Freddie comes alive!

[dhbfaster]

9 days since last update? Hopefully there have been no deaths in the family or medical problems....otherwise:

[Luva65wagon]

I did take a few days off to go down and visit my mom in Oregon, but otherwise I'll blame the Easter Bunny.

I've been changing my mind on some things regarding direction and have decided to go back to battery under the hood. I had a new tray to replace the one that had rotted away, so that got put in yesterday. This change meant I needed a riser for the air plenum to direct it over the motor towards the driver-side. That riser came yesterday and doesn't fit the Holley without a slight modification, so will finish that change today.

Exhaust is in for what I'm going to do myself. Tailpipes will get done in a shop.

I'm going to install the same radio Gary had in it (since the original Radio knobs vanished into the ether) but will upgrade the system a bit with a amp in the trunk and kick panel speakers and dash speakers pulled from my wagon, but nothing like I was going to do. K.I.S.S!

Gene is swinging by this morning to help me bleed the brakes, and with that done I will start the seat rebuilding. New foam has arrived and will really help firm Freddie up in important places.

Hopefully that satisfies an addiction or two. Will post some pictures soon.

[Luva65wagon]

I find myself getting distracted often and doing lots of tedious little things, but nothing to speak much of, or photograph.

As I await to hear back from Patrick on radio stuff I've moved on to doors, which I have been avoiding. I took the passenger door apart to first fix the lock Gary said was undone, which it was, but of course that opened a whole can of WIAI™ that used up the rest of evening. I removed the rear glass channel (not fun) and put some new felt in it; it had gone metal-on-metal. Then pulled the door weatherstripping, cleaned the interior of the door, cleaned up some surface rust issues - and then applied POR-15 to treat it all. Also POR-15'd the lower door panel track. Fortunately the exposed chrome was all very good and no POR-15 should be evident, but caught it just in time. I'll eventually paint all this and other areas that didn't get the new blue before putting on the new door weatherstripping.

I did finish up my part of the exhaust, as I mentioned, and this is what it's like until I get it to the shop.

exhaust4.jpg

After installing the new battery tray and relocating the air plenum towards the driver side, this is the way it will be.

enginebay6.jpg

I ran it again when Gene was here to help bleed the brakes, and it sounds and runs really nice. Tailpipes will be better, but it's very cool sounding. Oh so close to being done.

[pbrown]

There is a mandrel bent tailpipe kit that works well on the Falcon.

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/f.../model/mustang

It 2.5" and is for early V8 Mustangs. You can use reducers to connect these to whatever size muffler you have.

[Luva65wagon]

There is a mandrel bent tailpipe kit that works well on the Falcon

I used similar on the Ranchero. I'm wanting to have them bent to fit, I think.

Thanks for dropping off the radio. I was in the garage when you came, but now that I have it I'm in a quandary. It has no option other than using their CD player, whereas the one Gary had, with the cassette deck, had a cassette adapter for aux in. So, which to use... Going to see if I can trace out the connector to see which three wires are left/right/ground for LL-input.

I spent the past couple days working on the doors to get them ready for some touch-up painting, as well as the fender/cowl. Sadly the paint Gary supplied as touch-up was not exactly the same shade. Not sure why. As I was working on the door jambs I saw the same color there, but sprayed over stickers and hardware. So all that got cleaned up and I resprayed - here came that color again. Oh well; looks better than before and maybe nobody will notice. I can now put on the remaining new parts; i.e., seals and other rubber parts. Seats will come after that... and that will do it for this round.

[pbrown]

I see what you mean on the color. It looks too green.

Regarding that radio. The company makes other adapters that interface with the CD in port. They sell a new BlueTooth kit for ~$80. I had an iPod kit with the older style Apple connector but that's pretty dated. As a stand alone it's only good for basic AM/FM.

You may be able to build your own aux in if you can figure our the CD port pinout.

[Luva65wagon]

Now that I got all the touch-up painting done I was able to put the new cowl seal and hood bumpers on with cleaned-up bolts. I also scrubbed the underside of the hood to make it presentable.

hood1.jpg

One thing I discovered when I first opened the hood on Freddie was the absence of the safety catch for the hood. So today I made one...

hood_safety1.jpg

...so this could hook onto it...

hood_safety2.jpg

...like this...

hood_safety3.jpg

...in case the hood came un-done while driving it will catch like this...

hood_safety4.jpg

I also removed the hood pin to straighten the the nut in the hood since the pin was askew. While the pin was off I lowered the hood to check alignment and adjusted that somewhat and set the front rubber bumper stops. Once adjusted I reattached the pin and safety and set the latch. When that was all good I put the grille on after getting it cleaned and straightened up again. Freddie is nearing to be Freddie again.

freddie_nose.jpg

[MacDee]

Sadly the paint Gary supplied as touch-up was not exactly the same shade. Not sure why.

I know why....
When I got the car painted (Maaco in 2003?), I opted not to pay the extra $$ to get the sills and underhood painted. Boy do I regret that decision!! I did get them to give me a little bottle of the paint. I was intending on painting the sills and hood myself, but I never got around to it. The bottle sat in the console for seven years.
As the swap approached, I was desperate, again, to have some paint to paint the sills, etc. The bottle, by that time, was nearly solidified. I don't remember what I did, but I managed to get enough paint out of it to spread some onto a piece of metal with a brush. I took that to Wesco and had them mix up a pint to match that. That's the paint you used. It had been sitting in my backyard shed, unopened, for six years. I had no idea if it was usable or not. I suspected not, but gave it to you anyway. I was most surprised that you were able to use it, and I am very sorry (and embarrassed) that it doesn't match. At least now there's a story behind it....
Admittedly, I have a slight color-blindness, but I thought it just looks grayer than the rest of the car. I don't see the green...

[Luva65wagon]

I was most surprised that you were able to use it, and I am very sorry (and embarrassed) that it doesn't match.

Color matching is tough when you have paint that has mostly dried up. Some pigments would have settled out of the mix just sitting there. I'm surprised it was even as close as it was. And yes, it mixed up and sprayed just fine. Sealed as it was.

I'm OK with it, but not so much to use it to paint the whole under-hood. I'd probably go get a color match from off the car. Maybe... if it gets another full respray to make it all the same.

Again, appreciate the history.