One Off – In The Bin

Posted on September 25, 2016 by Mustang Maniac

An expensive lesson can be learned when you here the words “One Off, bespoke, handcrafted, stainless steel exhaust system”. Most of the time this is music to a classic car owners ears. But, in this case the exhaust was indeed a one-off. The car was picked up and the owner knew something was wrong straight away. The car was making a horrible noise and pretty undriveable since the exhaust was fitted. The exhaust was taken to another place to be sorted and it was improved, but again it was still not right. The car was eventually brought into our workshops where we had a look at it and found the problem. Not the material itself, but the quality of workmanship and maybe a lack of understanding. So we cut it off and threw it away as it couldn’t be salvaged.

The mufflers were not a well know brand and looked similar to a very well-known brand should we say. The exhaust was made of many sections as you would expect and welded together, not very well. The mounting of the exhaust was the serious problem to start with. A right-angled bracket was welded to the rear of the chassis and a corresponding right angle was then welded to the exhaust. Now you should always hang an exhaust on straps or rubber to allow the exhaust to move with the engine and any resonance would be dispersed from the exhaust. This hand crafted exhaust was then unbelievably welded bracket to bracket at the rear. A “one off” alright, we haven’t seen that before.

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No wonder the noise was bad and that didn’t include the poor exhaust note either. To rectify the problem we could make another stainless system again and do it properly, or get a Scott Drake Flowmaster system from stock and bolt it all on with the correct brackets and hangers. We did the later as requested and here we have a full sequence of pics of another new exhaust fitted, correctly this time from front to back.

The car now sounds like a Mustang should and drives as expected. So next time you hear the words “One Off, bespoke, handcrafted, stainless steel exhaust system”, ask yourself who will be fitting it! It’s all in the detail and knowing how to fit it properly.

We didn’t get to post last week as Mustang Maniac and Friends were out to a Classic Car Show simply known as “A602 Autorama” in Stevenage. The weather was not to bad with the odd few rays of sun shine but the rain held off which is the main thing at all these shows. It was up early for some of us, no names mentioned who that was though Lance! As always there were lots of nice cars there so we thought we would focus on the Mustangs.

It was a good show and some very nice cars there, far to many to take up space on a Mustang post. 😉

Customer Cars:

John Wick is proving to be the popular car and questions about the build from visitors. Over the coming week we hope to fill with fluids and fire her up. This will check the electrics out, and the fact the engine will run. Fine tuning will come later after a road test or three. The glass is all in now and has taken time to set them up correctly.

Question:

What do you do with old doors that have gone rusty?

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Answer: You make a sign out of them of course.

Posted in Car Shows, Customers' Cars, Repairs | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

A Classic Mustang From New

Posted on September 11, 2016 by Mustang Maniac

A couple of posts ago we mentioned that we had a special article to appear soon regarding buying a brand new ’65 Mustang from a dealership. Well, we now have that interview’s transcript for you. Here is a rare and incredible story that spans over some 50 years for a one owner Mustang from new. The owner of this Mustang bought the car new from a Ford Dealership Nelson Hirschberg Inc. in Chicago. His name is David, we shall refer to him as DL for his side of the story. This is a fascinating insight to all those years ago.

Background is that DL is an architect by trade and was working temporarily over in the USA during 1965.

MM: how did you come to the decision to buy a Mustang?

DL: I was living in Chicago at the time and I was working on the 8th floor of the building. When you looked out the window there was a vacant plot which was being used as a car park. Around June 1965 there some guy who must have been working in a block nearby who had just bought a brand new 2 + 2 Fastback. I could see his car park there every day, I thought that’s a rather nice car, I wouldn’t mind having one of those. So a couple of months later I bought one.

MM: What was it like going into the showroom to buy one? Were they falling over themselves to sell you the car or did they just say; do you want it or not? How did it work?

DL: I was talking it over with a colleague at work that we were thinking of buying a Mustang. He recommended this Ford dealership up in North Chicago. We drove there and asked for a test drive. I said, We will have one of these. He said OK, what colour do you want? I decided that I wanted a dark metallic blue and also decided to go for a small engine, just he straight 6 as we were going to bring the car back here (UK). So I thought for the English roads, bearing in mind the only motorway that was open was the M1 I think, and this was way before the M25 was built. So for the English roads I didn’t need a whacking great v8 engine, so I settled for the 3 ¼ litre i6.

MM: So when you were in the dealership, did they give you a book with all the options in it to choose from?

DL: I said that I wanted a dark blue fastback 2+2 with automatic transmission; we also had white wall tyres option on the original 13” wheels for the first 3 or 4 years. They didn’t have a car in stock I wanted, so they checked with the other 10 or so dealers in Chicago where they found one. So two or three days later it was ready. Back then we were driving and old ’55 Chevy which we drove there left it with them and drove away in the Mustang. I cost me $2,800, which in those days was a fixed rate conversion of $2.8 to the £1, so that Mustang cost me £1,000.

MM: £1,000?

DL: Yes £1,000.

MM: When you went to pick the keys up did they make a big fan fare out of it for you, or didn’t they care as they (Mustangs) were selling well?

DL: They were a big Ford dealership at the time who was selling half a dozen cars a day. As far as they were concerned I was just another customer.

DL seen with is much-loved car he has had from new.

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DL’s Original sales document and the matching door tag for the car.

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Then roughly 12 months after we bought the car (1966), we came back via ocean liner. They put the car in the hold of the ship by a big crane with a cradle and lowered it into the hold of the ship. It wasn’t a drive on / drive off then. It was quite a new ship, the SS France.

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Our first port of call was going to be my wife’s parents in Germany, so we got off at Le Havre in France where the ship terminated. We arrived quite late at night if I remember rightly. The process to unload the car was then done in reverse, they craned the car out of the ship’s hold onto the dock side for us. We had two small children in those days. In the 2+2 the back seats fold down to give a little platform. When the children were small, we just used to put a couple a pillows there (the rear shelf platform) and a blanket for them to go to sleep on. This was before the requirement of seat belts and so on of course. We just travelled around the country side like that.

MM: That’s just amazing.

DL: Since the car has been here in the UK it has been garaged for all of its 50 years. In fact I have done over 200,000 miles in that car. I only sold it a couple of weeks ago in fact. As I have retired I was only doing 300 or 400 hundred miles a year in it which only came out high days and holidays sort of thing. It seemed a shame to keep it in a garage and hardly use it.  So I thought it was time to sell it and move on. In fact I sold it to the guy who done some body work on it for me 20 years ago where the original wheel arches had rusted. At that time we did it up fixed the wheel arches and gave it a complete respray. I should imagine he will do it up and sell it on now.

MM: Can you tell us about how you got to go to the World Fair 1965?

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DL:  We flew from Chicago to New York to go to the World Fair in 1965 which was a really big event. There were all these fancy pavilions, English, French, Italian countries and so on, Ford, General Motors pavilions, and we spend the whole day there.

Thinking about it our daughter had her first birthday while we were there in New York. At the event you could hire these little push cars with handles on them for the little ones, so we pushed her around in that, it was more of a day out for us.

MM: What was the Ford stand like?

DL: I said to my wife lets pop in where they had lots of new shiny Mustangs on show.  We told them that we had just bought a Mustang a couple of weeks ago. They said to us hang on a minute; I gave them my state registration number and they gave us a little tag with our reg plate on which went on your key ring. In fact it was still on the key-ring when I gave Adam the keys to the car, it has been on there for 50 years, the wording has rubbed of a bit now though. They tapped it all out in a couple of minutes while I waited.

This isn’t DL’s actual tag, but one very similar.

MM: So your car has been over here ever since 1966?

DL: Yes all that time, in fact I used it to drive to work and back every day.

MM: Really?

DL: Yes

MM: How did you get on with servicing it while it was over here?

DL: I think it was Dagenham motors who had a base in Wembley where it took it for the first few years for a service. In recent years it was taken to a guy who specialises in American cars, so he would do anything needed at the time, they have closed down now though. For the first few years it didn’t really need anything. The first thing after 10 years to go was the gearbox. There was a place in Welling Garden City at the time with a couple of guys in their 50’s, they just specialised in automatic gearboxes. They put in a new gearbox for me and it’s been going perfectly ever since. Again they are not there anymore.

MM: Was it was a straight replacement?

DL: Yes, it still works fine. The only problem I have had in recent years after they put in the new gear box for me 40 years ago is that the seals have gone a bit and leaks transmission fluid. I have a drip tray in the garage and it would leak, only a couple of tablespoons of fluid every couple of months. So every couple of months I had to top it up. So in recent years it cost me about £9 or £10 year in transmission fluid. That is a fairly low-cost compared to putting in a new gearbox. The last few years I have been thinking about selling the car so I haven’t replaced the gearbox.

MM: impressive and not bad at all

DL: Well that’s about it.

MM: Absolutely fantastic, and thank you very much for sharing your story with us.

We would like to say a big thanks to David for spending time with us and sharing his unique story.

Customer’s Cars

John Wick car has started to look like a car now. It’s funny but as soon as glass starts to go in the car it looks so different. The front screen, rear screen and the right side glass has been fitted and aligned up now.

The front end has started to have some of trim added and the rear trunk is now locking via the key.

Mach1 rebuild:

We have also taken some time with the owner of the car to strip out the steering and suspension for the car. This will give us an idea of the wear on the components and allow for a proper spray job on the car. Some of the bolts were a bent over in places and would not allow the nuts to be undone easily. To work round this the hubs and brakes all came of in one large piece each side. In all the excitement we forgot to take any pics of the “in progress” shots we like to do as it were. But as a lot of it was very dirty work and messy that was sort of the last thing on the mind at the time. A comment was made about who was taking the pictures, a large tumble weed rolled by the front of the car at this point! So we took some pictures of the disassembled parts to make up for it.

During the clean up of the shock tower areas under the upper control arms it was full of years worth of dirt and grime. When it was cleaned of we could see that the car has had some damage in the past and the bottom of the shock tower has been repaired with a seam welded plate.

The front chassis leg on the right hand side has seen better days and will need a new section in place. Like all these things – we have seen a lot worse.

The inner section of the engine bay is not to bad at all on first inspection. Once it has been cleaned up we will check it thickness and make sure it’s all OK.

The top of the inner wings are shot and will need replacing as well as the cowl to inner wing plates.

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The upper control arms need replacing and the engine mounts themselves. We will take a close at the rest and especially the steering. The owner is not sure at the moment if the steering will be a rack & pinion Borgeson set up yet.

Shelby GT500 1:8th Model

As the weather was so nice we sat outside and built the latest four issues numbers thirty-seven to forty.

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Part 37

Simple case of adding the front chassis to the middle section. 4 screws and job done. This gives us the first indication of the length of the model. The second pic here shows a corresponding magazine laying next to the model. It’s going to be approx two A4 magazines long to put it simply.

Part 38

These couple of parts are the first upward build of the base chassis. again very quick with only four screws.

Part 39 

This is the first part of the steering to be assembled. Once it has been completed the two front wheels will be attached to each other. The metal steering parts are held together by a couple of screws, but should be able to be moved so don’t over tighten them.

The steering has a few left/right side bespoke parts, these will be attached to the wheels from the earlier issues and will now need to be retrieved from storage. Again these parts will need to move so no over tightening.

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Part 40

Part chassis and part steering with this issue. The chassis has a couple mounting brackets which are screwed to the chassis which are generic to either side. The other part fits on the chassis in only one place.

Back to the steering again with the wheels, the remaining part of this will screw into the middle section of the steering. We found that the screw hole was a real tight here and had to have a couple of attempts to try to get the screw seated correctly. Perhaps a little paint got into the hole.

Now we have almost the full length of the model you can see how we store ours ready for the next part of the build.

For the rest of the build click the menu above, click here or past this link to your browser.

https://mustangmaniac.org/shelby-gt500-18th-scale-model/

News:

With all the projects on the go at the moment we are really leaving the WebShop to the office team. When Adam is back in the country he is also working on the cars. So we must stress again that we get calls asking if something is in stock; honestly, if the WebShop says in stock then it is in stock. We have also upped our game considerably to make the process as slick as possible for our customers. If you order by noon on a work day, then the parts are picked, packed and posted the same day so you should receive your parts the next day. If you order after that cut off point, then it will be a day later unless you want to pay the extra for the express postage which we can do for you.

With the hot weather looming again this week, we hope to enjoy the sun during a well-earned tea break, if we can that is. 🙂

Posted in 1:8th Scale Model, Customers' Cars, News, Photos, Webshop | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Building Blocks

Posted on September 4, 2016 by Mustang Maniac

We have had a couple of phone calls this week (from the same customer) at Mustang Maniac on how to do something once they had purchased the parts. Unfortunately, we simply just don’t have the time to walk somebody through a process over the phone and more often than not, when we try to explain this the customer sometimes takes offence! We were asked a how to change the wiper arms on a ’66 Coupe, so we thought that we could do a very quick guide to save the phone calls in the future, but we will come to that a little later in this post.

Customer Car:

Yep, the popular John Wick car has taken the imagination of customers. When we show some customers around the workshops or the yard they ask to see the John Wick car now. We are pleased that the car is proving to be popular. This week we have been focusing on the exhaust, fitting the marker lights, front lights, setting up the LED rear lights and the rest of the engine wiring. The owner of the car has even bought the number plates down for us to put on the car, even though she is not finished yet. How could we refuse. 🙂 The exhaust has been custom fitted with the Flowmaster exhaust boxes which will give this lady a real bark when she starts up and help the performance too.

Lego:

Yes you did read that right. A little while ago at Mustang Maniac secret workshop (Adam’s office actually), we build a Ford Licensed Mustang, but it was on a small-scale.

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Mustang Club of America, Lego’s Master Builders have built a full-scale 1964½ Mustang at its Enfield, CT facility. The Lego car will go on permanent display at Lego’s “Legoland” Florida resort in Winter Haven, FL later this year after touring the USA. This Mustang made of bricks has been nicknamed the Brick Pony. Just like Lego building blocks, (see what we did there), Ford kept building on the success of the Mustang which was expected to sell well, but not as well as it did; original sales forecasts projected less than 100,000 units for the first year. This target was soon smashed after three months from roll out. Another 318,000 would be sold during the model year, and in its first eighteen months, more than one million Mustangs were built. A record that still stands to this day!

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We wonder how many actual bricks are in this Mustang? The Mustang weighs in at 1712 pounds of which 960 pounds are Lego bricks (and the larger Duplo bricks), the aluminium chassis takes up the remaining 752 pounds. This car has a chassis believe it or not. The detail on this car is pretty amazing, the headlights and tail lights work, and they have even rigged the model to sound a horn and play the engine sounds. The degree of care can be seen just by looking at the Mustang Coral and grill.

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 How To…

We mentioned at the beginning of the blog that we get asked how to do lots of things on the cars. The most recent a number of calls for the same thing, we decided to do a guide or “How To” page which can be found here,  or go to the “How To Projects” menu on the home page.

This really is a simple job, not just on a Classic Mustang, but on most cars. The process should only take a couple of minutes to do with the correct tool. The basic principle is that the spindle from the wiper motor has vertical splines (or location lugs) which are matched by the wiper arm. On the more modern cars the arms are also held in place with a screw, bolt or nut of some description covered by a cap. With the fastener removed the same process could be applied here. The very nature of the part it will usually be corroded to some degree and be difficult to remove. Some of the later cars will need a wiper arm puller if it’s corroded on that bad. We recommend a squirt of Gibbs if this is the case to start with.

Tool:

For a Mustang the tool is simply a cut out reversed set of long-handled pliers. This tool is not very expensive, wont slip and protects your paint work. The underside has a been coated with a rubber for non-slip and to protect the paint.

wiperarmtool

Process:

Note: Always make sure that the wiper arms are in the correct resting or “park” position before removing and fitting new arms.

We have seen this being done with a screw driver in the past to devastating result. The screwdriver slips and goes across your paint job. Slip the pliers under the base of the wiper arm and squeeze the handles together.

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The pliers force will force the wiper arm upwards leaving your other hand to catch the arm should it suddenly ping off and stop it damaging the paint work.

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Here is a slightly corroded spindle and damaged splines.

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Here is what is should look like before fitting a new one.

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With the arm off clean the spline if you need to.

Align the arm where it needs to be fitted and simply press the new arms in place and it’s a job done. Simple as that.

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Let us know if there is a specific quick walk through guide you would like to see.

Posted in Customers' Cars, Repairs, Walk Through Guides, Webshop | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Small Is Beautiful

Posted on August 28, 2016 by Mustang Maniac

We have some big updates on Customer Cars this week, business related news for Mustang Maniac and news of new products for later Mustangs. A kind and loyal customer has donated something pretty special Mustang Maniac History Collection, that’s just been made up as this post is being prepared. 🙂

The John Wick Car

We posted a little while ago how the floor pans were covered in sound proofing sheets, now we have taken another huge step forward. The rest of the car that needed to be sound proofed has been done ie. the wheel arches, these are always difficult due to the angles and shapes involved.

wick55

While the windows are out the head liner has to be fitted, Yogi got busy and spent a day fitting it and the rest of the evening getting the glue out of his fur, he told us the glue had made the cup of tea permanently stick to his hand! We are not so sure on that one. 😉

Next up was the wiring, the kit comes with everything needed to wire the car back up with a new fuse box, relays and accessories. We managed to salvage some of the original under dash loom once we had checked it was all OK and we were happy with it. The lower dash was then fitted and looms run out to the engine bay. With everything out-of-the-way it makes life so much easier to complete the intricate jobs.

The trouble is you can spend a complete day doing things like this and it looks like you have done nothing. The secret is all the small steps and preparation, such as where the cables are going to run, what else need to be attached with the loom, where the looms will run to and from etc.

Here are some before and after shots of loom work. This kit requires a 1-wire alternator, but with our know how we can wire these kits up safely with a standard alternator. This doesn’t look like much, but the work involved to remove or add some wires and re-crimp into the original fittings is a dark art. The solenoid is almost ready for the final connections and the loom to be wrapped with our own loom tape for that authentic stock look.

With most of the climbing around inside the car done we could fit the carpets. Again this looks like just throwing in the pre-cut  carpets in place, but you have to trim and create the fitting.

The rear of the car has been completely wired up now and the fuel tank has been fitted in place. The outside of the car has seen the new handles fitted so we can open and shut the doors properly now.

The brakes are all in place now, bleed and the special Yogi treatment performed on the brake lines.

Did You know?

Each car’s brake lines that Yogi has to fabricate are subtly unique, that’s just how Yogi likes it apparently, works of art so he says! Unless you want the standard routing of course which he will do for you too.

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Golden Convertible:

This lady has been into us for some serious pampering as only we know how. The car need a whole heap of work doing to her as she was a little tired. The work consisted of a new C4 transmission, rear shocks, leaf springs shackles and bushes. At the front we are going to further improve the handling with new shocks, spring perches and rubber bushes. With the new transmission in place we could fit the new exhaust, boxes and re align it all back up again.

Once all the work is done there will be plenty of life left in her yet and she will feel like the new car again.

Mustang Maniac History Collection

We have been donated some rare Corgi made Mustang toys which are always welcomed.

The second part of the donation is something very special indeed. We had not seen these before let alone actually own one.

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These small and beautiful key rings were made during the World Trade Fair in 1964 for the launch of the Mustang. They are no more than an inch wide plus the chain itself.

What we understand is that when you went to the 1964 New York World Fair you could get your car plate made up with its number on a World Fair mini key ring. The cost went as a donation to the US Vets fund. The Disabled American Veterans (DAV) purchased The ident-o-tag company in 1941. License plate key chain tags were used since 1938. The New York based “Lost Key Services” was among the first. There were other advertising tags used too, but you had to order the tags. The DAV was able to get the various state motor vehicle departments to co-operate with them and give them the mailing lists of the people who registered their cars. The DAV mailed tags with your license plate number on them and asked for a donation. The premise was that if you lost your keys, the finder would drop them into a mail box, and the DAV would return them to you. The program continued from 1941 through 1975, and was ended because of a “right to privacy” rule. It’s incredible to have something from that very important World Trade Fair that was actually produced there and also relates to a real person who visited the fair. Special thanks to GW for the information and donations, we seriously appreciate it.

To match all of that, we aim to bring you something very special soon. We have been speaking to somebody who bought their fastback from NEW in 1965 and had it shipped over to the UK in 1966. They still have that same car and all the provenance that went with it. The owner of the car attended the world trade fair in New York itself. We hope to ask some questions with him to bring you a first hand account of that whole Mustang experience.

Mustang Maniac Offices:

The offices at Mustang Maniac always seems to be at the back of the queue when it comes to reliability for our broadband service and telephones. We won’t name them of course, But The name should be easy enough to guess. All the Office ordering, invoices, internet services and telephones are run through the broad band. Yet again we have had an outage where the phones were disabled and we were unable to work. To stop this happening again we have invested in Satellite broadband as a back up. It won’t be brilliant, but at least we can still keep the WebShop working and process your orders. More expense that we shouldn’t have to incur, but if you can’t trust something you have to do something about it.

New Parts

To cater for our customers with the new Mustangs, our suppliers and good friends from USA – Scott Drake are introducing a sale on their new products for the 2015/2016 Mustangs. We haven’t had full details of the costs yet .but we will do very soon. Some of the new parts include:

California Deck Lid Panel for Mustang S550

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Aluminum Pedal Covers

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550R Aluminum Strut Tower Brace Mustang S550 GT/Ecoboost

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AlumaLift Hood Strut System Mustang S550

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Billet Parking Brake Handle Cover

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Comp Series Fuel Door

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LAR Tyre Services: 

The sister company to Mustang Maniac is LAR Traffic Services who have now launched a brand new service to run along side their recovery. That service is a road side tyre service, changing, fitting, inflating, balancing etc. They will be operating to start with in the Essex, Herts and North East London areas. All the details can be found here on their Facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/lartyres/

Posted in Customers' Cars, Memorabilia, News, Sales, Webshop | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Baby Ponies

Posted on August 20, 2016 by Mustang Maniac

Here at Mustang Maniac we like to build great customer relationships over the long-term and we have many loyal customers who come back year after year for products and services etc – but a few weeks ago we were contacted with an unusual request from one of our youngest followers. A four-year old contacted us via her grandfather to ask whether we could locate a Mustang pedal car. Originally Ford approved a Mustang pedal car and launched it at the same time as the full size Mustang. It sold over 100,000 units in the first year. Later, the well-regarded Mustang part supplier Scott Drake reproduced a Mustang pedal car using the exact designs from the original. These days, any Mustang pedal car is a rare beast indeed so it took all our investigation skills to track one of these little babies down. As we hate to let any of our customers down and particularly one who is only 4 years old, we pulled out all the stops and managed through our many contacts to locate one in a garage on the south coast. We sent a truck to collect it, the pedal car in “as found’ original blue colour.

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Our little 4 year old customer was truly delighted but, as is often the case, wanted us to customise it to match her granddad’s Mustang……she also wanted it to have a full body-off, nut and bolt restoration as well!! Not to disappoint, we set about a total strip down and while the chassis was being fully restored, Paul the Paint worked his magic on the body, painting it in a rare Mustang colour of Pagoda Green and lavishing it with numerous coats of clear lacquer.  When the body shell came back it was reunited with the newly restored chassis. We also wanted to maintain the high standards Mustang Maniac is so proud to be known by; so all fixings, nuts and bolts were polished stainless steel so this little Mustang will last for many years to come.

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The assembly line in the workshop goes into the unusual restoration routine.

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Soon it was time for all those finishing touches that make all the difference to be applied; original pattern decals were tracked down in the USA and were shipped over with Adam’s usual stock deliveries. The decals were carefully applied as if it were fitted to a full-sized Pony car.

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Almost finished….
After a final polish, a re-upholstered seat (made from an old door card), it was off for a quick road test. Rumour has it that Adam got stopped by the police on the A10 for ‘excessive speed’. Of course this was strenuously denied as Adam “hadn’t even shifted to top yet”! 🙂

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A few final adjustments and the project was completed with matching number plates, baby pony stood next to the even rarer matching big pony!

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Our new young customer is absolutely delighted with her new ‘baby pony’ and has sent a huge thank you to the team at Mustang Maniac for finding, collecting and carefully restoring this little beauty for her.  Another satisfied customer!

The best part of all this? The grandfather and the four year granddaughter have both decided that once the car is outgrown, the pedal car will come back to Mustang Maniac for a service and a be donated to another deserving little one to enjoy which is just brilliant and a kind thought, A new precedent has been set where the process can be repeated all over again. Thank you GW.

Shelby 1/8th Model

Speaking of “Baby Pony” cars we have built quite a few issues in one go of this amazing model. You can follow the story so far clicking here or past this link into your browser:  https://mustangmaniac.org/shelby-gt500-18th-scale-model/

There are some duplicates issues here, left and right sides like the rear wheels and the rear suspension leaf springs. The principles are exactly the same so I won’t repeat myself on those, but you will get the general idea for each side.

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 Parts 25 & 26 + 29 & 30

These issues deal with the rear suspension set up and secures the rear axle in place. There are some very intricate bits here and the pins into the top part of the shocks have to be pressed into place with a pair of pliers. make a note of which way round these brackets fit on the end of the leaf springs as they fit the chassis rails, and also which end they are applied too as the leaf springs only fit one way. These top of the shocks are angled so you need to make sure which way round they sit too otherwise the shock sections will not meet correctly.

In the issues 25 & 29 they tell you to secure the axle’s shock mounting plate in place, then in issues 26 & 30 they tell you to remove it and then add the shock bottom section to it. We found this a bit of a mess. So we had both issues open 25 & 26 then 29 & 30 to mix them both together so it’s only fitted once. The shock plate also gets in the way of fitting the shock top to the floor pan too where they suggest you use tweezers to put it in place.

Parts 27 & 31 + 28 & 32

These are the rear wheels, exactly the same principles as the front wheels, heat them up with a hair dryer to supple the tyres up and then press the rims into the tyres. From the parts 26 & 30 there is the brake drum components, locate these to the inside of the rims and fit over the rear axle. A single screw will hold the wheel in place and cover with the centre caps. Parts 28 & 32 are the inner wheel arches, just three screws each side hold them in place, a dead simple set of six issues.

With the parts all in place the rear section will stand on its own and you can get a lot of the parts located onto the chassis and tidy up the box of parts you have.

shelby1-8th 72

Parts 33 – 36

shelby1-8th 73

These issues see the floor pans moving to the centre sections and the prop shaft, gearbox housing and gearbox brace. Part thirty-three see’s a large section which has a few screws to locate it to the front section of the rear chassis.

shelby1-8th 74

Part 34 see’s the centre tunnel continue up to the front section. We found this was a little tricky to locate all in place so we put the screws in and only just caught the threads to allow any adjustments. tightening the back down lifted the front and was awkward to locate. with no pressure on the screws you can just tighten them all up once they are in place.

Turning the model over now will allow the prop shaft to be fitted in place. This comes in two parts and his held in place by two screws from the floor pan.

Parts 36 sees the gearbox housing and the brace fit into place. again dead simple with only a few screws to hold in to the floor pan.

Completed so far.

shelby1-8th 81

We are so far impressed with the quality of the plastic part mouldings. We have not had to file any rough edges or plastic lugs of to make things fit. Within this last update we again see the  instructions flick between screw part numbers “MD01” or description of the screws which can be annoying at times.

Customer car projects have taken a slight pause while we get some urgent services and a couple of MOT’s out-of-the-way. We will of course bring you updates on those projects for the next post!

Posted in 1:8th Scale Model, Customers' Cars, Restoration, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Where Do Old Mustang Go To Die?

Posted on August 13, 2016 by Mustang Maniac

It’s no secret that at Mustang Maniac nothing goes to waste, you only have to look at Adam’s stash of second-hand parts to see that. But, during a major sort out Adam decided that an old Mustang was beyond help, and so it went to the place where Mustang Maniac’s dead Mustangs go; the scrap skip. Take a long hard look at these rare pictures, you don’t often see a most of a Mustang Scrapped by us! (Note: we said “most of a Mustang”, we did save a fair bit from the car though, however the bodywork and a some of the chassis just had to go.)

Customer Cars:

The John Wick Car

We have been asked about the John Wick Mustang the last couple of weeks and this project looks to be a popular one on the go at the yard. So without disappointment we have an update for you, the car is going through the meticulous process of wiring her up with an updated brand new wire loom. The loom is being wrapped in our own fabric tape as we go along in order to give that so important factory fitted look.

The rear lights are fitted with our own bespoke LED kit to make sure the car is safe and seen.

wick39

The inside is going to be sound proofed throughout, which by its nature is another slow and unseen task. The sound proofing is a silver matt with a very sticky backing that will adhere to the floor pans and inside the panels, doors or just about anywhere you want to stick it. Heat the material up with a hot air gun to rub and mould the pieces into place, it’s like a giant jigsaw puzzle, but a sticky mess version.

The trunk area is now also sound proofed and could potentially be seen, so plenty of care is taken in this area.

There are still some things that need to be sorted out to make the car look correct to the film, we will get round to those details a little later on. For now though, the car is at that slow stage where preparation is everything and the work is virtually never seen because it’s all covered up with carpets and panels.

Patchwork Racer

This little lady was seriously looked at and the difficult decision was made to replace the complete floor pans. The original floors were patched up on patches and you just can’t make a nice job from that, let alone the quality lasting. Some inner wings were replaced so far and the prep work ready for the floors.

Stock:

We mentioned that we had a stock of the new Scott Drake Alloy wheels in a little while ago and we have sold a couple of sets already which the customers are very pleased about. In the past we have been badgered to get a couple sets of four lug wheels in for the i6 engined cars, those wheels are now also in (limited) stock.

Speaking of wheels we have yet another first from Mustang Maniac; as far as we know this is the first set of 17″ inch wheels Black & Machined style wheels on a 1965 Mustang in the UK. One of our loyal customers wanted a special order from us and of course we obliged. A pair of 17″ x 7″ on the front and a pair of 17″ x 8″ on the rear. Obviously the tyre profile has to change down to 50’s, which now gives a firmer ride.

The centres were swapped out with a our very own design Mustang horse on black background to complement the look. The tyres are a set of soft Nexen performance tyres to give increased levels of grip on these wheels. As the owner said “Old school style, new look”. We couldn’t agree more.

We finish with a another very rare photo taken at a car show that Yogi attended. The picture was taken covertly in order not to frighten the bear away from cleaning his Mach1 drag strip monster!

yogiclean1

Keep these pictures coming in and we will use them where we can. A big thanks to a gentleman called “Mr. Anonymous” for this submission. 🙂

Posted in Car Shows, Customers' Cars, News, Parts, Restoration, Sales | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Important Imports

Posted on July 30, 2016 by Mustang Maniac

We didn’t get a chance to post last weekend as we have been so busy, not that we are complaining of course, but it has been all hands to the spanners. So we are going to give you a double update this week, just to make up for it; News, cars, car shows and WebShop. Hope your broad band or data is able to cope with the double bubble we have for you.

News:

We have some very exciting news that we have kept quiet until we were one hundred percent happy with our product testing. We have been asked by many customers to get certain carburetors, but we couldn’t get the quality and performance we wanted. However that has all changed, we have sourced our very own supply of replacement carburetors that a) are extremely difficult to get originals, and b) they work right out of the box. What we are talking about is the six cylinder “1v” version that nobody made, until now. We now stock these carbs and we are extremely pleased with them. We have fitted these on our own cars and been testing them for a while now with superb results. We have tried other eastern “compatible” versions, but they never seemed to work as they should, let alone meet our high standards. We fitted them, we like them, we sell them. These carbs will fit the 170 & 200ci engines.

1v Carburettor

1vcarb1

We also have a stock of replacement Autolite 2100 2v carbs as well. The Autolite units can be purchased as new from various suppliers of course, but are more often than not are reconditioned core units. These new carbs have been copied from the later models with all relevant features for a number of fittings. These generic carbs have the functionality of the hot water pipe style automatic choke or the electric version for what ever you want, all on the same choke. They have various vacuum ports and breathers, a safety fuel over fill drain port, to mention a few of the features. These units will bolt onto 260, 289, 302, 351ci engines. They are not exact concours copy of the early units, but under a big air filter you wont really notice. the best part is that they work straight out of the box.

2v Carburettor

2100carb1

Original 2100 and the replacement unit comparison.

We are currently looking at the 4v 4100 versions to see how they perform, we will let you know nearer the time if we will stock these units and more importantly live up to our expectations.

All these carbs are supplied directly to Mustang Maniac as a UK dealer.

Wheel Centres

The other exciting news is we have produced our own version of wheel centres. We have various designs to fit the generic wheel centres from Scott Drake with a diameter of 55mm. These are so new they have not even landed on the WebShop pages just yet. We can sell them as a set or individually as required. These come in a variety of colours or styles. We may look into other colours and styles. If we get enough interest we could make unique bespoke designs as we now have the tooling available to do it..

wheelstick14

The generic wheel centres are chrome style.

Red Centres

Blue Centres

Black Centres

Plain Black Pony

Mustang Maniac’s Own Branding

The wheel centres are cheaper than other manufacturers that we stock, now you can take your pick and choose the style you want to fit your budget.

The centres will also fit the ever popular Grant steering wheel boss.

grantsticker

They are great quality and be stuck where you want, on the dash, trunk, under the hood, tool boxes, fridge etc.

Import consigments

As the world is probably aware that the UK had voted to leave the European Union. As a result all sorts of things were expected to happen, some did, lots didn’t. The one thing we sort of expected was UK Sterling vs the USA Dollar rates. These have taken a bit of a tumble recently. Adam being the business man that he is, ordered a huge consignment before the vote, in the hope it would all stabilise quickly and their would be no change to our customers. That delivery was as expected cost wise and (over) stocked up on a lot of items especially the more popular lines. However a recent delivery has seen a significant change to the cost of the stock and the shipping. What happens here is you have to pay the ridiculously high Import Charges and VAT rates for the total cost of that consignment which including the shipping. This is all down to the Pound as it slides against the Dollar. Adam is trying desperately to keep the prices down, but there will need to be some changes on the WebShop to reflect these increases. Mustang Maniac prides itself on holding a huge stock and it’s all available when you order it, unfortunately all this comes at a cost. Hopefully the increases on the WebShop will be kept as low as possible, if we don’t cover our costs then we can’t afford to get the parts in. We hope you understand this very difficult decision is never taken lightly.

Customer Cars

John Wick

As this is the first build of the John Wick in the UK, this car has generated a lot of interest, just like the 60 Second Eleanor’s did when they were the car to have. We have now got most of the running gear on the car. We have replaced the front brakes with a new set of disc brakes and calipers, new rear brakes, leaf springs.the suspension needed to be replaced too. The new brake booster and reservoir have been fitted with our own proportioning valve and new brake lines. The engine has gone in and now start to get the plumbing and connections ready.

Mach1 Restoration

We returned to this little project as she moved temporarily. The car was moved to Yogi’s cave where the engine and gearbox was taken out.

Yogi gets to work with a hose down in the hot weather.

The front of the car will now need to cut back to good metal and rebuilt. We shall of course bring you updates on the progress as we go along.

“Damn Yankees American Car Club” – Summer Slam 2016

For their website click here or go to http://www.damnyankees.uk.com/

Last weekend we supported our friends and sponsored some trophies for the event. As this was on a Sunday we didn’t get a chance to post last weekend. So here are some pictures from the show. It was estimated there was around nine hundred cars at this very well supported event which has been running for thirty years now.

The Yankees club stand where most us where supporting.

Caught On Camera

Rumour has it that somebody has taken a photo of Yogi down the road checking the cars out:

yogi&cars

Adam loves Mustangs and took a little drive to clear his head a take chill on a hot day, he always manages to pick a few ladies to go with him! He said it was a road test ready for the Damn Yankees car show! Yeah right 🙂

convert&dogs

If you have any amusing pic you think we should post, simply email them to us and we will see what we can do.

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A Change To Work Loads

Posted on July 17, 2016 by Mustang Maniac

It makes a change to have some nice weather in the UK for a change and that itself brings a noticeable change to the work load. There hasn’t been much chance to work on all the projects this week though, it has been busy with the all important services and MOTs of cars. The yard looked pretty full at one point; on seeing that sight, what can be better than looking across a yard full of Mustangs?

Behind the scenes we have Paul “The Paint” has got round to spraying his own Mach1 ’72 ready to come back to us. So we thought we would share some more of those rare behind the scenes pics of the painting in progress. Thanks for pics Paul. 🙂

The bare metal prep work with the fine filler after Adam delivers the car to paint shop.

First of primer coats and blocking

More primer.

Base coats and top coats on the panels.

Base coat and then clear coats to the shell.

It shouldn’t be too long before we can start some work on this little lady too. It will have to get in the project queue though. But I’m sure we will be updating you on the progress of this car.

Customer Cars

We have been asked how the French car is getting on. We can say that the owner has been asked to do three weddings so far and what a place to do it. We have been sent a pic recently and thought it’s only right we share with you.

french

Ford Facts

The meaning:

Mustang:  early 19th century: from a blend of Spanish mestengo (from mesta ‘company of graziers’) and mostrenco, both meaning ‘wild or masterless cattle’. Later a type of small, wild American horse.

Maniac: early 16th century (as an adjective): via late Latin from late Greek maniakos, from mania…. ( ˈmeɪnɪak) an obsessive enthusiast, fan, addict, devotee, aficionado…..

Ford GT

The win at Le Mans has for Ford’s GT has certainly made the headlines, and we have been pointed to a nice article on just what goes on behind the scenes and level of commitment put into their projects. we start with the main Ford headquarters in Dearborn Michigan had the building spell out “GT Wins at Le Mans.”

Continuing with the GT car theme:

Allen Park, Mich., July 13, 2016 – Development of the all new Ford GT continues unabated, with the carbon fiber supercar expected to go on sale before the end of this year. An innovation showcase in efficient EcoBoost engines, lightweighting and aerodynamics, the Ford GT is a study in functional design and active airflow management.  Ford engineering supervisor Nick Terzes takes is behind the scenes at Wind Tunnel 8 in Allen Park, Michigan, where a Ford GT pre-production verification prototype undergoes wind tunnel testing. The footage is of just one of multiple sessions to prove out the extensive computer aided aerodynamic models with physical wind tunnel data, at airspeeds approaching 125 mph (200 km/h). Part of working on a program with compressed timing, Terzes and the Ford GT engineering team were in the Allen Park facility in the early a.m. hours of a Monday, demonstrating the non-stop nature of vehicle development. “Being the GT program,” Terzes said, “we effectively test 24/7.”

“The prime reason we come to the tunnel is to get the actual physical data on the vehicle,” Terzes explained. “We’ll look at interior wind-noise acoustics, and the aerodynamics of the vehicle.”

Footage in the clip below demonstrates the active rear wing, part of a suite of active aerodynamic features on the 2017 Ford GT, designed to improve performance, stability and efficiency.

“One of the great things about this car, as dynamic and beautiful as the design is, every single opening has a purpose on the car. So If you see a large grille, if you see a scoop, it’s wasn’t just put there to look good,” Terzes said. “It was put there because it has a function.”

“In the end, all these late hours, all these weekends that we work, are absolutely worth it to be a part of a program like this, and to create the ultimate GT.”

Ole Yeller

1468589029244

•Ford “Ole Yeller” Mustang bred from Shelby GT350® – the most track-ready and road-legal Mustang ever produced

•Ford “Ole Yeller” Mustang pays homage to the famous North American P-51D Mustang which served as the official pace and safety plane at the Reno National Championship Air Races

•Bob Hoover, renowned United States Air Force fighter pilot and air show performer, piloted “Ole Yeller” for more than 20 years making more than 1,000 air show performances
•Donation and sale will benefit EAA’s youth education programs, including Young Eagles
•Unique Ford Mustangs have raised $3 million for EAA youth education programs, including Young Eagles

DEARBORN, Mich., July 15, 2016 – Ford Motor Company has created the most track-ready and road-legal Ford Mustang to benefit Experimental Aircraft Association’s youth education programs, including the Young Eagles. The aviation-inspired Ford “Ole Yeller” Mustang will be donated and sold via auction at the Gathering of Eagles charity event – the ninth straight year Ford has donated a car – on July 28 at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2016, the World’s Greatest Aviation Celebration.

The Ford “Ole Yeller” Mustang features a custom yellow exterior finish with “Ole Yeller” accents and badging, unique carbon fiber components and mirrors projecting images of the aircraft. The interior incorporates specially designed Recaro seats, sill plates, floor mats with unique logos and aviation inspired gauges.

Bred from the ultra high-performance and limited production, Shelby GT350® Mustang, it features a 5.2L Ti-VCT V8 engine with Flat Plane Crank. Boasting the most powerful naturally-aspirated engine Ford has ever produced, the Shelby GT350 generates a heart-pounding 526 horsepower and exhilarating 429 lb-ft of torque. This powerhouse is mated to a TREMEC® 6-speed manual transmission and features a specially tuned sport suspension, making it the most track-ready, road-legal Mustang ever produced.

“This year’s one-of-a-kind Ford Mustang honours two aviation greats, the iconic and historic P-51D Mustang fighter plane, and highly decorated fighter pilot, test pilot, and air show performer, Bob Hoover, who is referred to by many as one of the greatest pilots ever to have lived,” said Edsel B. Ford II, a member of the Ford board of directors. “The Shelby GT350 Mustang, with its nimbleness, speed and aerodynamics, provided us with the perfect platform to create this tribute to the P-51D aircraft.”

“Ole Yeller,” with its bright, eye-catching yellow exterior, is one of the most recognizable P-51D Mustangs in the world. It still holds the prop plane record for coast-to-coast travel at 5 hours and 20 minutes, set in 1985. R. A. “Bob” Hoover, known as a pilot’s pilot, will be forever linked with “Ole Yeller.” Hoover is widely considered the founding father of modern aerobatics and thrilled airshow fans piloting “Ole Yeller” for more than 20 years. In 1997, Hoover sold “Ole Yeller” to his good friend John Bagley of Rexburg, Idaho. “Ole Yeller” still flies frequently and is based at the Legacy Flight Museum in Rexburg, Idaho.

The auction of the Ford “Ole Yeller” Mustang will be the pinnacle of the EAA Gathering of Eagles gala. The event annually draws more than 1,000 aviation enthusiasts in support of EAA’s youth education programs, which inspire young people to become engineers, aviators, astronauts, scientists and innovators – the aviation pioneers of tomorrow.

All proceeds from the sale of the car will benefit EAA’s youth education programs, including the Young Eagles, which has provided free introductory flights to 2 million young people since 1992, helping grow the next generation of aviators. “We’re truly grateful Ford is, and has been, such a committed sponsor of EAA and AirVenture for more than 16 years now,” said Jack Pelton, EAA CEO and chairman of the board. “With its ninth Mustang donation, Ford has definitely delivered something exceptional that any auto or aviation enthusiast would love to own. The Ford “Ole Yeller” Mustang will allow EAA to provide support to our valuable programs helping us grow the next generation of aviators.”

The Ford “Ole Yeller” Mustang joins eight other one-of-a-kind Mustangs created by the Ford design and engineering teams for the auction in support of EAA youth education. Ford vehicles donated at EAA AirVenture events have collectively raised $3 million.

Previous years’ unique aviation themed Mustangs created to support EAA’s youth education programs, including Young Eagles, were:
•2008 – Mustang AV8R, with cues from F-22 Raptor, which helped introduce the glass-roof canopy and delivered an auction contribution of $500,000
•2009 – AV-X10 “Dearborn Doll” Mustang, crafted in honor of the World War II aircraft
•2010 – Two automotive icons – the late Carroll Shelby, former U.S. Air Force flight instructor, and Jack Roush, longtime P-51 pilot – collaborated for the first time to create the SR-71 Blackbird Mustang inspired by the legendary reconnaissance jet
•2011 – Blue Angels Mustang, created to celebrate 100 years of U.S. naval aviation
•2012 – Red Tails Mustang, to pay homage to Tuskegee Airmen – courageous squadron of P-51 Mustang pilots who were the United States’ first African-American military airmen
•2013 – U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds Edition Mustang, built to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds demonstration team
•2014 – F-35 Lightning II Edition Mustang, which featured design cues from the world’s most advanced multirole fighter jet – the F-35 Lightning
•2015 – Apollo Edition Mustang paid homage to the Apollo spaceflight program, which delivered astonishing innovations in technology and landed the first human on the moon.

Posted in Articles, Customers' Cars, Ford Facts, News, Photos, Restoration | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

The John Wick Car

Posted on July 10, 2016 by Mustang Maniac

We have had a couple of cars this week that have come in to Mustang Maniac for their annual check ups and MOT’s. This makes a little change from the heavy panel work of the last couple of weeks. We start with a first for us, we have been delivered a car that we have been looking forward to getting our hands. This customer’s car is going to be a John Wick clone. The painted body was not handled by ourselves on this occasion, but we get to work with a freshly painted body. Yogi backed the lorry to the workshop so we could unload the dolly mounted chassis straight into the new home for a while until we start to fit the running gear back onto to the car. First of all a little about the John Wick car. The car is in fact a 1969 Mach1 and not a Boss 429 (7.0 litre) v8 as mentioned in the film. The subtle give away was the hood scoop not being big enough, also the Boss 429 didn’t have a rear spoiler either.

The Movie Car

The Clone 

We are looking forward to getting this little lady ready for the owner. We have also been delivered a huge selection of parts that had been removed prior to us taking delivery, some of which have seen better days though. We will of course inspect those parts carefully before re-assembly back to the car. We will be bringing you plenty of updates on this car as we go along.

1970 Fastback

This lady has been come into us for some tender loving care and check up. The fantastic thing is that the owner of this car has owned it since 1973. Perhaps one of the longest owned cars we have seen.

The interior of this car has red velour door cards and a matching velour headline in fantastic condition. The retro look that is quite sort after is indeed the real deal here and looks fantastic on this car we must say. Another nice touch here is from The Mustang Owners Club 1993 competition plaque mounted just in front of the gear shift on the centre console.

Under the car is very tidy indeed considering it has been in UK with our weather conditions as they are. The rear chassis even has the original tie down brackets still mounted which are virtually always removed by the dealerships when taking delivery. A very nice original touch. The wheel centres look to have been stencilled on to the classic mag wheels.

stencil wheels
tie down bracket

Big Block – Big Problems?

Here is a question for you. How long does it take to fit a pair of headers on to a big block? Well, out of the car we could do it with a couple of us on each side easily under half an hour even with the four bolts per port and not the standard two. But, the big block in a ’69 428 Big Block is tight, and we really do mean tight. In fact it had taken Yogi and Paul a complete day to fit the engine into the bay. The headers are ceramic coated long headers and is impossible to get into the engine bay with the headers attached. The process was to have the engine lowered in and the headers bolted on in stages to check the fit in the engine bay. It was noticed that the headers were resting on the inside of the shock towers, so some of the plating had to be very carefully cut away to allow the fit. We had to repeat the same process four times in total before we were happy with the clearance, all be it just tiny millimetres in places. As the engine has had a full engine rebuild we don’t expect any vibration, so the minimal clearance will not be a problem.

With the headers in place we will need to remake the exhaust to fit the new alignment of the headers.

Models:

DeAgostini – Shelby GT500 1:8th Scale

It has been a little while since we have updated the model progress, the recent ten or so issues has been the duplicate of the other door, seat, wheel with some single chassis components. So we skip a number of issues as it’s a little pointless to show the same thing again. But the latest set of issues now start to show significant progress with the build. These parts are now being screwed together and make some quite nice parts. You can see the rest of the build so far to click here.

Posted in 1:8th Scale Model, Customers' Cars, Service | Tagged , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Cars & Prom Night

Posted on July 3, 2016 by Mustang Maniac

Another big post for you this week, lots of pictures of the Mustang Maniac clew go on tour to the USA. OK, so when we say the USA technically it is the USA bu located in the UK. we of course mean Lakenheath where there was a “Wings & Wheels” show, the first one as last years was cancelled due to a security issue. The guys were a little undecided as to whether they should go or not due to the weather which was looking unpredictable. But they decided to go anyway. Lance & his fiancée Sam drove his ’65 to Paul’s house where he and his son Mason where waiting. Unfortunately they picked up an additional passenger in the shape of a bird that meet his grill head on. They were a little delayed removing the remains from the front of the car. The drive was about forty mins where they meet Mart at McDonald’s for breakfast. We do have pictures, but it wasn’t pretty!

The place was busy with lots of cars meeting up ready for the next five-minute trip up the road. Mason was filming the trip and we have a couple of them here. The wind noise is expected from leaning out the window, but not to bad at all.

lakenh8

Security was incredibly tight there and photo ID had to be shown while you were held at a waiting points. Above Lance and Paul were looking at the other cars. The cars were called into an area and searched while you had to wait in a cabin where you couldn’t see what was going on. Searches done the cars were all escorted into the show area which was part of a standing area by the side of the runway, each space was allocated per car. There was supposed to be about four hundred cars there according to one of the machine gun-toting guards, but there was less than half of that by the looks of it.

The cars were parked up and wander around the area that you were not allowed to leave unless security escorted away. There was plenty to do for youngsters in the shape of a fun fair, a few stalls selling pulled pork, sausages, burgers and other various American goodies taking payment in dollars and pounds.

After an hour you had seen everything to be honest as there nothing else there to see or do as you weren’t allowed away from the designated area.

At two thirty there was a Spitfire which did a run over the airfield and back, by the time the camera was out, it had gone. There was a promise of a Vulcan bomber to fly over at five thirty, but that didn’t happen either. The only thing that did open was the rain. It was forecast light showers, it looked like the entire rain fall of the USA happened within a few hundred yards where the cars were parked up for the afternoon.

After the downpour that lasted for quarter of an hour or so, the sun came out; so did the drying towels, chamois leathers, micro fibre cloths and yet more lovingly applied wax to the cars. The weather held off for the rest of the afternoon we are glad to say. At five in the afternoon it was award time, a customer of ours picked up a trophy on the day, so well done to him.

lakenh54The guys managed to get their cars next to each other for the afternoon photo shoot which worked out quite well in the end.

Lance and Sam posed for a quick candid picture, Mason who had a very busy day was counting raindrops and trying to catch them during his snooze!

Big thanks to Paul, Mason, Lance, Sam & Mart for sharing their photos with us. 

Customers Cars:

We had a big block engine in that was blowing from the exhaust manifold. The trouble with the big blocks are you can’t get tot he bolts properly as they are so close to the shock towers. We had tightened the manifolds up previously in place as best we could to try and keep the costs down. But, it wasn’t working to well and after a while they started to blow again which left us scratching heads a little. So could only mean one thing; it was engine out time.

Once we started to remove the manifolds it was obvious why, a previous fitting in the USA had put a double exhaust manifold gaskets in place. One had broken down and no amount of tightening was going to repair it. We fitted the correct manifolds this time and should now be fine again.

Prom Night:

Mustang Maniac to the rescue again. Something we have adopted from the USA is prom nights. Adam has known Kane since he was six years old and now it was time for his prom night. What else could be better than to rock up to school in a Classic Shelby KR? Kane and his mate Sam were duly delivered in style, not before a few pictures first though. Glad to help out for such a good cause. 🙂

Kane
Kane
Kane & Sam
Kane & Sam
Kane & Sam

Adam on “Brexit”:

There is so much waffle at the moment about trade deals with the UK, Europe and the rest of the World. So in Adam’s very own words he explained how it works; “I made my own trade deal, you email them, you pay them, they send it”. So here is the proof, yet again that this idea seems to work very well. Another big delivery of Mustang parts that will be sorted out and added to the WebShop as soon as we can.

delivery1

Office Phones:

We have been super busy with the cars, stock deliveries and order dispatches, road tests, MOT’s, holiday season etc. Something has to give, the phones are the first thing that gets relegated down the list. We don’t like doing it, but sometimes it’s the only way we can deal with all the things going on at the time. When we are taking a big block out of a car and the phone is ringing to ask if we have something in stock or not, it does cause some issues. We can only say again – the stock list is 100% up to date on the WebShop, if its says it’s in stock – honestly, it’s in stock. We have been successful with the out of hours email service we provide, which is a lot more than other companies will provide we might add here. So please send us emails and pictures of the questions you need for a part you might need or cant find on the WebShop as it makes it easier for us to give you the correct answer. No matter how hard you try, descriptions over the phone are never as good as a photo.

Finally:

We finish up with a little request from Yogi (Allan), the picture speaks for itself. Yogi would appreciate it if you could let him know. Thanks.

allenkey

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