A New Outlook

Haven't posted for awhile for a couple of reasons; one, it's been damn cold out in the shop, and two, I have had cataract surgery and have had limited activity for the past week.  I'm not supposed to lift more than 15 pounds or spend much time with my head lower than  heart level.  That cuts out a lot of Mustang work, and the temps cut out a lot of riding since the roads have been icy (this is supposed to be a motorcycle blog after all).  . 

The results of the surgery are amazing.  It was only done in the left eye, but everything is clearer and brighter.  I really don't need glasses anymore except for close-up and reading.  My right eye, which was the good one, is now the bad one.  I am looking into getting it done also.

I did manage to get some work accomplished, like working on the wheel alignment.  The front wheels have been really goofy ever since we got the car back from the body shop.  As I mentioned in the last post, part of the problem was that, without the shocks, the suspension was over-extended.  Even after getting the shocks installed, though, there was obviously too much toe-in.  I rigged up a way to do a really crude toe-in alignment by using some woodworking clamps:

Then from the front I could visually check that the clamp bars are parallel and adjust until they were:

I put the front wheels back on to get a better look at how they matched up with the rear wheels. This is a completely crude guess at what the toe-in should be, but it should at least allow us to someday drive the car to an alignment shop without wearing the tires out or being unable to drive in a straight line. The correct toe-in is only a couple of degrees and  I can't get that kind of accuracy this way.  I was really working for zero toe in.   Here are the results:

I also started working on rebuilding the heater.  After taking it apart and cleaning everything up, I repainted the metal parts and clear coated the fiberglass body.  While I was painting, I also did the fender splash guards.....three, anyway.  One was already done by the body shop.

The splash guards have rubber flashing that seals them up against the fender.  This flashing was originally stapled to the metal splash guards.  In order to staple anything to metal, you would have to have a super heavy duty stapler, and even though I have an air stapler, I don't think it would work on metal.  So one way to solve the problem is to pop-rivet the flashing on.

If one were doing a concourse-type restoration in which everything is supposed to be done like the original car was manufactured, this would not be allowed.  But with our philosophy of making it a daily driver, it works fine.