Fabrice's 429CJ 71 project

[PoFoMoCo]

Amazing craftsmanship, always a treat to see one of your updates! Glad you are feeling better, hoping for your continued speedy recovery.

 

[Sheriff41]

Excellent update! Glad you were able to get out and enjoy some American iron.

 

[Fabrice]

Time for a little update...

As my back has slowly recovered to a point I can forget I actually have one when I move, I wanted do some stuffs, but couldn't do much because while the world was bathed into extreme heat, Here past weeks were like autumn: Cold, rain, heavy rain, wind, rain and some days even rain and wind.

So continued to work on what I wanted do this winter: my heater box...




We had one exception to the terrible weather last week, so I did it. My 73, was in need of a little upgrade in the form of a bigger airfilter. No biggy for a regular configuration, but when you run a 100% ram air, some fab was required... And as I wanted to ease the servicing vs the previous smaller square filter config I had, some fab/welding was necessary... Now got max air capacity!





For the other weekends, it's all been about that heater box..
As these boxes are really amazingly full of parts, which were all were in very very bad state, I'm gonna start by showing where I was this weekend. And while most was done at that point, lots remains to be done...




But before get to that state, some parts needed attention. Some more than others like the ventilation unit casing. The poor bastard was broken in a few places, one had been 'repaired' with metal to conserve some strength.. so undid that and had some fiber work on the todo before I could think of laying a bit of black paint.




There has been some serious de-rust sessions too. Joys of ancient glue for foam removal. Stuck rods. Ventilator wheel refusal to get loose...




Lots of bubbles were made. LOTS! In green and golden juices. I have spared no electron!!
There was some little fab too, because some parts were not worth the efforts and could be reproduced with new material faster, like the many little rivets back plates... Some of the small hardware also needed be done, because these are made of unobtainium over here, and too expensive to be imported for the ones I could eventually buy in the states.




And at some point, the 'junk" started to look less junk ! Bling even! Some with scars, but perfectly functional, plus some, like the "valves" will also receive new glued foam on them. A good news was that all the vacuum actuators are perfectly functional.




There was lots of plastic cleaning for what was in good shape, plastic melting/heating to give back correct shape and ideal fit. The motor testing/cleaning/dismantle was a pure joy with its overly strong tabs...




As I bought modern foam, of far more superior quality than the original, gasket kits in different flavours over the past years. So there was a gasket making day too!! Also started reassemble details and finish others...




And as of yesterday,I finally enjoyed put back some rivets. The beginning of the "way back"
I had order some, but somehow waaaay too strong. Even slamming them on my vice with big hammer could not get them flat. So they were impossible to be used on these relatively fragile casings. I was glad to see these alternatives that I've found are much better. Still more of a pain to install than modern popup rivets, but as I spent hours looking for them online, pain it will be

Anyway, that should explain why I was silent past weeks! Restoring a heater box is really lots of work, especially when starting with one that is not in great state like mine was.
I'm not done yet! This puzzle needs be reassembled, but I can at least work with white gloves from now on

To be continued...

 

[tpj71mach]

Wow! What a transition, great job! I feel like a slacker, I restored my heater box but did not do nearly as much with the details. I just cleaned it up and reassembled with new seals. I wish I took the time to dip and coat the metal components I am always impressed with your skill and attention to detail.

 

[Fabrice]

@tpj71mach You're not a slacker, you're a wise man!! I totally underestimated the work involved and as you saw on the picts, the internals were really in a state that no lip tick could fix! Plus and trust me when I say it was dirty, somehow tons of organic and dust of all kind had entered the box over the years and it was absolutely disgusting and would have ruined my plan: I want my car have this "new car" smell when I'm done
If yours was in ok state, no reason to go thru this pain!

 

[Sheriff41]

Your work and craftsmanship never cease to amaze, Fabrice! You're setting the bar high for the rest of us! Keep up the great work and keep posting to allow us to see your progress.

 

[PoFoMoCo]

Fabrice you are a machine! Keep it up, the attention to detail is amazing. No one compares to this level. Outstanding

 

[Steve McMahan]

Fabrice, you and others are the reason I joined this forum: total craftsmen effort. I endeavor daily to become the builder you already are.

 

[tpj71mach]

@tpj71mach You're not a slacker, you're a wise man!! I totally underestimated the work involved and as you saw on the picts, the internals were really in a state that no lip tick could fix! Plus and trust me when I say it was dirty, somehow tons of organic and dust of all kind had entered the box over the years and it was absolutely disgusting and would have ruined my plan: I want my car have this "new car" smell when I'm done
If yours was in ok state, no reason to go thru this pain!

Yes, I got away with just taking it apart and cleaning all of the Las Vegas desert sand and dirt out real well. I reassembled it with all new heater core, evaporator core and seals. I tested the actuators to make sure they all held vacuum and reassembled with new vacuum lines where needed, so hopefully all of the doors should work properly

 

[Fabrice]

Another Mustang weekend passed and this one was all about putting these heater/airco box puzzle together!

My car is airco from factory, but just like my 73, also airco, none of the components are presents, removed in the past. If I ever install airco, I'lll see then how to squeeze some modern components in there.

For now. The box needed to be put back together...



More tedious than one might expect that's for sure! :O
For each removed bracket, it's a struggle to install rivets. Each door mechanism, now pristine and smooth, went back in without any hesitation.



The contact glueing/test fit with the new foam on both side took time, that if you want the surface contacts to do what they are ment to do: close/shut perfectly.
Should be as designed and have only one way to go in, but... yeah, what can I say, the design and quality of the casing makes it so that it's easy to end up with doors that do work yes, simply not perse soft or economical/efficient on the vacuum force required to activate them. So each one of them got extra attention for most free rotation and sealing surface...

Here some closeup of the test fit. Because the original geometry/mould of the casing isn't great (read very poor). The engineers fixed that by using foam that was really not sealing and allowing "some" play. Of course, once you use modern quality foam ment to really seal, the design shows some "points of improvement". Eventually, with some patience got them to align and seal as it should.




If you go the way as I did, that is to not sleep at nite knowing your heater box has rusty brackets and remove them to really remove the rust underneath!
Know that unless you have massive expensive C-clamps like rivets tools, because the casing is weak or has brackets where you can't have a dolly or similar to allow you to slam the rivets in. You can only set modern pop-up rivets in some places. Which is fine. BUT there are places where you can't get out with it! Simply because the doors will not be able to open if you use popup rivets as they leave on the back side some kind of aluminium blob.

Here for instance the plastic thingy that directs the airflow to the console. This weak and thin piece of ABS plastic, not only was in need of heat reshaping, but had very large holes left by the original rivets. So because it is fragile, I went first with pop-up rivets with a larger washer there because the holes are not set where you can easily slam them... but... you end up with is that the door cannot open, stopping on the pop-up rivets back sides. So you really need rivets there...
Because it's very weak, thinking the gods of originality should not be mad at me. I made a small extra reinforcement plate to allow me to slam the flat rivets in without going thru the plastic in the process.
Doesn't look much and it's not, just another 1/2 hour down the drain for a detail...
Once done, and the plastic was feeling much stronger and the door can then fully open /close using the vacuum actuator.

That's usually when I have some dance moment !




And at some point comes the "tadaaaa" moment! Your heater box thingy is done! Ready to blow your interior with new car smell air! (time for a new dance moment! )




One last look at the ref pictures that were really handy during the reassembly... bye bye rust, bye bye weird screws, bye bye weird repairs!

All with all. if you're not living in a dry region, as @tpj71mach, and may you want fresh air in your cabine vs "old car" fragrance. Chances are you will enjoy going thru the very same process as I did. It's all simple, but its not a piece you can do in a weekend, that's for sure!


Ok, now, what shall I do next?? Running out of rust here! :O

To be continued....

 

[Cleveland Crush]

Way to go Fabrice another job well done!
BUT...please do not loose any more sleep because:
"If you go the way as I did, that is to not sleep at nite knowing your heater box has rusty brackets"
Pleasant Dreams,
Chris

 

[Fabrice]

@Cleveland Crush ok ok, I might have over exaggerated the drama a tad

 

[PoFoMoCo]

Masterful craftsmanship and detail!

 

[bishoppeak]

I'll be interested to see how you incorporate modern components, all the systems I found used a new airbox and electrical controls

 

[Fabrice]

@bishoppeak As said, I'm not really in a hurry for airco. Reason being I'm located in the northern Netherlands and we basically have sh...y weather the whole year. Now for instance, while mid/south France, say 1000-1300kms south of here have near 40c and overall nice weather for months, today we have 24c and sunny, 4th okish day after weeks of sh...te, but in 2 days we go back to that crap... And when it's one of these nice days, I kinda enjoy driving with the 4 windows down. Sure, airco can be useful to get rid of moisture during wet season, but there too, I avoid drive it when wet...
All with all an airco is not really a must have here, unless I'd use my car for a long trips. I know from my past 2 t-birds that I was rarely using it.

To get back on topic, there are kits like these, https://www.originalair.com/71-73-mustang-cougar-ac-performance-upgrade-kit-v8-stage-3
which seems to be a direct fit/plug-in to the existing systems in our cars. This implies of course that your car has the original option/equipment.
Both my 71 and 73 are/were airco cars. ( I sold my 73 airco when I was 19 back in the early 90's as I was finding it too greedy on the engine load... I regret it now and it looks like another past owner of my 429 had same stoopid idea! :O )

There is also an airco station (maintenance/installation) not 2 miles away, and I'm pretty sure that with some guidance and few key parts, I could put together a working airco using much cheaper/local parts. We'll see...

 

[Fabrice]

Did little past 2 weeks, as I was busy on my 73.
But as usual, I try do at least one thing on the 71 per weekend. I did 3 or 4, so that's good



Because of my back, I had started doing light stuffs that I wanted do this winter like the heater box...
Now much better, before starting something else I needed finish many details I had in my "todo" boxes.
Really diverse, some plastic like the B-Pilar vents. These plastic things were really dirty and it took me a while to give their membranes a straight shape back. Another nothing saying thingy that was waiting: the brakelight switch. Functional but rusty, so as me and rust are not good friends...




One tough little guy that made me waste lots of time was one of the rear power windows bezel. That was having the very common "pot metal, zamak, white metal" pits caused by corrosion and gas forming underneath the ancient plating...
These casted details are what makes or breaks an interior, so as these 71 bezels are not really easy to be found.
I tried to see if I could give it back some dignity, knowing this type of alloy is "painin zebutt". And indeed it was!

First removing the layers of ancient chrome, nickel and copper and the pits without damaging the shape took a while. Fairly aggressive grain needs be used
and of course not too far as once you reach the soft metal, it's very soft. The plating is a challenge because the moment you submerge the part, the zinc part of the alloy starts to react to the acid, and the game is to counter the fx by plating at higher voltage. But the deposit being "burned", it needs to be re-polished in between to slowly build up a good foundation of nickel.
Short story, this baby costed me hours and 5x more plating work than regular iron do.

Far from perfect, but good enough for a rear power window bezel! Glad the other one looks fine andI don't have to go thru same pain!
I miss the clip behind and need make one, but that's for later... If someone has a pict of that clip...




Now that my pile of small stuffs is reduce to near nothing. My back recovered, It was time to let the "old men" things go and return to the body.
First patient, as I don't really want to crawl yet, is the passenger B-pilar. From the inside, I could see where it needs to be fixed. The corrosion is basically in 2 places.

1: the down side, where it meets the quarter. There it's totally gone, both metal layers (it was nicely hidden under tons of bondo)
and 2: around the square hole. Where the back plate and the exterior skin are squeezed together. With zero protection applied at the plant and the condensation able to stay there for ages, it's no surprise the metal had slowly desapeared...

First step: define where/what to cut for the upper fix and make a template... Also started drill the square hole, but leave it so that I'll be able to file it as a perfect match of the back plate once welded back.




With the sick region defined, I started by making a buck of the curvature by machining wood. Then made the neighbours happy with some hammer beats to slowly obtain the fold along the vertical crown.... After some test fits. I've cleared the previous markings and made new ones around the patch to cut.




One final test fit to make sure I got the shape right. Next step: point of no return!! :O

As the idea was to keep the plate behind untouched, cutting the metal and drill the spot welds is somewhat tricky. but gradually "peeled" the sick part off as planned.
Once de-burred, I could test my patch. Aside 1 mm on the inner side where I've tried to cut very carefully to avoid future welding in a place you can't really grind the patch is almost ready to be welded in place!




I say almost, because, there is not a chance I will weld anything while I still see the brown cancer!!

The back plate has some weak too (green) tho strangely way less than the outer skin as you can see, Not sure if I will patch it or simply reproduce it. The problem here is the pressed in shapes holding the plate to bolt to the door anchor. Got a week to think about that...

When I did the template, I saw I need fix the recess on top too, but as the fold need be in a S shape, it would have been in my way for the more important curves on the sides. So I will probably weld the fix on my patch. Same for the strip bellow. That I've kept to have a good valid guide. I'll probaly cut it and weld a strip to my patch. More easy to weld on healthy strong metal ( this is zincor 1mm ) than on corroded metal...

Before even come to the fix needed on the lower part of the pilar, this alone should keep me out of the streets for a while!


To be continued...

 

[Fabrice]

Little update.

Thx to some Sniper issues, AGAIN!! I've been spending more of my free time on my 73 than my 71...




About 4 week sago, went for a ride and at some point the engine started run bad. if I would give some gas, the car would not react, it was pretty much killing it... as if the regulator was faulty. Long story kept short (lots of swearing, removal and reinstalls further). The o2 sensor went bad again, locked at AFR35. That's only the third time!! Somehow it looks like the dang thing seems to not like exhaust fumes

So this time, after reading more on lambda's, I've bought some Honda parts (yes HONDA lol!!!) and modified them. Basically it's a spacer that was originally designed to be used after the catalytic converter in order to prevent errors on these cars when modified. Being of the standard size, I've simply reopen it allows more gas to enter the sensor and that way, my sensor is no longer directly exposed to the hot headers gas flow yet the hole big enough to have some active "gas vortex". After hours of enjoyable work under the car with my backache, I was rewarded by a very stabile AFR. Unlike when the sensor is directly exposed. Time will tell if that does fix the fast rate at which the sensors go bad. But as of now, AFR never been that stabile... we'll see!




Anyway, there was some work started on the mach 1... Now that all was cut and fitting, the double sheet repaired, I was able to trace the square hole.
Yes, one could made a round one and it would be just fine. But you'd then miss the fun of making a square one with tiny files!!!

So did that and went tack the patch in place. Not pretty for sure, because the original metal, kept where it was at its best, is not a straight forward thing to weld that on slightly thicker newer metal.
Plus, in order to prevent any warping's, I had decided to keep the top left sick in place in order to keep the original curve alignment. So yeah, it wasn't a pretty sight at this stage




Now that I got my first round of welds done and the main patch in place, it was time to cut the sick lower part in that recess. That few inches thingy needed be formed to match the curve it has and be cut to obtain a nice flush fit. Hammering it on a tube and checking on the other side of the car turned out to be the way... With now more healthy metal in place, it went much more easy than welding the main patch.




After many weld-cool-wait-grind-repeats, it was time to pass the "light" test, which revealed a few pin holes. Once these extra spot welds were done, I was left with what I think is looking pretty close to what the original should look like. AND dang it, it's strong as it never been!! What a difference!!




Next step was to reopen the original spot welds on the lower front sill connection, as they were showing corrosion.
1/2 of that is repaired as of now...

And then it was time to cut the cancer of the lower quarter. Bit tricky as I want to first repair the double side plate inside.
I can reach inside but unfortunately my zip-cut diameter doesn't allow me enough precision to cut it. Even used/small discs do not allow me the cut I want. So ordered some mini discs of 38mm diameter (almost an inch) for Dremmel tools and I'll cut the inner sick plate once they are here.

So in coming weeks, I'll have to form 2 pieces: one to repair the curvy inner structure, and the second part to fit the sick outer skin corner and weld it on the first one. Fun in perpective as welding the inner one will require some gym!




Other than that, I've been busy enjoying ancient protection removal on many places, all of course in hard to reach places. But as far as the quarter goes, it turns out to be in much better shape than I thought and should only need to patch it vs replace it.. I found only 2 places with rust on the lip, most of the bubbles on the lip were the second paint coat reacting to something over the years, and the tons of bondo that I've found between wheel and door post was there because of ancient mini dents that were not repaired the way they should have been. Some hammering/dollying/spooning should fix that relatively easy. The guy who did this thought a thick layer of bondo was a better choice than remove the entire interior to be able to access the panel from the inside...

Tho, once I've removed more paint last nite, I've discovered another bondo party on the rear top corner. I wonder what I'll find under that next week, but somehow I'm not too worried as I can see from the inside and there's nothing wild or any sign of obvious dents...we'll see in time!


To be continued...

 

[Sheriff41]

Thanks for the update, Fabrice. The photos of your craftsmanship and the descriptions of your techniques are inspiring.

 

[Kilgon]

Great work again as usual. I like watching you fab something and the quality of your workmanship. Also, let us know how the o2 sensor mod works out. Mine has fouled once and it makes sense in what you said and the possible fix you have come up with.

 

[Fabrice]

@Kilgon I hope the spacer fixes the issue. I'm frankly tired of not being able to trust my car to bring me from A to B. Let's hope this mod will prevent cooked o2s... I'll post on it again once I have hopefully put a few hundred more miles on my 73.