The Life and Times of My 77 4-Door (1993-2003)

My first Maverick experiences all took place at an early age. I bought (read: my parents bought) my first Maverick when I was only 14 years old. My father had a '76 4-door with a 302 just before I was born and always loved it and talked about it frequently. My Dad and I both loved going to car shows and seeing the 'old' cars. Being raised in a Ford Family, we always paid close attention to Mustangs and someday dreamed of getting one to restore.

When we started looking, the price was just a bit (a lot) high. $1000 for an empty shell of a Mustang was a lot of money in 1993, and certainly $1000 for anything was too much for little old me in 9th grade!

With this in mind, Dad started talking about his Maverick days. I will never forget him digging out a 1977 brochure he had, and seeing that bright orange 2-door with styled steel wheels and white 3/4 vinyl top! I fell in love!!

The next thing he said was that he thought he knew where there was one "like it" that we could probably get for a couple of hundred dollars. I was so excited!

It was early fall 1993, and my Mom, Dad, brother and sister (I am the oldest) all piled into Dad's 84 mid-sized Marquis and headed out for the 25 minute drive to where Dad had seen the Maverick.

Now, my father was a meter-reader for the power company and serviced many (mostly) rural areas which (as I would find out over the next few decades) lend itself very well to finding old cars and leads on parts.

When we arrived at the location, I couldn`t believe my eyes! It was so cool looking! the thought that it could be MY car immediately filled my whole body with anxiety. The rounded fenders, bright red and white two-tone paint, and the weathered look of something that wanted (and needed) my attention all beckoned to me.

My Dad and I looked the car all over and decided it would be what we were looking for. For me: my very own car. For Dad: something for me to `learn` on, but most likely never see the road.

We negotiated a $100 purchase price, and returned the next weekend with my Uncle Bob and his tow truck to fetch our diamond in the rough and hauled it to my grandfather`s house just outside of town where there was ample room to work on it without annoying neighbours.

I always loved thumbing through the albums people had at car shows that documented their hard work and restoration efforts. I decided that I wanted to do this for mine. And now almost 20 years later, I`m glad I did.

So sit back and enjoy a tour of my first Maverick experience via excerpts from my personal restoration album...

 

The Beginning

Picture 1:
Copy of the receipt from when I (Dad) bought it.


Picture 2:
The first weekend I got to work on it. The car had been hit and the grille, and hood were used from what must have been a `73, due to the wrong turn signals, and the missing `F-O-R-D` letters on the hood. I am working on inside of the door, my best friend at the time is hanging off the door, and my kid brother (now 24) is fiddling with my front lug nuts.


Picture 3:
I forgot to mention that the only reason I got the car so cheap was that the previous owner`s daughter had driven the car after a head gasket leak and overheated the motor. When I bought the car, the head was sitting on a piece of cardboard on the front seat.

 

One of the things that I was lucky with was the interior. When I got the car, there was only the slightest start of a tear in the front drivers seat bottom. The carpet however, was basically trashed.

Pictures 1 and 2 were taken later in winter 1995, and show the fuzzy dice my new girlfriend (now wife) had hand-made me for Christmas that year.

During the summer of 1994, Dad found a 1977 2-door with heavy accident damage, but a running 200 CID for a mere $50. I spent that summer (one Saturday at a time) removing it from the green car and removing the shot one from my red/white car.

I ironically have no pictures of that parts car, but do have limited VHS tape of it. So no pictures here.

Picture 3 and 4:
This is the 200 after I got it out of the parts car and spent a summer and about 5 gallons of varsol cleaning and painting it before I put it in my car.

Early that same fall, I was able to score a second parts car--a '76 4-door Comet with no motor, but a very solid body on it, which I needed because the wide trim on my car had managed to trap every pine needle, leaf and any other clump of organic material, causing a myriad of perforation issues. This one set me back another $50. You can see the front of it in Picture 4.

 

Picture 1:
With work going on to get the good engine ready and out of the parts car, I was unable to get the old one out of my red/white car, so it sat like this all winter, with the good engine sitting on the ground, under its tarp during the cold, snowy months. I had managed to paint some of the engine compartment with Tremclad "Fire Red" which I thought was almost an exact match to the factory Bright Red (2R). You'll see where this helps later on.


Picture 2:
I had managed to get several small parts like the correct grille, and I had managed to get my silver headlight trim painted black. now i could finally see what my car was supposed to look like. The black grille gave it a whole new, more aggressive look!

 

So now we're into the spring of 1996. Wow, time flies when you're restoring an old car on a car-washing and lawn-mowing budget!

Picture 1:
Got the original hubcaps on the car and hopped on the task of getting the old engine out and the compartment ready.


Picture 2:
Showing the lovely Tremclad paint job on the shock towers and inner fender aprons after the engine was out. I will also add that the car originally came with a 250--the exact same size, etc as the 200 right?? WRONG! Ask me how I know!!


Picture 3:
After lifting, wrenching, scrubbing and painting, the car was finally ready for it's new power plant by August 1996.

 

Picture 1:
The engine is finally in. After finding out that the 200 and 250 were physically different, and wrestling with everything we managed to get it bolted down. that's Mary-Ann (aka MAP) and my Dad helping me with the next step of getting the old fenders off.


Picture 2:
We managed to get the fenders off both cars and realized that the Comet fenders were in much better shape than the originals on my car. We packed up the brown ones and took them back to my parent's place so I could do the body work on them in their basement, as the car was 20 miles away and it was hard to get up there to work on it other than Saturdays.

The engine was now all hooked up and ready to run...


Pictures 3, 4 and 5:
I spent the summer weekdays at home individually painting all the body panels off the Comet. I used Tremclad "Fire Red" and "Gloss White" as they were readily available at Canadian Tire and in the rattle cans, I could buy them a few at a time. Because the Comet had beige interior, I also had to paint the insides red to match my interior.

The only door that needed metal added was the front driver's door.

 

Picture 1:
This was the worst of the four Comet doors. Note how good the back of the door is. It was only in need of a door skin.


Picture 2:
I broke a taillight out of Dad's Marquis and found a parts car that we bought for it for $100. I cut the white Marquis' trunk lid up to use as a door skin and my friend's Dad helped bend the edges over and we riveted the skin to the door. I didn't have access to a welder, so that's all she got!


Picture 3:
With the original doors removed, it was ready for the new Comet doors.


Picture 4:
Got the new doors on. Note that I had yet to drill holes for or figure out how to attach the wide molding to the 'clean' Comet doors. But, they were painted and showed no rust!


Picture 5:
I put the Comet trunk lid on the Maverick so I could take the Maverick one home to paint. Also notice the missing rear bumper which fell off when I snagged a corner of it with my coveralls. With the amount of salt they use on the roads here, the back bumpers do nothing but catch all that stuff and hold onto it until the bumper mounts dissolve themselves.

 

Picture 1:
The mileage on the car when I bought it. It seemed odd that just about all my Mavericks and Comets I had bought for parts, etc all had odometers that had stopped just shy of 70,000 miles.

An old timer once told me that you could expect to get 10,000 out of each cylinder. Meaning if you bought a car with a 6cyl, you'd get 60,000. If you got a V8, the car should get you 80,000 miles. Some of those old timers had a way of being right a lot of times!


Picture 2:
My girlfriend (now wife) again helping me with the old car.


Picture 3:
More of the same (GF/wife). I joke that she's the only thing I've had longer than my red/white Maverick!


Picture 4:
Buck Tags from my car (RED) and the car that gave up it's 200 CID power plant (GREEN). I think the "VTW" on my buck tag stands for Vinyl Top White??? Can anybody confirm this?

 

Picture 1:
Got the motor running in spring of 1997. This is the same year that I graduated from High School.


Picture 2:
I was able to paint the trunk lid in my parents basement.


Picture 3:
This is a hood that Dad found on a green 73 4-door during one of his meter-reading excursions. The car had a 302 which had long disappeared, leaving the almost perfect hood unbolted and resting on the fenders. I arrived home one day from school to find a green hood laying against the house along with a hood prop rod and a note in Dad's hand writing that read "You owe me $15". Even the chrome molding was in good shape and the lip was not rusted.

I painted this in the basement too, with Tremclad rattle can paint.

 

If you've read through the whole thread, you know that by now I am graduating and that the car is located about 20 miles away. While I was at my graduation ceremony and safe grad, my parents had arranged for my Uncle Bob to bring the car down to my parent's place.

When I got home after safe grad (i never/still don't drink) there was my 'baby' sitting in the driveway. Now I could spend all summer working on the car that I had only gotten mere weekends to work on before.


Picture 1:
I managed to clean up all the vinyl and trim in the car and used the burgandy carpet out of the parts Marquis we had for Dad's car. It fit pretty good, but had a hole on the trans tunnel for consolette mounting, so I snipped a piece off the excess around the door jambs and glued it in place.


Picture 2:
This shows the length I went to in order to have a respoectable looking engine compartment. The car was working really good and I had installed a Cherry Bomb Turbo muffler and turndown which I thought sounded real good. I even took it for an illegal, unlicensed, uninspected 'test flight' through my neighbourhood when Mom and Dad were at work.

Picture 3:
I was able to find a set of styled steel wheels which I thought gave the car a whole new look, while maintaining a 'stock' or 'factory' appearance.



The summer of 1997 was fruitful. I was able to paint the quarter panels a la Tremclad and got all my trim on the sides. I measured the 'pin' locations on my old doors, tranferred the measurements to the new doors and drilled 1/8th inch holes. I then riveted the plastic clips to the door via these holes and snapped the wide body side molding in place.

Transferring the brightwork around the door frames wouldn't come until later.

Picture 4:
I got the car on the road in May of 1998. It was my 'birthday present' to my G/F (wifey). Ya, I know that was pretty lame, but hey it's either a cool birthday present, dear OR I can pay my licensing fees and put a tank of gas in the car and tell everyone I did it for you!

That's me standing in front of the car BTW.

 

Picture 1:
This was taken after I finally painted the whole car all at once with a spray gun and compressor. My whole family was so supportive of my endeavors. My grandmother, parents and aunt paid for the paint supplies. My GF bought me the compressor (which I still use to this day) and her mother bought me the spray gun. This takes us to the fall of 1999. BTW this car was painted outside.

Note the excessively WIDE Granada bumper on the back! Not ideal, but a good back bumper was sooo hard to find!


Picture 2:
While on the subject of 'painting'. I have always enjoyed drawing and painting since I was a little kid. The top painting is one I did (obviously) of my car. The second painting was one that I did of my "dream car". Little did I know that I would one day have just such a car sitting in my garage.


Picture 3:
This happened in early spring 2002 on my way to college. It happened on a Friday. I spent all weekend putting another fender on, replacing the bumper brackets and rebuilding the outside driver's frame rail.

It was then that I decided that I would take the summer and repaint the car and fix a couple of soft spots in the floor while I worked at a summer job at a power plant in town.

 

Picture 1:
This is what my so called 'soft spots' looked like when I removed the seats and carpet!


Picture 2:
This really wasn't looking good... by now I owned a small MIG welder that used flux core, so I was ready to weld the world shut!


Picture 3:
I was luckier than a $#&!-house rat though! I had purchased a 1970 2-door with a matching 1977 2-door parts car back in 2000. I got rid of both of them, but the yellow parts car had a good floor that I cut out of it and had stored in my parent's basement!


Picture 4:
I had been around long enough by now that i knew to not throw anything away! I carefully drilled out all the spot welds from the yellow parts car floor and proceeded to do the same with my car, hoping that I could slip the new floor into place and plug weld the holes.

 

Picture 1:
After two solid weeks of grinding and drilling and welding and fabricating, I was able to wrangle the yellow floor into my red/white car. I was able to build new torque boxes out of 16 gauge metal and used the same 16 gauge stuff to make up the rear pans in the back seat, since the donor car was a 2-door, the pan was shorter, but the spot weld holes all lined up perfectly!:bananaman


Picture 2:
I used short-strand filler as seam sealer (I didn't know any better then) and gave everything two fresh coats of Tremclad black paint. I will never forget the feeling of backing the car out of the driveway the first time after the floor was done! It was so solid and tight!!! What I had originally attributed to being soft suspension was actually body flex as the floor kneaded itself back and forth in a bid to scatter it's remains along the local streets and highways!


Pictures 3 and 4:
True to my word, and after battling the floor buzzards, I began to prep the car for paint. This time I had sport mirrors to install and I even managed to salvage the rear bumper and valance from my 1970 project car that never came to be.

 

I am enjoying this thread.

 

Picture 1:
Painting the old car in the back yard again. Been there, done that, bought (and have evidence in this picture of me wearing it) the T-shirt!


Picture 2:
Throughout the whole ordeal of meeting challenges with the Maverick, my father was always there to help and offer support. That was one of the best things about going through something like this--doing it with him. after all, he originally never figured the car would even see the road when he bought it for me way back when.


Picture 3:
Yes, this looks nice but there's more to the story. I finished painting the car outside and left my parent's place shortly after supper. Also keep in mind it is the first week of September. When I returned the next afternoon after school, I pulled in the driveway to a FLAT PINK car! The dew had gotten on the paint overnight and 'ruined' the paint. I spent the next week lightly scuffing the flattened red with Scotchbrite pads. My paint supplier guy suggested to do this instead of sanding and priming again. I bought another half-gallon of red ($125) and sprayed it a second time. This time, I did it earlier in the day and prompty drove it to my mother-in-law's house to park it in her garage over night.

The result is what you see here. The red came out awesome, and is still one of my best paint jobs I ever did myself. the sport mirrors and small rear bumper made a huge difference in the look of the car.