Appreciating the effort

 

 

https://www.hagerty.com/media/opinion/leno-appreciation-for-hard-work-is-fading-and-old-cars-arent-easy/

Saw this article today and it really hit home as I am closing in on completing this restoration nearly 10 years after I started it. Absolute truth, by Jay Leno, that I can personally attest to. Most people have absolutely no idea, nor appreciation for, the amount of time and effort it takes to restore a car to the way it was when the original owner saw it and fell in love with it - especially to very high levels of originality where nearly every component is date correct and factory original (not reproduction). Many of the "throw away" parts (oil/air filters, rubber parts, shocks, etc.), can only be found squirreled away in collections of new old stock parts (NOS) or that have been taken off of another car and survived on a shelf in someones basement or garage to finally show up on Craig's list, Ebay, or a swap meet - usually at a very high price tag. Particularly for the 64 1/2 High Performance K code convertible Mustang I am about to complete, many of the factory installed components were different from the replacement parts that were later manufactured by Ford - making it even MORE difficult to find the "date correct, factory correct" part. It has taken me nearly 10 years to do the research, find parts, replicate and/or preserve finishes - on every nut/bolt, with every one the right type, in the right place (and this car was very complete and rust free to begin with). Every part has been researched and analyzed by it's date, appearance, and compared to parts on other cars of the same time period, to the factory assembly manuals. Since most of the records for the cars prior to 1967 were destroyed by Ford, it can take years to figure out what was original, "factory correct" for the particular date and time of the car's production. I originally bought this car to drive and enjoy, but after getting the story from the original owner of how he acquired the car and fell in love with it, I was hooked on the idea of making it exactly as it originally was, when he first saw it. That includes every preserved perfectly imperfect factory paint drip and sloppily applied glob of seam sealer. Anyone can scour a car down to bare metal and make it perfect, but leaving the imperfections is a way of leaving the fingerprint of the people who hand built these cars 56 years ago. Faithfully doing all of these tedious things results in a truly exceptional example of what the car looked like when new. As Jay says in the attached article, few others will ever have the appreciation of the effort.

Dash

 

This post covers the dash and under-dash assemblies.  Tremendous amount of work to restore the individual components and then assemblies before mounting them in the dash.

Here is a close up of the heating and ventilation control.  All original including all cables chrome and attaching parts - these were meticulously cleaned, re-lubricated as necessary and reinstalled.  Note the different colors on the cable cover end crimped metal loop retainers, red green, and blue.  These match the colors on the opposite end of each cable.

The chrome heater control bezel looks great after cleaning. Chrome is original.

 
 Under the dash with a great view of the heating and ventilation control cables to the heater assembly.  Also note the other restored original speedometer cable, original steering column seal, and the original restored firewall insulation pad.  This reverse dimple design is unique to this period of production.  The cardboard plenum is such a cool detail.  These are very difficult to find in this condition, and many restorers give up and end up replacing these with a plastic reproduction.  Not here, all original under the dash like the day the car left the factory.

I featured the restored radio a few posts ago - now installed long with the heating and ventilation controls, the beautiful original chrome on these assemblies look awesome in contrast with the correct black satin dash.

 

These defroster tubes are unique to the early cars from the Dearborn assembly plant.  They have a round cross section with the cardboard outlets stapled on.  These are usually torn or crushed with the black fabric tape missing or ripped.  These were in great shape and just required a careful cleaning. Often overlooked detail on restored cars of this production period.

This is the original date stamped dash pad.  Note that the grain is not the sierra pattern on the vinyl seats.  I was able to clean this original dash pad and reinstall it.  Very cool and rare original detail.  The speaker grill was in such good shape, I just cleaned it and reinstalled it with it's original paint intact.

Lastly, before installing the restored original glove box door I re-plated the original hardware and painted the glove box hinge.  The reproduction hardware isn't the same as what was used during this production period.  Turned out great!

Heater Plenum

 

Original restored heater assembly with original dated core was re-cored with a NOS heater core and reassembled with restored original date stamped core housing and cardboard plenum. Ready for installation.

Date stamp on the core housing is Y4FB.  Y is the code for the assembly plant, 4FB is 2nd week of June 1964. All clips rivets, retainers and brackets are correct finished/plated original.

Date on the cardboard plenum is tough to make out (because when originally stamped the stamping device was at an angle over-impressing the top of the stamp) but on close examination it appears to be Y4FC.  Same plant as the housing,Ypsilanti.  

Recreated the original black masking tape with dog eared corners on the heater motor joint as original.

Instrument Cluster

 Been nearly a year and a half since I updated the blog.  Much has been done so the next few posts will get us caught up.

 Restored original instrument cluster.  The gauges themselves were cleaned and the needles were touched up with correct color.  The original plastic bezel was re-chromed and the black camera case repainted in the correct low sheen black.  Lens was cleaned and polished and the original re-chromed Fuel and Temp centers attached.  The original red Gen and Oil lenses along with the red hi beam and green turn signal lenses were used.  This looks just like it did when the car left the assembly line in late June 1964.  Note date stamp of June 16, 1964 on back of the cluster.

Carburetor

**Carburetor is restored.  I took great pains to replicate the original plating that was on this.  The boosters still have the original red and orange paint daubs (made sure they were preserved through the cleaning process).  I also kept the original plating on several of the parts where it still looked good.  This thing was in really good shape except for the top which needed some TLC to get it looking like it should again. 

The original owner, Bill, told me that this car had an automatic choke when he bought it in July 1964 and when he sold it in 1969, not the C4OF AL that one would expect.  After much of my own research, and the help of a few others including Bob Mannel, this is what was on the car when Bill bought it new.

Lotsa Restored Parts

It's been a while since I posted.  Ran into many parts that needed to be restored before I could proceed with other larger parts installations.  Above is a table in my workshop with a sampling of original parts from the car that have been restored.  Took a ton of time, but now things are starting to move forward again with the install of the restored pedal assembly, accelerator linkage, steering gear/column, underdash wiring, radio, and dash mounted controls.

This is an issue that needs to be fixed before installing the nylon grommet assembling the pedal assembly, otherwise it will break again. .  This was worn out by the clutch helper spring .

Steering shaft and box installed.

Now here with the column, turn signal wiring installed.  Good look at the original firewall pad (restored) too.

Original radio, restored.  Something cool about this being back in the car just like it was that day that Bill first drove the car and fell in love with it.  Note date installed date of Jun 19, 1964.  Interesting given that we have a body panel with the same date on it.

The air vent know is interesting.  64 1/2 cars have the "A" of course, whereas later production cars did not.  What I did not know what that the "A" is stamped into a small piece that snaps into the knob.

Finally getting close to installing the engine...

Parking Brake Cables

Got parking brake cables detailed and installed.  As with all things on this car, these took way longer than I expected.  There are significant differences between the NOS cables and the originals of this time period of production, and so I went back to the originals to make sure that every detail was addressed.  Blue paint daubs on the tips were matched with original colors - indicates that these cables are for a V8 car. 

Note grooved/ridges on this section of hose, and true of all hose sections.  NOS and reproductions don't have this along with some other differences.  Brackets on this car were all painted black, and I was able to confirm the "L.H." on at least one other original car.  Here's a  picture of an original car.

 Another interesting often missed detail are these little wire clips used to hold the brake cable in place during assembly.  I have also seen a small plastic clip used instead of this but for the same purpose.

  The following pic is before restoration, showing the original wire clip still in place before disassembly.  (Note how the whole underside of the car was detailed with black paint as part of the "show car prepared process" used at Ford for this and a few other K cars of this period that were sent to dealers prior to July 4th , 1964.  I confirmed with Ford that in-fact there were "significant challenges" in keeping up with production during this period.  So when the K's were too far behind to get them into showrooms before the all important July 4th weekend, they cobbled together a few and sent them to their highest volume DSOs in an attempt to entice orders. I mentioned all of this before, but touching on it again here since getting the info back from Ford archives.)

And this is after restoration.  Note the little bit of orange paint daub under the bracket.  I found this paint daub on both sides of the car, so I recreated it before installing the bracket.  Not sure the purpose of it, since both HiPO cars and non-Hipo V8 cars had these brackets located in the same place.  I mention this in an earlier post.