[John2002]

If I didn't get this car it would just be oil changes and brake jobs.... I cleaned the rear panels and got rid of most of the rust stains around the bolts and bolt holes in the carpet from the seats. I haven't heard back fom my buddy for the radio removal tool yet so I guess I'll pick one up tomorrow and use it once...The distributor is still waiting in the box, I keep hearing it calling me "Take me out....please take me out and look at me"....I've got too many things lying on the floor now to start one more project I just thought of doing. I put all the seats in the basement and most of what else I removed is sitting on the read deck and convertable top...I know that just waiting for another dent to happen putting it all up there, if I get some time later I'll move that stuff in as well. I want to remove the carpet complettely and get the washed top to bottom in the basement.. From what I could peel back of the carpet, the jute and the floors look great. The front kick panels are going to stay in...I hope. They seem to be loose enough to just pull the carpet down and away...MAYBE!!

 

[John2002]

Its out...all the way out.... not quite the mess I thought I'd run into...Floors look 100% ...ran into a few screws that LateModelResto didn't show on the how to video. Had some sort of small aluminum box bolted to a small black metal bracket that also had two screws from the radio sleeve screwed into it...all came out with out anything breaking. I did find one of the driver seat bolts (front closest to the door) is barely holding on. Have to figure out some sort of metal plate to go over it and rivet it in place.

 

[John2002]

NIce , did you just power wash the engine bay when the engine was out??? I haven't done that yet, While I had the headers off and most of the plumbing for the intake out I used lots of clean rags and Simple Green where I could reach.. Not bad under the hood either, I never had great results with a power washer and the engine ruuning well afterwards. I did take a 50/50 mix of simple green and a one gallon vegtable sprayer to it a few year ago... covered up most everything with plastic bags that had a connector coming in or out of it.

 

[John2002]

17 degrees today, no time out in the garage till next week. The carpet cleaned up great....I was looking online just for the fun of it but haven't found anyone that had good result with oem styled carpet replacements. I don't want to cut anything or worry about matching more so called oem colors that are 25 years old... LatemodelResto had lots with 3 different grays., American Muscle had just about the same for converts but only one guy wrote a reply on it, "Looks good but not really oem fit". I don't know why Ford needed 3 different gray colors for the Fox... I'm going to clean the rear passenger section one more time, the area under the passenger front seat was the dirtiest. It must vave been a coffee spill no one ever took care of. Only one cigarette burn mark just below the driver seat but still in sight if the seat is all the way back....

 

[ALMOST STOCK]

good deal. floors look solid.

I got the last bit of bling to cover up that windshield wiper motor that was looking so ugly. UPR windshield wiper motor cover.

Just my @.02 ... I'll never be a a fan of any UPR products, and that's because of someone else's hard work to produce/make the part that UPR sell as the own part as if they were the ones to make the original.

These are just a couple of what I talking about:

It’s a long read
http://www.stangnet.com/mustang-forums/830763-upr-product-failures-after-500-miles.htmlMake
Make sure you read post 41 followed by post 44 where JeremyUPR says :
You call it copying, and yes you are entitled to that. We call it helping the customer.



Here's another.
http://forums.corral.net/forums/lounge/1347201-unauthorized-product-reproductions-strikes-again.html

 

[ALMOST STOCK]

I was looking online just for the fun of it but haven't found anyone that had good result with oem styled carpet replacements.

I bought the LMR carpet because they stated that it was OEM quality. But once I receive it, looked at it, and I rolled it back up and put it in the box it came in and threw it in the attic. It's no where near the quality of the OEM and the reason I put the OEM back in the car.
This is 25 years old carpet and look better than what I was sent.

 

[John2002]

I think we all have that same idea in our heads when someone claims being OEM stlye..thats a very wide stretch . I bought a Sanitaire spot cleaner/vac a few years after we got the car. I took the seatts out the first winter and cleaned then with a spray bottle of warm water and my shop wet/vac... It work pretty good for the arear I needed to clean...My rear seat are untouched...the fornt driver seat hip bolster on the door side was wore done and I had that and the foam under it replaced. I also need to have the drivers seat back rewelded. It was really twisted to the right and felt like I was sitting with my right shoulder in the back seat. ....Other then the cig burn and the two rust stains I couldn't get out the carpet looks great. Its in the sigle digits here today so I'm going to wash that area one more time with my spot cleaner....Is you interior color the Smoked/Titaniun/Opal Gray??? Look awesome guy!!!! We have the same seat with those pillow sized head rests that tilt....I don't have many picturess of the interior but I will when I get it all back in.

 

[John2002]

The first two pictures were from the first summer we had the car, other then the twisted driver seat and that worn out hip bolster the interior was in real good shape. There are a few dingers on both rear passenger side panels, probably from things being put in the back with the top down. I did have to switch out the sun visors last year. The passengers side mirror cover had maybe an inch left on that material that supposed to be the hindge. They were hell to get off the shaft, I had to cut back the material on the shaft as sprayed some WD 40 to get the driver side off. The dash was in great shape but I did do a speedo (85 to 140 MPH) and lens upgrade and all the bulbs while it was out. Thats was it for the interior work till what I've got going on now. Still in the mood to buy other things on the websites, American Muscle sent me an e-mail asking me if I had fotten something...LOL I still have 3 items in my cart!!! The ash tray cover repair kit, smoked gray "Mustang" door sills and smoked gray seat belt sleeves... I replaced them but ordered the wrong color belt sleeves. What a nightmare trying to get those anchor bolts out of the trans tunnel.....broke two tools and get fed up with it a took it to where I had the seat back fixed....

 

[John2002]

NO!!!! LOL... : ) I try not to but it happens...while waiting for stuff off the internet to show up I do tend to get into some things I wasn't even thinking about doing...I know I got about 3 months to finish the interior and the distributor will take about 20 minutes so why not look for something else to work on..LOL... I got a few things in the carts on LMR and American Muscle...3 inches of snow today and more coming, I had the garage door open for a few minutes and snow found its way on to the back of the car, its coverer with an old bed sheat and I still have some small interior panels on it... the front seat belts go through the rear seat panels and I don't want to snap anymore tools try to get those torx head bolts loose...

 

[John2002]

Just heard some bad news about shopping on Amazon...local state tax is coming!!!! Starting Feb first, Illinois is going to have Amazon tack on 6% ( depending on certain actions) to sales. WOW.... monkey see, monkey do....

 

[John2002]

Well, it not pretty...sort of an 1/2 at-a-boy for getting it in without breaking anything. 45 degrees and 2 hours later part 2 of 4 of my winter project is over. It should of had one more sheet then I could have trimmed around the rear seat and trans tunnel wall behind the front seats. Trying to get pictures off my camera, I had to upload a new operating system last week and I'm still working out all the damaged that caused...Went from Snow leopard to Yosemite and hate it it ever since....all because my Adobe was out dated and the update for that needed Yosemite....

 

[John2002]

Hey it worked...I hate updates that make it not worth updating...my Mac is 7 years old and the last tech that helped my get my usernames and passwords told me that Yosemite needs 2 gigs of space and my has only 1 gig ...well here are the after pictures...I even got a sticker that I added to my shelf where I put all my stickers...lol. I should be able to wash the back seat and cushion tomorrow and wait a few more weekend to get the interior back in.. I got plumbers coming at the end of February to replace my rotted pipes...OMG...I hope no one out there still had galvanized pipes in their house....I had to replace the hot water tank last November and I crushed the cold water supply pipe that goes into the hot water tank when I tried getting that copper flex line off....nasty looking on the inside of that galvanized pipe......its all coming out and I'm adding a whole house water filter, 2 stage sediment and activated carbon...

 

[FoxBodyMustangs]

@John2002 love the progress pics.. Keep us up to date... How expensive is the FAT MAT sound material?

 

[mustanggarage]

I need to get some of that as well.

 

[John2002]

The mat was $65.00 and I also got a can of Boom something or other spray for the trunk, I think that was $18.00. Other then two sore knees and a sore back it went in pretty easy, it came with a roller and small retractable shop knife that I didn't cut myself with...LOL. Like I said. one more sheet would of been great, it came with 5 but now that I looked at it using 2 in the back seat area was over kill.

 

[mustanggarage]

John do you have a photobucket account? if so you should host the pics on there then you can get fullsize pictures in your thread instead of thumbnails. just a suggestion. it looks like you are making great progress.

 

[John2002]

When I first started uploading pictures on my Ranger forum, I had the camera pixel set at the highest setting. I've since then have set the camera at a lower setting just to get more pictures in an e-mail. I use the thumbnail size just to keep the reply small... I try to keep it to a minimum with the camera...When I went to that Mecum auction in September I did upload larger pictures just because of the great cars I was standing next to...If I get more picture up with the interior done, I'll leave them large....This is the dent I have to get fixed, I dropped a box of jack stands on it because I was to lazy to get help...right on the crease about 2 feet back from the turn signal light.....

 

[FoxBodyMustangs]

John do you have a photobucket account? if so you should host the pics on there then you can get fullsize pictures in your thread instead of thumbnails. just a suggestion. it looks like you are making great progress.

No need for that the site can do it for you..

 

[mustanggarage]

Good to know. I have used this photo bucket because many of the forums I frequent do not allow that. anyway. I just like looking at the progress you are making however you post the pics so just keep it up