Take it off.......

After using a Scotch-Brite wheel to strip the damaged area of the roof and sail panel, I knew that's not how I wanted to strip the body. Created WAY TOO MUCH dust plus there was a question of how much heat the sheetmetal could withstand before it started to deform.

I have used POR-15 products in the past and was going to use their paint to coat the floor and chassis, so I looked through their catalog to see what they had to offer. I discovered their POR-STRIP paint remover so I called my local rep and ordered a gallon along with a spray bottle. The stuff has the consistency of water and the catalog said it wouldn't harm aluminum, fiberglass, window glass, chrome or weatherstripping.

The product arrived and I donned my heavy rubber gloves, respirator and safety glasses, grabbed my funnel and after shaking the POR-Strip vigorously for several minutes, I filled the spray bottle and got to it. Since I was working a vertical surface, it took me a few minutes to get the sprayer adjusted so it sprayed a fine mist onto the panel helping the stripper stay in place while it got busy releasing the paint.

Watching the stripper work reminded me of watching a horror flick when someone splashes holy water onto a vampire or acid onto someone's skin (well, minus the smoke of course!). At first it doesn't appear to be doing anything then gradually a blister will start to appear and begin to spread across the panel. The paint begins to wrinkle up and fall off the panel practically by itself!

After letting the stripper work for several minutes, I used a plastic spreader as a squeegee to scrape away the paint. A second application was applied to insure I got everything off. I worked one panel at a time starting at the sail panel and doing the rear quarter first before moving on to the driver's door and finally the front fender.

Once the paint was gone, I wiped down the area with water to neutralize any remaining stripper, then went over the panels lightly with a Scotch-Brite wheel to remove any remaining paint. Once I had the panels clean, I applied a coat of POR-15 Metal-Ready to prep the surface for future paint as well as protecting it in the interim from developing any surface rust because of the zinc phosphate coating left behind when the Metal Ready dries.

With the driver's side stripped, it was time to work across the roof and down the passenger side. I'll cover that next time.

Stay tuned......

ZEBRA 3 OUT

Strip it....

With the interior and trunk floors stripped, I thought it was time to look into the bondo pigtails on the roof. So with a 3 1/2" Scotch-Brite wheel mounted in my trusty angle head grinder, I set about sanding away the paint on the driver's side sail panel....














































To speed removal of the bondo in the damaged area, I used a rubber mallet to hit the underside of the damaged area to break the filler loose from the sheet metal. I was then able to remove the majority of it in large sections by using a screwdriver to get under the putty and gently pry it away from the roof.

With the bondo ground away, I discovered two things. First, that the roof had suffered a severe blow in some manner and second, I was going to have to find another way of stripping the paint from the body because using the Scotch-Brite wheels created too much dust and more heat in the sheetmetal than I would like. In the following two pics, you can see the damage to the roof section and in the second you can see a couple pieces of the bondo removed from the roof (laying on the rear window package shelf between the left side speaker opening and the center defogger opening). At it's thickest point the bondo was about 3/16"-1/4" thick. Don't know how long it had been in place but it was still attached very securely to the roof metal.































Next installment, I show the rest of the paint being removed from the body.

Until then.........

ZEBRA 3 OUT

Miscellaneous interior features III... conclusion

First, I like to thank everyone for their comments. Nice to know people are actually watching my progress! One of the suggestions I received was to be a bit more magazine oriented for those with a short attention span. This would have been an ideal installment to do as a HOW-TO feature but I already had everything fabed, installed, working and disassembled before I got the suggestion, but I promise to try one in the coming posts.

With the power seat and windows installed it was time to turn my attention to the last of the power options; the Power Locks. There are only two visible clues to a Torino being power lock equipped...

The first is the lock button head which reads POWER LOCK, and second are the two rivets in the trailing edge of each door that hold the solenoid bracket in the door. The factory system didn’t use a switch to lock and unlock the doors but rather the lock plunger served as the switch. I was unsuccessful in locating an OEM set-up so I started surfing the web and eBay looking for a system that functioned in the same fashion. I discovered this system on eBay for two door cars...

It operates in the same manner that the factory system does. The kit included two solenoids, harness, control module and various links and hardware to install the system along with the wiring diagram and instructions.

The first order of business was to install the solenoids. As a starting point, I drilled out the two pilot dimples in each door for the factory mounting brackets....

then I determined how far into the door the solenoid had to be to push-pull directly on the lock plunger rod. With the dimensions in hand, I designed my bracket and cut a pattern out of heavy cardboard to confirm my design. Once I had it like I wanted, I loaded the design into AutoCAD, mirrored it for the opposite side of the car and converted it so I could have them laser cut at work. I used 11 ga stainless steel for rigidity, strength and durability. The finished brackets are EXTREMELY strong and I won’t ever have to worry about them rusting or being too flimsy to operate years from now.

With the solenoid brackets out of the way, it was time to decide where to locate the control module. Since both solenoids had to wire to it, I knew it should be somewhere in the middle of the dash. I had my dash pad out of the car, so I could see behind the dash clearly and I noticed the dash reinforcement above the glove box with the red seat belt/key buzzer mounted to it. I removed it and designed another stainless steel bracket to mount to the reinforcement that would allow the control module to be mounted close the buzzer and easily accessible thru the glove box opening once the liner was removed.

With the brackets all in place it was time to get busy and start mounting everything. I inserted the solenoid link into the top hole of the solenoid plunger and temporarily mounted the solenoids to the door brackets with a few wire ties so I could readily mount or remove the solenoids without much effort. The solenoid link must be formed to run parallel to the lock plunger rod so it can be attached to the rod via a block with slotted openings for the plunger rod and solenoid link. The shafts are locked in place with set screws.

With the solenoids in place, the control module mounted to it’s bracket and the reinforcement reinstalled between the dash and cowl, it was time to prepare the wiring harness.

The first order of business was to identify and separate the two individual circuits, then wrap them with vinyl loom wrap to simulate a factory wiring harness. Once wrapped, I plugged the harness into the lock control module and ran the two circuits to their destination. One thing I discovered once the circuits were run was the supplied harnesses weren't long enough to reach the solenoids (I guess the kit was designed for the smaller cars of today and not vintage American vehicles with doors that are over three feet long!). To remedy the problem and to give me a connection for the power locks at the door harness kick panel connection, I got a multi-conductor (5 wire) cable to connect between the lock solenoid and the cross cabin wiring harness at the kick panel.

I ran the cable along the same route the OEM lock harness ran across the outside of the door then into the door and through the rubber cable boot between the door and the hinge panel. The kit harness used bullet connectors for plugging everything together, so I made a trip to Radio Shack to pick up the appropriate size connectors. I installed the new female connectors on my new door harness and plugged the wires into the lock solenoid harness. At the kick panel connection, I had to shorten the cross dash harness to eliminate some of the excess kit harness length and installed the necessary bullet connectors and plugged all those connections together.

The final two wires to connect were the hot and ground leads. I used the ground connection for the blower motor behind the dash on the passenger side as the ground point for the lock circuit and picked up my hot signal from the hot connection for the glove box light and power trunk release.

The moment of truth arrived and the locks functioned beautifully once I fine turned the connecting link between the solenoid and the lock plunger to eliminate a slight binding between the two. A nice feature I hadn't though about was that since the solenoid operates off the lock plunger, when you unlock/lock one door with the key it does the same to the opposite side. With everything installed and operational, it was time to pull it all back out for detailing and lubrication.

I located some original style rivets to use for the final assembly and the crowning jewel for the installation was a set of NOS Power Lock buttons.....

Once everything is installed for the final time, unless you pull the door apart and look at the components, you won't know it's an aftermarket power lock kit... Very covert system!

Until next time........

ZEBRA 3 OUT

Miscellaneous interior features III... continued

With the seat frame primed, it was time to add some color. I've found that Eastwood's Underhood Black seems to match the OEM general purpose black pretty closely, so I applied three light coats of the black and set aside to dry.

During the previous week, I had gone on eBay and found and purchased an OEM Power Seat Controller for a '92 Crown Vic. It had also arrived so I set about first of all seeing if the chrome bezel was removeable from the switch assembly. I started on my original seat bezel since it already needed replacing. Didn't want to gimp up my NOS part if I could avoid it. Was a bit tricky but using four small flat bladed screwdrivers, I was able to wedge them in between the tabs and the switch block and gently pried the bezel off. Using the same technique on the new piece I removed the bezel and after cleaning and detailing the original switch assembly, I applied the NOS bezel to my controller and PRESTO I had a new looking Seat Control! (NOS Controller pictured)

I could have used the entire NOS switch assembly, but the wires were a different color than the original harness, so I packed away the rest of the new switch controller with the NOS Seat Motor I was able to locate during my latest parts quest!

Since I wanted to wait until the following weekend to reassemble and lube up the seat track, I next set about detailing the seat motor, attaching bracket and drive cables. The outer jacket of the cables had seen better days. They were nicked and gouged pretty badly from years of use as well as being nibbled on by mice during their hiatis as a donor vehicle. I cleaned the metal cable ends and the attaching brackets with a fine wire brush then applied a couple coats of clear to protect everything from tarnishing.

I slid the metal drive cable from the jacket and cleaned all the old lubricant out of the jacket as well as from the outside of the metal cable. I purchased a spray can of white lithium grease for lubricating the seat tracks and hinge points, so I sprayed a heavy coat of white lithium grease into the jackets using the supplied straw. Then I took three lengths of 1/4" heavy duty black shrink wrap and applied new outer skin to the cables. I cut them a bit too long so once they were shrunk I could trim the ends at the proper place to expose the newly "polished" end caps.

I set everthing aside to throughly dry before starting the reassembly of the seat track. I messed around doing some other things and called it a day for another week. The following weekend, I reassembled and lubricated the seat track for installation on my reupholstered drivers seat. I decided to wait until final assembly of the car to change out the seat tracks. Beside keeping it detailed until I was ready for it, I reasoned the driver's seat would be easier to take in and out of the car without the additional weight of the power track until that magical day when it would go back in for the final time!

Here are a few photos of the finished Power Seat Track Assembly.......

The track turned out extremely well and once more I was very pleased with the results of my labor!

If you are following this blog or just check in on it occasionally, I would very much like to know how many folks are enjoying this saga. If you would, please just leave me a brief comment or suggestion on how I can make this blog even more enjoyable to all you who are watching.

I thank you in advance for you comments!

ZEBRA 3 OUT

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