Tag Archives: WebShop

Ripping Up The Rule Book

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This week we can’t fail to mention the weather, which has seen a promise of more to come in the UK. We are happy to see a period of nice weather for a change instead of the normal rain, with the on set of the nice weather we have managed to convert the old car storage areas into a new “large and heavy parts” dispatch area. As a result of Mustang Maniac needing more space and storage areas for a slightly different car! More on that later a little further down.

Park & Pic

This week we had a very nice rare car come into us with a minor leak on the steering. We fixed it with no problems as normal, and the customer arrived to take her away. We give you the legendary Shelby GT500, nothing else needs to be said!

 

More Stock

It’s a well-known fact that for your Mustang parts, Adam is your man with is ever-expanding WebShop. But, what is not quite as well-known is that Mustang Maniac stocks an ever-increasing rage of ’64 – ’66 Falcon parts too, so much so that Adam is now “stock piling” Falcons cars now to match the stock levels.

The latest set of Mustang parts in stock are these performance strut rod parts which have now arrived in the latest container. They are super high quality and an awesome racing part upgrade or just for bragging rights.

Drag Racing

Another known fact is that Yogi takes his Mach1 down the Santa Pod 1/4 mile drag strip, wrecking a set of tyres each time, but the bear was not happy with his last eleven second run. The reason was the will spin being unable to get all that power down to the tarmac. To stop that Yogi bought himself an over drive and under drive unit. Yep you read that right “Under Drive”. This gearbox allows you to select the lower gear to launch of the line that much quicker. The gearbox will allow you to change gears for each of the main gears which gives you in effect six main gears now. Yogi has fitted it and loves it, so much so that he has melted his speedo cable, we need to think of a way to fix that, we have a plan. Here we have some instructions for the unit to show just how it works. The new AutoDrive is able to handle up to 1200bhp! Yogi has been heard to say, “That will do for now”!

The inside is so subtle to work the overdrive, fully automatic with indicators via a switch on the console arrowed here.

For race, there is a switch on the console that controls the normal operation, and another he operates with his foot for “only for racing purposes, on specially designed track with proper supervision for all health and safety purposes” should the need arise at Santa Pod.

The funniest part of all this is that we found a page “removed” from the instructions. Rumour has it that Yogi “accidentally ripped it” or tore out the page called; “Drag Racing do’s and dont’s”. He is also rumoured to be growling “nobody tells the bear how to drag race”.

Yogi has changed out his livery on his car too, subtle but very effective. Thanks to Linards for these.

The gearbox is working fine, but his interior is now apart thinking of a way to stop the speedo cable getting so hot. But this is what the completed fit looks like underneath.

He has put some of his stickers on the car too;

If you see this car don’t bother to try racing it! Honestly, we have road tested it and we can confirm – it’s quick.

Next week we have a special report on the Fox body lights. Keep cool in the sun and be sensible with the heat.

Bonding

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After the car show at Enfield Pageant we had another fairly local show and a trip out where the recently resprayed ’65 Coupe had her debut after a little upgrade, but more of that later. Our Park & Pic stash of photos are almost depleted, mostly our fault as we forgot to take the pics in the busy times when our customers come to collect their cars, so please send us some photos of your car at our yard, either old or new and we will make a feature of it for you.

Park & Pic

This ’67 fastback is a recent purchase for our customer and just needed a few tweaks and once over. This is a fantastic colour that the pictures really don’t do it justice, from the shade to the sun the colour really pops out at you. Under the hood the sparkle of bling complements the paintwork and works well on this car.

Fresh Paint:

We have lance’s Gulf Stream Aqua fresh back from her new paint job back into us to have the front and rear glass bonded in. Althouh this is not technically correct for the cars it ensures that there are no leaks and we think it finishes the chrome to metal of well. The glass has to be carefully removed and then fitted back into place with the trim and the bonding sealing agent. The white pearl stripes on this car were sprayed on and that means there is no hard edges to see or feel when cleaning and waxing.

The aerial was to be replaced with a nice new billet job, to do this most of the time you have to remove the splash guards to get to wires if there is an after market electric aerial fitted like this had. Replacing the splash guards with fresh rubber seals is a cheap enough option and is a worthwhile change to remove any rusty guards and clean out behind the guards too.

The is a downside to all of this? Your car cover needs a hole in it to make it fit properly.

Hertford Castle 

Lance and Paul took a day out to the countryside to Hertford Castle where a fairly local meet was being held. The scenery provided the opportunity for an exceptional photo. Nice work guys! We would to have this as the lead pic on the blog this week, but we promised if you have a Park & Pic that takes the lead!

Meanwhile at the bear cave, Yogi’s car was out of the cave in order to work in the sun too.

Fathers Day

Next Sunday is Fathers Day on 18th June. If you are stuck for an idea what to get in order to spoil that special man in your life, how about a gift voucher for his Mustang? It sure beats knocks the spots off a another bundle of socks! The best bit, he can order online while he is having his breakfast in bed!

Click here for the £10 vouchers or cut & paste this link to your browser:    https://mustangmaniac.co.uk/part/74/8051/__10_gift_voucher

Click here for the £20 vouchers or cut & paste this link to your browser:    https://mustangmaniac.co.uk/part/74/8052/__20_gift_voucher

Euro Update

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If you are thinking by the heading that Mustang Maniac are going to talk politics, you are very wrong. We are pleased to announce that we have some new stock for a European look upgrade to our popular custom-made LED lighting kits. But first we start with the Park & Pic.

Park & Pic

This Coupe owned by Steve has had a little upgrade on the front suspension. Steve supplied us with the wheels and the tyres so we could set the geo up on the car after the suspension swap out.

First out was the was the old springs, shocks and perches removed which have seen better days regarding wear and tear.

The perches had the upgraded Shelby suspension springs which are stiffer and lower the front of the car a little to give that more neutral body stance. The front sway bar was upgraded to a 1″ bar which will improve the handling of the car no end with the new performance springs and shocks.

WebShop:

We mention that we have now had a Euro version of our popular LED circuit boards for the early Mustangs. These boards have multiple options of sequences you can choose from via a button on the circuit board itself. We were asked if these were available so we had a new batch made to see what the reaction was like. We have already sold a few sets, so if you see them on a Mustang, the chances are they are from us. If you wanted to see them click here for the hyper link, or cut and paste the link here into your browser.

https://mustangmaniac.co.uk/part/36/8928/euro_led_65-66_sequential_flash

Euro LED 65-66 sequential flash

We have uploaded the video to our YouTube channel and the video is also here. Or click our YouTube logo to the go the channel.

Our YouTube Channel “MustangManiacUK”

We have had a request, it was only a single request for a Yogi pic – we suspect it was from Yogi’s wife, sorry ladies – but he’s taken. But we have one of the bear working on his own car which was also posted on our Facebook pages too.

To answer a Question:

We were asked if our light weight indoor covers would fit the new Mustangs too.

Yep – they do.

Duxford Car Show 2017

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Last week we were at a car show on the Sunday at the Imperial War Museum Duxford which didn’t get of to the best of starts should we say, but will explain why a little later. For the Park & Pic section, we have reduced the numbers down to a remaining few now, so please send us some more and we will post them right here for you.

Park & Pic

This weeks park and pic is owned by Rob who has taken 4 years of dedication to restore his 1967 Coupe. Rob has only bought the car down to us for a the finishing touches to sort out some running issues with an engine tune up, service, wheel alignment and to check the brakes and adjust them as required. A final once over for him and road test to make sure all is as it should be. A good job with his build and we hope he has many years of enjoyment with her.

The Duxford Car Show 2017:

The opening time for the show is 10am most people get there around 9am to avoid the inevitable traffic queue there is every year. The entrance that is used is one of the smaller entrances and a couple of booths to take the entrance money. At 8:15am the reserve car park was full and only then did the booth operators turn up to take the money. The entrance fee was £12.60 which is ridiculous as that means virtually every car had to stop, wait for change and proceed through. It would have been better to charge £12 or £13 to keep the traffic moving. There we a few angry people there not wishing to wait. In fact some of the owners had been waiting 2 1/2 hours by the time they managed to get in. There was an outside the show area impromptu meet up and people were looking at the cars in the queues. People were getting out of their cars to argue with the officials that were letting in cars directly from the main road, before the cars that were waiting in rows. It got quite heated with organisers threatening to remove people. One guy said “how are gonna do that when we are wedged in the middle of this field for hours?” Needless to say the woman in charge was lost for words with a very valid point. There was even a bout of car moving to allow other cars to turn around and go back home refusing to wait to get into the show for hours on end.

Once inside there was lots of cars, but not the same quality as previous years in our opinion. We made our way round to the Mustang designated area which was the same as last years, next to the American Hanger. There was lots of Mustangs to look at with plenty of new(er) models, not quite so many older models. One of our cars there was our genuine Shelby Hertz, we lost count of the number of times we asked if it was an original.

Some other stands included the Corvette guys;

Some Japanese & German (rather a lot of Mercedes) representations;

There was the UK guys;

There was an area where non club members were parked, everything from exotic Italians to random Mini based military vehicle.

The day was overcast with the odd outbreak of sunshine, but it was chilly with the wind across the open fields. We decided to leave early as did a number of other cars. Seriously though Duxford, if you want this show to be a continued success you really do need to sort out the logistics!

Customers Cars: 

We have Chris’ coupe that has taken on a whole new look with the red oxide paint.

WebShop:

Adam has found in his boxes of goodies this rather rare and original option part; a cruise control. It has all the parts and the paper work for fitting too. At this moment it’s not for sale, but if you wave a nice amount of cash under Adam’s nose, as he would say – “It could be yours!”

We are expecting a couple of cars back from paint soon and we will have some pics of those for you soon. Remember to send us your ride pics and we will post them for you. 🙂

Lost Boxes Of Parts

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This week we find Adam in the office with a big grin on his face, why? Well he had found a couple of boxes of parts that he had forgotten about. He rediscovered them while trying to make more space for some brand new stock items which we will get to a little further down the post. But first we have the Park & Pic.

Park & Pic:

This is Andy Hedley’s car that we have looked after for a while now. Andy has used this car a couple of times now for Beaujolais Run and also uses it for Charity work along with some sponsors too. So that’s a big thumbs up from Mustang Maniac.

Customers Cars:

Yogi has been working on his project; “The Onion” so far has been stripped to nothing and we have prepped the old parts we can keep with some self etc primer after some rust treatment. We have the new outer panels in boxes standing ready for fitting.

The car is not welded together with the major parts and only clamped for an idea of fit. But this is the time-consuming part as a millimetre out here or there can make a panel gap look wrong.

From the rear the same principles are applied.

Remember only the yellow etched sections are the original retained parts! This is a huge rebuild and working with just boxes of bits now to remake the car.

WebShop

We would to thank those of you for the verbal and email support we have gotten over last week’s post for the Terms and Conditions. At the top of the blog we mentioned that Adam had a big grin when he found the boxes of parts in the corner of the stock room by the office. Yes there was some new parts in there, but also some old parts he had purchased as a bulk buy a number of years ago from a Ford dealer.

These parts are going into stock too, if you are looking for those elusive original parts.

Aldan American suspension Kits – UK Supplier:

We mentioned a few weeks back that Adam has some exciting news coming soon and to watch this space about some amazing 1967 – 1970 Mustang parts. That space is now filled with the first batch of supplies and the important news that Mustang Maniac are now UK Suppliers for Aldan American suspension parts. This modern-day technology for suspension parts brings the Classic Mustang bang up to date for adjustable and customised road holding for the car and your driving style. The example here is the coil over kit for the front, with fully adjustable up or down settings which is supplied with the correct tools to adjust them. The kit comes with a full in-depth fitting guide to take the new shock tower tops.

We have scanned the sales leaflet for you here to see the range that is available for the classic Mustangs.

For further details give Adam an email at:  adam@mustangmaniac.co.uk or check the WebShop for more details as soon as we get them on there.

Restocking Of New & Old Items

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A very busy week with work resumed on lots of projects and a little something that we don’t normally do. We have some very important news regarding our WebShop, lots more new stock with bling for an EcoBoost Mustang requested by popular demand. But we start with the Park & Pic of our first Non Mustang!

Park & Pic

This is particular car is owned by a very good customer of ours who also owns a Mustang fastback that we look after for him on a regular basis. As a favour we will service other American Classics cars on the condition that there is no rush for us to complete the work, and you are a good customer. It probably doesn’t need to be said that we have to order the parts in for that particular car. This is a great looking 1963 Corvette Sting Ray sitting outside our offices in a sunset.

The car a had a blowing exhaust manifold, and the brakes were pulling noticeably to one side. We had her in up on the ramps to see what was going on, we replaced the manifold gaskets and replaced the front wheel cylinders as one was leaking. The brakes were adjusted all round and the mandatory brake bleed.

Then it was time for a road test, this is a sweet car and sounds as good as she looks. A real pleasure to have her in for some work.

Competition Prize Winner. 

A few weeks ago we had a colouring in competition and we announced the winner as Aaron Botevyle, aged 10. Well we sent the prize to him and here is the young gentleman himself with the “Game” vouchers and some goodies for Easter too. Again well done Aaron.

Ecoboost Bling Parts:

We have had a few requests to get some “bling” parts for the 2015 on Ecoboost Mustangs. We have listened to you and we can announce we have some nice under hood bling for you. We have taken a few before and after shots along with the part number for ordering online from our WebShop.

Coolant Cap:

Washer Cap

Master Brake Fluid Cap:

Oil Filler Cap

Oil Dipstick Cover and Fuel Filler Cap:

Fuse Box Cover:

The finished blinged up result:

An Important WebShop Announcement:

We are pleased to say that we are now at the point where the Mustang Maniac WebShop is now a self-supporting 24/7, 365 days a year service. This is the intention of Mustang Maniac retail strategy going forward to be a predominately online retail supplier. Adam and his team just don’t have the time to take orders over the phone anymore as they work in yard on the cars – their first passions. There has been a minority of customers who have been complaining about the price of our postage. We have mentioned before that we courier our products out to you and the minimum our couriers charge us is £8 + vat at 20%, that’s the £9.60 amount we pass on to you. So if you order a single cigarette lighter, or order more items that can fit in that particular parcel then it will be £9.60 regardless of the number of items in it. We of course still offer a collection service if the cost of postage is too much and we will be pleased to see you, or you can arrange your own collection service as long as you email us first on adam@mustangmaniac.co.uk to let us know when this will be so it can be prepared ready. In the past we have had to make trips to the post office two or three times as day, we get charged for the recorded delivery, it uses our fuel and our time to get there and back which worked out more expensive to us as business. The couriers we use will give you next day delivery (were possible), if ordered with us before 11.30 am, we think that is good service. Unfortunately the “Enos Post” option has been discontinued due to the occasional lost items and inconsistent delivery times which was unacceptable to our high levels of customer service satisfaction.

As we are now moving to the online trading now we have produced a “user guide” for the WebShop which will be soon uploaded to the WebShop site as follows:

“Here at Mustang maniac we are committed to the right parts for the right cars/people. To ensure our high level of service continues we need your help.

Our telephone lines have been ringing of the hook with questions, which at times, has prevented us from shipping orders and stocking the shelves with exciting new lines. Most of these could arguably have be solved online, so, how can you help us, or, more importantly, help us to help you?

Our most common questions are around stock levels, part fitment (if this is the correct part for the car) and overseas shipping costs.

The first is easy to solve:

If a part is stated as ‘Currently in stock’ in green, rest assured that part is on our shelves and ready to ship.

When looking online, if a part is marked as ‘Currently out of stock’ this means it’s either on it’s way from the states to be replenished, or, your order will prompt us ordering more from our suppliers and we will give you an arrival estimate once the order is placed.

The third stock level you may see is ‘Special Order Item’. This is reserved for more specialist items and as a result, we order these in only when requested, so, your online order will kick-start this process, and we will again give you an estimated time of arrival once your order is placed.

Overseas orders are equally as simple, in that we ask you to go through the standard ordering process, if needs be using our address/postcode to complete the order, then, once we have picked, packed and most importantly weighed your complete order, we will contact you with a balance price for the shipping. Don’t panic, until your order has left our building, you can always cancel it with no charge, so don’t fret over not knowing the postage price first.

You are also welcome to arrange your own courier, though we ask you send an email requesting this as soon as your order is placed: adam@mustangmaniac.co.uk with the subject: Request to Collect.

Lastly, part fitment. This is always a tricky one, as over the phone technical support can be challenging at the best of times. As a result, we ask you to trust our model year/descriptions online, but, that if you do still have questions, that they be emailed to: adam@mustangmaniac.co.uk containing as much information as you can, and where possible photos (a picture does tell a 1000 words) so we can best advice the part you need. This communication will be in the form of part numbers, which you can use to search our online store, and complete your order online.

Having a web shop means we are ‘open’ 24hours a day, 7days a week, 365days a year, saying this, our shipping is Mon-Fri, with orders completed before 11:30am being sent out ‘Same Day’, not bad for a ‘small parts distributor’ from the UK.

Using email is the best method for general contact too, allowing us to give you a thorough answer to your question and even provide links for what you’re looking for online. This also includes the progress of your order, online order returns and service/restoration requests.

Mustang Maniac isn’t some huge corporation interested in only taking your money, we are a family run business who care about you and your Mustang. We hope our reputation of stocking only the finest Mustang parts and Accessories precedes us, so, your feedback is always gratefully received. Find us on FaceBook and keep up to date with our weekly Blog.”

 

On the WebShop we define our “Terms & Conditions” for returns as the following;

RETURNS

Returns to Mustang Maniac must be made within 30 days of receiving it. Therefore, always inspect your order immediately upon receipt to make sure it is correct and undamaged. After 30 days we cannot accept returns for any reason including errors and defects. To return anything within the 30-day limit, the following procedure must be followed:

  1. Contact our Customer Service department by Phone or Email and obtain a Return Authorisation (RA) Number. This number must appear on the front of the package you are returning.
  2. Include the following with your return: (a) a copy of your original invoice and (b) a note stating why you are returning the item and whether you want a refund, replacement part or credit on account.
  3. Insure the return package and pay the shipping charges. We are NOT responsible for any lost or damaged merchandise returned to us. All returns are accepted subject to inspection by Mustang Maniac. WE DO NOT ACCEPT RETURNED PARTS WHICH HAVE BEEN USED, MODIFIED, DAMAGED, OR PAINTED.
  4. Mustang Maniac is not responsible for any installation charges. If Mustang Maniac is at fault, we will promptly refund your return delivery charges. Mustang Maniac is NOT responsible for air-freight charges or boxing/packing services.

We mention this now because recently we have had some returned orders from a few random customers who have returned their items just under a year ago, with no packaging and the odd damaged item. It doesn’t take much to work out that we can’t resell those items again. Adam still refunded these items as a good will gesture, but in the future there will be a discretionary decision by Adam if we will refund these items in the future which could also be subject to a 20% restocking fee if he agrees to it.. This does not affect your statuary rights, this is for such items that were purchased, but just no longer wanted. If you are outside the returns policy guidelines please drop Adam an email and he will respond to your on individual basis. A recent example of this was that a full exhaust system was purchased and later given to a third party garage for them to fit the full exhaust system. They told our customer that it didn’t fit and he should return it for that reason. The exhaust was returned and in no fit state to resell again. So we decided to wait until one of our own cars needed an exhaust and fit it. Needless to say, for us the exhaust was a straight forward fit with no problems, apart from undoing the damage that the third party garage had caused to the exhaust mounts trying to fit it. Any company can’t sustain hundreds of pounds worth of refunds to be returned damaged and have to potentially scrap those parts. We were in fortunate situation to be able to repair and re-use those parts.

For the full “Terms and Conditions” click here.

For the User Guide click here, or see the menu above “WebShop Online Ordering” for all the links.

Customers Cars:

Next week we will have some pictures for you of the “Onion” Mustang! No we haven’t forgotten about her at all, but here is a sneak peek, shh don’t tell Yogi we snapped a picture of his work in progress!

Have a great Easter from all of us at Mustang Maniac.

Peeling Off The Layers

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The “Onion” Mustang has picked up a few interested comments, and yes we can confirm that we will bring the full restoration to you. Just like the “French” Mustang or the “Mastic Mustang” the car was in a bit of a mess should we say, but now they look absolutely stunning. This is again a big project from the ground up. So we kick of the post with the Park & Pic article:

This is Paul Todd’s Mach1 which has been restored using as much of the original car as possible, the paint job was done by the man himself. The car has had a set of our Magnum alloy rims on the car and they really suit it. The tyres are yet to be decided but that is just minor details. The subtle touch is the red centre caps to match the hood intakes!

The car needed a few minor additions and Yogi was seen prowling the premises and was collared into fitting some new wiper blades.

Customer Cars:

67 Fastback. Last week we showed you the poor state of the suspension arms that have now been replaced. This week Yogi has completed the under hood wiring loom and looks stock.

We are awaiting further instructions whether to continue with the rest of the restoration or hand the car back as she is, which was plan A. 🙂

The Onion Mustang

We start this update with a little selfie time that was uploaded to Facebook forum click here for the link. The guys getting stuck into the Onion and had a tea break feeling pleased with themselves.

The car has had the floor pans cut away, the front and the rear cabin sections. The Jig was custom-made by Yogi to make sure everything goes back at is should with the original factory jig holes being used. Now we can start to build her up layer by layer. Already she looks totally different.

The dash section was fine and will be used for the basis of the panel fit with the rear cabin section.

With the floor pan now out of the way, the new floor pan could be laid on the jig and married up to the jig and the existing parts.

A new sill was needed along with more metal work.

That leaves replacing the front inner metal work.

Off course none of this can be welded in place yet and is clamped and lightly tack welded just for now until we are happy with the measurements taken of the old parts. Watch this space to see how it all comes together.

WebShop Stock

We get asked now and again if we can get some Rostyle wheels for the early UK Fords. Well we listened and have a batch in stock. We have sold some already and have some left. Shall we keep them as stock or make this a one of batch? Let us know! These wheels we part of original kit for MGB, Rover and of course the early Fords. What we have here are the 15″ version and we love the look of the wheels.

Competition:

You only have a couple of hours to go before the competition deadline runs out. It’s not official this, so don’t tell Adam, but if you send them to mustangmaniacuk@gmail.com after the Midday cut off until this evening, I will sneak them onto the little stack on Adam’s desk.