The Green Monster

We swapped the front coil springs back to the original 2 door 200-six springs. The donor car 1975 4 door big bumper 250-six springs were way too strong and we could not compress the suspension even a little bit with the motor in the car and Poppa Randy and me jumping on the front bumper. Now the car sits closer to level and the suspension actually travels a little if you lean on the bumper. (pictures coming next week)

Swapping springs also dropped it about an inch in the front. It should settle down even more when we add a windshield, transmission, driver's door, power seats, carpet, dash, A/C, radiator and coolant, and the hood, chin spoiler, driving lights, etc. I think there is still 300-400 lbs of stuff to bolt on the car.
I am hoping it drops it enough. I don't want to mess with cutting out a link if I don't have to.

 

Recent progress...
While we were working on getting the motor mostly finished and in the car, we had some side projects going on in the background.
The dash restore/upgrade/swap is coming along nicely.
This is what we started with in my 70 2 door:


We stripped it down to this:





I got the complete dash with the A/C vents and glove box from my donor car, I took this picture after I removed the lower section with the glove box.:



We had to repair the lower section of the dash, it was cracked in several places:



We used fiberglass mat and epoxy resin. The resinis sandable and paintable, and bonds to the plastic really well. We add fiberglass mat for structural reinforcement. After it cures, it is much stronger than the original plastic, then we sand it down and re-drill the holes in the right places.




The upper section of the dash is done and I really like the way it turned out:



Poppa Randy got the donor car dash painted and we received the dash pad cover in the mail. Now where did we put those center A/C vents...?

It should look great with the restored door skins, this is our most recent mock up of the door interior:


Even though I am out of school for the summer now, I won't get to work on the Maverick very much for a while. My Wife's car needs the motor rebuilt because of a failed oil pump at 90K miles. I caught it before it spun a bearing or threw a rod, but not before a rod started knocking. This is what I did last Friday and Saturday:

1. install a temporary seat and steering column in the Maverick so we can move it:



2. Push the Maverick from the shop to the house garage:



3. Bring Christy's car to the shop and start tearing it down:



We got all of the complicated wierd fuel injection and plastic crap out of the way, turns out there is a pretty normal looking motor under there:




We got the heads off and got the block out and stripped of everything except the oil pump that caused all this work:



It is ready to load in the truck and go to the machine shop Monday morning.

I LOVE the way this car drives and especially in corners and curves.
I do not enjoy working on it like I do working on an old car.
I do not know why.

More to come on the Maverick when the daily drivers are taken care of...as it should be.

 

This week we got some more interior work done while waiting for Christy's motor to come back from the machine shop.
Poppa Randy got the lower dash section painted:




I touched up the chrome paint on the A/C vents:

and got them installed in the dash


I installed sound deadening mat in the driver's door and also got the driver's door interior finished and mounted both mirrors.


I also got some basic Maverick measurements:

1. length overall: 179"


2. Body width at front fender flares: 70"


3. Body width at rear fender flares: 74" (sorry, no pic)

4. Wheel base: 103"


4. Wheel track front: 66"


5. wheel track rear: 66"


Up next: installing driver's door.
Coming soon: cowl repair in prep for new dash install, , install heat & A/C box,install electrical wiring for stereo, amps, speakers, subs. sound deadening.

 

Green Monster project progress: We have started on the cowl pan rust repair, we have to un-do some of the progress made previously to repair the cowl pan correctly. The passenger side looked pretty solid, but this is what the cowl pan looked like on the driver's side when we got the dash removed and got a good look at it:


We have to take it back down to the chassis/sub-structure to remove the grille above the cowl pan.

We got the radiator, fenders, grille and stone deflector off.


Pulling the motor...again.
Wax paper is required to prevent putting your hands in the goopy crap a dozen times!

We got it down to this today:
Don't ya hate it when your brand new carburetor is on a table and not on your motor?

More in a few days, stay tuned!

 

oh, you're going to love drilling out all the spot welds. been there, done that...

 

I've heard it's a pain.
We have a special drill bit just for spot welds we used on the radiator support. it wasn't too bad with a corded drill.
I think this is about twice as many welds.

 

Additional progress:
Poppa Randy has been working on the rear interior quarter panels / skins.


There was a little sun damage on one side and a little more on the other side.


Time to get out the epoxy and glass mat and fab some magic!

That should be plenty strong enough, and will look good when sanded down and painted. There is still the option of covering the panels in fabric or leather, I haven't decided yet.

I guess it depends on the seats i get.

More and more style/design decisions are hinging on the seats.
If I get black seats, I want tan carpet, if I get tan seats I want black carpet, to match my black and tan dash and doors.

It is difficult to find nice seats for reasonable money.
They have to be from a 2 door car, so the seat folds forward to allow access to the back seat.
I want leather and power because of the nature of my build. heated is a bonus, but not required.
I'm thinking seats from a Lincoln Mark VII or VIII or Thunderbird, Mustang, Camaro, Benz SL, BMW 5 series, Jag XJ, etc.
Requirements: must be from a narrow body(no SUV or truck seats), rear wheel drive (transmission hump, not flat floor), 2 door (leans forward).

The you-pull is cheap as hell, $30 each. But they are usually covered in mold or shredded.
People want crazy money on CL for just seats...$ 250 for some 90's Camaro seats...I don't think so!

I was close to getting a 97 Lincoln Mark VIII rolling chassis that had a nice tan leather interior and nice tires and wheels that would fit my Maverick's current setup. He was asking $400 but it was about $100 over my budget at the time and wouldn't sell any parts from it. All or none...it disappeared from craigslist after a few months like so many cool parts do.

Just on a side note, I have seen Galaxies with Thunderbird rear seats and surrounds, anybody here ever try putting Foxbody/ Mark VIII/ Thunderbird or any other modern interior pieces in a Mav like seats, consoles, etc.?

 

when putting it back together, always remember to use the wiper linkage as a guide where to position the panel.

 

When doing the rear plastic panels, you might want to give some thought to building padded armrests. It is fairly easy once you get the abstract shape. I used thin cardboard for a pattern, 1/2" plywood for a base, old scuba suit material for padding. Wrapped in black vinyl and stapled underneath to secure it.

Looks like the factory put it there....

 

and no more rattling ashtrays!

 

That is a really good idea!

 

My Comet has painted rear and lower front panels and they look just fine .

The 74 Comet which is presently in Europe has padded rear armrests and Quilted-Square Pattern which match the
Front and Rear Seats. My Daughters Maverick has a Steers Head on the front door panels and one of the horns ' continues ' into the rear area on the panels in black ' fabric ' ..Underlayed with thin 'foam rubber' insulation. Just be cautious covering the ' edges ' where the fasten in front .. leave room . Takes a little time .. and also patience !

" Covering panels look real slick "
" But painting does it really quick "

Cometized
( Chip )

 

Progress made this week:
We started the tedious process of removing the cowl cover this week.
Each piece removed must have all of the spot welds removed.
To remove the spot weld 1. you have to locate them all. 2. you use a center punch to mark the center of the welds. 3. you drill a 1/8 pilot hole in the punch dimples. 4. you drill out the weld with the spot-weld cutter like this:

It is best if you run the drill at under 1000 rpm's and apply significant pressure.
You did it right if the blanks from just the top layer fall out like this:

Most of ours did not separate this well and the spot weld cutter went all the way through both layers.

Going slow and putting some ass behind it meant we didn't burn through a dozen bits. We used the same side of our cutting head through all of the holes but the last 3. I saw an idiot on youtube do this with an air powered drill at full speed and smoked his bit just cutting one hole.

We used a good battery drill to drill out our pilot holes:


I recommend using a corded drill for the spot weld cutter unless you have a killer battery drill and several batteries and a fast charger.
The process starts with removal of these saddles on both sides that connect the engine bay walls to the firewall and the cowl panel:

These saddles are thicker structural metal than the cowl cover and the drilling was noticeably slower going. There were not matching numbers of welds on both sides, one side had 19 and the other side had 21.


Sometimes the hard part is getting the right pressure behind the drill.



After you get the drilling and cutting all done there will be welds you missed or spots where the weld spread or the cutter didn't get centered and you will need to do some additional drilling and or chiseling to separate the pieces.


It took us over 4 hours to get the saddles off.


The cowl cover was thinner metal and standing inside the car was a great angle for drilling, we zoomed right through it in 2 1/2 hours even though there were many more holes to cut.


Before we cut the last 4 holes on both sides, we used a big cargo ratchet strap to make sure the body didn't flex outward. Then cut the last 8 holes and then the cowl cover comes off, again with some chiseling at a few spots.




Now we can get see what we've got:

I really expected much worse...


We knew the driver's side was going to be the worst of it and the rust is no where near as widespread as I expected.


We'll order some new hats from Melvin's and trim a little rust off the edges and then fab the rest with epoxy and glass mat.

Poppa Randy and I both think this will be the most difficult part of the entire car project and we are now past the most difficult part of the most difficult part.

 

awesome work. i told you you would love it
this is the type of spot weld cutter i use:
http://www.eastwood.com/spotweld-drill-3-8-pro.html
i found this to be easier, as it completely drills away the upper layer of metal.

oh, and don't use epoxy and glass in that area. fab something out of the mustang patch panels which are widely available for this area...

 

After all this work....do it right.....weld it. Anything else has the potential to fail.