the life and times of my 71 comrick build

the radiator was the only think keeping all the cooling fins in. they all started falling out when i pulled the radiator.

 

today i pulled off the fenders and power washed the engine compartment, the outside of the inner fenders and the under side of the car. it looks allot better now. no surprises like major rust found.























next im going to start working on the list of body/chassis modifications that i have planned. im going to weld up all the trim holes in the body, weld allot of the chassis seams, notch the shock towers, and put in subframe connectors. now im going to go dry off from the power washing.

 

Looks pretty solid, should make a nice ride.....

 

the orange stain on the radiator support doenst want to come off. im thinking of trying CLR on it. does anybody have any suggestions?

 

sounds like its gonna turn out pretty nice man.... i was wondering..did your grabber have rear seats and if it does, is the bottom seat straight, or is it curved in on the edges to accomadate the rear side panels? im having a hard time finding panels for the rear of my car....i need either a curved seat or the panels that are flat for a straight seat ...ugh dang the retractable rear belts hahaha

 

i didnt have the back seat in the maverick. i also dont have the back seat to the comet any more. i dont remember the shape of the seats. im sure if you ask in the general section you will get your answer quickly.

 

yep, a little media or soda blasting, primer and paint and she'll look like new.

 

Must be nice to have almost rust free cars. I'm envious.

 

I was thinking the exact same thing. Even the top of the aprons has NO rust!! Wow!!

The "136" on the front of your radiator support is the rotation number of your car as it went down the assembly line. If you find your build sheet, you will find this number on there.

 

there was a build sheet in the springs under the front bench seat. it was for a 73 maverick. it was not the original bench seat for the car.

 

Very clean!! You guys don't know how lucky you are, out there.

 

Yep nice and solid. Plenty more like this around here but not everybody is close enough to get a California car that came to Arizona and then take it back to California.

 

so i got this car out of phoenix, and to day i sold the comet hood bumper and fenders to someone from phoenix. so they are going back.

 

A theory about why you tend to find a lot of Comets in certain areas ....

I wonder if Phoenix isn't a bit like my area back in the 70s ... a very high number of retired folks that would winter there, and travel back home after the cold weather was over.

Here we call them "snowbirds".

We had a lop-sided number of Lincoln-Mercury dealerships concentrated here too, to cater to the buying habits of some of these older folks. A lot of them were pretty well off in there retirements back then, and might be out to buy a Lincoln, or a Grand Marquis. One side-effect of that ... a lot higher number of Comets in the mix.They wouldn't have Mavs on those lots.

IIRC ... it may have been 2 Ford dealerships to every 1 LM dealer, for 40 miles in any direction from me, and there were a LOT of them, because most of the car sales were domestic stuff.

Ford may have made 5 to 1, Mavs/Comets, but I will tell you that it seems like the numbers are a lot closer together than that, right in my area, in what I find at the salvage yards, and there are a lot of Comet board members close to me too.

Anybody know Phoenix from back in the day, and the Ford/LM dealership ratio?

I am guessing you will find a higher than expected number of Comets around there.

 

Around here, I would say the ratio was 20 Ford dealerships for every 1 LM dealer. Seemed every small town had a Ford dealer, but the LM dealers were only in the BIG cities. Interesting....never really thought of it that way before.