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Last of the V8 Interceptors.. my XB Falcon Coupe
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I know it must look like I'm jumping all over the place with jobs on this car & in a way I am, a smarter person would have a nice logical plan laid out but I just seem to stare at parts piles & then decide what takes my fancy at the time... I've decided that I want to finish all the jobs relating to the transmission & in an effort to clear some bench space I've started looking at the plumbing of the external cooler, I'll use what AN fitting & braided line I have laying around & then I'll make a list of what bits I don't have that I'll need to order to finish the lines.
First job is to remove the NPT style OEM hose fittings from the side of the trans.. These are on the drivers side & I really should have done this job before installing the exhaust headers as I really don't want to ever have to remove this side again as the starter & the whole power steering rack has to come out to allow the removal of this side... I was able to get the NPT fittings replaced with the -6 AN fittings in the end but man I lost a lot of skin & fair amount of blood in doing so
Fitting up the lines to the front mounted cooler was a simple job clearly
I had a big change of plan here & I've decided to not run two single lines from the cooler to the trans, instead I've decided that I like this new routing option better that has me put two bulkhead fittings into two existing holes in the inner fender, this means the lines can follow the OEM route through the engine bay of hugging the block just above the sump. This new set up means I'm short two 90 deg -6 AN fittings so I've ordered them.
I'll tie them in neatly to the clock with P clips or the like when the two remaining ends rock up & I finish the cables end to end.
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I've got a bit of an idea in my head now for how I want to plumb the fuel system too... but I've no -8 AN fitting to suit the 200 series braided line I'm using, I have a load of fitting for 100 series line in -8 but you can't mix & match fittings between the different series of braided hose. The fittings have been ordered & should be here for the weekend, for now I've also a rough idea of where I'll install the fuel regulator in the engine bay, the most logical spot is just behind the carb on the firewall, I'll look to use an existing hole to mount the bracket to as I don't want to drill new holes if I can help it.
I've also just gotten in the stupidly thick cables for the battery relocation to the boot, this 0 gauge stuff is really heavy duty but it's needed I'm told due to voltage drop over the long distance.
I've also got a battery cut off & some continuous duty solenoids to be part of the system... I'm not going to pretend that I know what I'm doing here as I just don't, but I'll be following what Freiburger did with his F-Rod project on Roadkill Garage if you ever watched that youtube.. the idea is that once the car has started the big cable from the battery to the starter isn't hot anymore. I need to rewatch the video & do a bit of reading still.... but hey we'll all learn together if I can keep the smoke inside the cables.
The passenger side header interferes with the shifter arm on the trans so this will have to be removed & reshaped to make that work.
But the aftermarket B&M shifter I have won't work with that shifter arm & has it's own supplied that needs to be swapped in... also this AOD trans has what's called a TV cable that needs to be installed (I'll explain that later when I'm playing with that bit) & that has a cable arm that needs to be installed here too. I figure that this percussive "reprofiling" of the exhaust is something I only want to do once, so best to install the shifter so I can run the cable between the shifter & the trans so I can be 100% of no interference.
To do this I have to remove the old aftermarket B&M shifter from the shifter hump, clean up the hump & install the new shiny shifter
Now I also want to install a center console in this car as I've never had one & have never experienced the joy of having somewhere to put you wallet & phone etc when driving this car
Now I know what you're thinking... you're thinking Dave surely that fancy new shifter means that the OEM console can't fit.... & you'd be right, but luckily I have a crappy old broken console that I can cut up to get the dimensions of what is the minimum cutting needed on the shiny new one
This is cut enough now that the shifter mechanism fits & operates fully
Next I'll tape up the sides of the cover so it doesn't get scratched & see if any more needs to come off to fully clear this too
I've been trying to spend 2-3 hrs a night after work every night this week getting stuff done & due to my stupidity I lost a full night doing work that past Dave made for me... I should have installed the hard plastic square tubes that connect the under dash heater & AC unit to the dash vents before installing the dash.... I know this now as I spent all of Tuesday I think it was pulling the dash out on the passenger side to squeeze those bits in & then pulling the drivers side off including dropping the steering column to get that side in... what a waste of a night
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Got the tail shaft back & man it's a nig beefy number, but there is a lot of Torque that it will need to transmit to the diff I guess. Now because nothing in this car ever goes easy as everything is custom... I had to unbolt the front of the torque tube & drop that down & even that didn't give enough room to get the shaft in so I also had to raise the back of the car up to drop the diff & give a bigger gap to get the shaft through... but it's in now so that's the driveline physically complete I guess.
I wanted to fill the diff with oil now that the tail shaft is in, but of course even that isn't a straight forward job, the retaining bolts for the torque tube are in the way of the filler bung so I had to cut down a 3/8 allen key to make it fit
Then I decided to just do a simple job, so the battery & battery tray are installed in the boot now
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I had a mate come around on Saturday so I decided to get his help to finally finish off the install of the ALT & the Power Steering brackets. Having a second pair of hands to stand at 90 degs to the brackets & hold the straight edge ruler made it real easy for me to make accurate measurements to make sure that the belts are lined up perfectly. On the PS pump bracket I needed to modify the timing pointer block as the bracket moved it too far forward for it to be useful. But this job is done & officially marked off the to-do list.
The shifter arm is wedged up against the headers, so they needed a bit of a love tap to make some space
But then reading the instructions for the B&M shifter cable, they say not to use the stock Ford AOD shifter arm at all & to swap in their own one. Good thing I'd been too lazy to fill the trans up with ATF so this didn't end up making a massive mess, I had to remove the pan obviously & then dismantle more of the innards than I was comfortable with to swap out the arms.
I also took the opportunity to install the trans end of the TV cable, this is the silver arm at 180 degs to the black shifter cable arm. This connects to the throttle arm on the carb & once calibrated it controls the trans line pressure that in turn controls how hard the shifts happen. I wanted to install it now when I could see inside the trans to better understand what it's doing. Installing the Carb end of this & doing the pressure calibration is a future Dave issue.
Next job was installing the shifter cable, first on the actual shifter
Then playing with the bracket that mounts to the trans, I was trying my best to not have to modify at least one thing this weekend but..... nope after a few more dents in the headers that I wanted to I realised that I was never going to get the supplied bracket to work. Really wish I'd made the call to just cut up the bracket before I belted the header but sometimes you gotta pay for your education. Decided to completely flip the bracket so that the cable runs hard against the trans pan & not wide out into the header path.
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Turned my attention back into the inside of the car, installed the carpet underlay
Then lay the carpet in & reinstalled the shifter, hopefully for the last time... then modified the new centre console using the template I made from cutting up the old one... this was a fairly simple job but the transformation is huge, it's starting to look like a car & not a shell now.
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Went for a simple job that didn't need any customisation or modifications. I was looking at the original bonnet pins to see if they could be cleaned up & reused, but the pitting was too bad sadly
I got a new set & they look awesome, I do think that the bonnet pins on the XB are a great design over the straight up pole through the bonnet style with a split pin that was common on most muscle cars of the era.
The pin has a metal rod that interlocks with the catch on the rad support panel
I have all the parts now I need to make the cooling system work, there is not traditional water outlet from the intake that houses the thermostat. On the passenger side head the water will exit & run into this Y block, the upper outlet will feed across into the heater matrix, the lower will be a braided line that connects to the remote thermostat housing.
The drivers side head will feed directly into the thermostat housing, I just need to make up a bracket to hold this housing in this spot
I've also settled on the location where the remote reservoir for the power steering will go, plumbing this will be more complex than it should be as I need to tie in the hydroboost braking system too
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Finished off the install of the water piping from the heads to the thermostat housing, made a bracket to hold said housing & also made the single AN line that needed to join the passenger side head to the housing.
I need to get the front & rear glass in the car & for that I need to get the head liner in, so I installed the last of the underlier for that on the C pillars & then set about installing the steel bows that run through the folds of the fabric of the headliner & then I stretched it out as much as I could & used my entire offices supply of bulldog clips to hold the edges of the headliner out. I need to do a bit of research now as to the exact process to get the headliner taught to remove any creases & then glued on to the metal edges that it folds over, I assume some gentle heat from a heat gun will be used & I assume it's at least a two person job, but lets see how it goes.
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The rear firewall panel that goes behind the seat is in
I also put the rear parcel shelf panel in place but after speaking to some people it seems that this repro panel is know for cracking & shrinking issues with the Aussie sun so I've been give a link to a better fiberglass option that I'll have to order now & hope it rocks up quick....
I should also buy & install the rear speakers now I guess
I also started reworking the loom in the engine bay as some of the wires needed to be shortened & rerouted to suit my specific install needs over how a stock loom would route
The battery in the boot is wired in now, sad cable to the rear chassis rail & the positive cable goes to a 225 amp inline fuse
From that fuse it goes to a battery isolator switch so I can kill the power when parking the car up for periods of time & then from there it runs up the inside of the car alongside the standard wiring loom
It pops out the firewall through a gromet & then follows the main engine bay loom up & around the brake booster & across the top of the strut tower
From here it feeds down to the large post on the starter motor, there is then a smaller wire that feeds back up from that same post on the starter motor & feeds to the bottom post of this smaller 200 amp fuse... the wire from the post on the back of the Alt also goes to this same bottom post in the fuse block & the power feeds for the main loom attached to the top post of the fuse.
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The fuel tank was supposed to finished 10 days ago... just got these progress pics sent today so it's still not done, hopefully I will get it this week. This is why I hate outsourcing any work if I can help it. Not sure if it's the same back in Ireland now but trades are swamped it seems & even just getting a quote for something can take months now & as for how long it takes beyond what they promise well this will be twice as long & it's so bad here that I'm almost not annoyed by that at all...
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It'll be touch & go with regards to me getting this car finished in time now... I'm dependant on external help for the headliner install, the Windscreen install & the exhaust & I'm struggling to find people who want the work or can work to my time line, but I'll keep pushing on with what I can at night after work.
As I've said before the brake system I have for the car is a Hydroboost system... this uses the power steering pump to feed the brake booster with pressure rather that using vacuum as the cam in this engine has an aggressive overlap so it produces bugger all vacuum.
Step one was making a bracket to mount the remote fluid reservoir, I've opted for here by the rad as it's out of the way & I could use the bolts that hold the spot lights on to also hold this bracket.
I've also mounted the Davies Craig twin fan controller in this area as it needs to be next to the rad & fans anyway.
Here's the plumbing diagram they give you, so it's pretty simple really... the reservoir feeds the PS pump, the PS pump feeds the brake booster, the brake booster in turn feeds the PS rack & then both of the booster & the rack have a return feed to the reservoir
This is what that looks like in real life.... Assuming I do make the big trip at the end of March I may try & re-do this & make it actually look neat... but right now I'm 100% focused on David Freiburgers philosophy of don't get it right just get it running
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I was going to mount the oil catch can up on the firewall just under the bonnet hinge but I couldn't make the plumbing for that & for the heater core & fuel lines work so it's ended up in front of the shock tower, not what I wanted but I don't hate it.
I was planning on mounting the rad overflow bottle right next to the rad
But then I decided to mount it alongside the catch can as I just think it looks better this way
Got the fuel tank back tonight
Installed the in tank pump & the fuel sender unit
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I've put the same heat reflective material I used on the intercooler of the GT-Four on the front sections the tank that the exhaust will run past
Lets drop it back into the car & see if my measurements where on point, what I'm looking for is full clearance from the rear mumford link on the diff & good space for the exhaust to run past the tank & out the rear of the car
Lets drop it back into the car & see if my measurements where on point, what I'm looking for is full clearance from the rear mumford link on the diff & good space for the exhaust to run past the tank & out the rear of the car
Pretty happy with how that turned out... looks like it will work
I'll be up in Sydney for work the next two days so not much more will be done till maybe late Thursday night when I get home. Then I'm off to the US for a work trip on Sat, I really can't afford the time away from the shed but I've no choice sadly. On a good note though I think I've found a guy who will put the headliner in the car next week when I'm away... we'll see if he follows through on that threat.
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Next job was to finish the install of the fuel system, so the fuel pressure reg was mounted up on the firewall, then I installed the bulkhead fittings in the boot & mounted the inline fuel filter.
Plumbed the system from the engine back, so fuel rail to the carb & the feed in & out lines hooked up to the reg... then ran the lines following the stock line route for the OEM steel lines & down into the bulkhead fittings at the boot floor.
I have a cover panel that I'll bend up that will sit over the pump & sender here so you won't see them & more importantly you can't knock them with luggage etc that's in the boot.
Had a professional come & install the headliner so at least one part of this car has been done properly, it looks amazing
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Got the coil mounted up in a nice airy cool spot on the firewall
I then went to do what should have been a simple 10 second upgrade job but it almost ruined the whole project.. I had bought a new lock barrel set that was two by new door locks that work fine & a new ignition barrel. I tested the key & the ignition barrel action a few times on the bench but once it was installed it locked up solid & just wouldn't turn, the key would slide out but the steering lock couldn't be undone & the key refused to turn... this was a major issue as the release button that lets you remove the barrel is only accessible when the key is in the "on" position. Probably 2hrs was lost here, researching what could be wrong & more importantly what could be done to get the barrel out without damaging the column.
In the end I had no choice but you use a pilers on the lock & gently force it around until the internals broke... luckily it only broke the barrel & nothing else & I was able to swap back in the old barrel so now I have a boot key, a door key & an ignition key... one more that I wanted but they all work.
I got all of the behind the dash wiring laid in place with all the connectors going to the right spots so installing the gauges will be a quick & simple job
Found & fitted up the new wiper & light switches that I'd gotten
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I had wanted to get a professional exhaust place make up an exhaust for me, but I couldn't get anyone to book me in at a time that would suit me as I was still waiting for the new front screen to show up as it was running late from the delivery date I was promised..... so nothing for it to make up a **** halfarsed home made system.. this is the perfect example of don't get it right just get it running..
I think that the final exhaust system on this car will need to use oval pipe as there is no way I can see to fit in a cross over section that will get past that huge torque tube without being too low if we're using 3.5" round tube. To this end I've gone with just making two straight single pipes. I've fitted a resonator right after the extractor & then a muffler just before the diff in an attempt to make it somewhat liveable from a noise perspective
I did a basic wheel alignment the other night with the help of Mrs_XB & her brother so that it's good enough to drive to a shop to have it properly done. The only jobs left for me to be done by 6pm Thursday are:
1. Full brake system bleed
2. Put the dash cluster in
3. Install the door trim cards & the seats
4. Fire the engine up & check of any leaks after a full heat cycle
5. Test driveJobs left for others:
1. Deliver the front windshield that I ordered back on the 25th of Feb (that you said was in stock & would be with me in days)
2. Have the front & rear windows installedIt's Tuesday here in Aus & the car has to be on the ferry on Thursday, last week I rang the windscreen place up in Qld & asked where my window was... spoke to the company owner & he was very sorry, the cyclone had disrupted things the week before.. but my screen was being boxed up as we spoke (Tuesday last week) & would 100% be at my door by Friday last week. I booked the windshield install guy for Sat afternoon, Friday afternoon came no screen... called company, no answer.. Sat came, call installer & cancelled him. Rang glass company again, no answer again.... same on Monday & I'm just off the phone with them now... great news my screen is in perfect condition, bad news it's still in their warehouse in Qld.... **** **** ****.... they can get it to me by Friday with is of course way too late.
To say I'm pissed off is a massive understatement... the last two weeks have been thrashing till way late into the night, I've had Mrs_XB & several mates come over & give up weekends & work to the bone late into worknights & now it's all for nothing as glass company never shipped my **** screen after me explaining to them several times my deadlines & the fact that they had the fucker in stock kills me.
Today is the last day I can amend the ferry booking for Mrs_XB & I so I've had to call them & swap out the car booking from the XB to the Bullitt Mustang... I just feel so gutted, if I'd missed the deadline by own hand that would have been different but for it to be something as stupid as someone simply never shipping the screen is killing me.
I can't bring myself to do another job on her this week, so I'll pack the tools away & I'll throw a cover over her tonight & I'll get back to her when we're back... I'll probably go back over a lot of the jobs that where done late at night in haste the last 10 days or so as we may well have missed something there.
Bugger!!
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Ok.... rant over, lets end this weeks update with a positive post.... the door card trims.
Firstly these look amazing, they are great quality & I've also order new arm rests so the interior will look amazing when its done. Here are some pics & then I'll tell you story of how they came to be in my shed.
Ok, so these door cards where finished & ready on Thursday the 27th of Feb... they where done by an awesome company in Adelaide, my mate Brad collected them for me. They don't come boxed or wrapped in any way so he & I are trying to work out the best way to get them to me as I'm in Vegas on a work trip at this time & we're both worried that they'll get damaged in shipping.
Then out of nowhere Mrs_XB comes up with the plan... she suggests that if she gets up & starts working from home at 6am Friday then she can leave work just after 1pm having put in a full days work. She can then drive the 700k's to Adelaide that afternoon to get to a hotel just in time to eat & fall into bed (I think the longest she's ever driven no stop like this before is 3-4hrs) Brad can drop the door cards to her early Sat morning & she can then drive the 700k's home to safely deposit them in the front room of the house so that they would be there waiting for me when I got home from Vegas on the Sunday.
This is how I know I chose well... I was at the company funded big last night party in Vegas getting drunk & having an awesome time & Mrs_XB was doing a 1400k+ round trip to be sure that these delicate parts got to me in time & in perfect condition... I have such an awesome wife!
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Right the Hardtop Anniversary event has long been run & done now...... I don't think this build thread is the right place to post about that trip but here are a few pics before we get back to normal service.
The carpark at the Tasmanian Ferry terminal was a thing of beauty to behold when we got there. Sad as we where that the XB didn't make it, the Bullitt was a great choice & she didn't stick out too much... she is a 2 door Ford V8 after all
When in Tas every stop for lunch or at a lookout point for a beautiful view was just awesome.
We had some time at two Tassie race tracks, BaskerVille & Symmons Plains... this gave us two chances to get photos of the largest ever gathering of Ford Coupes in one spot....
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The Windshield did turn up in the end, a day late for me but I have it now & it is in one piece & not a 5000 piece glass jigsaw which is always a risk when shipping a chunk of glass this big.
I was also able to find two little important parts that are made of unobtainium now which are the standoff rubbers that lift & center the screen in the opening. My car clearly had a screen replaced as these where missing & I just had chunks of rubber thrown in the glass channel when I removed the old screen.
I saw so many Coupes breakdown on the weekend we where away with them & people struggle to find somewhere to attached a tow strap or chain to them without scratching or damaging anything... so a front tow point is a clear must now. Just trying to decide if I install it pointed up or down??? I'm thinking up..
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I want to get the grille & lights on the front end this weekend, I had upgraded from the old sealed beam style 70's headlights to modern H4 headlights & globes but now I was thinking of going LED, but most LED globes I looked at had large heat syncs built in that would need me to cut the headlight bucket to allow them to fit.
When I was down in Tas I saw a guys XB where he had a complete Stedi LEB headlamp fitted... with this the whole headlight is the heat sync so this just bolts in.
I also got a new set if central driving lights too to replace my old 70's originals
I just need to clean up & polish the old headlight trim rings as they look a bit tatty
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Ok, time to get back into this thread... some stuff has happened, not as much as I'd have liked but life gets in the way sometimes.
I found that a set of late 60's Mustang chrome light rings could be gotten new & with only a slight little tweak they can be used to replace the old XB trim rings, so the LED headlights went in
With those lights in then the grille can go on, you need to install the grille first before you can install the driving lights
Now with the bonnet down you can clearly see the "wave" or droop in the top of the grille, sadly this is a standard feature of nearly all XB grilles... they are all 50 years old now, mine wasn't this bad a few years back but old age seems to be catching up & given the cost of a restored one is several thousand dollars I think that I will just live with this "wave" look for now.
Finally settled on the way I wanted the front tow hook mounted, ended up bolting it on as if I'd welded it in this position then I wouldn't have been able to remove the bumper without it catching on the car & scratching the paint at a minimum
Next job was to start sorting through the chrome trim & installing the best of it, I have multiple sets of trim by now as I was lucky enough to have collected extra spare sets back in the early 00's before this stuff that's made from unobtainium got to crazy prices. These extra long chrome channels are the sections that attach up onto the roof to hold the rubber strip that the side glass closes up into.
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Spent some tine cleaning these up & then picking the best set to mount up on the car, several people have suggested that I should look to sell my spare set but I just know that if I did that then somehow something would happen to mine & I'd regret selling the spares, so they will sit hopefully forever gathering dust up on a high shelf here in the shed.
Probably didn't need to clean them as once they are installed in the car & then the rubber installed in it's channel you can't really see them at all, they are held in with both double sided tape & screws
Needed to use slightly larger screws than what I'd removed for obvious reasons, as you can see once the rubber is in you only see a tiny piece of the actual metal
With this track installed with the thick rubber the rear Qtr window no longer lined up to wind up all the way on the drivers side, oddly enough the passenger side was perfect so setting the two windows in the exact same wasn't the answer, got to love the tolerances of old cars
In a weird way the lack of adjustment points for the window winder mech which is front-back adjustment slots at the top & in-out adjustment slots in the bottom this took ages to get right & I did have to walk away at one point for a calming cup of tea as I genuinely thought that maybe removing the mechanism & just welding the frame such that the window was permanently closed was looking like a real option... but in the end I did get it closing perfectly, well perfectly until the lovely thick new rubber starts to collapse a bit as it gets used & then I'm sure I'll be chasing this gap for the rest of my life
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As I'm retrofitting newer seats I went for the option of buying new repro seat rails for the car as I don't want to cut up my original seats as they are in great nick & may be reused one day, opted to trial fit them now when it will be super simple to modify them if they don't fit seamlessly
I'd heated the carpet up & then left heavy sand bags sitting on it for a bit to help it sitting tight against the curves of the floor & then to make the holes for the bolts for the seat rails & the seatbelts I heated up the pointy end of my podge bar & slid this through the carpet whilst it was hot, they melts through the carpet like butter & solders the edges if the holes so there are no stringy bits that can get pulled or start to unravel in the future... just remember that you've heated the podge when you go to pick it back up, ask me how I know
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It took a while to find someone that was willing to install the new rear window in the XB, more on that later as that is a huge prick of a job that I'm very very glad I didn't just try to do myself, although I think I'd tackle one now having been involved in the install of mine... but lets not get ahead of ourselves... here is the simple 5 min job that was installing shiny new tinted front screen..
Sat the screen in the hole to work out the position of the two rubber height adjusters that get installed, also installed the trim holding clips now as it's not a job to be done with the glass in place
Run a thin layer of black windscreen holding goop around the lip of the opening & then slowly lower the glass back in & just let the weight of it pressing against the goop do the work, never push it home I was told
It's amazing what a huge psychological milestone this step was for me, I wasn't expecting my feelings towards the car or the project to shift with what was a small task. But for the first time in a long time my concept of the XB moved from being a shell that I've been restoring to actually being a car if that makes sense, I guess it's the same for when you get a house you're building up to the weatherproof lockup stage
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I had struggled to find someone willing to install the rear window as they are known for being really hard to do & often have to be installed several times to get them spot on, for the record we installed mine 4 times till we where both happy with how the chrome trim sat. I was thinking of just giving it a go myself... after all how hard can it be, but then I was lucky to find a guy really close who'd done a few in the past & was happy to come over & install it.
There are a few steps to getting this done right, the first step is the only easy one & that's fitting the bare rubber to the glass.
Then you have to start working in the chrome trim, the XB rear screen design is a bit odd, the trim has a leg that goes into the rubber that is shaped like a J & this actually goes around the lip of the glass & pulls the glass into the rubber, here's a side on view of the trim on an old window & rubber I have
Once the trim is fully fitted it's locked in & can't move, this is where you have to hope that you have the edges lined up exactly as the two bottom corners will move as the screen & rubber are pulled into the car completing the install & if they are perfectly lined up the only course of action is to remove the whole thing & pull the trim back out of the rubber & start all over... as I said the forth time was a charm for us.
The last part of the install is to run a thin rope inside the channel of the rubber that the window lip of the car will sit into, then you rest the screen with rubber & trim installed on top of the hole it's going into & whilst I gently pushed on the glass from outside the installer pulled the rope out to pull the lip of the rubber inside the car locking the screen in place, no goop is used to install this screen
Above its sitting on top of opening & below is when it's finally pulled into place & locked in by the rubber & the trim
We ended up doing the install 4 times as I said & this was to get the corners of the trims just right, go & see any XA-XB or XC coupe at a cars & coffee or in a car show & these corners are normally turned up as the trim has shifted after or during the install, if you're lucky it'll only be by a few mm but in some cases they'll end up looking as bad as this
Really happy with how mine turned out in the end
As a little added bonus, I've been able to use the box that the new front screen came in to store all of my old now spare XB Coupe glass
The last thing I've done, is trail fit my new much better rear parcel shelf cover, this is fibreglass & has the correct curve up to the rear screen & whilst the drivers side corner also tucks up perfectly the passenger side curve isn't quiet right... anyone know if you can gently heat & bend fibreglass or will I have to use something under it to pack it up to the correct curve I need??
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I've had a lot of non car/shed stuff on but must be time to get back into it, I want to get the interior back in now, I keep putting this probably simple job off as I just don't enjoy this sort of task. My rear seats where never bolted in from the factory... well I say bolted what I mean is screwed in with self tapper screws as that's the sort of attention to detail & engineering the luxury Ford brand of the 70's used here in Aus...
I remember when I was taking the car apart I noticed that the person on the assembly line who's job it was to precisely install the self tapper screws was obviously having a bad day, you can see where the bracket for the rear seats line up & when you look under the car there is no corresponding hole & I know I didn't weld them up, I think I'll step away from what is clearly a concourse restoration at this point & use nutserts to install the seats instead of the factory correct self tappers.
The top of the rear seat back locks onto this bracket to keep it help in place
When in place the seat back should sit at this level
But when I install the seats it's pushed up to this level, it seems that the sound deadner & the new carpet are raising the base up which in turn is pushing the seat back up too.. I'm hoping that once I have it bolted in that it won't be able to rise up & that I can squeeze the seat base in... worst case I guess I just cut the carpet short & don't have it under the seat base at all
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