Dale's blog. Why would you care?
Tried to remove the rear fender splash shield — sucker’s welded on. But the mount tab for the front edge of the fender is NOT welded. Go figure. The cowl area looks solid and original, but in need of cleaning up and rust removal.
Found two rust holes in the trunk. Someone covered one with Bondo, then painted over it with undercoating. The other had a metal patch panel screwed over it. No rust removal, no attempt to actually FIX anything, just a cover-up. Sweet.
Right front fender had a patch panel spot-welded over the top of existing badly rusted metal. Again, no attempt to cut out the rust or anything… just weld a patch on top and take a grinder to it. Who the hell does this kind of crap?? Was this attacked by a 13 year old with a garage full of Harbor Freight tools? Then, since it was too rusted out to bolt to the body, the fender was brazed to the rocker panel (very badly), and welded to the frame. You just can’t make this shit up.
The ’66 Mustang’s data plate tells us:
Model year: 1966
Assembly plant: Dearborn, MI (Code F)
Body style: Coupe standard interior (Code 65A)
Engine: 289cid 2V 200hp V-8 (C code)
Exterior color: Arcadian Blue (code F)
Interior color: Blue with Blue trim (code 22)
Production date: 30 April, 1966 (Code 30D)
District sales office: Omaha, NE (code 54)
Rear axle ratio: 2.8:1 (Code 6)
Transmission: C4 Automatic (Code 6)
I took a wire brush to the floor pan seams seams today. I could tell they had been replaced, but given what else I found I was a little afraid I’d find them stuck in place with caulk or construction adhesive or something. The floor pans were welded in, thank God. It’s pretty crappy welding, and I’ll probably want to grind some down and add some more, but they did get welded.
The heater box is broken. I was going to lay up some new glass and fix it (I can do fiberglass work), but it’s so brittle and old that I’m probably not going to bother. It’s a little bit of a bummer since it’s not cheap to replace, but it’s an area where I’ll trade money for time and only have to do it once. I’m pretty certain the heater core is toast too, since the hoses were disconnected and bypassed. I’ll pressure test it, but again — new heater cores are cheap.
I also went after the primer on a few spots I suspected might be hiding nasty surprises, like the bottom of the A pillars and around the rear window. All solid factory metal, so that’s good. I was having visions of 1980s Wal-Mart body patch kit fiberglass and Bondo under there. Note to self: Next time, take along a magnet so I will know for sure what’s metal and what’s not.
The cowl area looks like there has been some work done. I’m seeing signs that someone may have already been in there and replaced the parts that tend to rust out — some drilled out spot welds and even evidence of some brazing — but it’s too early to tell what has actually been done. I’m going to hate cutting off the original 1966 date stamped fenders, but I may have to just to get them off the car.
Tonight I checked on the state of the heater, since the hoses are disconnected and bypassed. As it turns out, the heater box is broken. It’s a $180+ fiberglass box. I’m debating whether to just buy new, or repair this one. A good little chunk is missing, but I have the fiberglass and epoxy here from some wheel pant repair I did. I’ll sleep on that for a day or two before deciding. It would take me a couple of evenings to lay up new glass, clean it up and shoot some paint on it. It’s not like it’s going to show, it just needs to be functional and not too ugly.
I also found one of the most ghetto examples of defect hiding I’ve ever seen. I mean, I saw the telltale globs of pink putty and knew there was some crap work done up front, but this… holy crap. A nice big rust hole under the hood was filled with a great big glob of clear RTV silicone, smoothed out and painted over. I’m not making this up. I have no idea what else I’m going to find up there, but it’s getting a little ominous. Oh well… I did budget for nasty surprises and outside labor for welding. It will just take a fender apron and some labor to cut out the old and weld in the new. If I’m lucky, maybe even just an extension piece. That was the passenger side, I haven’t checked out the driver side yet. Gotta make a run to the hangar before the snow gets too deep… it seems ALL of my 3/8 ratchets have migrated there. I’m not taking the rest of those fender bolts out with nothing but a flex handle.
On the bright side, the more I dig into the interior, the better things look. It’s looking like two people attacked this car at different times. One did the absolute worst job imaginable, and all his stuff needs to be ripped out and re-done — plus fixing the additional damage his work caused. The other tried to do it right, even if kind of cheap, and it just needs to be cleaned up and fixed a little. The dash just needs a new bezel for the instrument cluster. The original AM radio works (the speaker is toast, of course). All the controls seem to be operational and looking OK — I can run them through the brass tumbler and polish them up with some walnut shell media.
I started chipping and scraping away all the primer and filler and caulk and gunk and other crap around the windshield and rear window. I was afraid I’d find rust in the A pillars or around the rear window; aside from surface rust there’s very little. So far, all of the “seriously wrong” seems to be concentrated in one little corner of the car. I’m beginning to suspect a botched collision repair in the distant past, but it’s really too early to tell until I get those fenders off. For that, I’ll need more room in the garage so I can swing the doors fully open. Another day.
We’ve caught up on all the Hulu shows we watch, no new ones for a couple of months. There is really nothing we need from them until the new season is available. Went to cancel my subscription, with the intent of re-starting in April or May. Hey — they let you “pause” your subscription for up to 12 weeks. Sweet!! Exactly what I needed to do. Thanks for anticipating our needs, guys.
Over the weekend I picked up a ’66 Mustang 289 coupe that two previous owners had started to restore, then stopped. Some of the work is OK, some will need to be re-done. After getting all the parts sorted out and inventoried, I’ll likely pull the engine and trans for a cleanup, rebuild and fresh paint while cleaning out the engine bay. Some sheet metal will just be replaced, like the hood and quite likely the front fenders as well. The trunk is in surprisingly good shape, as is the dash — original AM radio and all.
Most of the glass is present. I was told it was ALL there, but my mistake — didn’t inventory it completely. The expensive quarter windows are gone, as are most of the taillight assemblies, etc. Most of it probably would have been replaced anyway, but the missing quarter windows will be a budget hit I wasn’t expecting. Well, not specifically at least. I did build in a “fudge factor” for things like this, as well as a generic estimated number for assorted interior and exterior parts.
I think the biggest challenge right now will be not ordering a bunch of parts prematurely. For example, I know the car will need all new emblems, window weatherstripping, and so on. I don’t need that stuff NOW, though, and won’t for quite a while. The first task will be to remove the fenders, then get it up on jack stands so we can pull the wheels and tires off and remove the engine and transmission for rebuild. Interior and trim work is months off, so ordering parts for that would be a waste. Also, if I decide to sell partway through, I don’t want to have to let a bunch of new parts go at a loss.
Right now I have some basement drywall to finish pulling out thanks to a botched waterproofing job by the previous homeowner… then it’s wrench time.
Hulu was more or less OK, but we’re switching to DirecTV Now. Same price, but they have AMC AND a program guide. How did I ever miss the fact that Hulu doesn’t carry AMC?? I have no idea, but that’s a deal breaker. And I got really freakimg tired of no program guide, and being forced to scroll through the crap networks we don’t EVER watch, every time I wanted to see what’s on.
DirecTV Now isn’t perfect but so far it beats Hulu for streaming live TV. We may pick up basic Hulu from time to time if we want to catch up on some of their series, but I’m not keeping them on the payroll any more.
Hulu Support contacted me via Twitter to say they do have a program guide. Let’s just say their idea of what qualifies as a program guide differs from mine. You can get a listing of what is on RIGHT NOW, and the next show on each channel. No indication of whether a show is new or a rerun. No time grid to see what’s on later. No way to filter the channel list other than very recently viewed channels, or scroll through all of them whether you want to or not. Don’t ever care what’s on BET, MTV, Cartoon Network or whatever? Too bad. Oh, and whatever you were watching is gone while you’re looking — no audio or background video, like with cable or DTV.
At this point we’re new to streaming our live TV, so my loyalty to any vendor is zero. We’ll switch until we find something we like, and if I find something better we’re gone.
We’re a couple more weeks in now, and so far we’re not really missing the cable TV much. It would be better — much better — if Hulu would just offer a damned program guide. The data is there, why not offer it in the app? Not doing so is just stupid and obstinate. It has my customer loyalty at zero, and I’m looking at alternatives like YouTube TV. Unfortunately, they do not offer a couple of cable networks that we consider “must-haves”: History Channel and Discovery.
I’ve now got 4K Fire TV Sticks on the big family room TV and the one upstairs. The Fire Cube will go on the basement TV, to get it away from the Echo device in the kitchen so those two aren’t always getting confused. I only bought the 4K sticks to get the remote with volume controls… any 4K TV we may buy in the future will have apps built in, so we won’t need the sticks for them anyway.
Ooma service has been rock solid, and it’s nice to be able to answer a call with my cell phone if Lisa is on another call on the cordless phone. I just power cycle the box once a week. I’d love it if Ooma would fix whatever causes the POTS port on the Telo to die weekly, but they don’t seem that interested in troubleshooting it. Meh. For the money we’re saving, I guess I’ll live with it.