Miscellaneous interior features III

With the power windows in and operational, I turned my attention to the power seat mechanism. Ford hadn't offered a driver's side power bucket in the Torino, but they did offer a power bench as well as a power driver's side split bench, which used the same track assembly as the bucket. Since I'm cloning the TV car and it was equipped with a power seat, mine will be too! The Cougar Jeff was parting out was equipped with the power split bench so I got the seat bottom assembly and harness from him.

Again the first order of business was to determine functionality. I installed the harness per the photos Jeff took during disassembly and removed the seat track assembly from the seat bottom. I was surprised how HEAVY the seat bottom assembly was as I drug it out of the box the seat and associated parts were shipped in! I was glad I only had him ship the bottom of the seat! I think the seat bottom alone weighs as much as the entire bucket seat does !! Anyway once I had the track separated from the seat, I place it in my car and plugged it in as presto, it moved......but extremely slowly.

It worked in all 6 axis but they were all glacierly slow. I also notice the bezel of the power controls was slightly pitted, so I made a mental note to add that to my rechrome list. My thoughts on the slowness of the seat movement was probably years of crud built up around the drive gears as well as perhaps lack of lubrication around the hinge points as well as seat track. A friend has a '92 Crown Victoria (the one I got the idea for rear seat armrest from) which also has a power driver's seat, so I thought I'd look at it my next visit and see how fast the seat was supposed to move.

When I got my chance to look at it, the first thing I noticed was that the seat controls were EXACTLY LIKE THE ONES ON MINE! Ford hadn't changed the controller in at least 16 years! So I revised my mental note to see if the bezel was removable and to also try and locate a NOS controller for a '92 CV. As far as operational speed was concerned, the seat wasn't extremely "fast" in any direction but it was a constant motion a bit faster than my seat exhibited.

With that info in hand, on my next play day, I proceeded to disassemble my seat track for cleaning, detailing and restoration. I pulled the motor and cables from the track so I was left with just the bare frame. I proceeded to clean it thoroughly with carb cleaner and a tooth brush to get everything out of the track rails, gear drives, etc. Once I had her as clean as I could, I washed the entire track down in lacquer thinner to remove any traces of oil or any other contaminates that would prevent the paint from sticking. Once I was happy that it was nice and clean, I blew it dry with a pressurized air nozzle and hung it up for a quick coat of primer.






























My primer of choice for anything metal I'm shooting with a rattle bomb is POR-15 SELF ETCHING PRIMER. Having used POR-15 products in the past, I'm sold on the durability of their paints and related products. A couple quick coats per the can instructions and I called it a day.

I think I'll call it a day on this post also, so watch for the next installment.....COMING SOON!

ZEBRA 3 OUT

Miscellaneous interior features II

As I mentioned earlier, while I was stripping the paint, I was also gathering up options and other parts necessary to clone the TV car. A couple of those factory options were the Power Windows and the Power Driver's seat. I wanted to get everything test fitted and powered up prior to pulling out the door guts and interior wiring harnesses to insure everything was in order prior to detailing all the various bits and pieces.

The driver's door of my car already had "power window" glass installed but the passenger side had the "non-power glass" fitted. The difference between the two is that the power glass has an arc cut along the bottom edge to clear the power window motor and the manual glass is straight across.

Since the driver's door was closer to being "done" I started there. I first had to remove four 1/4" rivets that held the manual window regulator to the door inner structure. Since I wasn't sure if the glass would stay up without the regulator in place, I blocked the window in the up position. I simply set a hammer across the top of the door side impact brace and an opening in the inner door skin and it kept the glass from falling as I removed the mechanism. The power regulator fit to the door in a different position than the manual regulator did so it took a few minutes to figure out the orientation and which existing holes were used to mount the assembly.

The next trick was "cocking" the regulator arm and locking it in a position that would allow me to install the lift arm roller into the window lift bracket and still be able to engage the lift motor gear with the regulator gear and mount the motor to the door.

CAUTIONARY NOTE: THE POWER REGULATOR IS SPRING LOADED TO EXTEND FULLY TO THE UP POSITION OF THE MECHANISM. THE SPRING IS VERY STRONG SO USE CAUTION WHEN REMOVING THE WINDOW MOTOR TO PREVENT THE SUDDEN EXTENSION OF THE LIFT MECHANISM AND DAMAGE TO THE VEHICLE OR PERSONAL INJURY!!

The full up position of the mechanism is too far up for actual window operation, so a slightly "cocked" position must be found and locked in position until after motor is installed.) It was a bit tricky finding the sweet spot so everything would line up but with a little patience and taking my time to insure things were as they should be, I got it all together. Since I would be pulling it all back out again for detailing and paint, I used 1/4-20 hardware to install the regulator assembly. During final assembly, I will use 1/4" rivets like Ford did and also use a backup washer to insure the rivets hold the regulator securely in place.

Now that I "knew what I was doing", I went to the passenger door. I removed the four rivets holding the regulator to the door, blocked the glass in the up position and removed the manual regulator. The next chore was to remove the manual glass and install the power glass, so I removed all the window stops from the upper portion of the door and then removed the screws securing the glass to the vertical guide and then removed the guide from the door. I thought "hot dog that was easy! Now just finesse the manual glass out and the power glass in and we're home free!"....... WRONG!

I couldn't find the appropriate openings in the top of the door that would allow me to remove the glass as an assembly. There had to be a way to do it because Jeff (the guy I purchased the power systems from) had gotten the thing out as an assembly. I got out my shop manual and flipped to the door glass section and it said I needed to drill out the rivets securing the lifting bracket to the bottom of the glass. I thought no, there has to be a way because Jeff had done it. I decided to go ahead and install the wiring harness and get that taken care of then call it a day and check with Jeff and see how he was able to get it out all together.

When I got home, I immediately fired off an e-mail to Jeff asking how he had gotten the door glass out without breaking it down into individual pieces. When I got his reply back I knew I wasn't going to be able to follow his example... since he was parting the Cougar out and the doors were pretty much shot due to rust, he cheated and used a pry bar to spread the window channel open far enough to slip everything out in one piece! So the shop manual was right after all..... imagine that!!

The following Saturday, rather than drilling the rivets out, I used a 3" course sandpaper wheel in my 1/4" angle head grinder and ground the heads off the rivets securing the lift bracket to the power window glass first (this is also how I removed the rivets from the manual regulators). Since it was out of the door it was easier to work on and get a feel for what I would be doing in the confines of the door itself. About 5 minutes and I had both windows pulled apart. The next tricky part was getting the manual glass out of the door BY MYSELF! It took some creative thinking to figure out how to position the glass so it would stay in position while I moved my hands from inside the door to outside so I could get it the rest of the way out of the window channel and jockey it back and forth to allow the window stops to slip out through the provided door openings.

Inserting the power glass back in the door was every bit as challenging because I had to finesse the stops into the openings then position the glass to stay in place while I got my hands inside the door to finish positioning it for reassembly. Instead of rivets, I used 1/4-20 x 1" hex head bolts with nylock nuts (just like the shop manuals said to do) to put the lift bracket back onto the glass. Once the bracket was installed, I replaced the vertical guide and window stops, blocked the glass in the up position, "cocked" and installed the regulator assembly followed by the window motor. I had installed the harness the previous Saturday, so all I had to do was plug in the motor leads and reconnect the battery. The moment of truth had arrived....... I hit the down button and..........NOTHING!

I though "CRAP what's wrong?" I rechecked all my connections and grounds and all was in order. I knew the harness was good because I had checked continuity of each wire prior to installation. I thought things through and then it hit me...."Turn on the key DUMMY!"

With a click of the ignition and a push of a button the driver's window slowly slid down into the door and then a lift of the button and the window rose from the door! Tried the other switch and the passenger glass slowly disappeared and then reappeared on the opposite side of the car. Almost there.... I went to the passenger side and tried the button on that door and again the window did it's magic act.

Both glass don't glide as smoothly up and down as they should but I still need to detail and lube everything then make the adjustments during final assembly that will restore the smoothness to the power window operation.

SORRY NO PICTURES... HAD A SENIOR MOMENT AND PULLED EVERYTHING BACK APART WITHOUT SHOOTING ANYTHING!

Next installment I cover the install of the power seat track and the power door locks......STAY TUNED!

ZEBRA 3 OUT

Parts Search..... Part 1

Sorry for the delay in posting this installment. Would love to say it was because I was extremely busy working on the 2M8O, but that's not the case. I've had my 16 year old daughter Emily for most of August, during her summer vacation, and I realized that pretty soon she's not going to want to spend as much time with her ole Dad as she did when she was younger, so I made a concerted effort to spend as much of my off time as I could doing things with Em that hopefully would be as valuable to her as it was for me. Out next big endeavour will be finding her FIRST car together! She's wanting a Ford Focus or a VW Jetta so hopefully we can find a nice used one to start her off with. Wish me luck!!

As I was stripping the trunk, the interior floor and the body, I was also searching for the major and minor options that the TV car had as well as those to replace the original options my car had but had been removed over the course of time. One of the options I was able to snag early was a complete AC System from the firewall evaporator box forward. I was also able to get an operational Power Window and Power Driver's Side Split Bench System from a guy in Minnesota that was parting out a '76 Cougar. I got the complete systems that included all the wiring harnesses, brackets, clips, bushings, hardware, etc. so it will hopefully be a matter of just "plugging and playing". Time will tell!

I contacted John Haney at BlueOval to see if he had any floor shift tilt steering columns for a Torino. He said he had a couple column shift tilt units but no floor shift models. He told me the tilt wasn't offered with bucket seats and a floor shift tilt column was pretty rare. I asked him if it were possible to modify a column shift tilt unit into a floor shift model and he said they had tried several times without success. I thought there had to be a way to do it, so I went ahead and purchased one of the column shift units to try my hand at the conversion.

I also picked up on eBay a complete Motorola Micor multi-channel Police radio system that included the head unit, speaker, cables and trunk mounted transmitter, a Southern Products magnetic teardrop revolving red light and a Federal Signal siren controller w/PA and a Dynamax 100W speaker.

Well that's it for now, but watch for more coming soon!

ZEBRA 3 OUT