nasa hood stencil

[jowens1126]

More like paint prison. My instincts told me not to go there but my pocket book said I had too :-( 

I really took a big risk leaving my car at the painters house for a month. Every time I went over there he had people in and out talking about jobs they wanted done and it made me very nervous.  He lives in the Hood of Central Orlando but in a better part, which is still horrible.  Too many people getting to see the car and it could have easily gone wrong.  Thats why I decided not to take it back to let him paint the hood graphics.  Plus it had to go get the entire front clip aligned and assembled properly.  He took no pictures and just threw all the screws in a box. He had no clue how to properly handle a job like this on a classic car. You have to bag and tag each set of fasteners for each part you remove with lots of pictures.  He didn't do any of that and it bit him in the *** big time.  I doubt he will do another old car. He did an excellent job on the paint though. I ended up paying another 1500 bucks to fix his assembly issues but it was still 2k less than the body shop would have charged me.

Even the good body shop has its issues.  I had to get them to re-align the trunk lid and they left tape on the door seals on the passenger side and they didn't clean up the excess glue. I have to take it back and get them to adjust the rear quarter window on the passenger side because the seat doesn't contact the roll up window and you can see right thru the gap. Plus I asked them to install the new TMI door panels and that was beyond their skill level apparently.  They put the clips going the wrong way and I even told them to switch the end the clip went in and they still said it was an inch off. So I told them I would deal with that. So today I put them on with zero issues.  Upon close examination of the panels you could see they put the clips on the wrong side of the hole and there was no evidence that they tried them the other side,  so they lied about that. I got them on and fitted in about an hour per side. I did have a to get creative getting the mirror control knob to fit but it wasn't difficult. When I got them on and told him about it he just said,  well were body guys, not interior guys. I wanted to tell him that I'm not a interior guy, just a stupid redneck driver and even I had no trouble getting them on. But I didn't want to be a **** head. 

 

[machattack]

Dear lord,

Im glad you got your car back. I still gotta do that.

Sounds like the idiots I have working on mine. The owner of the shop was the body foreman for a large ford dealership here in town. My thoughts were he has to be good. What I should have been thinking hes a car salesman.......we all know what thats like. He lies continuously. He cant remember the last lie so he lies over the top of last one.

Good luck on your car!!  Sorry to vent on here.

 

[7173Vert]

I can confirm the stencil is not correct as delivered (unless it has been revised, which I highly doubt...). It has to be cut to properly fit the hood. It is close, but not close enough... Just my .02 cents.

 

[Stanglover]

I had been told by a couple members that their template was not right. I need to order one and lay on my car and take pics to see for sure. I know one member contacted them about changing and they said people bought what they had and would not change. He took a rub off from me and got his cut from that. I do not know specifics but will find out. 

 When I did mine, my painter only used the Graphics Express template as a guide because he did not trust that paint would not bleed under the edges. He taped the shape with that plastic tape. The G/E template is set for 6" from the hood edge all the way down, back to front at the start of the curve. That actually improves the proportions to my eye, but the correct setting is more like 5 3/8" at the windshield to 5 9/16" at the start of the curve as seen in David's and 7173Vert's posted pictures. The front hood edge should follow the line of the hood and be 1 7/8 to 2 " from the TRIM piece, not the edge of the hood as in my case, which was on me for misinforming the painter.

NOTE: The hood pdf was done for my own reference and "borrowed from 7173Vert" The dimensions he added were very hard to make out, but what I have added is as close as possible. None of these were ever done exactly the same and many were at least a 1/4" off. Thanks Ken. I don't have David's dimensions, perhaps he can repost those.



View attachment Hood 2.pdf

 

[jowens1126]

Dear lord,

Im glad you got your car back. I still gotta do that.

Sounds like the idiots I have working on mine. The owner of the shop was the body foreman for a large ford dealership here in town. My thoughts were he has to be good. What I should have been thinking hes a car salesman.......we all know what thats like. He lies continuously. He cant remember the last lie so he lies over the top of last one.

Good luck on your car!!  Sorry to vent on here.

You know,  we all have to be on guard when dealing with anyone,  especially paint and body shops. The nature of their business is inherently crooked.  Same goes for mechanics.  The nature of their business is crooked and anyone that disagrees is kidding themselves.  The challenge is to find the least crooked people to work with and thats a never ending challenge.  You find an honest mechanic and he gets a ton of work.  Then he gets a taste of the money and it corrupts them. I have huge issues with the entire "Book Time " system that most of them play by. Its a total scam. Ive seen them do it myself.  They get 8 hours to drop and swap a transmission and they do it in 2 hours because they are very good at it. Then charge 8 hours to the customer.  Thats dishonest and crooked and should be criminal.  Thats what made me learn how to do most of my own work.  You have to these days or they will bleed you dry. 

 

[kiko619]

I'm so glad to hear that I'm not the only one who fell victim to a POS promise. when I had purchased my car I was a novice to what all needs to be looked at and how to spot a good deal. well i found my mach 1 from a seller up in Pennsylvania and I wasn't until i stumbled across this website that i learned what the "Salt Belt States" can really do to the undercarriage. I got the car for about $1900 then the guy says for an extra 2k i can have the rear fenders, wheel housing, gas tank, trunk floor. all that and a bag of chips repaired. I skipped the deal because I thought that sounds pretty steep. well low and behold I went along with this guy that was recommended from a family friend that he knew how to to do body work and could do it all in about a month for about $1000. I thought wow that's a great deal since apparently he is a body man. sure why not?

For over 1.5yrs later I kept calling for an update and the guy was dodging my calls and only every so often picking up saying that he's completed a partial but never gave me pictures... I finally went up to just drop in and see what all had been done the guy says ohh.. sorry man, some of the part like you're entire rear brake system went missing, gas lines too. or it was "ohh you gave me those parts? well I don't remember." I HAVE THE RECIEPTS... you think I have another mustang that needs these things? I ended up paying for the parts again because neither the owner of the shop or him took responsibility and of course young and dumb me then didn't have it in writing that I supplied said parts as requested from them. Few months later the guy just flat out ghosted me. So I just went up there with a tailor and was just going to pull the project without paying for anything and dip since they didnt have any of my information.

Here's the kicker... when I arrived it turns out that the "owner" was not the owner... it was his buddy whom was renting the a lot on a dealers property and the mechanic? what f*kin mechanic... it was just some guy that barely knew how to do mechanics and just posed as one. Ohh and the car? it was sitting inside the empty lot because they cleared out the shop months ago. The dealership was holding on to my car as a lien against them and if I wanted my car back I had to pay $1000.00 for a ****** job and to have it released. Never was able to track that POS. So here I am now with a half assed rear end job that I fixed all over AGAIN. Learned my lesson I'll pay double the local labor for a job I know can get done correctly and delivered as promised. 

• Hear me out; new section of topics in honor of 2020: Horror Stories - "I know a guy" 
  
• about the thread: tell us about the horror stories you've had with all false promises, the classic "i know a guy", Yeah i know how to weld, Rust free: until you hit a bump, Solid steel: pure bondo, etc.
  

 

[turtle5353]

I know alot of body shops and mechanics are crooked. BUT there are alot of good ones out there also!! You just need to do your homework and talk to as many people as you can about who does good work and who does **** work.  If a guy quotes you an unbelievable low price and time line, then its probably too good to be true. If he says he can get you in right away, that's a bad sign too. Usually if your a good shop, you have a waiting list. And the old saying "you get what you pay for" is usually very true.  I got a sign in my garage "You can have it CHEAP, FAST, and GOOD. Pick 2!"  I do alot of side work in my garage and I am never lacking customers. I try to be upfront and honest about the work. Give a ballpark price, and try to stay with it but you never know what will come up once you open that can of worms.  I document every step of all my repairs and send updates to my customers often through text, even if they don't ask for it.  Not many people still do this kind of work, and probably for good reason....it sucks!  But I do enjoy cutting, grinding, welding.... bringing something back from the dead. This type of work is very labor intensive and takes time to do properly. So just do your homework before dropping your car off with someone. To us its our pride and joy, to them its just another car.  If any of you guys in or around PA ever need any welding and sheetmetal work done let me know, I know a guy!  LOL! 

Link to the mach 1 I did.     https://7173mustangs.com/forums/topic/27464-new-project-for-this-winter-71-mach-1/?tab=comments#comment-281511

 

[7173Vert]

 When I did mine, my painter only used the Graphics Express template as a guide because he did not trust that paint would not bleed under the edges. He taped the shape with that plastic tape. The G/E template is set for 6" from the hood edge all the way down, back to front at the start of the curve. That actually improves the proportions to my eye, but the correct setting is more like 5 3/8" at the windshield to 5 9/16" at the start of the curve as seen in David's and 7173Vert's posted pictures. The front hood edge should follow the line of the hood and be 1 7/8 to 2 " from the TRIM piece, not the edge of the hood as in my case, which was on me for misinforming the painter.

NOTE: The hood pdf was done for my own reference and "borrowed from 7173Vert" The dimensions he added were very hard to make out, but what I have added is as close as possible. None of these were ever done exactly the same and many were at least a 1/4" off. Thanks Ken. I don't have David's dimensions, perhaps he can repost those.

View attachment 44890

View attachment 44892

Sorry, that PDF mark up you posted is terrible... we will now have alternate variations of the factory application. The only difference at the factory was the side to side variance, depending how the worker placed it on the hood. Even then, it was minor. If someone wants the dimensions they can ask... Since i posted this, another member here has been talking about his car and hood, so I don't say anything...

 

[Tnfastbk]

Here is a couple of perspectives

http://429mustangcougarinfo.50megs.com/paint_info.htm

http://photos.mustangsbymike.com/Mach-1-Hood/Mustang_Group_004

 

[Stanglover]

Sorry, that PDF mark up you posted is terrible... we will now have alternate variations of the factory application. The only difference at the factory was the side to side variance, depending how the worker placed it on the hood. Even then, it was minor. If someone wants the dimensions they can ask... Since i posted this, another member here has been talking about his car and hood, so I don't say anything...

I did my best to read your writing. You're right, it is terrible, but if someone is out by a 1/16", do they really care? Looking at the way most hoods get painted, only the most anal amongst us will ever notice. Sorry for using your poor picture, I should have found and used David's.

 

[RocketFoot]

If someone can come up with some info set in stone on this, we can add it to the 7173 Tutorials so it will be easy to find and available for everyone!

 

[secluff]

Another subject that has caused grief for 71-73 owners for years. As David (Carolina_Mountain_Mustang)  posted, the assembly line is a fast-paced world where line workers only had mere seconds to perform their assigned task. The paint room was lucky if they even had two minutes to place a multi-piece stencil and paint before the next hood came through. In that type of environment, it was inevitable that variances were going to happen. As I have posted before, Ford, along with the other manufacturers was in the business of mass-producing vehicles, not show cars. So there were no laser-guided robotics making perfect precision measurements then. In those days not much thought was given as to what someone might find in or on one of these vehicles 50 + years later!  Anyone I have talked that has an original tutone painted hood has noticed off-center measurements to the rear of the hood. I'm sure if your were to take the hood measurements from David's unmolested original hood  and compare them to other original non repainted tutone hoods there WILL be variances in the rear measurements

Graphic Express is the stripe/decal dealer that is supposed to have the correct hood stencil. Kit Sullivan was a forum member here and was an original owner of a '71 J code Mach 1. Two of their employees drove from Graphic express in Inverness, FL to his office in Orlando in '02, and spent several hours measuring and photographing his car. The template they sell is a product of those measurements. For some reason, the pictures they use to illustrate the hood accent is a stock picture that I have noticed a lot of the other decal and stripe vendors use and is not the correct look. Don't know why they didn't use one of the pictures they took of Kit's hood. They probably figured they didn't need my permission on what pictures to use! 

https://www.graphic-express.com/ford-motor-co/1964-78-mustang-restoration/mach-1-mustang/1971-mach-1/1971-73-mustang-mach-1-nasa-naca-hood-paint-stencil-kit.html

They show in stock and on sale! (If the link doesn't work you may have to enter manually as I have noticed some of my links have not been working on the new site)

 

[69 Rustang]

 When I did mine, my painter only used the Graphics Express template as a guide because he did not trust that paint would not bleed under the edges. He taped the shape with that plastic tape. The G/E template is set for 6" from the hood edge all the way down, back to front at the start of the curve. That actually improves the proportions to my eye, but the correct setting is more like 5 3/8" at the windshield to 5 9/16" at the start of the curve as seen in David's and 7173Vert's posted pictures. The front hood edge should follow the line of the hood and be 1 7/8 to 2 " from the TRIM piece, not the edge of the hood as in my case, which was on me for misinforming the painter.

NOTE: The hood pdf was done for my own reference and "borrowed from 7173Vert" The dimensions he added were very hard to make out, but what I have added is as close as possible. None of these were ever done exactly the same and many were at least a 1/4" off. Thanks Ken. I don't have David's dimensions, perhaps he can repost those.

View attachment 44890

View attachment 44892

I like the setback you have on the front edge of the hood.  The OE style looks weird to me, too close. Love the color too!

 

[Stanglover]

I like the setback you have on the front edge of the hood.  The OE style looks weird to me, too close. Love the color too!

 Thanks for the compliment. Personally, I don't mind the set back at the front. We see this "mistake" many times and I'd bet there are more like mine than as they should be. I also like the proportions better. As someone with design experience, the factory black-out is proportionally too wide by about 1/2" per side. Again just my opinion.