It’s almost like Christmas every time part come in for #ProjectSportsRoof. Here’s what came in this week: Fresh from North of our border are these wood insert for.
The final part of this install of the window felt on 1973 Sports Roof was as easy as it gets. This outside piece just snaps in – with a small adjustment.
Take a look:
The goal is to get the car sealed up and keep any more water damage from occurring to the floor pans by rain leaking into the car.
Here’s the kind of seal you want to see on the windows.
I was asked an a couple of forums about why I bothered with this task, when I’m just going to paint the car. That’s a good question, especially when we car enthusiasts are bombarded with car shows that turn cars around in 3 days and strip a car to bare bones and send it off to the paint boot. Well that how’s they do in T.V. land but the Average Guy isn’t going to be able to make that happen.
So yes the car is going to be painted and yes I am fairly certain that the engine is going to get rebuilt, but that’s not going to happen in a week (which I’m very dubious actually occurs in real life – T.V. or not T.V. cameras.) But I’m going to fix we what I can now and drive it before all the big $$$ stuff has to happen. Although the car may take a different direction, I still want it to be a drive-able project car – keeping it fun.
Thanks for reading and as always – drop me a note with your opinion.
Just picked up my second classic Mustang and I’ve got my Marti Report in hand…love those guys!!! I had a couple questions and perhaps someone here knows. Car was ordered with forged aluminum wheels – any one know that they would have looked like …
Continuing on with the felt install for the 1973 Mustang (#ProjectSportsRoof), I’ve already removed the old felt and we are about to replace it with the new piece from.
#ProjectSportsRoof will be the way I want it, which I haven’t nailed down yet, so suggest way by dropping me a comment (got your crate motor idea swimming around in my head, Bill) and that will happen fast or slow and cost …
Let’s wrap up the window felt install on the 1973 Mustang (#ProjectSportsRoof).
Let me show you a bit of what we started with.
Top Inside Door Panel Removed
The white panel I’m working with in the videos is from this part of the door.
Here’s the next couple of steps.
So the stable were to large in diameter to fit through the existing holes and if you ever tried enlarging a hole this size, even slightly, you’ll break more than a couple of drill bits. So with the holes misaligned for the felt strip and the wrong size I opted to just drill the felt and the door panel.
Worth mentioning is that the upper door panel and original felt strip has more hole, requiring more stables than the number of stables included with the kit. Not using as many stable would allow the strip to sag and not give a good seal, so I made the extra stables out of finishing nails by cutting off them to size a bending them in to a ‘squared’ U shape.
Next up is the a look at the outside felt strip – that really isn’t felt – just rubber and how replacing helps with quarter mile times!!
Thanks for checking back in on #ProjectSportsRoof. For a long time I thought installing door window felt or window seal was an impossible task. Either you couldn’t.
Continuing on with the felt install for the 1973 Mustang (#ProjectSportsRoof), I’ve already removed the old felt and we are about to replace it with the new piece from.
Continuing on with the felt install for the 1973 Mustang (#ProjectSportsRoof), I’ve already removed the old felt and we are about to replace it with the new piece from Repops (I misspoke in the video, but you can clearly see the name on the paperwork).
Seems simple enough and done in no….time…..but wait….small glitch!!!
So the company is called Repops and to be fair, the pieces that went on the outside of the door were near perfect.
Thanks for checking back in on #ProjectSportsRoof. For a long time I thought installing door window felt or window seal was an impossible task. Either you couldn’t.
Thanks for checking back in on #ProjectSportsRoof.
For a long time I thought installing door window felt or window seal was an impossible task. Either you couldn’t get the pieces because they aren’t reproduced or it was done in such a way that make it possible for the Average Guy to make it happen.
It’s been a while since I had to consider replacement – my 1970 Mustang restoration didn’t require new felt, so is wasn’t a concern. But the 1973 SportsRoof needed it badly, as you can see in the video for exterior walk around (click HERE to review). Before I began the search I was concerned that I wouldn’t find them – 1973 was a unique year in a lot of ways (fenders – grille) and with the differences between the 1971-1972 and 1973 it wouldn’t be hard to image these just weren’t profitable to reproduce.
Thankfully I was wrong. I found these on one of the Mustang part sites and they are produced by “Repops” (which I may called something different in one of the videos you’ll see in these posts). The were very good quality, but needed some modifications.
Let’s take a look at them.
Repops’ Window Felt
Just a side note: The audio on this set of videos it not great. I forgot that I had my fan on and at times that over powers the audio – especially when I move in side. My apologizes ahead of time!!!
BONUS VIDEO SECTION: In the last section of the video above I covered a little tip for keeping the interior of the door dry. As I look back, I realize that my 1970 Mustang DID have two holes in the bottom of the door originally. However, they were a bit smaller than those in bottom of the ’73 and prone to getting plugged very easily – which is why I added a few more.
To install the inside felt (the outside is rubber – which make sense) I had to remove the top door panel inside, which was just two screws. Then I need to take a look at how to remove the felt from that piece.
Next two videos show the removal of the felt from the top interior section of the door panel.
After cutting the fold ends of the staples the felt just popped off with a screw driver.
Welcome back to #ProjectSportsRoof. I run my car projects much like I run my IT projects. You always have to know where to start and know the end game. As with any project that isn’t being built from scratch, in other word, …
I get a lot of questions on just what I’m going to do with the Sports Roof. Some of those are posed as inquires of interest and others can be interpreted as “What the hell were you thinking when you bought that!!!”. Truth is I don’t …
#ProjectSportsRoof will be the way I want it, which I haven’t nailed down yet, so suggest way by dropping me a comment (got your crate motor idea swimming around in my head, Bill) and that will happen fast or slow and cost …
Dynacorn Mustang body. Dynacorn’s new 1967 Mustang fastback body. Mormon Meteor III. Ab Jenkins’s Mormon Meteor III. For all its grandeur and provenance, nobody paid attention to it at SEMA. (UPDATE: It got a little love …
It’s almost like Christmas every time part come in for #ProjectSportsRoof.
Here’s what came in this week:
Fresh from North of our border are these wood insert for the door panels. These were part of the Mach 1 Interior package the car was originally ordered with.
Wood door panel inserts.
These look new on the back.
Here is the shot of the Mach 1 interior package.
This image is from a 1972 – but the package is the same.
Also in are the new set of window felts.
These are new.
As I began organizing the garage I ran across a few parts left over from my 1970 Mustang restore. Most were 302 specific however I new set of lower control arms that just so happen to fit the 1973.
Lower Control Arms
With great looking used glass and the fender on the way and we are moving in a positive direction.
If you look back at the video (to view click here) of the exterior walk around for my 1973 SportsRoof you’ll notice the to front fenders were, not perfect!!!
#ProjectSportsRoof will be the way I want it, which I haven’t nailed down yet, so suggest way by dropping me a comment (got your crate motor idea swimming around in my head, Bill) and that will happen fast or slow and cost …
Welcome back to #ProjectSportsRoof. I run my car projects much like I run my IT projects. You always have to know where to start and know the end game. As with any project that isn’t being built from scratch, in other word, …
If you look back at the video (to view click here) of the exterior walk around for my 1973 SportsRoof you’ll notice the two front fenders were, not perfect!!!
Right Side Fender – lots of crinkles, a few creases and good size dent.
Left Fender – major dent a lot of rebuilding
The right fender has some pretty sharp creases breaking the lines of the finder. The belt line can be fixed but it’s tough to get them back to the original look and I don’t want a ‘bondo’ build out. The left fender is as bad, with that huge dent – almost completely straightening out the belt original fender lines. Again these can be fixed but it takes a lot of work. Additionally, I’m not even sure these fenders are original to the car – one appears to have holes consistent with a belt/side molding.
If you recall from earlier posts, the car came with two fenders. Although a bit delayed getting into town they did arrive and I took a look at them. I determined they were going to be as much work to fix as the fenders currently on the car. That’s way I opted to not add to the clutter in my garage by dragging them home.
So that left me with attempting to find good original fenders or repros. You’d think finding used fenders shouldn’t pose too big of an issue, Mustangs are everywhere, right? True in many respects, however, the 1973 Mustang had unique fenders. Often the 1971, 1972 and 1973 Mustangs are thought of as being the same car, but for 1973 the major difference is the change in bumpers that were Federally mandated. For 1973 the Mustang got the urethane bumper and no longer required the filler panel, which the ’70-’71 fenders accommodated with 4 screw holes to attach the panel.
Given that, it’s no wonder that most of the used fenders will need a lot of work, if you do find them and I already have a set that needs repair.
So that leaves me with reproduction sheet metal. There are a lot of forums out there that discuss the differences between ‘brands’ and I’ve done the research and the results were not conclusive.
There are 3 main providers of repop sheet metal, Dynacor, Legion (or Gold Legion) and Goodmark. There’s a lot of discussion on which are the best, but apparently the all come from the same place in Twain. Part of that discussion was that the manufacturer sells the sheet metal parts by quality grade and the above mentioned companies are some state what quality grade they will buy or have an exclusive deal to only get the top grades while the other companies are left to the poorer quality. I don’t know how much truth there is to this, so it’s grain of salt time. But the over all conciseness was that use parts would be better and the real difference for reproduced sheet metal comes down to the dealer’s customer service (read – return/replacement policy).
Even pricing varies by dealer. Summit has fenders for my ’73 Sportsroof for $365, NPD has them for $392, Ohio Mustang Supply for $315 and Laurel Mountain Mustang for $294.00. That’s a pretty good range.
As I posted before, after a vigorous (not read ‘desperate’) I finally found my next personal project. The 1973 Mustang Sports Roof Fastback is what I settled on.
Welcome back to #ProjectSportsRoof. I run my car projects much like I run my IT projects. You always have to know where to start and know the end game. As with any project that isn’t being built from scratch, in other word, …
This is the wrap up on the compression testing for the 1973 Mustang w/ a 1972 351 Cleveland power plant.
You’ll might have notices that I referred to the remote tester, which is my code for remote starter…yeah…that’s it!!!
All of these tests were dry test and I should have done a wet test on cylinder 2 to help determine if the rings were shot, I’m thinking it’s just a valve issue.
The left bank of cylinders looked like this:
Cylinder 5 (front right) – 160
Cylinder 6 – 155
Cylinder 7 – 160
Cylinder 8 – 140
Here are the videos.
Cylinder 5
Cylinder 6
Cylinder 7
Cylinder 8
Those are some pretty good numbers. But the heads will have to come off and sent out for a spa day…UNLESS…I replace them with something else? Like?????
I’ve done all the clean up and all the adjustments necessary to get a good reading on the health of the ’72 351C engine in my 1973 Mustang. The next step is to check.
There is a quick walk-through of the 351C tucked between the fenders of the 1973 Mustang Sportsroof. (It took about 5 takes to get this video…a slight improvement.
#ProjectSportsRoof will be the way I want it, which I haven’t nailed down yet, so suggest way by dropping me a comment (got your crate motor idea swimming around in my head, Bill) and that will happen fast or slow and cost …
Continuing on with the leaks and Pertronix install on the 351C, below you’ll see the cleaned up valve covers (BTW – only the right side was leaking – which may explain.
I’ve done all the clean up and all the adjustments necessary to get a good reading on the health of the ’72 351C engine in my 1973 Mustang.
The next step is to check the compression.
First up was to warm the car a bit and then pull the plugs.
Here’s what the plugs looked like:
A very handy device to have is a remote starter (it keeps you from having to run back the cockpit and turning the key). Just clip on to the positive terminal and S terminal on the starter rely and push the button.
There is a quick walk-through of the 351C tucked between the fenders of the 1973 Mustang Sportsroof. (It took about 5 takes to get this video…a slight improvement.
#ProjectSportsRoof will be the way I want it, which I haven’t nailed down yet, so suggest way by dropping me a comment (got your crate motor idea swimming around in my head, Bill) and that will happen fast or slow and cost …
During the course of a restoration that are the major processes that need to be tended too, like body work, engine rebuild or interior work that takes the lime light and.
Thanks for checking back on the #ProjectSportsRoof progress. Wrapping up the Pertronix install, I’ll had an issue. After install the system the car would not start.
