Mustang Progress Report

Speaker Wires

Time to string the speaker wires.  Radio-to-rear-speaker wires were run through the door sills, along with the wire loom for the tail lights and backup lights on the driver's side.  Better than running under the carpet, which would be the likely route when added to a finished car:

 

Kick panel speakers wired and installed:

 

Door and Quarter Panels

First the sheet of water-seal material is glued on:

Then the quarter panel attached:

Door panel, arm rests, and window crank and door handle:

 

I ran into a problem when installing the window cranks for the quarter windows.  The window regulator shafts were apparently for a different style of window crank and the shafts were too long and did not have a threaded hole in the end for the screw that holds the crank on to the shaft.  The crank was too far away from the side panel:

 

 

 

First, I hacksawed off the ends of the shafts:

 

Then I drilled and tapped a hole in the end of each shaft:

 

The result was that the crank fit snug to the panel:

 

 

 

The interior is coming along:

 

 

 

Fuel Line

 

Brian was down over Christmas and we worked together to install the pump-to-tank fuel line:

 

 



 

It was a pre-bent line and fit nicely:

 

It has been a long time since we took the car apart, and while rumaging through old parts looking for some fuel line clips, we came upon this part that was a mystery.  I think it has something to do with the spare tire.  At least I'm pretty sure it came from the trunk. 

 

I gave Brian a brake master cylinder for Christmas, and he had brought down the rear brake line, so the next step is to order the front lines and then install them.  This will involve some fabrication as the master cylinder is not stock, but is a dual-chamber unit made specially for disk brakes, and the lines will have to be custom fit.  In the meantime, I have some other parts to install. 

Calipers Back On

As stated in the last post, the plan was to take the calipers to a paint shop for powder coating in bright red, but that didn't happen.  The paint shop didn't want to bake the calipers with the pistons and seals still in, and I didn't want to take them out.  At the same time, Brian decided that the calipers weren't exotic enough to warrant bright red, so we decided on plain old heat resistant black paint.  I could do that myself, but first I had to borrow the bead blaster back to get the rust off.  It did a good job:

Next came a couple of coats of high-temp gloss black caliper paint and then the re-install.  Final look:

 



We have ordered the front-to-rear brake line and the fuel line, but the brake line has not arrived and the two need to be installed together.  Things have been kind of slow on the Mustang, but I have been really busy on some other projects, so the winter has not been boring, for sure. 

End of Summer Vacation for Mustang

Brian and the boys were down for a post-Thanksgiving visit and we brought the Mustang over from the tool shed to the shop to get ready for the winter work.  We didn't do much to it except install the new steering wheel, which is a GT replica.  The whole dash area is looking pretty good:

That big ugly hole where the radio goes is the last dash problem to solve and we are working on it.  One thing we discovered when we took the wheels back off and put the car up on jack stands, is that the brake calipers had rusted with the car just sitting indoors in the shed:

Since the wheels Brian wants to install are the kind where the calipers are visible, this was not going to be acceptable.  So, even though I thought I was done with the brakes except for the front-to-rear lines and the master cylinder, I guess I get to back track a bit and remove and disassemble the calipers:

I got the rears off today and ready to take to the paint shop.  Fronts should be easier without the parking brake.  The plan is for high-temp powder coating in bright gloss red.  Killer look. 

True to tradition, we had our shoot-out during the visit, but this time Big Mike brought his arsenal, or at least part of it, over to the house and we burned through a bunch of high-power ammo and killed some paper targets and one old propane tank.  The tank still had a little gas in it that got lit off at one point.  Great fun!

 

Thanks to Mike, this was a memorable visit for all of us.