Another week done and it finished in fine style, we were able to push some cars out into the yard and work in the sunshine. Yogi wasn’t to impressed as he had to venture out from his cave and he said the sun made his fur itch! Seriously though things just seem to go so much better in the sun and things were on the up. Adam was well happy as his new “fuel pump” had arrived. Adam was going on about this for a while now and we thought it was for the cars. We should have known better, it wasn’t. The retro style fuel pump ended up in the office, it was unwrapped and shown to us with a big grin on his face. Adam wasted no time by plugging it in and telling us that this was a bespoke order made just for Mustang Maniac to Adam’s own requirements, the top logo turns around to reveal a Ford logo too if you wanted a change. A stock of items eg: Beer “for those bad days” or “Chillin’ with the chaps after a good day”, cold drinks and somewhere to store the sandwich, although there is a fridge in the kitchen only a few feet away! The first rarity a real one-off, sneaking a drink out of the fridge with the dogs guarding it even rarer – good luck with that one then.

Customers Cars:

We have been working away on the French convertible where we are under pressure to get this ready for a Classic Car Rally. The sun helped a great deal as we could have everything open and still have space to move around the car without getting in each others way. She was pushed out into the sun and it was all hands to the pump, obviously not the new one, yet!

The aim here was to get as much of the original interior back into the car as we could. This was a two-man team effort of Yogi and Paul working on each side of the car at the same time. It was like watching fluid movements on the inside of a swiss watch, each piece working together but doing their own thing. The banter was in full flow as things were going well. The sound proofing needed to be put into the car first off, but Adam was tempted to wrap the guys up in it first though. 😀  This sound proofing has been sent back to us by customers saying “It’s to brittle and it breaks”. We can safely say that it doesn’t. The sound proofing is a bitumen based material and the secret to fitting it – warmth. Taking the material out of the boxes for the trunk and the interior it’s left in the Sun to warm up. After the outside of the roll has warmed you can gently open the layers up without cracking it. Leave the pieces out in the sun again to flatten on their own after it warms up some more.  You can see the creases after unwrapping which will soon go. You could of course use something else to warm the material if you like, but we prefer to use the natural sun where we can.

The three sections were laid into the car, two for the front foot well  and the second for the rear foot well. Once they are warm they are able to bent around as much as you like as you can see here. Peel the backing of the underside which will then stick to the floor pans and hold it in place. The creases can then be smoothed out as required.

With the sound deadening fitted into the car the rear quarter windows were fitted, again the two guys working on each side at the same time. Door catches and window adjustments were made to align everything up.

Next up was the carpet, as this was the original it laid in straight away to the contours of the floor pan no problems.

The dash needed to be swapped over and Yogi got to work on taking the old one out and prep work for the new one. The dash required some new plenum ducting, vents, clips and a central speaker, all of which was done at the same time as the dash pad fitting. In the mean time Paul was busy fitting in the after market inertia three-point seat belts aligning the carpet up to the original holes.

The rear quarter panels were fitted into place and the connecting wires for the radio were attached. The seats were given a their initial clean up and the rear back was first in and bolted in place.

The rear seat was going to prove a little more difficult as the speakers make it just a little narrow to drop the bench in place. But, like all things a little patience and all dropped into place fine. The front seats were lifted into place and bolted down without any of the normal problems of having to make the holes in the carpet as they were already there.

Late into the evening the light started to give way to a few spots of rain. The guys were really happy as the pushed the car back into the workshop with the bulk of the interior now in place. Timing was impeccable, Yogi celebrated by putting the kettle on. With the car back in the workshop we could take the last few photo’s to show the seatbelts in place.

In good company:

You may have already worked out that the French convertible colour is “Tahoe Turquoise”, on its own this is usually classed as a rare colour, we are not so sure about that as we had three of them here at the same time.

To complete the collection for the week, we had a very nice little white number parked among them, obviously this lady needs no introduction, and is also a very rare beast!

Lets hope the good weather holds up so we can have a few more good days, but we think that could be wishful thinking.