1965 K Mustang Convertible Restoration

12/14/10

2010-12-14T22:52:00.003-05:00

Had some requests to post some more pictures. When I get the car out early next year, I'll get some more.

Here are some from the MCA show in Asheville:

9/5/10

2010-09-05T23:22:00.004-04:00

Sorry for the tardiness in new posts. It was a hectic 2 weeks since the last post, but I actually completed the K convertible in time to make the MCA National Show this weekend in Asheville, NC. We did not leave Raleigh until around 11am on Friday morning. I was still attaching a few parts then! Arrived in Asheville about 3pm and got the car parked. The weekend was mostly spent performing my judging duties with MCA. Not much time to clean the car, but being so freshly restored, it presented very well. I entered the car in MCA Thoroughbred class (THBA) and was one of 4 total in that class. There were 2 Boss 429's and a 64 1/2 convertible. The K convertible was judged by 2 very well known judges in the U.S. and received a Gold award. It also received an MCA Authenticity Award, which is typically only given at the Grand National every year. It was decided a while back by MCA that we would give those awards at the Asheville show instead of Bellevue. The Authenticity Award is quite prestigious. It requires 98% of the authenticity points on the judging sheets and there are no additions for bonus points. That means that out of a total of 700 points where half are authenticity, only up to 7 points can be deducted to receive the Authenticity Award. Of course, I was very pleased that the car received this and it was very rewarding for the countless hours spent researching all the details and getting things as right as possible. As far as I know, the K convertible is the only '65 to ever receive this award at MCA.

There are a lot of details that I would have liked to blog on, but did not get a chance to snap pics. I do plan to share some of these moving forward and will post from time to time. The car will be taken to MCA shows next year, so folks interested in seeing it in person will have an opportunity to view it.

8/22/10

2010-08-23T00:24:00.004-04:00

I've been very busy with the K convertible, lots more progress than I can share right now. Here are a couple items of interest. Date stamps applied to horns and installed.

Brakes were challenging and something that most would have no idea how difficult it is to get right. For a Thoroughbred level car, it could possible be displayed with a drum taken off the rear. The rears are absolutely 100% correct, with FoMoCo shoes and all the proper bits and pieces. The rear brakes were originally Kelsey Hayes backing plates, so the parking brake lever and equalizer bracket are also KH stamped. The rear drum is also KH, date coded correct. Colors of the springs were matched using originals, hardware re-plated as necessary. Front brakes are exact except for the brake shoe liners are "Ford" instead of FoMoCo. Everything else is exact.

8/9/10

2010-08-09T23:23:00.002-04:00

Restored and detailed the hi-po engine mounts. These were fun parts to restore and came out really nice. The upper brackets were blasted and tumbled. Lower bracket with the stud was a little more challenging. Blasted and tumbled them and then detailed the pressed in studs to a darker appearance than the bracket. After that, used a torch to heat the original welds so they looked like they were just done. Followed by a rubbing with steel wool and oil. Original long shafts were re-finished in phosphate and correct locking nuts used. NOS large insulators with C4ZA numbers molded in and original FoMoCo upper donut insulators used. To finish off, replicated yellow markings as found.

8/8/10

2010-08-08T23:42:00.002-04:00

Passed a big milestone today, the engine is painted! Seems like it has taken forever to get to this point, but it was well worth the wait. The black turned out perfect in my opinion, not too shiny, not too dull. Once the paint had cured, I started putting parts on. These parts have been waiting a long time! A 12/64 (4MA) hi-po distributor was installed and looks great. Yes, it has NOS FoMoCo points, condensor, rotor and cap! Correct olive-drab style oil sender unit installed. Original, rebuilt 3939S hi-po fuel pump installed with correct white gasket and re-plated original bolts. NOS PCV valve used with proper valve cover grommet and original hose/clamps. Original valve covers were re-chromed. Rebuilt original alternator with restored original brackets. Yes, that is an NOS upper radiator hose, I have the matching lower. Have a few more pieces to go before it's ready to drop in the engine bay. The transmission has been rebuilt and is ready to go, will post pics of it soon. Here's some nice engine pics:

In between parts drying, restored a super nice glove box door. Absolutely no blems in the chrome, really nice piece. Went ahead and attached it to just about finish out the dash. The only thing left is buttoning up the wiring along the bottom edge and installing the convertible support brace.

8/7/10

2010-08-08T23:29:00.004-04:00

I suppose that folks have been wondering about the engine and the eye candy they were promised! Well, here is the first look at the original K engine, ready for paint. Some detail marks were applied, such as the orange marks, which were typical of the time period in identifying high performance parts. The water pump is like it was out of the box, I did not apply the orange mark. It is indeed a hi-po water pump, dated 12/64. It is not rebuilt, it is an NOS, never used pump that was acquired new, still in the old FoMoCo box. Original hi-po manifolds, date proper, were re-finished in a dark heat-treated appearance. All other components are date and period correct. As you see the engine is how they were assembled (to the best of my knowledge), before they were painted. I chose not to install an oil filter at this point as I hope to use one of the 1,000 mile hi-performance break-in filters. Here's a few pics, enjoy!

8/1/10

2010-08-08T23:19:00.004-04:00

Rear leaf springs are completed. NOS bushings used on the front along with NOS, early style, rear shackles. Green/yellow spray dots replicated. Original style leaf clamps used with round holes, supplied by Jim Cowles at Shelby Parts & Restoration.

Took a break from heavy parts restoration and assembled the vent window assemblies. These are original frames that were re-chromed and look fantastic. NOS weather-strip installed, correct tubular rivets used to install the vertical pieces. Rivets facing out as original. Original glass, professionally buffed. Not shown in pic are the correct slider tracks with plastic inserts. The RH is NOS and the LH is nice used original. Have one original corner seal and an NOS one. All original attaching hardware restored/re-plated. Will get a few more detail pics later.

7/29/10

2010-08-08T23:16:00.004-04:00

More suspension progress. This picture shows the front sway bar. I had several original ones of these and when stripping in the blast cabinet, I could not find any trace of black paint. I chose to go with a dark heat-treated appearance. The flash makes the part look a little more lighter than it actually is. Correct end links used with NOS bushings and combination of NOS/original restored hardware. Have to get the car on the ground before I can get the top bushing on.

7/25/10

2010-07-25T23:33:00.002-04:00

Made some progress on the suspension today. Coated the coil springs and applied the brown paint stripes. I have pictures of the location of the original stripes, which I duplicated. One spring will end up with the stripe showing, the other won't. Based on what I found when cleaning the originals, there was no sign of black paint. I went with a dark heat-treated appearance, which I think turned out great. Used an NOS spindle on the LH side. Had to do some detailing and then replicate paint marks found on the originals. I thought they also turned out great, with all the proper natural machine finishes.

The original rear center section has been completely rebuilt. Acquired an NOS Ford 3.50:1 ring and pinion and all new bearings. Proper natural machine surfaces detailed properly. The original snubber plate was restored, need to clean/detail the rubber bumper. Paint/inspector marks were duplicated as found.

7/2/10

2010-07-25T23:25:00.002-04:00

Got the engine back finally! Have already started to put parts on it, but here are some pictures when I got it back from the machine shop. This is the original matching numbers K engine from the convertible. When received with the car, the engine had been bored .060, which is probably a little more than typical. Decided to have the cylinders sleeved back to standard bore. Acquired an NOS set of hi-po pistons and had everything balanced. The block is balanced to 1.5g, which I thought was great. I'll be posting progress of the engine assembly as I go.

6/29/10

2010-06-30T23:58:00.002-04:00

Clicking along on trim installation... As mentioned, all original stainless was buffed professionally by Qual Krom in Erie, PA (www.qualkrom.com). Windshield stainless is all installed now, fits like a glove. NOS visor brackets and original re-chromed center trim installed. Rear view mirror and bracket installed. Steering column had to be re-painted, which is done and installed. NOS steering wheel and horn ring installed. NOS 8k rally-pac installed. Rear boot trim chrome and stainless trim installed, NOS snaps used, yes they can be found! Quarter glass assemblies installed, rear quarter metal trim painted. Not much left to the dash, just some buttoning up of the wiring underneath, install the brace and glove box door.

Engine shop is still working on the motor, was hoping to have it by now. Still more work to do on the suspension. Brakes are going to be a challenge. Slowly getting all the parts culled together for that.

Here's some pics taken this evening:

6/19/10

2010-06-20T22:49:00.002-04:00

Well, things are actually starting to move forward now. All of the stainless has been received and it is absolutely beautiful. The rear quarter glass pieces were assembled and look great. Will move on to the windshield and related trim soon.

The engine machine work has been completed. It was sleeved back to standard bore and an NOS set of FoMoCo pistons/rings were acquired. The engine is now at a different shop getting the rotating assembly balanced. They will also assemble the short block for me. I have an NOS gasket kit with the correct head gaskets and other misc. pieces, so I will install the heads and assemble the rest of the block. I can't wait to actually clear some parts off the shelves!

The same shop doing the engine is also going to setup the NOS ring/pinion I have, so should be getting that back soon also. Trans is also in the works to be rebuilt. If all goes as planned, should be getting a drive train back in the car soon.

Drive train won't be much good without a suspension. I've actually made considerable progress on that front. After some experimentation with floating paint on water, I threw in the towel and ordered several gallons of black acrylic enamel. Did proper dipping and the upper and lower control arms came out fantastic. I had to go ahead and install them in the car along with the strut rods, so here's some pics of that. The upper and lower control arms are original parts that have been disassembled and restored. Not a job for the faint of heart! Hope to have more frequent updates in the coming weeks.

5/31/10

2010-06-01T15:15:00.002-04:00

Making progress little by little. Steering column has been painted and steering wheel installed. Will have pics soon. Pic to share today is of the rear pumpkin pieces that have been refinished. Thought they came out real nice. Original machined surfaces were not pitted, just needed to be cleaned and polished. Have an NOS ring and pinion set that will be installed, along with all NOS bearings.

5/15/10

2010-05-16T13:15:00.002-04:00

Few more items to share. First up is the filler neck. This is a somewhat difficult item to restore properly. While Ford did service these, there is a minor difference in the service part and the original, which has to do with the "wrinkle" on the tube. The originals have a much more obvious metal wrinkle that does not appear on the service replacements. To get this part right requires restoring an original piece. It's not that easy though as finding one without dings/dents is kind of tough. Once a nice piece is found, they can be hot tin dipped. After receiving back, they will look almost like chrome. To get the correct finish requires being creative, but as can be seen in the pics, it can be done. Here's a couple comparisons of how they come back from the plating shop and the results of my finishing process:

Installed in the car with an original hose and original clamps:

Nice to see the gas cap installed on the car, it is obviously an NOS FoMoCo piece.

Last item to share today is the restoration of the speedometer cluster. This was done with all Ford parts. An original lens was polished, it came out great! The 2 chrome plastic bezels were re-chromed and an NOS instrument cluster bezel was used to finish it out. Original instruments were mint condition, just needed a light touch-up of the needles. Unfortunately, I found the black on the NOS cluster bezel to be too shiny, so I had to tape up and re-paint to get the right look. It was a lot of taping! The back of the cluster is dated December, 1964.

5/3/10

2010-05-16T12:32:00.007-04:00

Well, has been several months since the last update. Have gotten a lot of things accomplished, which mainly have to do with getting other folks to restore/rebuild parts. The upper and lower control arms fall into this category. I've put a tremendous amount of effort into restoring an original set of these. In an earlier blog entry, I noted some of the differences in the lower control arms, compared to 2 versions of Ford replacements. What I found was that I would have to restore an original set to get the most authentic results. Thankfully, I had nice original arms that could be restored.

For the uppers, some work had to be done as there were chisel marks/gouges around the ball joint rivet holes. Evidently, this was how someone removed the ball joints a long time ago. The marks had to be welded and ground to get them back looking new. NOS upper ball joints were used with proper C4OA boots. The arms have had the ball joints put on with the correct style rivets. Should have them back soon.

On the lowers, it was a little more challenging as there really are no replacement ball joints that are correct. Furthermore, there are no accurate reproductions or even service replacements of the rubber boots. Thankfully, I was able to salvage 2 pretty nice original boots. I had the original rivets drilled out and ended up re-plating the boot retainers and detailed the arms without the ball joints attached. There are quite a few parts to a lower control arm! The arms were blasted and tumbled, they came out perfect. I'll have NOS end bushings pressed in to complete the parts restoration. Then all that will be left is doing the black dip on the uppers and lowers. The lower control arms should be back soon also. Here's some pics:

Another item I've been working on is restoring original parking brake cables and the retaining plates. I'll share some pics of the cables later, but here are the outer brackets. They were natural on this car and a little pitted. With a sanding disc and some time in the tumbler, was able to get them looking like new again. These are NOT painted. What you see in the pics is bare steel that I have treated with a rust preventative. Original fasteners were re-plated also. The plastic retainer straps were also replicated and installed. This was mainly a San Jose assembly plant detail.

12/22/09

2009-12-30T23:57:00.003-05:00

Ok, here is a big item a lot of folks will probably like to see... drive shaft stripes for a K code! As with the rest of the drive train, the drive shaft is the original from the K convertible. It's in very nice shape for being 45 years old! First thing I did was clean it with some mineral spirits in my parts washer, using a bristle brush. Hosed it off and was able to see some of the stripe remnants. They were barely legible, so I decided to soak the whole shaft in evaporust. I bought a 6' piece of 6" PVC tube and capped one end. Worked very nice and the stripes "came to life" after 24 hours of soaking. As can be seen, there are 4 stripes. I am including a drawing of the measurements From the back of the shaft going forward, there is a very wide white stripe, then a red one. Then about 20" further down, there is a light green stripe, followed by a green stripe. There are pink paint splotches on the back of the shaft on the yoke end. I didn't find any marks on the front yoke end. On the trans yoke, I found yellow paint splotches all over. It has C3 AA 25 stamped on the end on 3 of the corners around the center. Of course, this is a 28 spline yoke, so not sure what the 25 indicates. On each end of the drive shaft, it was marked 'AJ4683-A' with '2-12' on the opposite side of one end and '1-7A' on the other. I suppose they might be date codes or something, but don't know for sure.

Since all '65 hi-po's used the same drive shaft regardless of body style, I would say these are a good example of what was used at the San Jose assembly plate during '65 production. Of course, we don't know if the codes/colors might have changed during the year. Moreover, without examples, we can't be certain that the same color coding was used at Dearborn and Metuchen assembly plants. It's very likely they were, but just want to point this out. If you have a San Jose K code built around mid-year 1965, then I'd say you probably would be ok using these stripe patterns as a reference. Any other assembly plant would require more references to ascertain if they apply.

I included some 'before' pics to show that the stripes are invisible until cleaned. Click on the pics for the full-size images.

After mineral spirit cleaning:

After soaking (the red stripe dissolved after rinsing):

Here's the drawing. Note in the pictures I measured from the other end.

12/19/09

2009-12-30T23:42:00.003-05:00

There was some recent discussion about the difference between the original Safety 800XP dual redline tires and the current reproduction. Unfortunately, there are gross differences between what came on these cars originally and the reproduction. I suppose something is better than nothing, but it's disappointing that so many details were missed in the replacement mold. The edge is wrong, the lettering is wrong, the red color is wrong, the placement of the red rings is wrong and the tread pattern is even wrong. NOS dual redline on the left, repro on the right. The repro is a well-used one as can be seen, about 10k miles on it.

Here are some pictures of the rear carrier. I found a few markings, which can be seen in the pics. This is the original carrier from the convertible, it has December '64 casting dates. The tag reads WCZ-H 3.50 5AA 921. The WCZ-H code is found in Ford documentation to be 3.89:1, but as can be seen, that is not what shows on this original tag. On the door warranty plate for the car, a '5' code is there, which is for the 3.50:1. I suppose this could have been a an assembly blunder. Unfortunately, the ring and pinion had been replaced, so I don't know what was there originally. Someone put a 3.25:1 gear set in, D2UW numbers on the ring gear. There is no damage to the housing or carrier, so I assume a prior owner simply wanted to go with a smaller gear.

12/16/09

2009-12-30T23:29:00.002-05:00

Soaked the original front coil springs, appears that they were not painted. When I rinsed them off after soaking, there was no sign of black paint anywhere. Jeff Speegle mentioned that in an interview with an ex-San Jose plant worker, they made a comment about "phosphate" coil springs. I will most likely refinish them in manganese phosphate. When I cleaned the springs for the first time, I did find a single brown stripe on each of them, which was documented previously here on the blog.

12/12/09

2009-12-13T23:45:00.002-05:00

Found out about a neat chemical called "Evaporust" for cleaning parts. I have been amazed with this stuff so far. It takes about 12-24 hours for it to work completely on parts that have a decent covering of rust. The results are amazing. Paint marks are preserved like I have never seen before. Here are pics of the lower leaves of the leaf springs. The yellow and green paint marks look great! These could not be seen at all with just a regular cleaning. With some mineral spirits, I could sort of see them, but after soaking in Evaporust for about 12 hours, came out looking new. I am thinking of putting together something large enough to soak the remaining leaves.

Of course, I had to soak other parts, including rear spring plates. In doing so, discovered pink marks on the u-bolts. Have seen this before on Unrestored cars, so was nice to confirm on another one.

Cleaned a set of rear brake plates. The white check marks were uncovered. Have been seeing this consistently on the San Jose cars from this time period. I suppose it was a check mark to indicate the brakes had been adjusted.

12/5/09

2009-12-06T00:21:00.003-05:00

Suspension parts and stainless have been sent out. I'm having the upper and lower control arm ball joints re-riveted on original control arms. Should have them back in a few weeks. Sent all of the stainless trim to a place in South Carolina. Hope to have that back soon too!

In the meantime, restoration continues. Here are some restored rear bumper brackets. The captured sleeve nuts were originally zinc plated. To do these properly, the whole bumper bracket can be zinc plated and then the sleeves taped off for paint. The original sleeves have a unique number stamped on them too!

Decided to get the parking brake cables out. Found out the NOS ones are a little off in appearance and the rubber insulator detailing. So, will be sending these off to be tumbled. They should clean up fine, were not rusty. Found blue paint on the conduit ends and also the same blue on the rubber grommet. The prong clip was yellow.

I decided that I was not happy with the original windshield and found out about a local business that can buff glass. I had them do the windshield and some side pieces. It is a big improvement! Windshield was re-installed. Dash moldings and speaker/defroster grill installed.

Next up is the choke cable. I was able to find an NOS cable, but had to restore the mounting bracket and re-use the original knob. Turned out nice:

Last detail is something that would very rarely be seen on a restored car, which is an original date-correct battery tray. Most battery trays are eaten up with rust over the years. The battery tray is made of 2 sections spot welded together. I was able to save the lower piece which has the date and have it welded to an NOS top piece. Turned out great!

12/1/09

2009-12-06T00:10:00.002-05:00

A little more assembly progress, mainly to the rear of the car. Transferred a nice set of original back-up lamp wires to an NOS set of housings. The later Ford service parts have some details that are a little off, so I chose to go with original wiring that was in great shape. To do this, the sockets have to be removed from the originals. This is time consuming, but can be done.

Here's a nice "rear" shot. Valence is completely finished with backup-lights installed... NOS gaskets, lenses, etc... Bumper guards are also installed.

11/23/09

2009-12-05T23:54:00.003-05:00

Cleaned the original rear housing, looking for paint marks. Found a weird '5E' or maybe '3S' on the side of the middle. Not much other than that. A yellow number, possibly a '3' on the step-down. Red where a clamp was and a possibly the remnants of a white check mark near the fill plug. Did find a cool 'E' stamped into the RH step-down. The rear has been sent out for cleaning/stripping.

One of the original axle seals was still in place:

A really cool detail item which I doubt very many restored cars have is an original hood to cowl seal. These are notorious for cracking and breaking apart over time. I was actually able to salvage a really nice one from the red parts coupe. Original retainers were phosphated along with original screws.

With that fancy shmancy hood seal, had to add a little more "bling", so went ahead and applied the paint inspector mark. For those not aware, this is the proper style paint inspector stamp for a San Jose car built at this time period.

Next up is more "bling"... an NOS AM radio! I had a terrible time finding an original with nice enough buttons so threw in the towel and bought an NOS piece. The car is very deserving, so what the heck.

Last item is the fuel tank. Got it installed with an original C4ZF sending unit. Note original clips for the sender wire. The wiring is restored original.

10/4/09

2009-10-04T20:26:00.002-04:00

More assembly progress. Steering box is now installed as well as the steering linkage. The steering linkage is composed of all NOS, period correct pieces. Original idler arm bracket was detailed and green paint daub applied. Engine mounts were installed along with original restored fasteners. Spent the remaining part of the day stripping/painting suspension parts such as the coil spring covers and front brake backing plates.

10/3/09

2009-10-04T20:07:00.002-04:00

After spending a few days organizing parts and zip-lock bags from the bins, I now am able to move quicker on restoration of the K convertible. First up today is a picture of the original horns. Evidently, there were different date formats and locations used throughout production in '65. What's interesting about these date stamps is the upside down month codes. I have a good template of these stamps made and plan to get rubber stamps done locally. The horns are already cleaned/painted.

The rest of the day was spent restoring the original steering box. To do this properly, the box was disassembled and each piece detailed properly. New needle bearings and sector shaft bearings were installed. Unfortunately, Ford chose to blackout the top of the steering boxes, so I had to obliterate all that nice detailing! If you look in posts here from a couple months ago, you can see the original box was blacked out. The blue/yellow paint marks were applied before blackout, which can be seen on the back edge once installed. I'll go ahead and share the trick for getting the cast appearance back on the case. First the case must be glass beaded to remove all rust/dirt. Then it must be cleaned completely to remove all grease and media. To get the slight darkened appearance the case is dipped in a phosphate solution for about 30 seconds. After that, it is dried and submerged in oil for about a half hour. Once removed, the surface is rubbed with coarse steel wool and then wiped clean.

While doing the steering box, went ahead and restored the engine mounts.

9/27/09

2009-09-28T08:38:00.005-04:00

More dash assembly progress. Spent the better part of an entire day restoring the heater box. There is quite a bit of detail if you want to do it right. The heater box I used is an original 5AC dated case, which had a nice enough original finish that it just required cleaning/polishing. The door and fan plenum had to be repainted black. An NOS heater core was used, along with NOS heater hoses. The gem of the assembly is the original cardboard heater plenum. Those that are observant may notice the '106' rotation number on the front, which is the same rotation number used throughout the car. One other detail is the NOS fan motor, which is an early 1965 piece with 3 wires. Notice the correct tape seal in the middle.

The heater cable assembly was also restored and installed. An interesting detail is the clips that hold the cables to the control unit. No screw and clamp like others that are typically seen. The original from the convertible was like this, as well as the 2 parts coupes. One final detail is the aluminum strap to hold the cables together.

Heater box was installed without any problems. Sealer used where the hoses come through the firewall. Also installed was an NOS glove box liner. This service part came with incorrect screw clips, had to remove a set off an original liner and install on the service piece. It went in without too much trouble.

Last item installed this weekend is the headlight wiring lead. The one used is a mint condition original. It just required cleaning and was ready to install. The wiring loops are also original, that just required cleaning to install. Installed the NOS voltage regulator, dated 5A22 on the bottom. Will be needing a better cap though.

9/21/09

2009-09-22T13:39:00.005-04:00

Concentrating on dash assembly now. Have detailed/installed the pedal assembly, master cylinder, wiper motor assembly, fresh air vent and parking brake handle/chassis.

The clutch/brake pedal assembly came out very nice. There is a lot of detail that a lot of folks might not notice. Such as the clutch pedal shaft being cad plated, not natural steel. Also, the pedals were a bit of a darkened appearance at top, which I was able to save by a very light glass beading at 20psi. Also, there are heat marks on the metal where the stop bracket is welded to the clutch pedal. One interesting detail is the difference in the black paint dip lines. I was able to save the original lines and reapply black paint in the exact position as it was. Kind of cool detail! Last item of interest is the ultra-rare clutch pedal pad w/out the indentation around the perimeter. This is a genuine Ford NOS part, which was acquired before the repro's came out. Nice detail you don't see very often on restored cars.

Not a whole lot going on in the engine bay right now, but as mentioned, the master cylinder was installed when the pedal assembly went in. The MC is an NOS FoMoCo piece, 100% exactly the same as the original that was in the car. Nice detail showing the lid and body painted together as a unit with the fitting plug in place. Fasteners are original pieces that were re-plated proper finish. Also, notice the clutch rod has been installed. This is an NOS Ford piece with re-plated original nuts. Last noticeable item in the engine bay is the installation of the windshield washer system. This is from an NOS FoMoCo kit that included ribbed hoses and all the correct pieces.

Back to the interior... Restoration of the wiper motor and arm assembly was somewhat time-consuming. There is a lot of detail that has to be done. The 2-speed wiper motor has a cover with a date stamp, I chose to keep this the original finish and not disturb the original "Jan 21, 1965" stamp. The end cover of the motor is painted black, which had to be re-finished. Original attaching screws were nice original plating and were just put back in. Cloth tape was applied how it was found, which hold the wires up so they can't be seen from the edge of the dash. The wiper bracket is semi-gloss black with strip caulk used to attach it back in the car (prevent vibration noises.) The wiper arms were originally like a cadmium plating. The left one is NOS while the right is a very nice used original that was cleaned up. Original wiper bezels and attaching nuts for the exterior were re-chromed and look perfect.

The fresh air vent was rather easy to restore. The only thing that takes time is detailing the plastic vent cover. I had an extremely nice original vent assembly that probably didn't need re-painting, but I shot a new coat of paint on it anyway. The vent cable is really nice, showing the zinc dichromate plating on the shaft. Also, notice the C4ZA part number decal. Found this on several San Jose cars. Have never seen it on any other assembly plant car. Also, notice the finish on the flasher clip. It might have originally been black zinc as it has a bit of a darkened "rainbow" appearance. Flapper shaft on this assembly was zinc dichromate, have another one that appears to be more red in appearance.

Next is the parking brake handle and chassis. Restoring one of these is not that hard. Have always been baffled that some choose to pay upwards of $300 for an NOS unit when they could restore an original for a fraction of that cost. The wheel at the end, the pin and clip can be re-plated. The handle shaft can also be plated in clear zinc. I had a really nice original plastic pull handle which was cleaned and installed. It was much nicer than the NOS piece I had bought.

Here are a few shots of the pieces installed in the dash. Notice the original wiper arm cover. Had a super nice original that just needed to be cleaned up. Also notice that loop clips for the main wiring harness. These were only used on convertibles from that time period. Coupes/fastbacks had plastic wire clips. Only reason I can figure is that convertibles had the loops in case a power top was installed, which would allow the extra space needed for the power top lead that goes behind the dash to the switch.

8/31/09

2009-09-01T08:24:00.003-04:00

Back from CA now. The MCA show in Van Nuys was nice, but HOT!

Just wanted to write a quick note that I found another dimmer switch on a junkyard car in Sacramento. It was a coupe and it had a 2" high dimmer. So, there goes my little theory that convertibles had the higher switch!

8/24/09

2009-08-24T23:21:00.002-04:00

Finally! All the fastener phosphating is finished. As you can see in the pic below, this is a considerable amount of fasteners that were re-plated. I counted around 800 pieces. Basically, this is about 3 cars worth of phosphate finish fasteners. So far, I am very pleased with the results.

During the refinish process, it was easy to see some trends when it came to San Jose fasteners. The most predominant body fastener is the star HTS bolt. There are probably 50+ of those that were refinished. Next most common would be the double ticks. Finally, the next one would be the HTS star with concentric circles. For the small sheet metal screws, like that attach the splash shields, they were all the diamond marking. Most everything else was pretty consistent with other assembly plants. Refinishing these fasteners will yield an extremely accurate representation of what was used at San Jose around Feb. '65. There will be no reproduction fasteners on this car.

Here are a few of the odd-ball bolts. The first one is the RBW. There was only one of these in the mix. I actually don't know where it came from or which car. There was a slight bit of pitting on this bolt, so not sure I would use it on the K.

Next are a couple of other one-off bolts. There were just a handful of disc washer bolts used at this time in San Jose.

Now to something a little more interesting. Ever wondered how accurate the AMK bolts are? Here's one side by side with an original. The one on the left is a refinished original, one on the right is an AMK one. Of course, I have not made a large study of HTS star bolts to determine if there were variations in the logo. But, if you look closely, you can see there is a subtle difference in the 'S'.

Here's an original refinished bolt on the left compared to an excellent original on the right. The phosphate match is pretty much dead-on.

For those interested, here is the label of the solution I used:

Will be going to CA this week to the MCA National show. Hope to start doing some serious assembly work when I get back!

8/17/09

2009-08-18T08:33:00.004-04:00

Here are the pics of some phosphated fasteners. The picture was taken with a flash, so keep in mind that the color is slightly darker in appearance. Also, notice that there are varying shades of color, which are a result of the type of steel and the forming process. The solution used was manganese phosphate, I have found that zinc phosphate is way too light. The solution was primed in a stainless steel pot with a pad of coarse steel wool for half-hour at 180-185F. After that, my fastener batches are left in the pot at this temperature for 15 minutes. Take everything out, rinse/brush off with water, dry off and then dump in oil for 24 hours. The pic of the finished fasteners is with some oil still on them. I'll let them drain another day or 2 before cleaning off the oil. Just as a reference, you can see what I started with!

Next up, another obscure detail. Still not sure of the answer to this, but here goes! The San Jose headlight dimmer switches used at this time in production (Jan/Feb '65) had a round top head and somewhat short cap (in comparison to other versions.) I have 2 switches from the 2 coupes and 1 from the K convertible. Unfortunately, I never thought to measure these when they came out of each car. What I have found is that 1 measures about 2" in total height while the other 2 are 1.90". They are all of the same design. Have FoMoCo on one of the plug spades and "1-5" cast into the middle section of the switch body. Of course, my curiosity got the best of me, so I checked in the assembly manual, which states there is an A & B version, but does not indicate what the difference is. The 1965 assembly manual and also the 1968 have the same notation. Checking the single year 1965 master parts catalog, there is only one dimmer switch version that was serviced, which is the -A. Nonetheless, the service parts could be several varieties. I have not seen an NOS version of these San Jose switches. My initial guess is that the longer dimmer switch is for convertibles, but I need more information to make a better ascertainment. Here's a few pics to show my findings:

Last item to share is another obscure detail. We know that 2 speed wipers were optional equipment in 65-66. We also know that the wiper motors are different for each system, as is the wiring setup. But, did you know that the mounting bracket for the motor was unique for each motor!? I certainly had never discovered this until recently. Can't say it's much of an exciting find, but interesting to know for future reference. The bracket on the left is for single speed, the one on the right for two speed.

8/16/09

2009-08-17T15:20:00.003-04:00

Under dash area is now being assembled. Spent some time over the past 6 weeks documenting the various shades of black painted parts throughout the car. This will take some of the guesswork out of painting parts when it comes time. Have also spent a considerable amount of time getting my phosphate/oil process down. Finally have settled on manganese phosphate. Will post a follow-up on that in the next few days after I complete all the fasteners.

For now, here are a few pics from the under dash area. As you can see, the firewall pad is in gorgeous condition. It is the proper "dotted" San Jose variety. I highly recommend that anyone trying to do a high level restoration search out the correct firewall pad for your car. Reason I mention "correct" is that there were 4 versions of these through the '65 model year. The main differences are the dotted and textured firewall pads. But, the other difference has to do with the A/C hose location where it goes through the firewall. In early '65, there was not a knock-out plug on the firewall for the A/C hoses. Instead, 2 holes were drilled out and rubber grommets for each hose used. There is a punch-out on the firewall pad to reflect this location on a factory installed A/C car. On later cars, there is an oval knock-out, which has an accompanying oval punch-out on the later firewall pads. The change probably occurred sometime in March '65.

One unique detail that some may note is the felt shifter rod seal setup. The seal and retainer are the original ones from the K convertible. A unique piece that most associate with 64.5 cars, but like many of these "64.5" parts, they were used well into '65 production.

Another minor detail to mention is the firewall pad clips. The San Jose ones used at this time period simply had the 2 tabs near the head. No teeth locks.

6/19/09

2009-06-19T19:33:00.005-04:00

Fasteners! Picked up all the parts from the plating shop today. Everything is unwrapped and mostly sorted. The zinc dichromate turned out a little more "pinky" than I would like. I may end up having some of those parts re-done somewhere else. Otherwise, I thought the clear zinc and cadmium turned out really nice. Have to take back the door glass bottoms and quarter sliders, they mistakenly plated those zinc dichromate when they should have been clear zinc. I still need to do all the phosphate pieces. I'll most likely do those myself.

Clear zinc:

Zinc dichromate:

Cadmium:

5/31/09

2009-06-01T09:03:00.003-04:00

Continuing to clean parts and fasteners. The fasteners will go to the plating shop this week, nearly everything has been cleaned/glass beaded.

Cleaned up some of the suspension parts. First up is the steering box. This is the original HCC-AX box from the K code. 5A18C date on the tag, 4M21 casting date on the steering box body. Found a couple paint marks. A yellow swipe on the end of the shaft near where the steering wheel attaches and then a pink swipe in the middle of the shaft. On the box, there was a baby blue paint daub on top and then yellow over the top of it, but not obscuring the blue. Then there was what appears to be yellow sprayed on the top near the back/bottom edge. The top of the steering box was blacked out as I have found on other original steering boxes (from different assembly plants too.) This was done before the box went in the car as there is black over spray on the base of the shaft. I have included another steering box with a scheduled build date of 6 days before the K code at San Jose, it also has a blacked out steering box top.

Next up are spindles. These are always interesting parts to clean. After you've cleaned a few, you start to expect certain patterns. The predominant markings on '65 spindles seems to have been pink and yellow. I believe the markings were a mix of inspection marks and identification. I have the original spindles from the K convertible, which were somewhat rusty, but still yielded a few markings. I also have the pair from the coupe with scheduled date 6 days before the K convertible. Those spindles were much nicer and more paint marks were exposed. The spindle markings were mostly consistent, only one variation. All of the spindles had pink paint splashes on the arm ends with yellow and/or pink daubs on the upper arm. I took pictures of the LH and RH in pairs. Also, the dark gray finish can be seen on the non-rusty spindles. There's a bunch of spindle detail pics here: http://www.early-mustang.com/charles/K_vert/5_31_09/

In a previous blog, date codes on lower control arms were discussed. Date codes were found on the uppers also. I have 4 original LCA's with date codes and 4 UCA's with date codes. Based on my observations, I believe they were dated by quarter. For instance, C4 would mean 3rd quarter of '64, D4 would be 4th quarter of '64. These are the 2 codes I have found on the 8 control arms.

Here's a comparison of an NOS Ford service replacement lower control arm to an original assembly line control arm. Much to my discontent, there are glaring differences. To add fuel to the fire, there are multiple versions of NOS service control arms, with the last versions service not even having the dipped black ends. With some work, a service replacement control arm could probably be modified and look pretty close to a factory line part. The ball joint boot would have to be changed out at a minimum and then possibly change out the rivets to match the original. I'm sure there were variations in the rivets and style of compression, but at San Jose at the time the K convertible was built, there was no waffle pattern on the top of the LCA rivets. The other notable difference is the jacking tabs. The original tabs are about an inch further to the end than NOS. Also, the style of tab is different. The originals are a perfect square with square edges (the ones in the image below are damaged.) The NOS has a rounded appearance with tabs turned around the sides. Otherwise, the general shape of the control arms are the same, end bushings are similar.

Moving on to coil springs. Ford documentation shows two spring paint marks for the Special Handling Package in '65. Coupes/fastbacks with P/S and/or A/C and all convertibles should have a brown stripe marking. Coupes/fastbacks without power steering and air conditioning have a red stripe marking. The red and brown are only for cars with the Special Handling Package, which was included with the K engine option or later with the GT option (also an option on all V8's.) Some springs have been found with white stripes, which indicates a variance from the spec. Finding a brown stripe on an original spring with surface rust is somewhat challenging. I was able to find where the stripes were, but hard to make out the exact brown. It appeared to be a chocolate color brown. I ran a piece of tape next to the stripe for documentation of the orientation of the stripe. Only other mention about coil springs is that after lightly glass beading these with low pressure, the original finish appears to be a dark heat treated finish. No black paint could be found.

Last item to share is the pedal assembly. I have a super nice original for the K convertible, just needs cleaning and re-apply the black on the pedals. The picture shows the different finishes on the assembly and an example of the dip lines at the top of the pedals. Note the dip lines do not match, which they shouldn't be expected to.

5/25/09

2009-05-26T07:27:00.002-04:00

Made good progress over the weekend with the fasteners. Pretty much have everything cleaned/stripped that is not phosphate/oil. Changed the media in the blast cabinet to medium grit glass bead. Spraying at about 60 psi and seems to do a real nice job of not etching the metal surfaces. It will barely take off any of the old cad/zinc plating, which is fine as the plating shop will get the rest of that off.

Snapped a few pics of misc parts. First is of a couple original pitman arms. The original from the K code and the one from the red V8 coupe. They are both in really nice condition. Paint marks were on one of them, appeared to be light blue and probably brown.

Next is the typical yellow paint daubs on the strut rods. The yellow daub let the assembly line worker know which way to install the strut rod. If you hold an original one out, they are not perfectly straight. The end that attaches to the control arm curves up. The yellow daub matches the side with the narrow raised "slit", which should be pointing down when installed. Have seen the yellow mark on other original strut rods, so this seemed to be something rather consistent. The Ford assembly manual actually makes note of the mark and what it means also.

Next up is an original lower control arm. As can be seen, these were date stamped with month/year. The month letter is hard to make out on this LCA, possibly a G4. Second pic shows the original style ball joint boot.

Last pic is an original hi-po air cleaner base. There are still a lot of unknowns when it comes to these. Mostly concerning date stamps and paint color. This one is from a January '65 build car and is most definitely the original. There is no date stamp on it and the original paint color is gold.

5/17/09

2009-05-17T23:22:00.003-04:00

Getting all the fasteners together has turned out to be a major undertaking. I guess I've made it worse than it could have been, mostly because I'm trying to gather and document as many original fasteners as possible. I have all the parts from the K convertible plus 2 complete coupes built within 2 weeks at the same assembly plant. The part that has been time-consuming is that I'm having to disassemble components and document everything as it comes apart. I'm keeping a book with bolt sizes, markings and where they were. I've found that there were very few bolt markings on San Jose cars that were the same as Metuchen/Dearborn. Other than the common 'HTS' body bolts, most everything else has a different head marking. The effort in getting all these original fasteners re-plated will make for a much more authentic restoration.

Few pics taken today. Got the original front suspension out from the K convertible, was pleased to find original date coded front drums, one was 4L20, the other 4L10. Have original date coded rears also. Found all original hardware and wheel cylinders on each side. Snapped a couple pics:

The front brake backing plates were in decent condition, found a double line mark near the adjuster hole on one of them. Have seen this before, so it is typical for at least San Jose cars. Original wheel cylinders had paint daubs, but could not make them out.

Cleaned the front spindles and strut rods. Will take pics of the spindles, they had typical paint markings. Strut rods had the normal yellow daub. The LH side steering stop had the typical red paint daub. I cleaned the one off the V8 coupe, same mark.

5/10/09

2009-05-11T07:21:00.002-04:00

Still culling through fasteners. Decided to finish taking apart the red coupe at the house and "harvest" the fasteners off of it too. It will be nice to have several of the same fasteners to choose from. It also helps to reinforce what I've found on the K code and the other coupe. Yes, had 2 parts coupes that were complete running/driving cars to use for parts needed on the K code. One was a 26A scheduled date, the other 04B from San Jose (as noted above, K code had a 10B scheduled date.) It's really neat when you start to see patterns between the 3 and it helps answer a lot of questions. The 26A coupe was stripped about a year ago, so I already have everything off of it. The engine/trans are left in the 04B coupe, everything else off. Plan to use the original fuel line from that coupe and if I can figure out a way to restore it, it has a super nice original gas tank.

Not really any pictures to share at this point. Have a couple evening obligations this week. Main focus is getting all the fasteners cleaned. Anyone want to come over and stand in front of the blasting cabinet for a few hours? :-)

5/6/09

2009-05-07T00:52:00.002-04:00

The fastener boxes are brim full, guess I'll be standing in front of the blast cabinet for a couple days! In the meantime, snapped a few pics of the wiper motor. This is the 2-speed version, so it's a little different in how the wires hook-up. Appears to have been black cloth tape holding the wires up. Neat ink-stamp on the top of Jan 21, 1965. Fits pretty well with a Feb 10th scheduled car.

Last item to share is the power top motor bracket that attaches to the body. San Jose painted them black, have seen them body color on Dearborn cars.

5/5/09

2009-05-06T00:36:00.002-04:00

Well, I'm still bogged down in fasteners right now. I have everything from all the bins separated out, including the fasteners from the first parts car. I'll need to finish disassembling the second coupe parts car to get another set of fasteners. Most of that car is already apart, just need to pull the motor/trans and then drop the suspension.

Have a few items to share... First is the shock caps in the engine bay. There are some puddle/run areas on them which would indicate they were possibly dipped in paint. Also, it is interesting to note that if you put one cap over the other, you can see that they were stacked on top of each other before they dried as there are rub marks on the bottom. Talk about opening up a can of worms on taking restoration work to a whole new level! Anyone want to do a study on how parts on a Mustang were packed and then transported to the assembly plant?! :-)

Next up is the fresh air vent on the driver side. Nothing much out of the ordinary here. The cable has a nice original part tag on it. Don't recall ever seeing one on a Dearborn or Metuchen car. There's a square piece of tape on the vent assembly. Not sure of the purpose, maybe padding for wiring that gets close. The shaft for the duct was a reddish plating. Fuse holder is some kind of blackish plating with a slight rainbow effect.

Last item to share is the rear axle fresh air vent fitting. Not much exciting here except the original crimp clamp is in nice condition. I was able to save it and spread it back out a little. Will get it re-plated and re-install it. The tooth washer is correct for the application.

5/3/09

2009-05-04T00:20:00.002-04:00

More of the same, going through all the bins and pulling out fasteners. Hope to get everything to the plating shop by the end of the week. Have one here locally that has pretty quick turnaround.

Decided to go ahead and install the windshield. It's an extremely nice original with a 5A date. NOS Ford gasket used, slipped right on.

Boy that camera flash sure does some funky stuff with the exterior color!

5/2/09

2009-05-03T00:33:00.005-04:00

Still culling through all the fasteners and separating everything out. Writing down head markings/types/sizes in a log book. Should help when everything comes back from the plating shop.

Couple noteworthy items from going through parts bags looking for fasteners:

First is the early-style clutch rod seal that attaches to the firewall. The K convertible had the felt style as opposed to the later rubber boot. The original is in usable condition. Will be a nice item to point out.

Second is the rear quarter glass stop. The type with the slide-in J clip must have been the first solution to prevent the glass frame from going down to far. Later cars had a metal frame with a rubber stop that was bolted onto the slide frame. Not sure exactly when this switch occurred, probably sometime around April/June of '65.

5/1/09

2009-05-02T11:48:00.003-04:00

Spent most of the day going through all the bags of fasteners and culling everything out for plating. I realized that I am somewhat held up until I can get a good stock of original fasteners plated and ready to use. There's a place locally here in Raleigh that does a good job, should be able to get everything done rather quickly.

Not sure how many folks have gone through the trouble of re-plating fasteners, but as a tip, all lock washers and locking nuts were usually cadmium (S7) plated while just about all other silver-plated parts would have been zinc (S8). Zinc plating caused a slight brittleness to the piece, so anything that might curve or be under more stress would need to be something else. Zinc and Cad nearly look the same, Cad has more of a soft-silver finish though. Cad costs more to re-plate also.

In cleaning up bolts and nuts, I found a red paint mark on one of the upper control arm lock nuts. Not sure that I have ever seen this before. I have another car in the drive way built about the same time as the K convertible, so will have to check if there are marks on that car. Usually, any red checks or marks would indicate that a part had been torqued properly.

Otherwise, I removed the wire and socket from one of the original parking light assemblies I had. The Ford replacement assemblies usually never have the correct color wiring. Wasn't too hard to remove the socket, just use long needle-nose tip pliers to bend the flanges back and then pop it out. The wires cleaned up real nice. I'll be transferring this wire harness to an NOS parking light chrome housing.

4/30/09

2009-05-01T07:40:00.002-04:00

More wiring progress made. Rear harness was cleaned up, detailed and installed. It's a perfect condition original, no breaks in the cloth braid covering at all. Has the correct green FoMoCo tape tag on the RH side which is correct for a '65 coupe or convertible. Main harness was cleaned and laid in the car, also a mint original piece. Last 2 digits of rotation number written on the side of the fuse box. Got the firewall pad out and laid it up in the car, but need to find the console wiring before the pad can be completely installed. San Jose cars built at this time had a "dotted" firewall pad as opposed to Dearborn/Metuchen, which had a textured appearance that looks like undercoating.

4/29/09

2009-04-30T00:47:00.004-04:00

Not much to report. Got the NOS back-up lamps out to install, but I think I may have 2 LH sides. Which will stink because they are the only 2 of about half a dozen I have that have the correct striping on the wires. Evidently a looping stripe wire was used on the later service replacement back up lamps. Should be a straight stripe the length of one of the wires. I guess I'll knock the plug and wire assy out and install it in another body. Installed the LH tail light. Even spankin' new NOS parts out of the box were giving me a bit of a hard time. Got a little bling on the rear of the car now. :-)

4/28/09

2009-04-29T07:45:00.003-04:00

Started the electrical installation. Ignition and headlight switches installed, NOS FoMoCo pieces. Installed the NOS convertible top wiring loom, need to restore clips that attach the wiring to the body. Had to modify the wiring loom to match the original. The service replacement was exact except for the reinforced taping where the loom runs through the top well area. Unwrapped the tape and re-positioned in the proper location like the original.

4/27/09

2009-04-28T07:32:00.006-04:00

Finally finished doing paint touch up and applying the pinch-weld blackout. Applied frame rail markings and rotation number '106', which matches the number written on the cardboard heater plenum. Used yellow Markal marker for the frame rail and cross member markings. I replicated what was found on the car. Keep in mind that these are unique to San Jose cars and even at San Jose there would have been some variance.

4/12/09

2009-04-13T08:00:00.004-04:00

Dash has been repainted, few more areas to touch-up, which I hope to have done over the next couple of days. Going out of town on Thursday for the Mustang 45th anniversary show in Birmingham, AL.

4/7/09

2009-04-08T07:54:00.002-04:00

Frank Gibson, the person who painted the K convertible came over and helped smooth out a few minor imperfections in the paint. Mostly just small pieces of trash/dust. We need to re-paint the dash, which will be done one day this week.

4/7/09

2009-04-07T09:16:00.001-04:00

Start blog. Will add before pictures of the body restoration. At this point, there is very little that has been assembled on the car. The last couple of weeks have been spent getting all the parts together and organizing everything. The LH door has the latching mechanism and window regulator components installed. Rear quarter window regulators installed. Trunk lock installed.