Fabrice's 429CJ 71 project

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As weather did not often permit paint, I've also handled many parts that were not on the todo, like the rear lights and many others.

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Of course my electric bubble bath been busy too, like for the door retainer plates and many other details

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Extensions, mirrors... all been massaged, zinc plated, painted and in some case even polished after, as of course some @#$% insects came look at the bling bling before all was dry...

All with all, I'm nearly done now, and should be back on the 71 soon (and reupdating this thread),  probably from the third week of September IF i'm not crusing around too much with the 73 instead :D

And I hope I'll manage to use the new edit features a bit better...
 

 
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@midlife I'm back! :D

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It took a while but the 73 has finally hit the road and is currently at the paint booth where it should be painted tomorrow in 2 different metalic green...

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So past months were about plating, refreshing interior, details like the above, prep the body etc.. too much to tell what has been done except I did my best to resist not redo too much :) I should have this baby legal on the road in 2 or 3 weeks max.

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After a very short appearance on the street scene, the 71 entered its home for the next XX years. With the help of 2 strong men (not me) with the tires at right pressure, the swap did not even require a car to pull or push it on my driveway that goes a tad up.  

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In between activtivities on the 73, I've restarted yesterday the work on the baby.
As all needs to be done and my garage has not grown bigger, Just like for the 73, I'll need to handle the car in steps so i can set some parts back to free up some space, keeping it movable as much as possible... 
The first thing that annoyed me for a while is looking at dents and folds that should not be there and begin with the corrosion and paint removal.

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Never really stood still, I knew my friend previous owner had let the apron where the battery is be "shaved" for a cleaner look as the batt was relocated into the trunk, but once the crap (loads of ancient mud) on the wheel side was cleared up, I've discovered another perl (some already highlighted in prev posts) made by this car artist. This time he pushed the bounderies of talent out of space!

The picts speak for themselves...  foam & bondo, aaaah what a magical combo!!

One good thing to say tho, he did not weld/brazed anything to the radiator support or the frame and what I thought to be a nightmare to fix was just a matter of lifting foam and bondo bonks... 
So spend the day swearing, but managed to clear that [bad word] out and simply replacing the apron should fix it all.

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The weekend ended with a front that started to look like it should... I'll order a new apron this week and replace this misery as soon as it will arrive. but would like to order the reinforcement part that is beneath it as its beyond repair. As I've seen that it's not offered as a compagnon part of the apron, What is the name of that part? Is it avail as repro? Also painted few things with the 73, like the trans mount and other details.

I'll be busy coming days and may be weeks to place back all on the 73 so it can go to the tech control, but looks like I'll be updating this thread again as usual with more ugly that ever picts very soon! :D 

To be continued...
 

 
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'Bout time!  I can now stop holding my breath.  Good work, there!

 
Not 71 related, but too happy to keep it for me! :)  
The 73 has its new jacket on! Yeeehaaah! It took only decades to get to this point :)
Hard to catch the 2 green metallic as they are in real under this lighting with phone but this baby should look pretty ok with all the trim polished to chrome like back on! 
Tomorrow afternoon, I'll go place back on locks, door handles etc.. to drive it back home.

If only it could stop rain just for an hour so I could see it by daylight...    

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Few picts dry before leave the place..
I wasn't 2 meters out of the shop, some heavy rain started and drove it back with wipers on fast speed, glad they did their job fine.

I have no idea yet how it looks (dry) under the wonderful dutch skies as I needed cover it in a hurry as ofc, water was pouring in not having roof rails or any rubber back on :(stilldry1.jpg

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Just like for every single past weeks, another non mustang friendly weather weekend was announced..

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Saturday was expected to be the "most dry" so finished to install stuffs back, like the roof rails, and the wonderful Repop beltlines with SS made obviously for another car as the clips and shape do not really match. Not even same for both sides, I've contacted CJP online to have at least one of the exterior ones to be replaced because it's way too off, and to my surprise they did not twisted anything. Showed them how one side was totally different and not following the car body at all, and they offered instead of one, to send me a new kit at no cost... So I presume it's known to them that this beltine kit is far from being accurate but at least their service was perfect. So now let's hope the 2 that are bits and really off will be ok in the new kit... but thank you CJP!
Also lost some time to adapt a 74 mustang 2 ring for my driver mirror that I missed. I would have prolly ended up with a much nicer result using it as template and make one from scratch, but even ugly it did and do the trick perfectly! :)
Done tons of other details and I will be passing tech control this Thursday... crossing my fingers, kuz if I pass, I can then wake up the nice people of my street whenever I want! :)

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Sunday was a totally different beast, rains poured outside but didn't care as I was back on the 71 inside, enjoying the drilling of the many original welds for the apron that I've received this past week from NPD. When you think its the last one, you end up find 3 more! :)
The idea was to really try to not bend the original metal that stays on the car, so I could place the expected to be perfect new part to fit like a glove... mmm
So after sharping up my chisel, gentle hammering was enough to separate the metal sheets from each other.

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Finally got it out without any distort and could enjoy the sight of the poor battery reinforcement. Which I've removed without not much pain, and realised that the apron did not come with it... So for now the guy is in acid and unless I can locate fast a new one, I'll prolly fix/mix/refab one with much thicker metal to add more strength to the apron that is made with thinner metal than the original (never heard that one before).

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I thought I add some details of this wonderful piece of stamped metal. Clearly stamped twice for the recesses but unfortunately not exactly at the same place, I won't even start on how sharp the edges are or the folds...  

Let's just say I won't be picky kuz it's a fender apron, right, it might not be good looking and all for an apron, but it will fit right... right??? :D

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Well a simple test fit said: NO! It won't. I won't also speak about the missing holes for the nuts of the fenders (everyone knows nice looking squarish holes are an easy thing to do with bare hands) or the missing reinforcement on top that I will be forced to salvage from the original one...

The fit is terrible, even if car was twisted, the radiator shape is stamped in a S from side and the two folds should be paralel... but there are not, far from that, creating a gap from at least 8 mm. For those non metric minded, that's thicker than your pinky even if you push hard!
Lucky me, the apron fits to column apron alright and seems to respect the shape of the car there.
The other folds, the transversal ones, there too, according to radiator support are supposed to be parallel but are at wrong angle and far from parallel.

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Sooo the next couple hours were about measuring, cut, reshape, fit, test, repeat, repeat... ended up just before my neighbors turn mad about me hammering with a piece that was fitting "okish". I will of course after making the necessary holes and other little things refine these, but I was able to actually test/place it on the car using the measurements I made before remove it...
Say what? Measures?

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Ah yes, the measures I did are not really of a great help because I also discovered that it's also not really having the right folds on top.
While for instance the old one has same width along the entire piece, this one is having only the same in the middle. Too large on tower side and too small on the radiator support. What's 7 mm diff for such part in not even 50 cm on such long car... grrr grumble grumble..

Plenty bad words were used this past Sunday in my garage, but looks like I'll be playing Bad Chad custom next weekend as obviously it's all about making the best of what you got.. it will just take 2 weekends more than it should, that's all! :)

To be continued...

 
A working man for sure. They do make the battery reinforcement. If you cannot find one I will sell you one I have and wait for another. They are on Ebay often he sells out quick and they are great. I looked he does not have ad right now. Here is what it looks like. Do you still need the front fender front splash guards?

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This past Thursday I went to tech control for the 73 and....  it failed! :(
Because of the Dutch laws not allowing you to drive except the day you must drive to and from the tech control, so I've picked a station I know 15 miles away from my place so I could at least test the car a bit.
Car drove fine and felt super strong, and it passed the control on every points, even my new LED  headlights were no problem. They were bits low but alignement was corrected with their test lense in 3 mins.
But when they lifted the front wheels, we've found out the front wheels were not turning easy.
Somehow the pressure isn't released totally and pads stay a bit in contact. With no way to buy brake parts at the corner and repair/inspect there, I've returned home without my papers :(

I've rebuilded them a while back and turned the wheels with no issues many times after but of course never really drove the car since then. As I suppose it's no biggy and likely related to the pens, I've ordered 2 calliper kits with new bushings, plate, pens etc... 

I should get the kits today and all should be fixed soon. If of course the problems is coming from the pens... For the papers, I only have to return there and show that the brakes are fixed and I'm good to go. 

I'm not really desapointed, as this 30 miles drive was a blast and was lucky enough to have found a hole in clouds. It's been raining non stop here for days and the only time it really stopped was during this trip and it started again one hour after I was back.

Anyway, this thread is about the 71, sooo no being able to look at the brakes because of not having parts and this terrible weather, I've been busy whole weekend on the 429.

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One of the must do, was to salvage and restore the top reinforcement as the provided apron doesn't come with one. It's clear that without it, the top is pretty weak. 
So first was to again drill weld points out, to find out the quite thick piece of metal was rusty. The apron being new, I wasn't planning to place it back with some basic clean up.
So the baby enjoyed first a nice acid bath, then been electro zinc plated and ended up being a pretty looking piece of metal correctly protected.

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Another detail dimmed unnecessary by the manufacturer are the fender nuts holes. The original designed to receive u-bolts, it was time to tripple check measures, alignements with the ones on the car and make a template to slam the metal for each holes, where 6 are necessary per bolt location.

As they are all 1cm from the side, I've taped the apron and draw a line and made a floating template that would have the lines on it so it would act as a rail. 

One easy mistake to make is that the front one are actually inverted, where the bigger square hole if first while on all the others its the reverse.

Bough new small drills of quality this week for this job and ended up with nice holes gradually increased to 4.5mm at corners for the square and 9mm for the more round one. Once done, used a dremel disc to connect the holes and finished them with different files.

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On the picts, the shape doesn't look that precise... well, they are quite acceptable to me, but if you look at the surface, you then see that not only the manufacturer did not measure anything, because they've pressed down slots than are not at all at the right locations for a fender and even worse: there should be no pressing down there, in fact according to the other side and the old one, only one should have a bit of volume going up. Another sign of the love placed into the fabrication...

I'll correct this only when all will be welded in place, as I do not want to stress the shape of the metal at this point.

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Now that the top holes are ready and the reinforcement ready for another 50 years, it was time to weld it in place. One thing they did good is the 2 alignment holes, they do match the original ones in diameter, in distance and are placed at the right location. So using them after triple checking on car, I've marked the destination welds location, as I needed to remove sink there for a solid weld. Then using a more powerfull stand on my welding machine, welded it in place.
Once that was done its clear that little detail brings quite a lot of strength to the apron and should not be skipped... but betting it's often the case considering the work involved for what looks like a detail.

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Just like it take ages to drill all the holes to get it out, you then need to make more holes to weld it back on. Using the old one and checking on car, you need check that you keep the holes 1/2 inch,/1.5mm away from the holes that need be made at the end after welding, for the 3 tower plate bolts/stud.
Unlike the top where you can only use a drill, for these, I've bought a puncher and all the holes were made in matter of seconds. The tool makes 5mm holes, so on the tower side, I will likely enlarge them to 6 or 7 to make sure the points are having enough contact meat. Also added 2 extra on the bottom where the originals were likely forgotten on this side but present on the other.

David, kindly sent me the missing batt reinforcement that I need and with bits of luck if it arrives before the end of the week, I should be able to weld this baby back in next weekend.

If not, no problem,  I've already found a new hidden perl on the other side that should keep me busy! :D  More about that one next update.

All with all, was another productive weekend, glad that thingy is done.

To be continued...

 
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Was your car a drum to disc conversion? Before going back into the calipers, see if cracking open the bleeder screw releases the pressure from the brake so that the wheel spins freely. It may be a restriction not allowing the fluid to return to the master cylinder.

 
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@computercarguy

The car came with front power disc brakes and certainly testing the pressure is the first thing I'll do! I have also replaced the master cylinder and would see it as suspect #1 one may the liquid be under pressure.

That's all speculations for now. I need to find time to do this properly and find out what's really going on...

 
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Is the master cylinder for disc front, drum rear brakes, and are they plumbed correctly? The drum brakes should have a residual pressure valve in the master cylinder, which may be applying enough pressure to keep the disc pads making enough contact to prevent the front wheels from turning freely.

 
Bought it years ago, way before installing it, will need recheck the number on cast, it was at the time ordered for a 73 with front disc and drums behind... as about connecting it, I've replaced the lines, replicas of the original ones. Can't really go wrong there unless you want to. 
But yeah as said, if releasing pressure at bleeder frees the wheels, It's my #1 suspect.

 
There is nothing in disc brakes to make calipers pull away from the discs. In fact I believe that the MPG rating for disc brake cars was 1 mpg less than drum cars in the day. Were the rotors hot? In race qualifying they push the calipers back and do not touch pedal until they qualify gain a couple tenths of a second on speed.

 
Yes they were hot. Spent weekend on them, and finally found the reason why, reasonS actually. The bushings had turned into some sticky goo and the guides were full of that and the calipers could not travel properly, corrosion at contact places. All much smoother after cleaning and lube applied, but still not 100%. after test drives. Nowhere near where they were, but I know how they should be and that wasn't it. Found out that the pistons were the main prob...
Short story: Brakes must be perfect and I'm tired waiting for this car to finally hit the road, not to mention that working outside in cold ain't really nice, so new hardware, calipers, pads are coming.and will have entirely new front brakes hopefully working as they should within 1 or 2 weeks. The new master cylinder does fine and wasn't the issue.

All with all, did nothing on the 71, as your parts David, are not yet here. Looks like USPS has considered to deliver ballots more important than my batt reinforcement!!

 
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