Thanks, I noticed that and planned to swap them out.
Timken and SKF are worldwide know as mentioned.I got my axle bearings and seals in and I dropped the axles off to my buddy to have the bearings pressed on. My center section shows out for delivery already today, I didn't expect it until tomorrow so that will be a pleasant surprise. I will have more time to paint it and get it ready to install when the axles come back it may even be in the rear end housing, haha.
Of course, the bearings were made in China, but the seals were made in Taiwan. I wonder, does that make them better or worse? LOL
I checked everywhere I could think of, but I could not find any American-made bearings for this application.
Thanks!
Happy birthday to your Mach 1! It's been through an amazing transformation in your care.Happy 54th Birthday to my 1971 Mach 1!
Its production date was 2/2/1971, 54 years ago today!
My wife and I are planning to take it out for a joy ride this afternoon. With the unseasonably warm weather here in Chicago and the rain on Thursday and Friday the road salt got washed away. The streets are clean and dry right now and it is 47 degrees today, not bad for February in Chicago.
I took the car for a road test yesterday to make sure the recently installed rear differential was nice and quiet and there were no leaks or issues. The test drive went well, and it was clean and dry underneath after I returned, so I am now confident to take it for a longer joy ride with my wife today.
It has come a long way since I bought it and since each of its last birthdays during the restoration process.
This is how it looked when I bought it in November 2021 at the ripe old age of 50.
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This is the car on its 51st birthday 2/2/2022
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This is how it looked on its 52nd birthday 2/2/2023
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This is how it looked on its 53rd birthday 2/2/2024
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This is how it looks on its 54th birthday today 2/2/2025
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It will be nice to drive it around some and get some more miles on it before Wednesday when winter returns to Chicago, the weather app is forecasting temperatures to drop and snow on Wednesday.
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Looks great glad it didn’t crack and you corrected.I finally got around to having my glass guy come by and reinstall the windshield properly yesterday. My friend Mike had the glass guy that he uses at the body shop install the windshield and rear glass there after we painted it so I could drive it home. Unfortunately, his guy did not do an awesome job and the windshield actually slid down to the point that the top of the windshield was no longer touching the sheet metal of the car. This caused the glass to sag and opened up the gap between the upper molding and the windshield itself. Fortunately, the windshield did not crack from the lack of support.
You can see the gap between the upper molding and the windshield in this pic:
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The glass guy, that I used for years back when I was running car dealerships, came by on Saturday and removed the windshield glass and cleaned up the mess from the other glass guy. The first guy actually put urethane down first and then the butyl directly over it.
In over 40 years in the car business, I have never seen anyone do this before and neither had my glass guy. In the past, I have always been told that urethane and butyl do not play well together and the one needs to be cleaned thoroughly before you apply the other. This could be why the glass slid down like it did as it was not attached to the car very well. Fortunately the first glass guy did not prep the body right for the urethane so the urethane peeled right off the body, making for a pretty easy cleanup.
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Although he had to do a lot of cleaning of the mess from the other guy, the glass came out and went back in without any cracks, thank goodness. He did a great job of reinstalling it. The glass is now glued to the car on all four edges of the glass now, what a concept, right? The other good news is going forward, the windshield probably won't fall out of the car, and the moldings also fit nicely to the glass now, so I got that going for me, which is nice!
No gap between the molding and glass now:
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Inspired by getting the windshield resolved yesterday, this morning I finally got around to applying cavity wax inside the frame rails and torque boxes. It's not like I was procrastinating forever, I only bought the product and applicator wands 4 months ago, haha.
Back when I welded in the the trunk floor and tail lamp panel, I used weld through primer on the rear rails. I also seam sealed the panels on the outside before I painted the bottom of the car. Even thought this car will probably never see rain, let alone snow or salt ever again. I still wanted to add the cavity wax just to make sure the frame rails and trunk floor are protected from the inside as well as possible.
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When I was done with the cavity wax, I wiped the car down and took it out for a nice long ride. I ended putting almost 60 miles on it, I felt like it was such a nice day, I had to take advantage of it. It is very unusual to have a sunny 50 degree day at the beginning of March in Chicago!
Yes they were, and they were there after I painted the engine compartment and when it went to the body shop. They were still there in this picture taken after the car was painted but the hood wasn't painted or installed yet. Sadly, I never noticed they went missing, after the glass slipped down, I discovered they weren't there. I asked Mike if he knew how they could go missing, and he told me he had a couple of his body techs install the hood at some point after we painted it. He asked them about it, and they remembered that they did remove the supports to make sure they didn't scratch the hood when they installed it. Why they did this and did not mention it, and didn't reinstall them, I have no idea.
