When we work on the cars we find all sorts of things, the odd dime here and there, the usual rust, paperwork, bird nests etc. But, we’re glad to say that it’s not very often that we get to see this sight. It’s a little difficult to make out from the picture, but the material all piled up is an old vermin nest! The floor pans on the car are shot to bits and need replacing of course. The seats were removed and their seat bases. When we opened them up we found the nests and a dead vermin, we say vermin as we can’t tell if it’s a mouse or a small rat, the decomposed body didn’t leave a lot to work it out from. Needless to say we safely disposed of the carcass. We suspect the mouse (we will call it a mouse for now,) had got imported into the country with the car. These pics are looking into the car and floor pans, well where the floor pans should be at least. The nest was made from the firewall sound deadening material, obviously the mouse,  got in through the rust hole and starting taking the material out to make a nest. Clever creatures, but not very welcome when trying to restore a classic car.

Although this looks a complete nightmare, we have seen worse and it can all be fixed. The weather was a nice and we got a few cars out to be cleaned and Chris came well prepared with his flip-flops – you’re rockin’ that look Chris we must say!

half done

We had a drop in on Saturday with the mean green machine, the timing was out a little and Yogi looked at it straight away, obviously gaining more members to his Fan Club!

Under the hood is a work of art too, when this was put together Yogi hid all the wires from the engine bay as much as possible.

To set the timing up the power has to come from the battery, as the battery is in the trunk Yogi came up with an ingenious solution, a board inside the car! The interior of the car has some ’69 seats in it instead of the standard ones which make it quite unique.

Every so often we see a car that is little temperamental with the electrics, it’s understandable of course as the wiring is now over 50 years old on some of these cars now. The wires become brittle, earth points have lost the conductivity etc. So we can either replace the like for like looms in the cars for those who want a stock look. Or, we get the American AutoWire kits which are becoming more and more popular. The reason is quite simple, the wires replace the original, and add lots of options into the mix as well. Power windows, electric fans, lots of auxiliary wires, fog lights etc. all without having to break into the main loom itself. The old fuse boxes have 6 fuses, some of which are can be difficult to get hold of.

old

new

But the newer ones have the blade fuses with flashers and relays all set up ready to be used. What did this loom go into? This pretty little lady which is just begging for a ride out in this lovely sunshine.

We often get asked is Herbie’s worth the effort going? We always answer of course it is. There is a good turn out and lots of classic and new cars. Even if you don’t have a Mustang it’s a great place to look at them outside of a car show. These were pics were taken today, and yes we are bang up to date with the blog! Thanks to Lance “OCD man” for the pics. The cars:

The ‘Stangers have taken over Herbie’s and the food is great quality and good value for money too.

We thought we would finish with a pick of a couple of cars awaiting collection by their owners, rather a ghostly looking pair.

We have added some Articles to the blog; “10 Rare Mustang Facts” and “50 Cool Mustang Facts“. Well worth a read.

Special thanks to Gary W. for the great information.