New Shoes!

I bought a set of new tires the other day. Previously I was using 225/50/ZR16 (front) and 245/45/ZR16 (rear) Dunlop Sport 8000s on the Vintage Wheel Works V45 wheels. These tires were old and frankly with tire performance technology at an all-time high today, I figured I should splurge for some new tires.

I ended up with a set of Dunlop Direzza Sport Z1 Star Spec tires in 225/50/R16. They ride way better and grip way better, which I expected since they are highly rated on Tire Rack. I am using 36/36 for air pressure, and will adjust over the next couple hundred miles as they wear in. Since they are the same size and not staggered, I can rotate them around the car too.

One item to note is that these Vintage Wheel Works wheels are lug-centric (the lug nuts are tapered and center the wheel on the axle through tapered holes in the wheel), which is uncommon enough today that four local shops I visited to get the tires mounted and balanced had no idea what lug-centric even was. Most shops expect hub-centric wheels (the wheels are machined to center the wheel on the axle through the hole in the middle of the wheel -- no tapered lug nuts or lug holes) and attach the wheel/tire to be balanced with a hub attachment through the middle of the wheel.

These wheels couldn't be balanced properly that way (although each shop said they could until I explained the difference) and required the attachment that connected the wheel to the balancer through the five lug holes. The fifth shop had the attachment in the back room and literally figured out how to use it on my wheels. They balanced one wheel with the hub attachment and then the lug attachment for practice, and sure enough got two different balances. But they are all perfectly balanced now. Woo hoo!

Shiny Happy Trim

I bought repro window trim for the front and rear glass. The trim was installed last year and frankly it fit fine.



But all the trim will have to come off to reseal the front and rear glass because they are leaking. So I started thinking that I would send out the original trim to have it straightened and polished...



The original trim is thicker, stronger, doesn't have sharp edges, and it clearly fits better, particularly around the corners and the curves of the window openings.



The original trim is also original Ford stuff, and it's nice to keep the car original if possible for things like this.



I put the original trim in a PVC pipe and shipped it out to Colorado to get straightened and polished, which might take two months. Not sure about the cost, but it was already nearly $50 for the pipe and the shipping! I believe it is at least $15 per foot...



The photos here show the repro corners that I don't really like that much upon close inspection. And the final photo shows the original trim cleaned up and ready to ship in the pipe.

Blast from the Past

Since the weather was in the 70s here this weekend, I wanted to take the car out for a drive. On the short drive I took, I saw a black 80s Lamborghini Countach, another '66 Mustang (convertible), and a '68 or so Firebird convertible. I took this photo of the Firebird hoping it would look like a shot from the 1960s back when these cars were all over the place...

Junk in the Trunk: The Finale

I picked up the carpet pieces that I had dropped off at Gresham Lake Upholstery the other day. I had them sew vinyl around the edges, and it looks great. (That service cost $65, which puts the entire trunk carpet project well under the $250 that a pre-made kit would cost.)



I think this is one project that worked out pretty well. At the car show next Saturday I will leave the trunk open so people can check it out... :-)

If I were doing it again, I'd use the fuel filler tube to lay the Eucaboard up against a little more, and have a single long piece of carpet for the back panel. That might look a littlle cleaner, but the way I have it, I can get into either side of the back panel without disturbing the other side.



(BTW, there's glare on the carpet from the flash.)

Mirror Image

I had the painters wetsand my car last week to remove some texture on the surface of the clearcoat. I didn't want to spend the money last year after having it painted, and it looked good already. I also figured I might damage the paint during reassembly anyway. But in the end, it does look better after having been wetsanded.



There are some downsides to waiting, namely the clear is fully cured and is more time-consuming to sand (by hand). Also, you can't get too close to door handles, gaskets, and trim with the sandpaper since you couldn't polish with the pad that close to the edges. If I had to do it again, I'd just have had it done when the paint was fresh...

Tach Attack

I had previously purchased some blue LEDs to replace the small instrument cluster light bulbs. They went in easily enough (didn't have to remove the steering wheel or unhook the wires behind the cluster, just the screws holding the assembly to the dash, and the speedo cable), but my aftermarket SunPro tach didn't look right using an incandescent 194 bulb.





I tried a blue 194 bulb, which helped a bit (a green one would look right using stock blue instrument bulbs believe it or not). In the photo you can see a blue LED replacement bulb I bought on eBay for the tach (in the middle). I bought 2 which was good because the first was DOA (if it doesn't work, remember polarity matters, and they install in one direction--so swap it around in the socket).

This photo shows the whole dash lit up with the LEDs including for the tach...






Mentioned in this post:

Junk in the Trunk: Part III

I finally got around to trying my hand at putting in a trunk carpet. I saw Mustangs Unlimited offered a Ford Blue trunk carpet kit, but when the carpet arrived it was Medium Blue, which was labeled on the box. I called Distinctive Industries, who makes most of these kits, and they sent me the samples at left for all the blue carpet they offer. Ford Blue is the carpet behind the small samples, and none matched well.

I test fitted one or two pieces of the trunk kit -- before sending the kit back -- and clearly the larger 22 gallon fuel tank and rear seat divider in metal that I had installed would cause a pre-made kit to not fit well, even if I found the right color. So I made my own trunk carpet kit.



I bought a large roll (3.5 yards) of Ford Blue carpet from ACC for about $120, and a $12 sheet of Eucaboard (made from water-resitant eucalyptus). I had a $10 can of good spray glue. (The pre-made kit is $250 shipped.) Fortunately I had some large cardboard sheets on hand from a recent furniture purchase for cutting out some templates for test fitting. The pic at left looks like a bunch of scrap, but it is many of the pieces I had cut out for installation into the trunk.



Here's a photo showing the Eucaboard underneath. I went around some of the edges with some spare Dynamat Extreme to keep it in place and quiet it down. The hole is for the spare wheel, which I currently am not carrying.



Some of the carpet pieces are currently at the local upholstery place having the edges bound in blue vinyl for $65... In the photo not everything is glued down, and the edges are rough. (Here's a Before photo of the trunk.)