On the rack of torture

Martin decided to whack the beast onto a big puller to see if we can straighten up the left rear quarter. The left door never sat properly and the gaps were not even.

The crease in the boot floor/ subframe and the unnatural flare in the wheel-well needed to be removed.

The procedure is pretty straightforward. Hook up a big chain to the subframe, bolt the car down to a level plate and give it a huge pull. Bit like torture on a rack I suppose!

After pulling the back, errr . . . back, he put a ram inside the wheel arch and applied pressure.

Then heating the metal, proceeded to belt and shrink the arch back into shape.

Well! What can I say? We knew there had been some dodgy work done on the rear left quarter but after the sandblaster finished, we finally got to see what the restorers of yesteryear thought was acceptable.
Looking at the images you see a peculiar dimpled effect. like lots of little holes drilled into the metal over which copious quantities of bog was applied.
The strange holes are possible a type of "key" to enable the large amount of plastic filler to hold on.

We just are not sure . . .


But on the bright side . . .

All the sills and edges have been cleaned off with great outcomes!

There appears to have never been any rust in the sills or front behind the guards or in the firewalls. The car is in pristine condition in the places where rust tends to develop. My suspicion that the vehicle has hardly ever seen rain, seems to be correct.

Around the back of te car the story is as expected, she has attracted rear prangs, at least two in her life, but we can rebuild and make her look as good as new (maybe better).

It is a bit depressing looking at my beautiful mustang in such a grotty condition, can't wait to see the result.

Have placed a sizeable order with Mustangs Unlimited in the US for a bunch of new bits including bumpers, rubbers and mirrors.

It's in bits!

OMG

My beautiful pony has been torn to pieces.

Guards in one corner, bonnet in another all looking very forlorn.

Good new is that it is only temporary, tomorrow the sandblaster dude is coming in to get the panels back to bare metal. Then we shall see how badly the yanks have treated her in the past.

One thing we discovered is the right side rear has been replaced with another originally painted in metallic green. Looks like it is not too bad a job though. One the other side . . . well we are not sure what we will see after the sand blasting, but the work was not done to a very high level of quality.

That is something we intend to fix!

Speaking of fixing stuff, the "Boy Racer" bonnet has been tamed to something more akin to a real Shelby style. Take a look at the new slots, much better I think!

At the other end of the car the boot lid is off another vehicle and will come in for a bit of attention. There has been a little dingle up the back and this will be pulled out and straightened up, a new rear bumper is to adorn the new straighter back.

Any colour you like, so long as it's red!

Well, I have procrastinated for a decade . . . now I am going to do it! The Austang is getting a new coat and a bit of a tart up on the body.
A false start with a dud about a year ago had me a bit jumpy

Last month a mate who has a '67 Notchback, put me on to an ex-pat Kiwi on the Coast, who really likes working on "old" cars.

Fighting all the fears of letting the car go into a panelbeater/painter's hands (still sore from my last experience in Newy with my old '51 Chevy), I checked his work and it's not bad, not bad at all! He lives where he works and has a pretty good workshop.

She's going back to bare metal to get rid of the crappy old Mexican Pay n' Spray paint job and a few coats of clear over a candy red base is going down!


A while back I bought a bonnet off ebay - a 67 Shelby fibre set-up. When it appeared at my door, I found it had been modified to step the scoop higher. A bit worried about the garish nature of such a mod, Shane and I loaded the bonnet into the back seat and took it to the workshop.
Quickly swapping the bonnets over we took a glimpse into Austang's future facial features . . . and decided it looked too much like a gay Boy Racer's car.



So it will be modified to go back to the standard (?) Shelby scoop arrangement which still giv es me the underbonnet clearance and airflow - but will look "right"

Nup!
Just won't look right like this will it?

Looks a bit like a bull's flared nostrils rather than the cruisey sweetheart with the nice burbly motor sound and a little "zoom" factor.

But at least I will be able to rev the thing without the donk dinging the bonnet. There was quite a gouge developing!

Good manners don't cost nuthin'

What is it with people and cars? They are nice folks most of the time but when placed behind the steering wheel, become ranting lunatics - completely intolerant of anyone slowing them down for even a couple of seconds.

Here's what happened to me yesterday . . .
I'll set the scene . . . I live on a road which is a thoroughfare. This means that many of the motorists do not live on the road they are using. This seems to give some of them (well most really) the right to zoom along with impunity and disregard for those who actually live there.

There is a blind and dangerous corner just up from my house, I can clearly see it from my driveway. If someone is at the corner, I wait for them to pass and then pull out. BUT if someone is speeding, I can be halfway out and they are up my tail in a flash. I had one of these - a 20 something female in an old Laser come around the corner at speed . . . I had already begun moving forward, but she was coming upon me quickly. This meant that she would need to back off the accelerator and reduce speed while I got from 15kph to 60 - total inconvenience would have been a slow up of her journey by 2 - 3 seconds maybe?

Her response was to hold her hand on the horn!! So I stopped the Mustang. Before I even turned to look at her she blasted me again! So I got out of my car, held my arms out and asked her what problem she had with my pulling out of my driveway?

Her response was to flip the bird and mouth off abuse, scream her car around me and race up the street waving rude gestures in a manner normally reserved for lunatics.

I called after her "I hope your day gets better" and got back in my car.

I have wondered since, what she would do if someone did the same to her when she was entering or leaving her driveway and their excuse was "you are in my way you idiot".

So what is it that makes people become so incredibly arrogant and inconsiderate when faced with such a small inconvenience of their own making? Would she do the same thing in a queu at KFC? What happens if she is walking on the footpath and has to wait a second for an old lady who drops her umbrella?