Captain's Comet

Moved the Sports Mirrors

This is a mod that I have wanted to do for some time. The car originally came with a single chrome mirror on the driver side. Found some sports mirrors and got stung by wasps three times retrieving them. I really wanted those mirrors. That was 15+ years ago. Mounted them using the factory hole for the joystick and the forward rivnut that was already in the door. Then duplicated that location on the passenger side.

Great! .... except that the mirror seemed a bit far back on the door and the viewing angle was a bit narrow. It looks like this was where the factory put sports mirrors too.

Fast forward to now ... There were a couple of discussions on the board about the mirror location on these cars being not so hot, so I decided to try to improve on it. I mocked them up several ways. Moving them forward gave a much better field of view, and also made the mirrors snug in with the angle of the A pillar. This in turn makes the door appear longer and I think that helps the car look a bit sleeker.

But .... you can go too far. Move them too far forward and when you look at the car at a front angle across the hood, they stick out like Dumbo ears. I found a sweet spot for them, with the front rivnut being placed 9 inches back from the fender/door seam, and it allows you to reuse the original rear rivnut, too. This means that the position that I used for the rear rivnut in the new location is 32 and 3/4 inches from the back of the door. If using a factory Mav sport mirror, these two measurements ought to get you where you need to be. Of course, your final dimension should be based on the actual mirror base you use. I think they can have a bit of variance in the distance between where the holes are drilled.

Here is what I started with ...



Had to modify the mirror pad ...


Before too many folks shriek about chopping up an original mirror pad, this one was in bad shape. The front is missing, I had already cut a relief so that it would fit over the unused rivnut, and there are screw holes in it. It seems that the previous owner felt that in order to keep the mirror from shaking, the answer was to drive a bunch of screws through the base into the door .... genius!

When bodywork gets done on the car, extra holes will get filled and this will no longer be an issue. BTW, a flat wood bit works great to cut a new hole in these. Clamp it to a chunk of wood as a backer and drill away.

Here is the final result ....

You can see the dot for the new rivnut in the before pic.

Here is the view from inside...

This is as close to the same angles as I could get out of the pics taken. The camera is set where the driver's eyes would be.

Here is a pic of the passenger side ...

All of my before shots of that mirror were unusable.... too dark. I would have done a before and after otherwise.

Hopefully this inspires some of you. I am happier with them now.

 

Overdue for an update ...

Spent some time getting the driver's door back together. Made a new water shield. Rather than using a tattered original, I made a new one out of some stout plastic sheeting. This is similar to what is in the door of my Explorer and just seem far more durable.



Used some silicone to tack it in place and tucked the flaps into the slots in the door ... good to go.

Had a door panel insert stashed away that was in very good shape. No serious wrinkles around the armrest like so many other. Had to work out a couple spots with a heat gun (gently!), repaired a few spots in the backer board where the hardware had cracked it a small amount, glued some loose edges with contact cement, and added a few more staples to hold it all together.

All the original staples on this panel were still in place. If you look at them, they are a bit odd ... they are as wide as a regular staple that you would use for paper, but the legs are short, so that they don't pass all the way through and pierce the upholstery. I made new ones by using standard staples with the legs trimmed down. Then hold it with a needlenose pliers and install it with a tack hammer. This is a test of patience ... I wrecked two for every one I managed to install.

Didn't even need to dye it ... just overdosed it with vinyl protectant for a couple days and installed it.

The driver's door is finally all back together. With the exception of the front seat belts, the interior is finally done.... best part of the car. Now to make the rest of it look and work good .... sigh ....

I the middle of all this, I met Larry Larson from Navarre, FL. This is a town in the panhandle, up near where Moneymaker lives.... probably a 7 hour drive. Larry is a new member here ... goes by Charlie9049. He was in town with his wife and we spent a couple hours talking and swapped parts for some stuff that he needs. Sounds like he has a nice project well under way. It was a nice way to spend a Saturday morning.

 

Looks awesome! I wish I was coming down there this year, but looks like were on the other side of Florida this time

 

Very good idea - a much better solution than the original paper shields from Ford

 

Fantastic job Jeff!!! Your interior is looking sweeeet!

I think the sport mirror modifications looks great on your car. On your door panels...I know what you mean about having to play around with them in several different ways to get them to look nice. Love the modified water shields. I have been messing around and detailing my 40 plus year old black deluxe door panels for a few years now, just to get them back to the factory look that I like....and I'm still not completely done with them. Redoing the chrome on mine has been the hardest part.

Thanks for sharing all of this...and Happy Thanksgiving

 

Well ... as usual .... it has been a while.

At 2 AM, on January 1st, while cleaning up from the New Years Eve party, "that kitchen tile that has been making noise for the past 5 years" finally decided to let go. Lil has been on me to redo the kitchen for about that long too, so, we took that as a sign that this is the year it will get done... tile, new doors for the cabinets, paint them, new backsplash, redo the countertops, and new lighting .... I am about 15% done .... it's been nice knowing you guys .... LOL.

I did take a small break to mess around with a project for the car that has been hanging around. Franktf is changing his Comet to a Mav front end, and I got the "sheltered-life 14K mile grille" from him. This is one of the early grilles with the three stainless steel bars decorating it. There is only one problem with that ....



Somebody wasn't very careful around it and punched two slats out of it! Frank was gracious enough to give this grille to me. I have had my heart set on a grille upgrade for my Comet. The other section of grille is from Larry, who is restoring a 72 GT in the Florida panhandle. He was reluctant to bring it because it was in such bad shape, but I had plans to cut donor sections out of this one, to fix the other. He never thought anyone could use it ...



This is a picture of the better grille after I started trimming the damage to make it more geometric and easier to make patches for it. These are rough cuts and I did dress these up with a file and got them cleaned up well. I cut them this way (straight at the supports and angled out front) to put as much strength into the mix as possible. I also did the long cut past the peak of each slat because I did not want to have to duplicate the peak. Felt it would blend better further back.



This is how I cut the donor grille. The red lines highlight my pencil marks better. Sorry for the small pics, my good camera is tied up right now.




Well .... here is what happens when you start trying to cut a grille that has been baking in the Florida sun for 40 years. It crumbles .... multiple times ... my wife heard that cry of despair come out of me ... twice. The second time she didn't bother to ask again if she needed to do any first aid. She knew the patient had died (again), but the doctor was still OK ... physically ....

After further testing, I found that whole grille section could be broken to pieces with minor finger pressure. Any repair piece coming from it wouldn't live long anyway. I ended up with a giant pile of Comet GT grille chunks in the garbage pail. It was therapeutic ... kind of like popping bubble wrap.



Here's where it gets interesting .... I salvaged the SS grille bars out of the junk grille. These won't fit a standard Comet grille in the usual spots, but they do slip over the thinner slats! It wouldn't take much to epoxy them in place.




Now I am trying to decide if I like this and what to do any further with it .... the extra SS is on the upper portion and the lower slats are still as they were. Three more SS bars for the bottom and it would almost look like a billet grille.

 

I like this!!!

 

Looks awesome! It would be nice to cover them all.

 

Looking good.....

 

meticulous work, great!

 

Over the weekend, I enlisted the help of my 9 year old grandson and we took the front bumper off and some other assorted front end parts. He got to turn some wrenches and it was a great way to spend Saturday morning. I have always wanted to remove the front bumper guards, so the time is now.

Having the bumper off clears the way for me to put the driver front fender back on the car.... it will really start looking like a running car again. I also will be doing some minor work on the gravel pan and repainting it. While this is apart, I will fix the inner fender apron and part of the radiator support where a battery ate a lot of it 25+ years ago. When I first got the car, the metal under the battery was gone. The PO had merely cut a piece of plywood and dropped it in on what was left of the edge of the battery tray .... sketchy! I took it out and the first thing I saw was the ground and one of my Nikes. It was my first true disappointment with this car.

Shortly after I got the car in 1992, I took most of the stuff off the front end and cleaned a lot of it up and painted it. I used rust converter inside the front bumper, which appears to have been rechromed prior to me getting the car. This proved to be a great step over the following 22 years ... it still looks about like it did back then. At that point I also didn't have any welding skills, so the fender apron was covered with another piece of sheet metal that pop-riveted into place. I had been using a universal plastic battery tray for a long time too. It will look a lot better when I am done with it this time. I have the proper repopped (Fairlane?) tray and can reuse my lower bracket on that.

Got to get my welder in shape ...

 

Using the ss slats like that does make it look great. I like it.
I understand when you say 15% lol.. I am at around 85% done here on our room addition myself. I plan to hit the room hard today, finish a job I started tomorrow, then hoping Wednesday it's clean up the garage to start working on my car.
What's wrong with the welder?

 

Tomorrow I will be ripping the tile out of the kitchen. New stuff gets installed by a pro on Thursday. I did the tile leading up to it and I don't want my previous mistakes multiplying future mistakes. I'm letting someone with some chops tackle this.

I will be making all new cabinet doors from scratch soon.

The welder .... it clicks when you pull the trigger but the feed reel doesn't turn. Need to pop it open and see if it is major or minor electronic mayhem in there. Hoping it is just a loose connection.

 

Well .... it hardly looks like progress, but it is nonetheless ....



The first time this valance has been off the car in the time that I have had it... since 1992. The gravel pan is good but has some odd holes drilled in it that need to be filled. I am thinking the original owner had either deer whistles or some spiffy accessory horn on the car that he transferred to another car. Cleaned up and painted the stuff taken off.



Here is where battery acid ate the radiator support. The apron under the battery tray is gone too. So these repairs are on the schedule for the near future.

 

I got to work on the Sport Steering Wheel that I have here.

How to mask a steering wheel? ....


.... it is a pretty solid challenge ... it is foam grip wheel, and the spokes were painted really nicely by the previous owner, but had lived a full life and were due for fresh paint. I really didn't want to stick anything aggressive to the grip and risk damage.

Here is what I came up with ....



Many thanks to Jean Doll for the idea to use aluminum foil for masking really odd shapes! It worked so well here. There is no paint on the spokes at this point ... just sanded and cleaned really well.

Here is the wheel with fresh paint on the spokes.



I bought at repopped horn button .... official Ford-approved part ... VERY nice piece! The challenge was to match the paint on it's rim. I tried one shade of silver that I have here and it was just wrong ... too dark. I ended up shooting it with a very realistic chrome paint ... for a cheap spraybomb that is. (There are really good fake chromes out there now .... expect to pay). That got a very light silver like on the horn. As a top-coat, I did several mist coats of acrylic clear ... very dry .... from at least a foot away. The effect from that is to make that too-shiny chrome settle down. I wanted to kill gloss, and a heavy coat of clear acrylic is very shiny if laid on wet. I am pretty happy with this. Don't think I'll mess with it any more .... for now ....

It is currently sucking up as much Meguires protectant as will go in there, and that is why the grip is so shiny. Trying to make up for some time that this sat without being used.