Questions & Answers

Posted on October 18, 2014 by Mustang Maniac

First of all we would like to apologise for no posts over the recent few weeks and we would like to thank our customers that have emailed us; Yes we are fine, Yes the blog is still here and will continue to be updated as normal. We had a short (much-needed) break a few weeks ago and we have been trying to catch up ever since! Simple as that, sometimes the seven days a week is quite a lot and something has to give in the name of rest and sanity, but we have found some time and have done a quick update to show we are still here.

This week we have been pleased with the fact that we have had a couple of customers come to us for advice on their cars. The first was a 1970 Coupe that has been self converted to a right hand drive. A nicely done piece of work and the paint job looks great and very unique. The owner is quite rightly proud of his accomplishment for a not so easy conversion at the best of times. We have seen a few examples where the right hand drive conversions look pretty sub standard should we say and it tends to ruin the look of the car, this example proves to be an exception to that rule.

The second was a ’66 Coupe that the owner wanted our opinion on how their car drove on the road. A nice looking car and to bad at all compared to some of the cars we have had to sort out in the past.

It was fortunate that both these cars came in to us during a quite time so we could spend some quality time with the owners. We would like to think that we consider ourselves to be very honest and we will tell you what needs to be done, if anything at all. We will give you options with the minimum work that needs to be done or the full monty based on our very high standards depending on your budget of course. No pushy sales from us just facts and figures that you need to hear in order to make your mind up.

The ’66 nut and bolt restoration is going well with pretty much all the metal work now completed and she is in bare metal apart from the new panels that have been fitted. It has been a long labour intensive job to get tot this point and will soon be of to paint once the preliminary filler work has been completed.

 Other News:

Our WebShop has now started to take the majority of our parts ordering which is much more efficient for the customers and our dispatch process. Of course you can still pop in and buy direct from our stores and we will be happy to help out with any question at the time.

Hopefully we will be back to normal with our posts again and thanks for your on-going support.

 

 

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Shiny & Not So Shiny

Posted on September 21, 2014 by Mustang Maniac

The last two weeks we have posted about car shows and not to much of our own cars. So it’s back to normal this week to let you know what we have been up to. A couple of cars have been collected and a couple have arrived. We posted last week about the Goodwood light blue convertible that was on display. We now have that car back with us to receive a little TLC and her annual once over, we will get some pics of that soon for you, just a little late for this post. Just a little information – that car was made just three days before the launch of the first Mustang and she is still pretty much original!

We have been doing some work on the Alfa red convertible and fitted some of special serpentine eight ridge pulleys to this super shiny engine. You won’t be able to get these pulleys of the shelf in a lot of places as we have a little arrangement with the supplier. The metalic red of this car and the polished metalwork make a big contrast and it works well. This also has the Pertronix distributer fitted with the electronic points replacement kit. It shouldn’t be to long before we fire this 300bhp unit up in the car and not on our test rig. The car has also had an auto gearbox fitted.

The ’66 Coupe bare metal restoration has come on leaps and bounds over the last couple of weeks. So much so that the car has been taken of the jig and mounted on the trolley to be moved around the panel shop while other work is going on. The paint stripping has been going well on all the panels, trunk and roof, but the results weren’t ideal. The left side door was stripped down and found to have been in a minor prang and filled with copious amounts of filler. The filler was so thick towards the front of the door that some of the door contours were almost disappearing. The metal had been pulled out but was stretched too much and it was only the filler that was holding the door skin tight on the door, so we were going to re-skin it. Once the door was taken apart the internal supports were also bent and rust had taken hold at the bottom leaving some screwdriver sized holes, especially after we poked the very thin metal. So it was a new door unfortunately.

The rear quarters have been sprayed, fitted, leaded and filled. The left fender had seen it’s fair share of filler and the metal stretch and “would pop in and out as it was pressed, again not ideal and the decision was taken to also replace the fender.

old fender with plenty of filler
new door & fender
new fender
quarters fitted

The other panels were OK, but again needed some metalwork wonders worked on them before refitting. The right side door needed to be cleaned up without chemicals and has been lightly shot blasted to keep the original textured door look.

roof
light shot blasted

The car is only a short time away from final paint prep.

News:

We have never really been active on the Mustang Owners Club of GB, there are others who voice for us and recommend our services so thank you. But like all these things we are moving with the times and we are now on the forum under “mustang maniac”, who would have guessed that one? If you visit the forum please drop by and say hello or friend us.

Don’t forget Herbie’s Bar & Grill next week 28th Sept 2014 for a meet and meat day.

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Revivals

Posted on September 14, 2014 by Mustang Maniac

Goodwood 2014

There are some things you can revive and some you can’t, which I will get onto a little later. But first we had a good trip to Goodwood’s Revival and some great cars and some good racing. We of course were pleased to see many Mustangs racing and on display. Goodwood had a recreation of the Earls Court building front where they housed some cars on show old and new next to each other. There was this very nice convertible baby blue Mustang who is also a customer of ours, next to the new 2015 Mustang which we have already had the pleasure of seeing up close and personal.

open day

There were obviously other stands there from different manufacturers there, but only a few caught our eye. There was also outside features and attractions, there were even visitors dressed in period costume which was quite nice to see.

But Goodwood is renowned for its racing. We have a few pictures here of some of the cars we liked, which just happened to be Fords. Rowen Atkinson (a well known British comedian), had an accident in his Ford Falcon Sprint which he mashed up pretty good unfortunately. Lets hope it’s back on the track soon.

How not to drive a C4 transmission

As I mentioned at the beginning some things you can revive and some you just can’t, this example may be falling into the latter category. We are often asked to work our magic on things which we do on most occasion, however there are some things we just can’t repair, sometimes new parts are the only way to go. This pump from the front of C4 auto gearbox is damaged badly. The worst part is that not only has some of the pump gearing been damaged but a couple of the gear’s teeth are still missing as we haven’t found them, yet. There is no way of telling exactly just how much damage has been done or even if it can be rescued at all until it has been taken apart. How did it happen? We’re not sure the full truth will never be known, but we have seen similar results to this this in another gearbox. The gearboxes are generally pretty solid, but this damage can happen when you give the engine a boot full of revs and slam the shifter into “Drive”, or keep your foot on the brake while revving the engine while in drive. Trying to do a burn out maybe? As you can see, this is not going to be cheap repair even if it can be repaired.

Tip:

Don’t rev the engine and slam the car into drive – it won’t like it. Trust us!

Healthy pump from a C4

A very badly damaged

back of the C4
healthy pump right
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Buntingford 2014

Posted on September 7, 2014 by Mustang Maniac

Update 8th September 2014.

Thanks to everybody who pointed out that its 2014 and not 2015. Well spotted, you can take your pick from the excuses.  A)  it was deliberate of course to make sure you were reading it, or b) was it late in the evening. 🙂

The week has gone pretty quickly and we have been looking forward to a car show a nearby town Buntigford. Each year they block both ends of the main high street off and allow cars to park all the way up and let people wander around. We past two bands and solo a singer. We past a couple of pubs that looked very inviting. We have a number of pictures that we have taken and posted below. But before that we wanted to share a little snapshot of a couple of cars that we lined up ready for some of quality workmanship we have been become recognised for.

We thought the pic with a little tweak looks very retro!

all3

The pictures taken here were only a selection of the many we had taken, so have gone for an older theme and split them into smaller sections.

The big cars

Very old:

 Best of the rest:

It was a busy show and looks like everybody enjoyed it, we’re looking forward to next year already.

bunt57

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A Little Fun…

Posted on August 31, 2014 by Mustang Maniac

At long last we have managed to deliver some cars out and make space to get our project ’65 convertible back on the ramps we started a while ago. We have now fitted the new rear axle and springs with a little detailing of course. The front brakes have now been fully fitted and the final link ups for the Borgeson Steering conversion kit. The nice thing about this Borgeson conversion is that it looks almost stock and they handle close enough to a rack and pinion you will get without the rack itself.

front disc conversion
Borgeson
Borgeson
underside of Borgeson
new axle
new springs

We have been asked to install a sound system into a car which has caused problems. Not for anything component wise, but the fact the engine has a wonderful sound and bark to it that the sound system couldn’t be heard. That was cured by putting in some serious speakers front and back with a pre-amp to be installed. To do the job properly the dash has had to come out in order for the wire routing. But it will all be worth it as he will certainly be able to hear it now!

Customers Cars:

’65 Coupe

One of the nicer jobs we have is detail the engine for our customers. A good friend and customer of ours brought his  Gulf STream coloured ’65 down to us to have a little work done. We replaced the air filter and rocker covers, rerouted the HT leads, added a Monte Carlo bar and few other little bits.

gulf3

We have the before and after comparison here.

gulf1

The other extra little bits was the front disc brake change. There was already a disc conversion which used the old Granada set up. Lance the owner of this lovely Coupe wanted to have a better look to the car so we obliged with a custom set of callipers and discs for these classic Mustangs. The main difference here is that these brakes have the full face contact to the discs and they are located at the front of the discs and not rear like the Granada set up. We have a before and after shots here.

Granda discs
Bespoke
outside

’66 Coupe restoration 

We have also been doing a little work on the ’66 Coupe restoration that has needed a little more work than we expected. Once we removed the old lower cowl we could see the dash had gone very thin and rusty at the bottom. We decided to replace the complete dash section brazing it in place along with the lower cowl. We prepped the lower cowl and painted it ready for the upper cowl section once it had dried.

primer
lower cowl top coat
upper cowl

 Services:

We have a new toy! This is our new AirCon service unit. We usually get somebody in to do our aircon work so now we have the training and the tools to do the job. Drop in if you Mustang needs a little top up, probably a bit late now for our UK summer though.

aircon

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We’re The Good Guys!

Posted on August 25, 2014 by Mustang Maniac

Recently, like the day before, we were asked if we could make a 5oth wedding anniversary that little bit special and provide a car to take them to their venue. Of course we thought 50th anniversary for the Mustang too, so why not. We started to dust off the Shelby as you do, but got told that was not what they had in mind. They would like a “little style and class”, we agreed so we continued to clean the Shelby. Apparently this was wrong, then came the subtle hint, “They were thinking more along the lines of a Rolls Royce!” Yeah, we can do that. So we cleaned the roller and got her ready for the evenings chauffeuring, slightly disgruntled we put the Shelby away again. No sooner had we cleaned the Roller than our resident mouser jumped onto the warm bonnet and proceeded to make herself comfortable! We know these Rollers per like a kitten but….

We picked up the special couple and took them to where they needed to go and they seemed to enjoyed their evening of luxury travel and chauffer. It was our pleasure to help make their 50th wedding anniversary a memorable one by playing a small part during their celebrations. Just for once, we turned out to be the good guys.

rollerc

Cars:

We have a couple of cars to be collected this week and they have had a little clean and ready for the road.

The ’66 Coupe has had some work done to the rear end and we have been showing of our metalwork skills. The trunk curved plate that leads to the fuel tank was a rusty and pretty thin and any welding wouldn’t have taken to well. We tracked down an old replacement part, but the profile was wrong as it was angular rather than the gentle curve it should be. So we found another part with the correct profile, unpicked the welds and made it all fit together nicely with the other great work being done in the trunk. With the trunk floor sorted properly and looking correct, we started to prep the left side rear quarter panel now all the leading has been removed.

correct profile
old replacement – wrong profile
rear quarter prep

 

 

 

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Problem Solving

Posted on August 17, 2014 by Mustang Maniac

Sometimes we have car that takes a little bit of time to work out what the actual root cause of a problem is and then sort it out. Sometimes we replace the part(s), we can fabricate a bespoke part or we make a modification to fit what is required. Most of the bigger car problems are sorted out with a quick chat or a second opinion over a mug of tea and a biscuit. It’s rare we have a full on team meeting around the engine bay of a car. This pic was a snap shot of the guys having a look for the best way to fix a problem, as there wasn’t even a mug of tea in sight I knew it wasn’t that bad. It turned out to be the best way to make a new part fit and look good. They say two heads are better than one, or a problem shared is a problem halved. In this case it turns out that four heads are better than one.

Problem solving

This week we are pleased to see the return of our Classic Racer back from the dippers and the difference is quite obvious. Nothing is left apart from the good bare metal and the solid welding. This gives us a perfect head start to any work that needs to be done such as replacement welding, replacements panels, start of the under coating or what ever we decide to do first. There have been a few modifications made to this car previously and these will have to be removed and replaced with the correct stock parts again for the series of racing this will be entered back in to. It’s not very often we get a clean canvas to start work on, but it’s worth it. It’s a quick way to get back to the bare metal but the cost has to be considered, or you can do it all by hand the hard way like the ’66 Coupe we also have on the go too.

The fenders and other panels were dipped and in this pic you can see the guys doing a dummy fit of the fender to see what work will be required as a rough guide for time estimates and work load allocation.

postdip5

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Photo Catch Ups

Posted on August 10, 2014 by Mustang Maniac

After last week’s post we have had a few calls to ask questions about the 2015 Mustang, some of course we could answer most we couldn’t, a lot of the questions were for the pictures we didn’t publish. Our promise to Ford was that we would not release them so we haven’t nor can we say too much about the project that Ford and ourselves are involved in, but thanks very much for the interest though. All will be revealed soon enough. To answer a question that was a common theme; Yes, we honestly did like the new 2015 Mustang.

We have a couple of nice pics of a good friend and customer of ours, Steve, who visited the Silverstone Classic during the 25 – 27th July this year. He managed to get his picture taken with Mike Brewer from Wheeler Dealers. We also have a picture of one of the less stressful parts of the day with his classic Mustang. We’re sure he won’t mind us posting a picture of his busy day.

We have a little treat here from Matthew Stack who works for our sister company LAR Traffic Services, he has recently started to take up photography again and has made a couple of visits to us in the recent weeks taking photos, he has kindly sent us some of his work. Let us know what you think by placing a comment and Matthew will see them or we will pass them on to him.


The week has been busy with routine MOT’s to be completed and we have an update on one of our resident cars. We have taken a customers ’66 coupe of the spit and bolted her onto our jig. We have managed to cut the cowling of and replace the right hand side battery panel that was pretty rusty under the poor weld and the front panel that had a broken section for the battery vent grill, after the work by Yogi the panels look like new again.

Pop over to http://onemanandhismustang.com for some more pictures we have taken for him.

We have not had the car back yet from the dipping, when we done we will get some pictures providing we remember to take them. It’s a case of “I thought you had, nope I didn’t take them, I thought you did!” Then the moment is gone.

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New Mustang 2015

Posted on August 3, 2014 by Mustang Maniac

The ultimate day out!

This week has been an exceptional week and we can’t wait to explain why; our good friends at Ford UK have given us an ultimate petrol head’s treat. In recent weeks and months we have been collaborating with Ford UK on a project(s) they are working on. We like to think we have earned their trust and as a result we have been speaking to them about various things as a result. Those conversations have developed into a great relationship being formed, as a result we have been invited to very, very special guided tour. Before the trip was arranged, it was on the strict understanding that the location we were to visit must remain secret and details of the vicinity also remain undisclosed. This was clearly understood by us, so before you ask, we will not tell you where, how  we got to there, or even how long it took us to get to the location. Upon arrival security was high on the agenda as you can imagine. The location is home to an Alladins cave of vehicles that petrol heads around the word would go week at the knees to see, from the first Fords made, to the word famous rally cars, commercial vehicles, models and prototypes. All we can say about the location of these fabulous, famous and pristine vehicles is that this is not a museum, they are lined up, raised on blocks, stored and cared for with their own work areas to tend their every need. We were given the honour of unwrapping some of their cars to take photo’s. Some of the cars were just as they were when they won races or came off the production lines. We will ask Ford’s permission to show some of these special cars in a future post once we have made sure the photo’s are secure from a security point of view. The ultimate purpose of our trip was to take a private look at the latest prototype: Mustang 2015. Yes, you did read that right, we have been given unlimited access to Ford’s much-anticipated Mustang with the 50th anniversary very much in mind. We have sat in it, driven it and inspected every nut and bolt. We have seen things the press have not been able to see; we have photos that have been taken and held away from our servers but we will not publish as its Ford intellectual property.

 2015 front and back 

Interior shots

Engine

2015-v8

We are privileged to be the some of the first people outside of Ford to have such unrestricted access and we can say this vehicle is a winner. We believe it will sell well and be a big thorn in the side for the other luxury company manufacturers, and the performance is amazing at the expected cost it will be sold for. We would certainly go for the 2015 over one of the German marquee brands, that’s for sure. Again we can’t give too many details away, but it sounds as good as it drives as well. We will not give a motoring review as that is not fair for Ford; we will leave that for the professional journalists. What we will say is those lucky journalists are in for one hell of a treat. There will be various options under the hood, and we are impressed with what we have seen. Ford have created what we believe is another classic that will be proud to sit beside the other existing classic pony cars. 

 

 

During our tour away from the cars we have seen the original plaque taken from the Ford offices, we even got to sit in Henry Ford’s chair in the office mock-up of how it was way back when.

We would like to publicly thank Ford UK for their generous hospitality, time and above all trust in allowing us to see their Fantastic Ford collection that only a select few lucky people get to see.

Thank you Ford UK

ford-logo

stock photosource:motortrend.com

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Herbie’s Time

Posted on August 1, 2014 by Mustang Maniac

emotionheader

 Just a very quick post to say it’s that time again for a some more meat and Mustangs. We will be at the great Herbie’s American Bar & Grill on the 10th August 2014 from 1pm onwards. We would love to see you there for some food, drinks and of course all things Mustang. If you don’t have a Mustang don’t worry, just pop in to say hello.
We have some VERY exciting news and post to follow soon. You won’t be disappointed!
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