bluto72

Was just looking over my interior resto and found this...

Ouch! Expensive bugger. But Rare Parts seems to be the only company making idler arms for power steering systems.

Where did you get your idler? Bought one from O'Riely's 5 years ago and just got around to replacing it since I replaced the starter too. It was wrong but they still gave me a refund! The bend (offset) was off by maybe 3/4" to 1". Bluto

OK...so, the usb sockets came with my radio. Like Tekelley22 said, you can get them on Amazon in various flavors. I made sure of this before hacking mine up. You essentially need to whittle it down to fit the lighter bezel as they are way too fat. I used a box cutter and took my time. The ports are encased in a soft , almost rubber-like, plastic so it's not too horrible. Make sure to leave the port end bigger than the insertion end as shown. To secure it to the dashboard, I used a pipe fitting. I forget what size it was, but I took the socket with me to Lowes and bought a galvanized metal one and a plastic one. Either will bite in to the soft plastic material but you may have to skinny up the socket a bit. Both of the fittings had a gradual taper meaning that it starts threading easy and finished very tight. I had to play with this by shaping the socket to make sure that it threaded on enough to hold the whole contraption tight without swiveling. I bought a package of male usb solder connectors for the plug side. See here... https://www.amazon.com/Conwork-10-Pack-Socket-Connector-Plastic/dp/B072DWP59M/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=usb+male&qid=1570232452&sr=8-4 Those also needed hacking like so... Cut it at the yellow plane, but not all the way. Drill a hole for the plugs center thread. This may take some trial an error, but hey, you got 10 of these buggers! Bend it and flatten it out like shown on the bottom. I made mine such that it could thread on and be mechanically secure before the JB Welding. Back-fill with JB Weld, thread usb thingy on, and pack it full of more JB Weld. A Toothpick helps get it all the way in. Once set, I painted on some ABS glue for a finished look. And of course, the finished product...

Yeah, I made that for my '72 Mach last winter. Just discovered this post. I'll see if I can do a little write-up later when I get a chance.

I'm happy to report that my clock is working wonderfully and keeping great time! No issues whatsoever. :thankyouyellow:

Sadness...

The picture shown is not the actual bracket. The ones I got are very low... It's just that those seats are too high. They have a 4.5" base height. It's my fault really...but I loved the look. I need to send them back and get the RRS series that has a 2.5" base height. BTW, they sell extender rails that allow the seats to be slid back another 4". That will help a lot.

So I got my dashboard all finished and put together tonight. Installed my new seats and hopped in to install the steering wheel. I get the wheel tightened up and a thought occurs to me. "I'm sitting pretty high. What's it like to get out/in the car now?" Barely made it out!!! :@ They do look great though... These are the seats I got... https://corbeau.com/trailcat.html I also got their brackets which are pretty low... https://corbeau.com/ford-mustang-71-73-seat-brackets.html Looks like the seats have a bit more cushion than the stock seats and the bolsters don't help as far as getting in and out are concerned. Another thing I noticed is that the seats do not slide back very far. I have to slide them all the way back to fit in. I suppose if I were tiny they would be perfect. Any thoughts on remedies? Smaller steering wheel? Tilt steering? Thanks, Bluto

Sweet!

Apparently you can melt airsoft ammo (pellets) in acetone to make your own glue in any consistency. The plastic doesn't really shrink much if at all. I think that if you made it real thick you couldn't get it into cracks and crevasses as well. It tends to skin over pretty quickly.

NOT FOR SALE - Sorry. I put new seats in tonight and they are a bit too high. Might have to keep seat until I figure this out.

Two out of three of the mounting holes in my instrument cluster bezel were completely broken off. My first attempt at repair several years ago was to try welding random plastic pieces to it using a soldering iron. Now that I am restoring all of the dash and everything behind it, I discovered that my method failed and both pieces had mostly broke again. This was likely due to the melting of plastics only being superficial. Obviously I needed a better method or to just give up on it and get a new one for approximately $90. While digging around on the internet researching dashboard repair, I found one guy who was fixing a motorcycle fairing using ABS glue. Now, I know as much as the next guy that glue glues things together. But what if something was completely missing? You can make anything useful out of glue, right? Wrong! This guy was missing a mounting bracket that had been torn off. He used clay to make an impression of an intact bracket, placed it where he needed it, and filled it with glue as an experiment. What he got was a rough but brand new bracket. Fascinating! Turns out that ABS glue is not so much a glue per se. It's really a solvent (acetone and such) that melts plastic and makes a weld, kinda like model glue. But better than that, it has lots of ABS plastic dissolved in it that will become part of the weld and fill in gaps in your sloppy ABS piping project at home. That being that case, the stuff is able to be cast. And best of all, automotive plastic is mostly ABS. My research tells me (correct me if I'm wrong) that ABS welded with ABS glue has about 95% of the strength of the original. I thought I would give it a try as I had nothing to lose and the repair would never be seen as it hides under the dash pad. I used play dough for my mold since I had some laying about. Turns out that one of the good things about play dough is that it's water soluble and can be washed out of all of the nooks and crannies it might get stuck in. So, here's my attempt... And finished product... Both circled areas were gone. Then I went completely nuts. Ding around the tach gage...filled. Center dash panel ductwork torn off of mounting brackets...backed it up with tape, filled with glue, new plastic now welded around old bracket rivets. Big crack in center dash panel...gooped with glue (from behind), pressed ordinary window screen into it, gooped another layer once it was dry. Will never crack again. I glued everything that I could! What I learned... 1- ALWAYS clean part(s) first with ABS cleaner. It comes in a nice pack with the glue. Use a cotton swab or a cloth or the swab that comes in the can (a bit unwieldy). This removes old paint and starts the melting process. In fact, you can weld two pieces of ABS together with just acetone, once you apply enough to make the parts a bit goopy (that is a technical term). 2- The repair will need sanded if it is to be seen. Textured panels are tough. Repair from behind. I had a couple of holes to fill in my center console. I put tape on the outside (textured side), and filled from behind. Once it was kind of dry I poked it with a screw driver giving it a little texture. Looks passable. 3- Work in layers. The acetone needs to evaporate. That can take longer than it takes for the surface to skin over making it get sort of trapped. If poured on thickly (like I did in the example above) it will appear to "breathe" once a light skin forms and the acetone evaporating fills in behind it until it escapes. It's a little unnerving :chin: . It will also end up swiss-cheesy like as bubbles form inside because of the trapped gas. 4- It's going to be a bit swiss-cheesy regardless. No matter how much you fill and sand and repeat, it will never be flush or untextured. I guess that ABS is likely swiss-cheesy (I swear that's a thing) anyway, but on a really small scale that's not normally noticeable due to injection molding and casting makes bigger bubbles. Also, your borders will never sand flush because (I'm guessing here) the evaporating acetone will melt the adjoining plastic and collapse it's little micro-bubbles causing the border to shrink a little tiny bit. It makes a little shiny ring around your repair. Simple fix is to use a little putty after the first sanding. 5- Have lots of cotton swabs and toothpicks for applying glue and poking it into tight places. Well, that's all I know. I hope this help others.

That's for a '73 and the '72 version is a Scott Drake. ALTHOUGH, the Scott Drake states that it is "no longer from an OE source". Are they making their own now? https://www.npdlink.com/product/switch-turn-signal-repro-no-longer-from-an/150663?backurl=search%2Fproducts%3Fsearch_terms%3Dsignal%26top_parent%3D200001%26year%3D1972&year=1972 CJ Pony gets their turn signal switch from Scott Drake who gets it from the manufacturer, Shee-Mar, Inc. I contacted them to tell them about their issues. They responded that they are aware of the issues and will correct them in the "near future". Hmm.

Installed my new turn signal switch last night only to find that it cannot engage the left signal like so many other reviews on CJ Pony have mentioned. As you can see here, the right turn signal is engaged and the lever is in the neutral position (horizontal). It appears that the manufacturer thinks the lever thread should be drilled perpendicular to the switch whereas the stock one is angled slightly up. Not sure that I can do anything about it so it's getting returned for a new (probably defective too) one. :@ I also had to extend the key switch buzzer wire (the black/pink one) about 1.5 inches. No real excuse for that.

It's going where the lighter was. Problem is that the lighter, now missing, is what holds the whole contraption to the dash. Gotta figure out how to grab on to the USB dongle without destroying it and without letting it spin. Maybe a couple of screws through the light compartment?

'71 H code Mach 1

Made this for connecting to my new radio when I install it. Gives the lighter bezel something to do and looks stock when not in use. Now I just have to figure out how to actually install it in the dash :chin:

Bob, As you know, I received my clock last Saturday and gave it a quick test by hooking it up to my battery. I won't get to installing it for several weeks as I currently have the whole dash pulled apart. It will probably be a month or so before I can provide feedback for you. Jim