1970 Maverick

This 1970 Ford Maverick has the original 200 c.i.d. inline 6 one valve engine, 1 bbl carb, and C4 transmission. About 71,000 miles and change. Manual steering and power drum brakes.

Bought this vehicle March 2017, I am the fourth owner. The guy I bought it from put in a new alternator, battery, and new tires. He bought it from the widow of the second owner, and this guy seems to have tried to keep it in good shape, especially cosmetically. He had a new paint job about five years ago to match its original color, "Hulla Blue". There was an old AutoKrafters catalog in the trunk and looks like anything he ticked off with a pen or highlighted he bought. The upholstery is like what is listed in the catalog to replace the original plaid, he got a spare tire cover, visors, and things like that.

I think I might be in the minority on this site in that I am not wanting to turn it into a hot rod or anything like that, I am not myself a mechanic, although I try to do what I can, and if it is beyond me I will take it to a place I've used and trust. But it is fun to learn new things so researching older threads here has already been a big help! I also have the Ford shop manuals for 1970 that the second owner also had picked up - very instructional and handy!

Recently picked up an original 1970 owner's manual [pictured] and an old stock Maverick leather and metal key fob, on ebay of course.

After purchase, I took it to my mechanics for realignment, new shoes for the drum brakes, and repack the wheel bearings. I had replaced the bulbs on the instrument panel and the correct fuse for them, but still couldn't get the panel to light up other than the red warning lights and high beam light. Turns out someone had done some weird hot wiring and the shop fixed that, too. Have seen some nice threads here on upgrading to LED so that might happen down the line.

The original seat belts were in a box in the trunk, however they were in pretty bad shape - cracked buttons, very sun-faded and worn. I imagine the second owner took them out when putting in the upholstery. He put in some lap belts in the front and nothing in the back. Can't drive my nieces around like that! I ordered non-retractable shoulder belts from seatbeltsplus with the intention of moving the lap belts currently in the front to the back. But the buckle strap for the new ones were too short for the front, so I kept the current ones up front and attached the shoulder straps. Took out the back bench seat [easy again thanks to the threads here] and put in the new buckle straps with the previous male straps that were up front and everything is nice and secure. Perhaps down the line I'll think about retractable but these are better for now than what was in there.

[update 4/24/17]
Installed a NOS 1979 Autotek CSR-2000 radio/cassette deck and some basic Kenwood 6x9 speakers. The shafts lined up fine with the bezel but the radio in between the knobs was slightly too big, so I widened each inside edge of the bezel with an angle grinder so now it fits. Tried it first without the bezel but didn't look good, glad I was able to use the original bezel after all. When figuring out all the wiring I discovered that instead of the one small center speaker there were two right next to each other - strange. In any case I'm only using the two new 6x9s in the back and everything sounds fine. Put speaker wire under the carpet along both side edges, had to remove the back seat bench, sill plates and the plastic front edge panels under dash. Also put in new manual antenna that I got from AutoKrafters, so getting strong signals now with it, the old manual antenna was mashed way down.

Got all the parts for AC from Vintage Air and it is all at mechanics now, so we'll see how it all comes out!

[update June 2017]
The Vintage Air system is installed and works pretty good, not as great as a modern car's system. Although the temp light doesn't come on the mechanics measured the temp and it was pretty hot while just idling with no air moving through everything like when driving, they recommend getting two small electric fans in front of the condenser, so that will be the next step.

Picked up 3 LED bulbs from superbrightleds.com that I had read about on a thread here. Got the 5 SMD LED Tower - Miniature Wedge Retrofit in 'cool white', and it looks a nice cool blue in my blue Mav so great improvement!