the last few days I have worked pretty hard on the car. after getting off work I stayed up late working on the car. my shop is very nice for that I have plenty of lighting etc. so I can basically work whenever I have time. well I needed to take the car to the dyno shop today and I did not want to have to reschedule again so I worked on it all night last night. finally laid down on the couch out here at about 5:00 Friday morning. it is not done yet but it is back together enough to go to the dyno shop. I can finish the speaker install and work on that passenger rear window switch when I get it back.
ok. here is a brief rundown on what i have done since my last installment.
I mocked up the front seat belt install and studied the rear seatbelt installation. I decided it was possible to swap in the 90 rear seatbelts so I started on that.
first the way these seatbelts work is they install behind the rear seat and run up behind seat brace between the top well liner and the rear seat. in order to install them this area needed to be modified a bit.
those two flanges needed to be cut and bent out of the way in order to mount the seatbelt as far laterally as possible
then if you look closely you can see I drilled a hole for a 3/8 bolt into that brace behind the seat. I reinforced it by placing a large washer that came in another seatbelt install kit I had under the cross brace. I welded the bolt to that washer and bent up one edge to match the shape of the brace. that way it slid up under there and locked it self in place. it made it easier to tighten the nut down. I used a large washer and lock washer to finish it up. then the plastic sheath stuck up too high above the back seat and it caught when I tried to lower the top. since the seat fits in this area there was enough space so I used a heat gun to heat up the plastic and allow the sheath to bend forward to contour along the top of the seat. it worked fine.
during this experiment I figured out why my top always went up and down crooked, and would not retract without pushing up on the top with my hand to get it started. it seems the little bracket that holds the passenger side hydraulic cylinder in place was missing. so I contacted prestige mustang and they overnighted me a replacement. my top now works better than it ever has.
ok. after getting that part figured out my window motors arrived and last night I worked all night on finishing that install.
first you have to remove these two nuts. I found out later it is also much easier if you remove the two nuts that hold the window to the guide rod and remove them seperately.
then you drill out the rivets and install the new billet guide rod support. and re install it. again it is easier if you remove the window, then you can install the guide rod and the bracket in one step. I figured that out for the second side.
then I replaced the plastic bushings on the window support and re installed the window. btw you need to leave those two nuts on the guide rod loose so you can adjust the window.
after that you finagle the regulator back in place, raise the window, adjust the position tighten the nuts.
then you swap the brackets from the old motors to the new ones and install them. run the window up and down several times and adjust the window. this took me quite a while. but once I was finally satisfied with the way the window worked I installed the new seat belts and the quarter panel. then discovered that the styling bar would not go in because the seat belt bracket needed to be modified. once I got that modified I installed the quarter panels loosely, installed the styling bar.
then since it was so late I decided to just button it up for now and finish the details later. I put the seat back in and put the speaker grills back on. took a couple pictures
and wiped the dust off the car and loaded it on the trailer. then I laid down for a couple hours on the couch and drove to des moines. and dropped it off at the dyno shop. finally after wanting to do that for about 3 months I finally got it over there. so now I wait for him to get it tuned and I will go pick it up tuesday. I can finish the rest of it up anytime. I now need to get a new tonneau cover for it as well.