We have number of updates for you this week including another new vehicle for Adam which he is thoroughly enjoying, a new customer project we have started, some new stock and a very special find by Adam in one of his storage areas. Mustang Maniac has now started to branch out into other stock areas as well as Mustangs. We are stocking much more Falcon parts and now a new range of commercial ‘Ford Transit Custom Service Parts’ which we will go into a little later in the post.

Customer Cars

We like to try and give our project cars a little nickname, such as the memorable Mastic Mustang and The Onion. We have this latest fairly short project which has been named ‘The Mouse Mustang’. It has nothing to do with Walt Disney before you say it!

The car has been outside and hadn’t had much attention until the owner went to open the door. There was a tell ‘tale’ (forgive the pun) odour. Yep, a mouse had gotten into the car. We put a trap down inside the car so we could catch the squatter mouse and evict it. We soon caught the culprit overnight with a little lure of cheese. thinking that was it we put the trap back down just to make sure all was good before we started work properly on the car. However, the next day another critter was captured, now believing there would be more than just the one. We got another trap fearing the worst that there was a populated live nest to deal with. Again, the next day both traps had captured more of them. This carried on for over a week. We lost count after a dozen or so little pests were caught. Once there was a period of a couple of days where no more were caught and we could get into the car and see what was going on. We changed bait to make sure they hadn’t gotten wise to our antics. We have to be careful not to introduce them to our premises as we could have similar issues in other cars we have stored.

Some PPE was used as we didn’t know just how bad this was going to be when we actually got round to strip out the car. The seats and rear seats were taken out to confirm what we already knew, the carpets and underfloor sound proof were ruined and the smell was a tad unpleasant to say the least.

We could see that the mice had left a mess (literally) under the dash, so we had to dismantle the area as well to see how far the damage has gone. The top of the heater matrix gives you an idea of we found.

We took apart the heater matrix, knowing in the past this has been a good bedding area for the vermin, we weren’t wrong this time.

The headliner was a little bit saggy and we could feel all the nuts and what ever else was stored up there. There was no other option other than to take out the front and rear glass to remove the headliner. It wasn’t good!

The roof needed some treatment before we could even think about replacing the headliner. We started to dismantle the dash to see what was going on behind the gauges. There was some damage to wires, but nowhere near as bad as it could have been, like it could easily have been a new loom type of bad.

The car had to be cleaned and aired to get the smell out of the vehicle before we could even think about replacing anything. The sound proofing for the fire wall is always another source of bedding for the mice and needed to be replaced.

The headliner has to be first fitted in place, left for a while for the creases to fall out the stretched into place. We know a few little tricks to get the headliner to be stretched into place correctly, but we won’t share them with you, but it is a full proof method proven over time.

The floor sound proofing and new carpet now fitted and starting to look a lot better.

We shall bring you more on this project as we progress.

Our Cars

Our shop truck ’65 Falcon Ranchero is starting to get parts restored or replaced once we have inspected them to see if they are good enough to be reused or simply replaced. This all takes time, cleaning, repairing, prep and paint ready for re-fitting.

Once we get the truck back from paint will post some pictures.

WebShop

We mentioned in the first part of the post that we have been asked if we had ‘other’ Ford parts or be able to get hold of them at least. We are now stocking some ‘Ford Transit Custom Parts‘ on the WebShop.

We are now stocking the common service items, filters, brakes, belts and a few other items like alternators, sensors, timing covers and so on. We will be increasing the stock variety fairly quickly as soon as the deliveries arrive of course. But the process and snow ball effect has been started.

Sheet Metal

We have started to get more sheet metal in, these are the Taiwanese stock and not the inferior Chinese products. These are a nicely finished products and we don’t have issues with fitting them. For the sheet metal this is still only for some trade customers.

Very Early Engine

The early ’64 1/2 Mustangs had the 260ci v8 small blocks fitted at the time of manufacture. But, did you know that the very early Falcons had a 221ci v8 small blocks?

The engine itself is a rarity as it’s a 3.62ltr compared to the more common replacement 260ci (4.2ltr) of the Mustang ‘Winsor’ power units. The engine has a 3.50 bore “6” spread on a mounting pattern.

Adam found this one at the back of his engine storage shop. The original heads are with the block and Adam has plans to rebuild it. He thought it was ‘just a 260ci’. If you want that concours date correct engine block – here it is. If Adam decides to sell it; get your wallet out quickly, it could be yours.

New Mustang Maniac Vehicle

So what do we have to move all the stock about the yard and the offices? Adam’s new vehicle of course:

It’s fully road legal, and eco friendly to offset the carbon footprint of some of the v8 monsters he has stored and tucked away. If you see it on the roads near the offices, give us a little space, it doesn’t go that fast, but it gets there quickly enough.

Adam did say; “I have done my time picking up engines, gearboxes, heads or what ever and moving them a few feet at a time. Now it’s time to take it a little bit easier. Also I like driving it around!”

We have all had a go in the Greta approved vehicle and really is great fun, but it sounds rubbish, even if you can hear it!

Christmas Gifts

Yes, it’s now December and we can drop the ‘C’ bomb – Christmas. We are now making bespoke t-shirts and mugs to order. Want to put your car on a mug, or somebody else’s mug on a mug for a Christmas stocking filler? Just drop us an email with the picture or any picture you want and we will get it done for you. We have had one customer ask for his dogs to go on the mug for his wife. He ordered the bespoke mug at the same time he bought some Mustang parts. The logic was he didn’t feel so bad about buying all the car parts and he was “thinking of her too!”

Due to popular requests we made our Gift Vouchers available online. Once you have completed your order, please click on; “you can review your order/invoice here“. The vouchers details will be on that document.

These vouchers are the perfect way to treat that Mustang mad person to what ever they want to buy. You just can’t go wrong with our vouchers.

Stay Safe & Take Care!