Captain's Comet

Installed ....



I would like to get a lace-up leather cover to finish it off and bulk up the grip a bit. If anyone has a source for those, I'd like to hear about it.

 

Jeff, have a look at wheelskins.com.

 

Nice.. I have one of those also.

 

BKelley thanks for the info.

 

They say that life travels in circles ...

Well, I am back to the very first repair I made to this car.

When I first got it, there was a chunk of plywood holding the battery up. Having no welding skills and little cash, I came up with a pretty solid repair, but now it was time to undo all that.

I bought a plastic battery tray with the slots for the j-bolts, so I could use an original-style hold-down ....



Under that was sheet metal that was riveted to the apron and what was left of the original tray ....



Under that was a slotted metal strap riveted in place. (I sure liked rivets back then ... lol). In this shot, you can make out what little I started with ....



I was pretty stunned how bad it was at the time. When I removed that plywood, the first thing I saw was my sneaker! This will get fixed the right way now. I was searching around, and it looks like the battery apron for a 69-70 Mustang looks very similar to this one. CJs stocks them, along with others that are listed as almost generic pieces (65-73). If that 69-70 one didn't look so close, I would be thinking about just fabbing one out of flat stock .... still might, but this one is far enough gone, that pre-formed piece looks pretty attractive. I would be interested in hearing if anyone had tried that piece and how close it is.

Here is a link .... http://www.cjponyparts.com/battery-fender-apron-rt-shock-tower-to-rad-support-1969-1970/p/M316/

They also sell the reinforcement bracket that goes underneath .... http://www.cjponyparts.com/apron-reinforement-plate-1969-1970/p/M316P/

Also, if you look where the red arrow is ... that is a rust-through up high. Is there supposed to be a hole in that area to begin with that got larger?

Fortunately, the battery tray bracket is in surprisingly good shape. It was easy to get that little bit of tray off of it too. I bought a good repop tray some while back and will be doing the bracket swap.

Finally,.... FREE STUFF ALERT ..... if anyone can use the plastic battery tray to repair your car, you are welcome to it. I just ask that you pay postage. It is a little rough, but solid and it is pre-cut to fit our cars.

 

Wow .... it is really annoying that when I click on the thumbs to make the picture big, it rotates and squashes them. Just my browser? ... or a board issue?

 

Just your browser I suspect.

 

Here is what Eric (Acornridgeman) used/did....

http://www.maverick.to/mmb/showpost.php?p=627912&postcount=27

 

I did a search prior to posting and found that. Eric's does look good, but he said it took a good amount of finessing. The pic of the 69-70 metal looks really close to mine ... almost gives me the idea that Ford recycled the dies.I am thinking that Mavs got hand-me-downs, while the 71-73 Mustang got it's own new design.

 

To convert to retractable belts you put a belt drop up top using the original harness point. The the re tractor down below where the original lap went. And used the same mount point for the buckle?

 

Happening to me.. Chrome..

 

yeah Gene, I am using Chrome also.

 

Roger,

I mocked up the belts and it does look the lower mount will work fine for attaching the lap belt and the retractor on the same stock bolt had held the original lap belt. My belts are aftermarket (Trac-loc, I think, is the brand name).

 

I polished my front bumper that I am switching to (no bumper guards with this one). I also scuffed the rust that had formed inside and shot it with rust converter. It ought to last a long time with this step. I used rust converter inside the bumper that came on the car when I got it in 1992 and I really feel that it helped that bumper last ... it is still darned good.

 

Oh my, how time does fly. Most of the time between now and my last post involved remodeling work at home. We redid the whole kitchen. This included building new doors for all the cabinets and a new entire cabinet over the stove, converting an area of drop ceiling into something that actually looks really good with an Arts and Craft-style light suspended in the opening. New tile floor and backsplash. New built-in Microwave. The toughest part was building the cabinet doors. It took an entire weekend to build two doors, sixteen doors built total.

Then came a total redo of our screen porch, 10x40 feet. This included getting rid of a hot tub that was built-in to the floor. Ended up doing some neat artistic work staining the whole slab to look like stone ... 4 different colors of stain. The area where the hot tub was is now stained to look like an area rug ... took a problem (impossible to pour new concrete to seamlessly blend in) and turned it into a feature. Lots of slinging stain around at random. This was all done just in time for Hurricane Irma. Good thing, four of us spent a lot of time on the porch for the week the power was out here. It is only in the last month or so, that life and finances are truly back to normal after the storm.

I have had some time off between Christmas and New Years, so the Comet has gotten some attention. I got a set of trunk lip chrome from Larry Larson (Charlie9049 here). These were leftovers from his 72 Comet resto, and were a bit rough. They also had light blue overspray on them, so they took a fair amount of work. Started by sanding with 400 and 600 grit, then rubbing compound, then two types of chrome polish. I got them back to "B" condition, so they match pretty much all the other brightwork on my car, lol.

Before shots on top, after underneath. It was a test of nerves to drill Grabber fender caps. Had a couple set-ups that resembled wood-working rigs to help deal with the odd shapes and angles.

I was thinking about painting the inset panel black, still might, but I am surprised at the change just adding the chrome.

Below are pics of a standard rear fender cap, blue, and a Grabber unit, green. Notice that the Grabber cap has the same three built-up areas that need to be drilled to add the chrome. As far as I know, that never actually happened. Someone correct me if that is wrong. At least Ford was thinking ahead and leaving it as a possibility.

Here is a hint at the next project ....

The scoop needs to be repaired ... one major and two minor cracks, one chunk missing on the passenger side, a 2 inch semi-circle. I also need to un-do a fair amount of stuff from the previous scoop, from a mid-90s Mustang GT, and cut a BIGGER hole in the hood for the air cleaner. I added a "rain gutter" to protect from heavy rain. This car was my daily driver for several years and this worked so well, I will duplicate it again, even though this car should lead a sheltered life from now on.