Mustang Maniac

Goodbye ’67

Posted on August 9, 2013 by Mustang Maniac

’67 goes to her final resting place

We have got more vehicles in than we expected to have in over the last few days, so we decided to bite the bullet and get rid of a car that we had plans for. The plans were so long ago that nobody remembers what the plans were, and in the mean time the car has sort of rusted in half. We will now take of the good parts like the axle, dash area (still in remarkably good condition), steering, the engine block, glass, and the original trim work. These old parts are kept and reconditioned for customers who want the originals parts and numbers, not the modern equivalents. This poor old car’s bodywork has rusted away quite happily over the last two years or so and it won’t take much to cut up. We hate to do this to any of our cars though. We call situations like this a part donation. This will keep another car going in the future so her parts will live on. The rest of the car will be cut up into smaller manageable pieces and put into the scrap skip. Goodbye ’67.

pulled out from the front

forklift moves to the transport

ready to be cut into smaller pieces

almost the final resting place

During the process of the sort out on a hot day we had lunch, Terry was unable to eat in peace as some of the dogs realised it was food time! Who was in needed the food most we are still trying to work out !! Sorry Terry we just had to share this!

We have added a new video to our YouTube channel of a customer’s car engine rebuild. The engine has had white aluminium coated long headers, aluminium heads, bearing valve lifters, a full strip down and rebuild of the pistons, crank, fuel pump etc. The photos are located under the Customers Cars – 302 bored to 308. The video is worth a watch to see it fired up for the first time.

electrics almost wired and starter fitted

Quick links:

The Customer ‘s 302 bored to 308 test run photos – click here

YouTube link for the video – click here

Posted in Customers' Cars, Photos | Tagged '67, 302ci, axle, customer, dogs, lunch, Mustang, plans, rust, YouTube | 2 Comments

Mastic Mustang (Part 2)

Posted on August 4, 2013 by Mustang Maniac

Update on the now infamous Mastic Mustang!

It seems as though our little feature on the Mastic Mustang has sparked some interest. With that in mind we have decided to post an update. We have taken the engine out, the transmission out, the fenders off and the front off. This gives us a much better idea of the front end of the car is like for rust. She’s a very fragile patient in the Mustang hospital, in fact we may move her to Intensive Care if we had one! We are going to have to put her on a jig and set the body shell up. We do this by welding cross support struts across the door posts to hold the gaps the same as they are now. When the body is refitted to the replaced parts of the chassis we know that we will have the same gaps for the doors, hood & trunk as before we started.

We started to look at the welded floor pan (we do use that term in the most tongue in cheek way), this was a revelation as the new floor was welded to the poorly rusty parts of the original floor and chassis. We did find some non rusted parts on the floor pan, a few screws that was “holding” part of the floor pan in place. How long before the floor fell out is anybody’s guess. Saying that, we now have a clear idea of the issues that must be fixed on the chassis. She will be fine.

Front off

inside the engine bay

door fittings

trunk area

hidden gems of expanding foam

the true extent of the rotted chassis

started the strip back of the weleded in floor pan

holes in the original floor from screws

dayight

The Gibbs Brand is selling well and we have had some great feedback of the product. Our stores are almost back to normal now as the racking is not as full as a few weeks ago. We have sold all the custom order parts on which helped to make space. With positive feedback for the 2 Speed Wiper Motor we may well start to stock it, the only problem is that it does not fit in with the standard wire loom for the wiper motor due to the live feeds. We will continue to investigate a work around if we can.

By popular demand (Debbie), we will come up with a new guess the car picture when we find a worthy candidate.

Posted in Customers' Cars, News, Photos, Repairs | Tagged 2 speed wiper motor, chassis, expanding foam, filler, gibbs brand, guess the car, mastic mustang, rust, stock | 3 Comments

Company Transport Goes Green

Posted on August 2, 2013 by Mustang Maniac

We are thinking of the environment too

There is nothing quite like the smell of old metal, a big v8 with its throaty growl in your ears and the wind in your hair going through the country lanes. Our new company transport is to encourage people to be environmentally aware as well. Our new company transport gives you two of those things; Yep, you get wind in your hair – going down hill of course, unfortunately no v8 of course, just a gentle squeak from the pedals and the creak and smell of old metal. The squeak can be sorted – who’s got the Gibbs Brand then chaps???

Funny how the guys always choose the cars over the bike! 😉

A classic vintage bike

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged company car, gibbs brand, going greem, Mustang, v8 | 3 Comments

Shelby Numbered Radiator Hose Kit

Posted on July 28, 2013 by Mustang Maniac

New Line for the lucky ones

We often get asked for Concours Correct parts here at Mustang Maniac. Of course we can get some and people still make the more profitable items that will sell to the bigger mass market of the Mustang owners out there. Understandably these parts can be more expensive. The smaller the market the less chance to sell in bulk and make a profit. But we have a little exception here with this product. As promised I would post a picture of the Shelby Radiator Hose set for the 1965 ’66 ’67 ’68. The more common parts that perish or split over time have been given a new lease of life. High quality hoses for an incredible car.

Fort Part Number: S1MS-8286-A

Posted in Parts | Tagged classic, concours, Hose, Mustang, Radiator, Shelby | Leave a comment

Review of a new product

Posted on July 27, 2013 by Mustang Maniac

Our revised website is coming along and our products are being added on a daily basis, I’m sure you can appreciate that with such a huge amount of stock it’s a slow and sometimes painful process, but we are getting there.

Over the years we have had a number of cars in to us where we have changed the wiper motors over. For a single speed this is not a real problem as they can be sourced from the right people still. Two speeds are becoming a bit of a pain to obtain a genuine Ford part replacement. Obtaining NOS parts is becoming more and more difficult if not near impossible now, reconditioned ones are the way to go but even they are now becoming scarce. If you wish to upgrade to a two-speed wiper or replace your current motor there are limited options as I have just mentioned. We sourced a part for a good customer of ours who has his own blog too and has done a review of a new product to us from New Port Engineering. The company have produced their own two-speed wiper motor for the 64 1/2 – 1968 Mustangs so we obtained one as Mart wasn’t to worried about it being the correct part as it’s out of sight, although it would have been nice of course. The review is very informative and worth a read to see if it’s for you.

Click here for the quick link, or pop over to his blog http://onemanandhismustang.com/

New Port Engineering on the right next to a Ford Part

Posted in Parts, Uncategorized | Tagged 2 speed wiper motor, customer, Mustang, new port engineering, new product, website | 3 Comments

New ’67 Fastback Body Shell

Posted on July 22, 2013 by Mustang Maniac

At long last…

We have been waiting a while for these now and now we have one. the ’67 Fastback Body Shell. These particular shells have some nice features, like strengthening across the drive train tunnel for extra stability as does the shock area. The best part is that it’s all rust free. We have just made a very special order another for a customer, his version of the body shell will be unique – it’s in right hand drive! Yep, the customer wanted a right hand drive Mustang ’67 Fastback. So we had a word with the manufacturers and they are going to be making a special shell just for us with the right hand drive fittings. Obviously we will be building this as a very bespoke right hand drive car. Being a right hand drive there could be an issue for some of the parts, so we will have to just fabricate them for the car itself and for his specification for the car.

We have posted a video on YouTube for the body shell to have a full look round it. click on the YouTube logo for the quick link.

Click for the link

Congratulations to Debbie from http://hoodscoop03.com/ who was first to correctly guess the Shelby 2006 350GT H. Thanks to those who emailed me, I appreciate it. Some were very close indeed.

This car is number 340 of 500 that had been made by Shelby for Hertz Car Rentals. This particular car was available for rental in Las Vegas and bought over to the UK once the terms had finished for the rentals. Did you know they would only let you hire it after being interviewed. Also there is a steel cable sealed in lead from the engine to the chassis, if this was broken or damaged during your rental then you had a very big bill coming your way. This was to make sure that the engines were not swapped out like the originals were in 1966!

Before you say it – yes it does need a clean, any volunteers?

Posted in News, Photos, Uncategorized | Tagged '67 body shell, 350gt H, bespoke, hertz, Mustang, right hand drive, Shelby | 4 Comments

Lurking in the corner

Posted on July 14, 2013 by Mustang Maniac

Slightly over stocked (again)

This week we have had deliveries nearly everyday, the place looks like everything has been put into a spin dryer without the lid, switched on and watched the contents get thrown all over the place. I have been in all weekend trying to make space to walk around let alone put all the stuff away! But, I think we are getting there and the storage is starting to look normal if not a little over filled. Even our office has been designated a temporary storage area for a couple of days. Give it a few weeks and we will be back to normal, we have had a few special orders for customers come in and they should be fitted and gone from stock very soon.

Just for fun:

While I was taking some of customer part(s) to the workshop I had an idea; I walked past one of my cars that I have stored in the corner of one of the workshops. To say it’s a bit dusty is a major understatement but the idea is little bit of a teaser. I have had a comment about cars in the background of a picture on the blog, one of which was a little difficult to make out.

So, I have posted a tightly cropped a picture of the car in question and I am wondering if anybody out there knows what it is, the year, and what was so special about the car(s). If you get it right you can have full bragging rights. 🙂 I will confirm in a week or two if anybody has it completely right or not! Depending how I feel I may even give you a mention!

(Note to self: take it out for a blast down the road & clean!)

News:

Other exciting news is we have had a delivery of our special radiator hoses delivered with the correct Shelby numbering on them. We have been waiting for these for a while now and have pretty much sold the ones we have on a pre order basis. I will post a pic or two once I have unpacked them properly.

Also back in stock is the superb Gibbs Brand. Our first small trial batch sold out pretty quickly and now we have a proper amount back in stock again. We now use this by default in our workshops and totally recommend this product. £14.95 buys you a fairly big tin, it goes a long way, but what it does is amaze you. We are sure once you use this stuff you won’t use anything else.

Posted in News, Our Cars | Tagged correct, gibbs brand, hoses, just for fun, Mustang, Shelby | 17 Comments

Road Damage

Posted on July 8, 2013 by Mustang Maniac

RTA – Road Traffic Accidents

We have been asked a few times if we fix damaged cars that have been in an RTA as the police call it. The answer is yes we most certainly do. Most of the cars are not to bad, a paint job, a fender or a bumper, reversed into a post, or wall, shopping trolley etc. Every so often we get a fairly bad-looking accident. We have dug out a set of photos from a little while ago and some fairly recently. By coincidence they were fairly similar accidents, but one was worse than the other. As these classic cars are tough ol’ things they can be fixed, most modern Euro cars would have been written off with much less damage, but not these beauties. As a result we have decided that a new menu should be added to the home page, it’s called “Damage Repairs”. The contents of this menu will be RTA’s or other damage we think would be worth showing. Most drivers of these cars are quite careful, so we don’t get to many accidents thankfully. Better photos of the damage before and after the repairs will be higher up on our list, then you can compare the results for yourself. Thinking about it, if we had of known we were going to do this blog a while ago we would have taken many more photos of the cars we have fixed in the past. Alas, hindsight is a wonderful thing.

If you bend it, we can fix it!

: a rare classic before

: & after the work awaiting paint

: a bit of a mess

Posted in Blog, Photos, Repairs | Tagged 2+2, accident, bend, customer, fastback, fender, fix, Ford, Mustang, paint shop, repairs, RTA, Shelby, wheels | 4 Comments

Our new Shelby

Posted on June 30, 2013 by Mustang Maniac

We got a new Shelby and it’s not a Ford!

A couple of weeks ago we said watch this space….. Well the wait is over, here it is!

First of all we love our Mustangs and always will do and no we have not gone over to the other “Mopar” side. This is our 1987 Dodge Charger Shelby GLHS. This rarity came up for sale and we decided to get it for a number of reasons. Firstly it has a FULL and I mean full history, in fact the folder is overflowing with the original registration documents, owners manual, receipts, MOTs, and parts purchased from new from that we can see. The second reason speaks for itself, it’s a Shelby after all. This model was only produced in a very limited number of 1000, ours is number 693. The previous owner has spend some serious time looking up details of this and the other Dodge Shelby numbers, there are quite a few with details and a few missing obviously. It would be nice to complete this but we simply don’t have the man hours to dedicate to it. This car has a great published provenance and has appeared in a number of magazines articles, we have converted them to PDF articles and added quick links below. You can find the articles attached to the photos under Our Cars – Dodge Charger Shelby. We have added video on you tube to have a look around this car and listen to the engine as it is at the moment.

What does the GLH or GLHS stand for?

(this is true) – GLH stood for “Goes Like Hell” and GLHS stood for Goes Like Hell S’more

Would it surprise you to say that that the great man himself had car number 1?

Our photos before the work starts:

the full service history

A little background on the Dodge Charger Shelbys:

Based on the Dodge Charger Shelby — Modified and sold as Shelbys

Limited to 1000

Base price: $12,995

For 1987, Carroll Shelby purchased the last 1,000 ’87 Shelby Chargers and had them shipped to the Whittier factory for modification. As with the ’86 GLH-S all the cars came in single stage black without a clear coat.

The ’87 GLHS received the Turbo II with MP EFI air-to-air intercooled SOHC inline-four, cast-iron block and aluminum head. This was mated with the Chrysler close-ratio A-525 transmission. This combination produced 175 hp at 5300 rpm and 175 lb-ft of torque at 2200-4800 rpm. Compression ratio was 8.5:1 with bore x stroke of 3.44 x 3.62 inches. It ran 0-60 in 6.95 seconds, the ¼ mile ET at 14.7 at 94mph, and a top speed of 134 MPH.

As with the ’86 GLH-S, the suspension was upgraded with Koni adjustable struts/shocks, anti-roll bars, and the alignment was altered slightly. The tires remained 205/50VR-15 Goodyear Eagle VR Gatorbacks, mounted on 15×6 inch Shelby “Centurion II” aluminum wheels. The power-assist Kelsey-Hayes brakes featured 10.2 x .94-inch vented discs with 54mm single pistons in front and 8.0 x 1.28-inch drums in the rear.

Aside from the aforementioned black exterior, Shelby added a wider windshield decal (minus the CS logos), there were some unique name-badge decals, and larger GLHS decal on the c-pillar. All were equipped identically with grey interior, a leather-wrapped steering wheel and gearshift knob, air conditioning, cassette stereo, sunroof, non-armrest center console and numbered dash plaque. The 1987 Shelby Charger rear window louvers were no longer available on the 1987 GLH-S.

Quick Links to the individual PDF’s

Dodge Charger Shelbys History by Year

Dodge Shelby Charger

Dodge Shelby – Readers Rides

Dodge Shelby – Motor Trend

Dodge Shelby – Latest Weapon

Dodge Shelby – Hot Rod

click for the video

Posted in Our Cars, Photos | Tagged carroll shelby, charger, dodge, mopar, MOT, Mustang, pdf, registration, Shelby, YouTube | 6 Comments

The ’67 “Mastic” Mustang Convertible

Posted on June 24, 2013 by Mustang Maniac

Watch this space for our new addition to our garage!

We have a pretty rare car that we will be posting details about soon, we have documentation, sales invoices and a history that will be sorted out and scanned for the PC so that we can put all the documents and pictures with it. There has been articles about it in the magazines, and we are excited to have something a little different. All I can say is that it’s quite rare, numbered and we are going to get her back to full glory, but it is still drivable at the moment. We even have a little video that we will post on our YouTube channel too.

A good-looking ’67 Convertible in a very BAD way

We have been pretty busy with a lot of cars all of a sudden that need various work from crash damage to MOT’s, we just don’t have enough hours in the day to complete it all. But somehow we always manage to cope. We have recently been asked to look over a car that has recently been shipped over from the States to a customer of ours. The car was purchased in good faith and the initial pictures were promising as you would expect. We had a thorough look over the ’67 it and found some shocking points that just have to be seen to be believed. When buying any Mustang Convertible there are things to look out for, and this example is everything that you need to avoid. Just because it looks pretty it doesn’t mean that its a good car, the floor pans were welded into the rotten rusted metal, the joins were filled with silicon sealant or “Mastic” as it’s called in the UK. The sills have rotted through and I can put my hand inside a number of holes in those sills. The quarter panels have been filled and the chassis is hollow in some places. It looks like the whole body will have to come of and repair the chassis if we can. As a result what we have seen we have called this car the Mastic Mustang.