1974 Mexican Maverick Restoration

I like the stamp in the metal of the frame rail, looks like it says Venezuela. The rest of the stuff is cool!

 

im far from an engineer. from my experience mostly with driveshaft angles i would expect the phasing issue to arise. ive encountered several cars that have a pulse feel when turning the steering wheel due to what i though was the u joints being out of phase and they were but in a way i didnt understand. now that i see your phenomenal engineering lay out, i can see why the u joint phasing need to be off set due to the column and the steering gear input shaft not being parallel.
i do apologize for the short sited statement earlier.

 

dont apologize, im happy for every input as im far from being perfectly correct everytime.
im glad about every coment which might help me prevent an error on first sight and give me another view of the things i do.
and also id like to give on some of my knowledge so it might help others to understand and use it for themselves.

in this i have some experience as i do this for work and developed the programs to calculate the modulation myself.
in columns its a bit different than in driveshafts in my opinion.

the column has big angles (up to 30°), which give a exponential rise in modulation of every U-joint. as a handrule: 27° is 27% modulation. smaller angles have exponentially less, bigger exponentially more modulation.
also the 2 ujoints have big differations in angles, which generates the total modulation.
and with the phasing you can ether minimize to reduce or in the bad case duplicate to increase total modulation. this can give you sometimes up to 50% of modulation which surely can be felt.
and if its not centered to the straight driving position, you will also feel the car always going to one side as steering forces are not the same.

in driveshafts you have small angles up to 3°, which gives you less than 3% of modulation, which will not be able to feel.
also the angles are the same and in in a Z shape normally, which will make eliminate one to another.
what i think will have more effect on what you feel in a driveshaft is how it is balanced, and there sometimes it helps to turn it 90° to get it away.
but youll turn the whole driveshaft and not change its modulation...

just my 2 cents, maybe it helps to understand in the future...

 

yeah, it says "hecho en venezuela - Multiprens C.A.".
i was suprized to see that as well, and not sure if its only on the mexican mavericks or on all.
and im wondering if its only the front frame rails or if the car has more sheetmetal from venezuela.
this was the only stamp i found, and its on both sides front frame rails.

 

Mike:

Just read your post, it's a shame what you have experienced with your maverick...I am mexican and I felt so bad when I read all the "mexican ways" and the way you endend up taking your car out of the shop. You're doing a great effort making your dream come true, I saw that maverick too in a video, never believe it was so bad.

Anyway, I have a 71' 4 door maverick, fortunately it was restored like 6 years ago in a local shop. My dad bought this car 30 years ago, so we know what the car needed.

I'm working to get all the $$$$ I need for an Art Morrison chassis..haha!

By the way, I've found this video to make some mods to the chassis to make it strong, its from a cougar but I think its the same, at least the shock towers... maybe you already did some mods to your chassis considering you want 300 hp...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgxL4xnTTZ4

If you ever come to Guadalajara, feel free to contact me! We have good quality old cars... =D I'll keep reading your updates here!

 

hi, thanks for your comment.

i hope you did not get offended by how i discribe the mexican way!
this is how i experienced it as a european living in mexico, and trying to get the best quality restoration possible.
for many mexicans it works the way things get done, but for me it was not good enough. so i decided to do it myself and ill give my very best to get it done.
at least it will be my own fault if something is not perfect, and i will know it...

thanks for this video link, very nice information!
and the best is: i have every single point included in my build :bananaman
hope it will perform as i expect it to.

do you race your car?
or what are you gonna do with the morrison chassis?

 

I didn't get offended, I know how it works here...It's horrible. There are a few body workshops that make a quality job, where my maverick was restored, a guy stole my carb and coil to put it in a mustang it was there. Unfortunately it was to late when i noticed. Sucks...

It's a 4 door maybe not the best for racing haha, all I want is a quality maverick, just for myself, take it to trips to the beach and stuff like that. This thing has just started, have so many plans for it.

 

soooo, finally started welding

got my miller 211 this week and started first tries.
its been 15 years since i learnd to weld, but i think it didnt go to bad...




first tries on a old sheetmetal piece


started with the repair of the engine to frame mount which had the hole enlarged alot.




the i made the nuts for the small bumper to framerail conection.

welded the nut to the rings i had made.



then welding it to the frame rail






also i did make some shims to help where the shelby drop has been made in the shock tower, that the screw& nut can be plane on the same sheet again.







and closed the front lower brace where it has been cut from the shop to make space for the new alu radiator.




i know im not a pro welder, but im quite pleased how it came out.
was good to practice a little before the replace panels, cowl and quarters, come to fix them properly.
if you might give me some tips in welding im open for your coments...

 

Ah yes - new toys (tools)!

Always exciting. It looks like you remember the basics and the finesse will return.

It has been a busy week but I should have some packages headed your way next week.

 

thanks, its alot of fun welding on my own car!

thats great to hear, looking forward to it! must be a huge amount of things...

 

so thanks to steve (thanks alooooooot!!) i got some very nice things in




and so was able to rebuild the front suspension and brakes to get the car back on his 4 wheels...













i really like how it looks and it will work better as original as it has the shelby drop, gas a just dampers, new rubber bushings, new ball joints and everything rebuilt.
but as soon ill be able to drive it in switzerland and have it imatriculated there without problems i will look for a tcp or similar front suspension with coil overs and some big a$$ wilwood brakes... so its just temporarily, but i like to be sure everything is working like new.

also working on the steering system and still fighting with some problems which were built in buy the shop who made it.
it is still touching the rack when turning to the left which i have to prevent somehow from happening when driving.
but it will not have the full turn radius as original like that which i dont really like, but i cant change it anymore as the position of the rack is fixed...

made my own tie rod connectors to connect the original tierod ends with the tierods of the rack&pinion steering which have a smaller 9/16 thread. seems to work pretty good.





first time on his own wheels since lot of time...

 

now im still missing to do all the sheetmetal welding.
i found a donor car in the states from Marco who cut me out what i need and sent it to me on a big palette.





im getting a complete cowl, complete tail clip with both quarters, both doors, both fenders and lots of small stuff my car was missing or had it bad... thanks alot for your help on that. (i know a whole car would have been easier but well...)

unfortunately it is still hanging on the border and the transporting guys do not get it to me.

i had planned to weld all in, get the car ready to paint, completely painted and prepare it for shipping during the last months im in mexico. BUUUT i only have 2 months left now and still no parts here to weld...
so my plans are fu**ed...

i will not be able to do all the welding and preparing even before i leave and for sure no painting... what a shame as i had a great deal on painting it here...

so ill go on and make some rattle can primer paint to put the car into the container to go over the big sea to switzerland.
and then i will finish all the welding without time pressure, make all the changes i planned to the car and then bring the car to media blast which will be nice to have a clean base to paint it completly.
i like that as blasting wasnt available in mexico, but it will be a whole lot more expensive to do it all in europe, which already hurts my purse when thinking of the nice engine i would have been able to build with the money i have to spend more on there...
well i cant change it anymore and i will enjoy working on it in europe!

so new plan is to have it on the road by sommer next year because i wanna go to some meetings and for sure to a mountain race in september which is only every 5 years and means a lot to my dad as he grew up in this little town and has seen cars racing there since many years!
it would mean alot to me to have him drive my car up that mountain and see him enjoying it very much!!

 

Wow, that a nice looking pallet of parts!

Hopefully it will get to you soon.

 

WOW!! It is like Christmas came early in Puebla

 

Wow, you are really serious about restoring that car!