Word just in! The old girl is heading in on Monday morning for the fitting of some of the kit and the last bit of body work with the rear chassis rail. Now i’m very excited.
Updates and photos will be posted as they come to hand.
So these are the blue lights in the front valance just inside the main headlights. Seems they are not produced by PIAA any longer and have been hard to come by. Luckily enough one of my friends on the Customfastback forum has a spare pair, and better still, they are brand new in the box.
Paying for them on Monday and hopefully have them in a few weeks. Once i get these that will complete all the exterior lights i need.
In an effort to keep the engine bay clutter free and neat I’ve decided to relocate the battery to the boot, and thankfully this isn’t too difficult with the Taylor Aluminium Battery Box. IT comes with relocation cables so setup should be a breeze. Here’s what is said about it.
Taylor’s three-piece aluminum battery boxes meet NHRA rules for installations where there is no firewall between the driver and the battery. They fit most battery sizes and hard-mount the battery to the frame. The removable top allows access to the battery without having to remove it from the box. A heavy duty, welded hold-down and the mounting hardware are included. Positive and negative standard battery cable included for trunk mount relocation.
I finally got around to purchasing some more of the lights for the car, i went the easy way and bought them all from the one place, Mustangs Unlimited
So here is what i got:
PI8360 – CENTER DRIVING LIGHT KIT 67/68 ELEANOR (PIAA)
2x PI1202 – PROJECTOR DRIVING LIGHT ASSEMBLY XTREME WHITE
PI34085 – DRIVING/FOG LIGHT HARNESS (PIAA)
PI30034 – FOG/DRIVING LIGHT SWITCH (PIAA)
C7ZZ15511AR – BACK UP LIGHT ASSEMBLY RH 67/68 MUSTANG/COUGAR
C7ZZ15512AR – BACK UP LIGHT ASSEMBLY LH 67/68 MUSTANG/COUGAR
C5ZZ15514A – BACK UP LIGHT LENS KIT 65/68
BLG2 – BACK UP LIGHT HOUSING TO BODY GASKETS 67/70 PAIR
BLG3 – BACK UP LIGHT LENS TO HOUSING GASKET 65/70
TL1142 – BACK UP LIGHT BULB 65/68 MUSTANG AND 67/68 COUGAR
You may also notice i didn’t get to purchase the PIAA9591 Projector (blue) fog lights, well PIAA no longer makes this item so it wasn’t available. However I’ve found some, more info on them soon.
If you’re looking at body kits for your Mustang, there’s a variety of options to consider. Of course the main one is price, as sometimes you will get what you pay for but this doesn’t mean paying through the nose just to fit a kit that doesn’t look all that great, leaving you with a substandard look and an empty wallet.
So I decided to take a look at kits and show you what the potential of some of the better ones could be. Of course, modifying your car is simple enough, as long as you know your stuff.
So seeing as the car is going in in the next few weeks to get some body work and get part of the kit fitted I thought id post the kit I’m using. There are heaps of kit’s out there, lots of which are poor in quality and relatively cheap, however the one I went with is Australian made and is worth the extra cash.
You will notice the upper (and lower) side scoops are moulded closed, these will be cut open as both will be made functional.
Now here’s a closer look of the bits and pieces and the support brace for the front end.
I’ll post the photos of the kit being fitted as soon as i can. Till then enjoy the photos (and the finished product also in the photos)
So the movie car had the original guages in it, although it had an Autometer monster tacho fitted. I don’t wanna go the monster tacho way, but I do want to go the Autometer way.
Basically I wanted it to look like this:
So after checking out Autometer and seeing them in other cars I started to hunt them down. But again it wasn’t as easy as thought, being in Australia we use Kilometers Per Hour (KPH) better known as metric. So I had to order the Metric series of the guages, which I decided where the Ultra-lite Pro Comp range. Here is what I needed:
5″ Electrical Speedo – 4489-M
5″ 10K Tachometer – 4498
2 5/8″ Fuel – 4415
2 5/8″ Water – 4431-M
2 5/8″ Oil Pressure – 4427
After a lot of searching I found a guy in the states who ordered them for me through Autometer directly. Funnily enough I found him on Ebay selling guages, so I just emailed him. Turned out really cheap as well.
Here they are:
Well this is pretty much where I’m up to. The old girl has has all paint and gunk stripped off and had some prep work done.
So basically we’re almost ready to have the kit fitted up. She’s booked in for 3 weeks time to have some minor panel work and have one of the rear chassis rails pulled back into shape. So until then that’s where we are at with the body, coming along nicely I think.
Well im trying to steer clear of the old style headlight setup. I don’t particulaly like the dull, yellowish beam and would much prefer a modern crisp and clear beam.
So when a friend over on the Eleanor forum started his HID Xenon retrofit i was of course very excited.
Here is a breakdown of what Aleks did (taken from www.customfastbackca.com)
I’ve been trying to make my headlights brighter all the time and I had originally installed PIAA bulbs, which did make the road a little brighter than stock. After that I installed HID Xenon bulbes, which required me to also install ballasts and ignitors from a donor car to make them work. I had bought a set from a friend and installed them into my housings. The problem with HID bulbs in the standard housings that our Mustangs have is that the lights is reflected all over the place, blinding oncoming traffic. So I added a shield to keep light from shooting up and onto oncoming traffic. It worked. But now I’m getting ready to take it to the next level. I’m going to be adding HID projectors to my 7″ round housings. I know this has been done in the past somewhere, but it’s still not common. It’s going to take some work to make it all fit right and work properly. I will posts pictures as I get the project started. I still need to buy an extra set of housings so I can practice on first. here are a few pics of what I did with the HID bulbs and a picture of the projectors I just got.
Here is what the back of the housing looks like with the HID D2R bulb installed.
This is the shield I installed to keep light away from oncoming traffic.
This is the plug that conects to the bulb. I didn’t get a shot of the ballasts and ignitors.
This is the projector that I purchased for my project. I got the pair.
More to come!
Ok if there is something in this entire restoration I’ve researched a whole lot it’s the damn steering wheel, and by god has it been a difficult one! So I’ll try to explain it.
In order to make my car as close as possible to the original movie car I wanted to get the same steering wheel seen here on the actual movie car.
This steering wheel is a 15″ Lecarra Mark 3 Supreme Tear Drop wheel with a 1.5inch dish. Now you would think a steering wheel is a steering wheel. You thought wrong. My research (all be it very shady) has shown me these laminated mahogany wheels were produced in the Lecarra French factory up until about 2002 when some sort of dispute took place and subsequently the factory was shut or it stopped making the wheels for Lecarra. (If anyone has any light to shed on this please let me know).
Subject: Re: Steering Wheel Purchase info
We do not have any dealers in Australia. Right now, the Mark 3 wheel isn’t available. We are working on changing over manufacturing and it will be a few months before we get them on the shelf again. So you can check back and see where we are, or I do have a few of the 14″ flat wheels left in stock. I have the single slot and the gt style.
Thanks
Now seeing as every man and his dog wanted these wheels and i only began my project in 2004, it seemed i was doomed from the start.
Another thing to note is the rivets on the wheel, some had 17 rivets and some 18, why? Well I’m not sure but what I know is Lecarra made wheels with this many rivets and the UK company Moto Lita only made 9 rivet wheels (of similar look).
So in Jan 2006 I hit them up again and got this:
That wheel is still not in production. I will keep your e-mail and let you know when they will be available.
Then again in March 2006 (yes im very impatient):
We still do not have them on the shelf yet, but hopefully it will be soon. We have hired a new person to take care them and hopefully get them finished and in production soon, I will keep your e-mail and let you know when we get them in stock.
Thanks.
But then in July 2006 we had some action!!
Just wanted to let you know that we got our first run of 34215 Mark 3 wheels in and they are ready to ship. We have limited ones and they will go quickly, so if you wish to order one, just give us a call and place your order with Stacie or Rita and let them know that you received an e-mail about the wheels, so you can be one of the first to get one. The wheel will be 229.95. Thanks
Naturally I was the first to purchase one and when it arrived I was overjoyed until I opened it to find it was radically different from the 17/18 rivet version they previously produced in France. This 2006 USA made version was a rougher mahogany, and it only had 9 rivets! I know some are saying pfft who cares it still looks good, but no, im a perfectionist. So i sold it on ebay. Here are some pictures of it the day it arrived.
So, back to square one! In the meantime my good friend Toby who also lives in Sydney, and building an Eleanor, was shopping at some random automotive store 15mins from my house when he called me to say they had “The Wheel” after exchanging a lot of profanities he convinced me it was it and only after he sent me photos did I believe it! This was a weekend, so first thing Monday morning i sent my trusty father down (hey I had to work!) to purchase one!
He called to say they had two!! So I bought both, and the sales guy said they bought them years back from Lecarra, but just left them out the back!! Anyway that night I had two wheels, one was the EXACT one I wanted an 18 rivet French made wheel. The finish and feel was so smooth it made the ‘new’ USA version seem like sandpaper!
I ended up selling the second one to a friend as it was flat one with no dish!
Here are some pictures I have! It came only in a plastic bag. You can even see the difference in finish between the two.
*Note the bag shot is of the flat wheel
So basically that was it! 2 years searching for a wheel made in France for an American company which was discontinued years ago and to find it in a store 15 minutes from my house is simply unbelievable! but it happened!
