Chapter 12
Moving Forward
Ryan King
9/11
Sometimes moving forward means going backward.
As I mentioned in Chapter 11, in order to get Project Commuter done with limited finances, it’s necessary to switch back to the ’87 LX Sedan – which also means revisiting the progress made up to this point. In Chapter 4 (the last chapter I mentioned work progress on this car) I had removed the interior. That’s where I’m picking up from for this chapter.
After I got the interior out of the car I decided the best way to make sure I got done the repairs that needed to be done was to do them before I put the interior parts in long-term storage and forgot about them. To that end I broke the repair down into four sections to make it more manageable.
Carpet, Headliner and Panel Repair
First up were the visor arms. The visor arms in ’87-’93 Mustangs are chrome plated but for whatever reason these arms got enough moisture on them to cause some very tiny pits and rust spots all over their surfaces. The spring mechanisms that keep tension on the arms so that they will stay in place when they are swiveled were also badly rusted. The solution I had was to coat the springs in a rust converter using a small paintbrush. With that rust stopped, I turned my focus to the pretty side of things and used Simichrome on a microfiber towel to get the corrosion off. The results were fantastic and I was able to save a couple of essentially new parts from the scrap heap while also saving me money.
In removing the passenger side headlinder trim, I managed to break the upper mounting tab for the side windshield trim, which it fits tightly over. My solution was to use a cyanoacrylate adhesive from Urethane Supply Company they call InstaWeld. Basically it comes in two different variations, liquid and gel. The gel is for unclean breaks like the crack on the tab. It did a great job re-attaching the tab but as I would later discover while doing a similar repair on the ’93 Hatchback, this kind of repair breaks easily under the bending forces it sees when installed. What that means is that later – before I re-install the interior – I’ll need to reinforce the repair with some fiberglass mesh, try another method such as using thermoplastic methacrylate adhesive to rebuild the tab or both.
Similar damage was done to the upper mounting tabs of both inner quarter panels. I also repaired them the same way, which means I’ll need to revisit those repairs and improve upon them before I install them.
Speaking of the interior quarter panels, I guess I should probably address the damage I did when I ripped the passenger side out, back in Chapter 4.
When I removed the passenger side interior quarter panel, I did it without removing the screw that attaches it to the B-pillar because I couldn’t see it in the dim lighting I was working in. In doing so, the head of the screw tore out a circle of plastic from the panel. I repaired it using a methacrylate adhesive called PlastiFix, again from Urethane Supply Company. Like the other repairs I’d done to the interior quarters, I may need to reinforce it with some fiberglass mesh and since I have yet to paint the repair, I’ll need to do that before the passenger side interior quarter goes back in the car.
Map lights in these cars fail for a number of different reasons but this one failed for one of the more common: the contact spring housing broke free of the map light housing, which keeps the contact from completing the circuit for the light. The solution was rather simple: I used PlastiFix to make new mushroom heads for the pins that originally held it in place. Because PlastiFix will create new shapes, is an adhesive and cures very hard, it works beautifully to repair that kind of component failure (see Chapter 12 Work Photos for more details).
Another casualty of the interior removal was the upper windshield trim. They are amazingly difficult to remove and they bend easily. The combination makes for a need to replace them upon removal. I had to have one shipped in because I couldn’t find anyone locally with one in decent shape.
Last but not least was the roof insulation/sound deadener. There are two pieces of the insulation stuck to the roof and sandwiched by the headliner. While this is more of a body item, the damage occurred when the headliner came out. The insulation itself is a laminate of two plastic outer sheets (think of thin black garbage bags) and padding (think loose cotton chunks). They delaminated under the stress of their own weight when they were no longer supported by the headliner and I was forced to find a solution. The solution came from Dynamat and their ½” thick Dynaliner High Performance Insulation. I was able to use the old pieces as templates and cut the Dynaliner to match.
Console and Dash
There wasn’t a single area in the interior that didn’t need some form of repair work. In these cars, that isn’t all that uncommon. The components were made very flimsy and while I don’t have any information to back this up, my guess is, with the intention that they would only need to survive the initial installation phase. Ironic really, because the less durable they made the car, the more likely it would need to be disassembled before the end of its service life to be repaired, thus leading to a cycle of component failure.
The sad fact of life for automobile restorers and other enthusiasts who love their cars and work to continue the service life of the vehicle beyond the length intended by the factory is that we have to contend with the mortality engineered into the vehicle, or likely, lack of concern for its survival.
Thus, the need to replace things like electrical connectors that are so fragile they can’t handle being disconnected. Sure, not knowing how to disconnect the connectors on modern vehicles is a common reason they break, but so is poor design and nowhere on the ’87-’93 Mustang is that more evident than the plug for the heater blower motor resistor. They are made of brittle plastic and the tabs that hold them in place routinely snap off – even when removed properly. It’s a crapshoot whether or not you’ll get one off without damaging it. Trust me, I’ve removed lots of them – just for this project alone. With the original busted on the dash wiring harness, I had to try to source another, which took several attempts.
Once I had a new connector, replacing it was fairly easy, I just had to remove the individual female pins from the old one and make sure each one was properly routed and installed in the new one.
Next up was the armrest delete plate. No, the ’87 Mustangs didn’t come with them, they weren’t available options until 1990. This one didn’t come with one when I bought it either. The center armrests on these cars interfere with my shifting and while it’s a deviation from stock, and I am aiming for stock with this car, it’s a necessity for me. Yes, I know the armrest tilts up and out of the way, however, if you’ve ever done that and had to come to an abrupt stop, then you know it doesn’t stay that way and it breaks the lid latch when it falls. To save me a lot of grief, I think it’s just better to remove it to begin with.
The process wasn’t quite as simple as it could have been. Let me explain to you how I made it difficult.
The simple way of getting the armrest delete plate ready to be installed is to pull the mounting clips and ashtray out of the armrest and install them on the delete plate. That would have worked perfectly in this instance except that, because this armrest was in fantastic shape and all original, I didn’t want to use its components. What I did instead was traipse around a junkyard unable to find a single, good ashtray and ended up using two ashtrays to make one good one (see the Chapter 12 Work Photos for all the graphic details).
Lastly, since I’m removing the A/C from the car, it made sense to prep the replacement heater controls before I put the interior into storage. It might seem simple to find a set of non-A/C controls, but they aren’t as common as A/C controls so I ended up having to get two controls so that I could cobble one together. Ah, the life of a car enthusiast. Never boring…for themselves.
Seats
I thought with 14,613 miles on the odometer that the seats would be in excellent shape and the front seats are, minus the rusted mounts. The rear seat had similar issues. Although not rusted, the lower rear seat mounts were damaged beyond use and needed repair.
I was able to repair the mounts with some ingenuity. They were damaged because someone had ripped the seat free of the bolts that held it in place. That’s possible because the lower mounts are an integral part of the seat back, which is made of pressboard similar to that used for pegboards, thus making the mounts fairly weak.
My approach to the repair was simple: create what were essentially prosthetics out of similar material so they could be easily attached with an adhesive (dissimilar materials may require different adhesives and therefore wouldn’t adhere well) of the same thickness so that I could use a sandwich design to attach them (see Chapter 12 Work Photos for more details).
I was working on de-rusting and refinishing the front seat mounts when I put the car in cold storage but never got it done. That’s just one more repair added to the to do list before the interior goes back together. Originally, the mounts were coated in manganese phosphate (like many black bolts and screws) and I was going to coat them in black oxide (the same type of coating used by ARP on their chromemoly bolts) which looks similar to manganese phosphate but doesn’t have the same level of corrosion protection – due mostly to the fact that it doesn’t give the penetrating oil that provides the corrosion protection as much coating to absorb into. However, I may opt to paint or even powder coat them at this point to provide greater protection. We’ll have to wait and see what happens when I get to the repair.
Trunk
The trunk repairs were kept to the driver side interior panel and the spare tire cover.
It appeared that the driver side interior trunk panel was removed using the same method as the rear seat, which is to say by brute force with a devil may care attitude towards the consequences. Consequently, it was cracked pretty badly around one fastener opening. Thankfully, I was able to solve that problem with some PlastiFix and care.
The spare tire cover was a much more involved repair. I looked for some exact replacement pressboard but never found it, so I purchased a later NOS cover and trimmed it to fit. The replacement cover didn’t come with the locator pins or instruction label, so I transferred the pins over from the old cover (with new replacement screws) and applied a reproduction label. Although the lift hole is in the wrong place, it’s a pretty good match to the original and will certainly work better since it isn’t warped.
Conclusion
With most of the interior repair out of the way, it will be easier to move forward with this project and hopefully get it completed and out of my hair before gasoline is no longer available and I’m too old to enjoy it.
Hang on for Chapter 13 as Project Commuter gets back in gear and I get more done on this rusty old mule!