Advice / How To

Cougar Buying Guide

2021-09-04T00:04:00-05:00

What to look for when buying a Cougar

Episode 1 YouTube Transcript:

here's a subject I've been meaning the tackle for a long time I get this question all the time hey I'm going to go look at a cougar this weekend I found it on Craigslist eBay whatever and I want to know what should I look at where should I look before I make a decision well I just bought this cougar here out of brush Prairie Washington I looked at it three times and I spent a half hour two hour each time and a few days later after really going over it I found I made you know I missed some stuff so I thought man if I bought over a thousand Cougars over the years make a mistake here and there man it must be really scary for the average guy so let's walk through this 1970 cougar together and see if I can't point out some things you should be looking for I find it's best to take two sets eyes with you here's one reason one guy can be talking to the to the owner getting history and stuff and clues and asking technical questions while the other person can just take some time and look without being interrupted sometimes if you have the owner right there you feel pressured to hurry up and make small talk and you maybe you don't want to wiggle things or touch certain areas because he's looking get your friend on the other end of the car to talk shop while you really look it over the first thing I do is just stare at it for a good long time just just look at what it can tell you get down on all different levels and all different lights and this one looks shiny it's a California car so we know we're not going to find much rust but it's a lot of money so let's really look at what's going on here let's look at gaps now these cars weren't lined up perfect from the factory but I'm seeing some things right now that just aren't right here's one look at this gap right here that should remain even look at that it disappears there oh look here I can't get my finger in here but over here I can again look at that now this bumper has obviously been rechromed I'm guessing like most 70s it was bumped and when they straightened it out something didn't get right let's go look for some more clues when we open the hood now this is one of the most key areas I look for an untouched core support I look for original spot welds I look for rust I look for holes in the shock towers I look for everything to line up this is important because this is a Cobra Jet we want to see tell-tale signs of a rebodied of a wreck of whatever so the first thing I notice is this hole isn't just right here the core support looks pretty straight looks original so you might just talked yourself into passing over that take a close look it should look just like this size it should be symmetric here when I reach on the other side it's been welded also this should be pretty much a 90 here I go over here looks a little rounded out looks a little stressed here I see a little wrinkle here I like this original spot welds with no rust here if I see no spot welds here that's because somebody's putty it over this because they've replaced an apron so I like seeing those original spot welds all four places another thing when I look down in here I see a service replacement sticker on this lower valence no big deal most cars have had their valence replaced at one time or another but look at this here again this gap is not lining up right here that's just way off this whole panel looks to be shifted this way well here I see a wrinkle and I feel under that wrinkle AHA Blondo this is not untouched piece so I've determined this has been in a front-end collision sometime doesn't look to been bad but it makes a difference and sometimes if you can kindly playfully tactfully point it out to the owner sometimes he's never even noticed oh wow I've owned this car for 18 years and I've never really noticed that might make a difference in the price let's keep moving on here's another thing I'm usually week on about half the time I forget my flashlight addition to a flashlight I sure like these little $15.00 glasses I got at Lowe's there's stuff hidden in here we got to find it we're only going to take this one time in the owners driveway to get it or is dark garage and you can't assume he's got a light we're not going to get into a whole lot of numbers-matching we do that in another video on a 428 Cobra jet convertible this is a non numbers-matching car but still we want to see how much is original here if first glance we'd say look at that the S tubes here take a little closer look and you'll see 10 snip marks down there this is off an old pickup truck it's meant to look like an original last two but it certainly isn't just take time and stare and look for what you can see look for wrinkles where they shouldn't be look for holes punched where they shouldn't be take off the air cleaner wiggle things look wiggle the fan wiggle the pulleys now that we've seen what we can see here let's get under the car and this is where I made my mistake the owner didn't have a lift and I got my head under there with a flashlight and did the best I could I made some mistakes because I didn't have a lift if you're spinning as much money as this car is get it to a lift get it to a repair facility I don't care if it cost you $100 to use it for 45 minutes Wow you'll find out a lot and again if you can discover some things with the owner standing there maybe that's going to make a difference on the price it's such a different view when you get it up in the air again just take time and stare at it study it look for look for things that shouldn't be there like and what I see here I guess I see an incorrect fastener no big deal but I see the original underlayment to sound deadener here see nobody's been messing with anything here that all looks factory this is a California car so I'd expect it to be rest free what do I say over here this is odd looks like somebody piled in some paper towels here that's odd oh my goodness look at that the original build sheet or remnants of I can just barely see the little numbers on here again this gives testament oh look at that c9 ze something or rather this gives testament to the fact that this is a low mile original car look at that the build sheet has been stuck under that sound deadener for many years yeah that's original alright that's really neat to see that shows nobody's been here I like that let's go to the other side okay this side isn't looking as good look at this up here look at that wrinkled arrow that's not right wrinkled there oh look at this incorrect fasteners it was in a fender bender no surprise a lot of these Cobra Jets hit the ditch at some point in their life let's look for mud in the fender if we sight down this fender we should see a nice crisp line seems to me it washes out right here see you hear that sometimes I'll just go around a car like that and do this lightly hear how it thuds on it should have a tinny sound like but when you hear this dull thud in here there's bondo I bet let's take and feel up here yeah you can you can I can feel my hand my right hand going like this in my left hand you can kind of sense the bondo in there they have gauges for this too and I always seem to forget my gauge if you get your gauge look for a refrigerator magnet see where your refrigerator magnet sticks when I was at the owners house looking under his lights and the car was down I noticed there was no dimples here no rust here well now that I look at it closer I feel a little bit of wrinkle on the paint most likely that's from where a rust repair was done this paint was done in the 90s so it's starting to come back a little bit which tells me that was a inferior repair again kind of normal even for a California car but you need to know what you're up against again it feels kind of dull and thudd thudd thudd right there let's open it up and see what we see hey we hear a door buzzer buzzer working that's pretty rare look at this they took the time and fix this side but look at that they didn't do much to this side here's another area I always look at I like to even if you can't see it feel for swelling along this Ridge this one feels pretty tight until I get to right here a little bit of swelling see how the lip is pulling away just a little bit it tells me there's a little rust starting in there right about there here's something I didn't notice when I looked at the car like this look at this tar or whatever it is smeared on here why do we have that smeared on here the original sound deadener should look more like this we'll have to investigate further on that one see this that tar is smeared all the way over here a whole outer wheelhouse has got some tar on it let's look for telltale signs of maybe a quarter panel replacement sure enough this lip is not what a factory attachment to the door jamb should look like nor is this gap quite right again a whole new perspective on a lift looking this way as opposed to looking down sure it was done long ago nothing to look for on a convertible should have a dip right here that's good news I can I can feel that dip right there which means it's not a reproduction and it's not a coupe quarter panel this confirms it look here that weld that's anything but professional by today's standards here's some more that smeared on seam sealer that does not look factory that doesn't look factory either everything here just looks a little off compared to this side this side looks untouched nice tight seam here everything looks factoring untouched here this is the way it should look now here's what this door jamb should look like look at the faint outlines of the original factory spot welds all through there this is original that's just how it should look nothing's been tampered with even those little marks there look original to me and again on a convertible not a coupe not other years look for this little swoop here you should see a little bit of an indentation on an original convertible quarter panel hard to see it's most prevalent right here you could sure feel it that's for sure the seller probably isn't going to let you take up the carpets to look at the floor plan pan so look close down here look for any aftermarket sound deadener look for welds look for things that don't line up common thing is to see a drain plug here because not many people offer correct floor pan patches we do on our site with this correct ribbing but you'll see 67 eight floor pans in here a lot of times this one appears to be original here's another area always look even on West Coast cars once in a while you'll see this happen not too often but water will get trapped in here you'll see this area swell and start to rot this one looks good and it looks original with original spot welds again I'm looking for swelling I'm looking for weld marks I like the original spot welds all around here I'm really liking what I see I always like to bring a little all with me don't bring a big one because that looks pretty offensive jabbing at somebody's cars a little one will usually do it just kind of probe and different area anything that looks suspicious you know bubbles and whatnot will get them with this again it's good to have your friend there so he can be talking what you're doing a little of this you're not out to ruin his car but you're going to find the rust let's keep going it's like we got a oil leak here yep I see I see a hokey power steering line fix here and that looks like it's losing some power steering fluid here because of it and in addition to that we probably got a oil leak on a driver like this that's not your number-one concern that can be taken care of for a hundred bucks in your driveway usually we're going to look for more rust and damage here almost always these will be a little bit up that is it usually comes because of a collision people like to put they like to put floor jacks on here so that's why you'll see weird bends in these with a crescent wrench and a little heat you can usually straighten those out good that fender bender was in that messed that up let's sight down this frame rail here and look for get it at eye level look for straightness here that's important that one's looking straight I mean you always look under the battery tray - here's something else I kind of look for you want to see camber and caster adjusting x' within the same range you don't want to see a whole bunch of threads on this one and minimal on this one and by the way here's a clue this is a 69 style strut rod see with the extra threads here the step-down threads this is what you'd expect to see on a 70 so again this side of the car sustained some damage and some replacement parts I do like seeing these though these are the original lower control arms these little tabs here that was part of the old rotunda alignment rack system you haven't used these for years to setup the front end but go ahead and look right here see where that indexing hole is there we don't want to see this one here and the other one way over here let's go look at the other side that one's around the same range they should be pretty close to each other not right on that tells me that this front end wasn't whacked too hard you won't be able to get the camera in here but I like to get some light in here a sunny day is best actually but you I'm looking to shine my light in there and I'm looking to see the original sound deadener in here that sound deadener is all beat off there's a good chance this was din it hard I'm also looking for worms when I say worm holes the way they used to repair dents is drill holes and put a slight hammer and bang it out and then they put bondo over it and you'd see little pink worms coming through your holes when I look in this one and I can't see every bit of the door but I am seeing much of it and it looks good with a window down I can also see through here by pulling back the rubber I like what I see down there all Cougars 67 to 73 have an issue with the cow even California cars leaves pine needles rodents whatever can get in there and cause them to rot the cow is kind of a hard thing to fix when that goes bad user your floor pants go bad now unlike the 67 68 you can actually take this cow panel off but do you think the owner is going to let you do that probably not here's a trick you're going to need your LED flashlight but you're going to probably can't see it on the film or on the camera but I'm looking at a valley right around a hat see that hat that ledge hat raised lip whatever you want to call it is meant to keep the weeds and in pine needles and stuff from falling down in your heater core I do not see any leaves I do not see any rat's nest and I don't see any rust that's a good sign look at that cowl floor or bottom surface they're nice and solid this may seem trivial but if this is really a low mild California car the windshield if it hasn't been replaced will be an original car light and it does look like this is an original car light windshield and by the amount of wear on the window it appears it is not a high mile car very few speckles probably not driven in the mountains where they were sanding the roads either everything points to this car actually having a hundred and two thousand miles I always lift up the trunk I'm looking for a rear-end collision again I'm going to look for factory spot welds I'm going to look for original markings those shouldn't be covered over I'm going to look for straightness on this panel I'm going to look for bondo this is looking really good back here aha look at here this is not right this is where they seemed in the quarter panel if first glance I'm looking at this this all looks original so this makes me think this quarter panel hasn't been touched well it wasn't touched here was touched up there here's a area I always look for rest this is the low part of the trunk where the water tends to rest from the factory this was left unpainted right here the reason it was left unpainted is that's how they suspended the cars down the assembly line when they were painted on the rack you saw no paint right in here very common for them to rust here and it looks like this one had some rust and they've repaired it right in here I'm seeing the faint outline of a skim coat of bondo here very typical you also want to see these original markings here you don't want to see a trunk that's just flat back here that means they've done some rust repair and just skimmed over everything here's the original d0w be marking look hard at that taillight panel for any wrinkles from where it was in a rear-end collision this lip here under the deck lid is is very much a place to look just like your door you're looking for swelling so feel right along here you ain't have to look I can feel a little swelling right in here that right there is not right a little more swelling there a little swelling right here not bad but the beginnings are rust in there also look look that it has the right deck lid that would be an indicator of a rack every year they changed the deck lid and on our website it points out the differences 1970 was a one-year only 1970 has the cutouts like this for the rear spoiler if it were an Eliminator so we know that's a 1970 deck lid 69 would have two holes for the hardware kit they used for the eliminators and 69 here's one thing I always do look at this walk up the car and grab one of the windshield wiper arms see how I have to give it a good tug to get any reaction there you got a war out bushing in here actually on a 69 or 70 that's no big deal because this cowl panel piece comes right off you can service everything right there no big deal sixty seven and eight has to be done from under the dash because this is a removable panel that's a big deal on a sixty seven eight a lot of time especially got air-conditioning enough about that convertible top frames in my opinion people focus too much on the exterior top tires brakes taillights headlights but I still want to cover a couple things feel the header panel in here almost all of them have some rot under here and you can feel the low spots if it has substantial rot on this cast aluminum piece that's an expensive piece to replace if you can find it they don't reproduce it so if you do feel a lot of bumps and whatnot don't dismiss it expensive the other the other the only other part that's really expensive and hard to replace on this is the two cast aluminum arms that are in the very back just know they're expensive and hard to replace as for everything else yeah the headlights don't work half the time you'll get a deduction in price when you buy the car because of it but know that the vacuum lines the check valve the headlights which are all available on our website and they're easy to diagnose they're just vacuum operated vacuum to one port opens it vacuum to the other port closes it it's that easy tail lights everybody so many times when I've sold Cougars in the past do the tail lights work who cares if the tail lights don't work it's a simple sequential unit they're like 89 bucks on our website for a plug-and-play solid-state sequential unit for this year if it's not the sequential unit it's the turn signal switch in the column good thing to know before you buy the car but don't go get all excited about that look at the integrity of the car the structure of the car look for rust rust rust look for previous damage from accidents in the end that's what makes or breaks a car and those are the things you're going to find out the hard way later so know in advance go get on a lift whatever it takes get the car on a lift pay the hundred bucks of the local shop a flashlight and a floor jack isn't enough spend a good hour plus time pay somebody to go with you if you have to pay that shop owner to spend some time with you you know if it's a $2,500 car I kick the tires walk around poke it make your decision but on anything above that well depends on what your risk level is but I say no what you're getting into ahead of time and usually you're going to find things that the owner of the car doesn't even know about and you're going to get that hundred dollar fee back in negotiating down the price so I'm going to do some other videos on all years of Cougars this is just the first one look for the other ones coming soon

Cougar/Mustang Support Groups

2026-02-25T18:51:25-06:00

Below is a list of Cougar and Mustang Groups and Forums where other owners give advice and help with your restoration project:

Facebook Groups

Mercury Cougar 1967-1973: https://www.facebook.com/groups/898095723545180/
Hi my name is... and I'm a cougaraholic: https://www.facebook.com/groups/51034449596
1969-1970 Cougar Eliminator owners and enthusiasts: https://www.facebook.com/groups/473220306059769/
West Coast Classic Cougar customer connections: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1221967303023659

Forums

Classic Cougar Community: https://forum.classiccougarcommunity.com/
Vintage Mustang Forum: https://www.vintage-mustang.com/
Concours Mustang Forum: https://www.concoursmustang.com/

1967 - 1970 Hood Bumper Installation Tip

2025-12-16T22:38:18-06:00

1967 - 1970 Hood Bumper Installation Tip

Transcript:

Alright, Don Rush here. West Coast Classic Cougar.

We get complaints all the time how do you get these in the fenders and even though they look like the original Dimensions just the slightest change a little different durometer of rubber makes them much more difficult to put in for original so I say cheat here's how you do it you just take out your utility blade and we're going to slice off about that much just about that much and we're going to go over to this side and we're going to do the same it's that it's just that easy oh I missed a little bit here we'll take another swipe at it don't worry about it getting it perfect that's enough bite for it to stay in place and we're going to go over here and check this out unfortunately the previous owner of this car had a lapse of judgment and he chose to go to my competitor and buy his pieces now do you see a little difference there because this unnamed competitor says Mustang and cougar are the same no Mustang uses too big and two little here's the little here's the big cougar uses four big so just keep in mind you can't always believe what you read on the internet unless it comes from us and then even sometimes you got to question it so we got to dig these out if you could tell look at that that person never got that in right whoever put this in it was only half in you see that crease there they just gave up and said good enough so that was a fail but then you just get in here and a little soapy water or Windex something in there will make your life easier and you just get in there and you start my lighting is bad here but you just start working it in and you be patient because if you're not patient you'll scratch your paint and it always helps if there's somebody on the other side with a tool that can pull it in but anyway that it takes a minute or so but anyway look at this one I did this one first and the previous person did that to the paint not me but it's nice and tight and it looks right so there you go that's how you change out your 1967 to 70 Hood bumpers.

1967 - 1970 Power Steering Hoses

2024-05-16T03:23:00-05:00

Are the 1967 through 70 Cougar or Mustang power steering hoses making your head spinning? Read on for the breakdown in the changes, what you need to be looking out for, and changes you should consider.

1967: In 1967 Ford decided to route the power the power steering lines differently for the small block and the big block. Another difference in 1967 is that Ford decided to use a 1/4 inch threaded fitting on the pressure line that connects to the power steering control valve on the small blocks. This proved to be problematic and in 1968 they upgraded to a 5/16" fitting. If you have a 1967 Cougar or Mustang that still has the quarter inch threaded fitting on the pressure line that connects the power steering control valve, it's highly recommended that you upgrade to the 1968 - 70 version which has the 5/16" fitting which is much less prone to failure. The small nut (1/4") control valve poses a potential safety issue, thus the reason why Ford replaced it the following year. The small nut system was engineered dangerously close to the maximum psi tolerances of the crimp that holds the fitting on the tubing. In order to fix this potential safety issue you need to replace the pressure hose and the control valve for the 1968-70 version, which is a direct replacement.

Another thing that you might want to consider as a small block 67 Cougar or Mustang owner is rerouting the power steering hoses to follow the route used by the big block cars in 67-68 and all Cougars and Mustangs in 69-70. The 1967 - 1968 small block routed hoses were prone to getting burnt when they came in contact with the exhaust manifold and are frequently in the way if headers are used. This can cause a safety issue as it can cause the hoses to unexpectedly fail while driving. This conversion requires that you buy the 1969 - 1970 power steering hose bracket that mounts to your frame stand and that you purchase the small block 1969 hose kit. The 69 small block hose kit is the same as the 67-70 big block hose kit with the exception of the pressure hose that connects to the power steering pump, which is bent differently. Another difference is that some big blocks had a power steering cooler.

The holes are not pre-drilled on the 67-68 small blocks to mount the big block hose bracket. The locations of the hoses are marked on the engine side of the frame stands, but they will need to be drilled out. See pic below:

1968: In 1968 Ford again decided to route the power the power steering lines differently for the small block and the big block. As a small block 68 Cougar or Mustang owner, you should consider rerouting the power steering hoses to follow the route used by the big block cars and all Cougars and Mustangs in 69-70. The 1967 - 1968 small block routed hoses were prone to getting burnt when they came in contact with the exhaust manifold and are frequently in the way if headers are used. This can cause a safety issue as it can cause the hoses to unexpectedly fail while driving. This conversion requires that you buy the 1969 - 1970 power steering hose bracket that mounts to your frame stand and that you purchase the small block 1969 hose kit. The 69 small block hose kit is the same as the 67-70 big block hose kit with the exception of the pressure hose that connects to the power steering pump, which is bent differently. Another difference is that some big blocks had a power steering cooler.

1969 - 1970: Starting in 1969 Ford decided to route the power the power steering lines for the small block and the big block via the same route, which mounts to the frame stand, thus eliminating the safety issues with the 67-68 small block routing. In 1969 - 70 the hose kits were basically the same with the exception of the upper pressure hose that connects to the power steering pump, which varied based upon the motor, and whether there was a power steering cooler.

How YOU Can Make Money on eBay Selling Your Classic Auto Parts!

2023-10-17T23:48:00-05:00

YouTube Transcript:

okay here we are in the West Coast Classic cougar shipping Department I haven't done a video in a while but about a year ago exactly a year ago actually I was approached to buy an estate out of Southern California and when I got down there I'm like wow these Mercury Cougar parts are incredible uh but of this estate not one in ten pieces are Mercury Cougar so it's going to take me weeks to go through all these boxes he had four storage units a two-car garage a shed out back and two of his bedrooms full and all over his yard I mean it was a major pick and the families like well I know you only buy cougar stuff but we need to get rid of all this stuff quick we're tired of paying uh storage on these uh rental units and the house is getting broken into so just make us an offer on everything so I was thinking like 10 000 bucks on the cougar parts and then I said this isn't going to be your best bid but if I take everything all this Buick and GTO and Corvette and all this other stuff I have no idea what it is I said I'll give you 30 for everything it was a lowball bid and I told him they'd probably do better you know getting some other bids or like we want it out of here Dad made a lot of money off this stuff and to be honest with you we've already taken all the ram air units and high performance stuff and sold it to other people this is The Leftovers get it out of here it's free money to us so Scott and I had to buy a second 25 foot enclosed trailer we spent a week cleaning up these properties and I haven't done eBay in years because our website does fine we don't need eBay for the most part but I'm like I got a lot of stuff here I gotta get rid of so I got back into eBay and I know a lot of people are down on eBay because it used to be like a dollar or two to the list stuff and it was you know the Wild Wild West it was a lot of fun and now it looks a little more like Amazon and you pay 15 percent I'm telling you it works and I want to run you through some things that I'm doing now and I'm bringing in regularly ten thousand dollars a month in my spare time on eBay and there's a lot of opportunity out there right now and I want to show you how to make ten thousand dollars a month with very little capital and space and this is a long game it takes a while to get hundreds of listings up but I think I think I have some valuable stuff to show you here so uh I ended up with this estate spent thirty thousand dollars on it it filled up two 25 foot enclosed trailers pretty much overloaded them getting them out of Southern California we bring them all back and what's your first goal when you spend thirty thousand dollars on a bunch of parts your absolute first goal is to get your thirty thousand dollars back so we started putting all the items that looked like they're worth about a thousand bucks on there and all we needed was 30 of them and within a month I think we got back our initial investment didn't pay for our time or the fuel down there or or all the labor ahead of us but uh or the totes had to go to wall I had to go three Walmarts and clean them out of all their totes because the old cardboard boxes the old man had were decades old and just crumbled on us so uh yeah lots of Labor here but here's the deal eBay in 2022 and 2023 yes they charge a lot of fees yes they have a lot of rules compared the way it used to be when I say used to be if you look at my account wccc hyphen Inc uh you'll see that I've been a member since 1998. actually remember I was involved in eBay earlier in that I had a guy working with me we used his account so I was in 96 and 97 I was doing eBay back then it was really hard to download a picture uh it took a lot of work to get a picture on eBay my little digital camera only uh held like eight photos at the time and you were encouraged to bid on your own items they were like hey we want to mimic a real auction site and a real auction if your stuff isn't going how you want and you're in the crowd you raise your hand it was the Wild Wild West it was scary too because you put something on it and be doing pretty good and right before the hour it was to be finalizing the auction the whole site would go down tough luck well fast forward um eBay today is a much different animal but it is a marketing Powerhouse eBay spends millions and billions of dollars doing everything for you and in the old days people would say I don't understand technology I can never do that that's not an excuse anymore it I don't care how old you are if you happen to have a smartphone you got it you got everything because they've made it so intuitive you take the pictures and they just easily download on there pictures are not hard to do anymore because your cameras Focus so nicely you write a couple sentences and even gets easier than that eBay encourages you to look at the part find a part number on somewhere and a lot of times you don't have to find a part number it could be a casting number an engineering number who knows it could be just just the writing on the part you put that in the searching engine at eBay and you're going to find a similar item and it says right there sell similar item they're encouraging you to you know take over other people's work so anyway you can hit that little button use your own pictures they don't want you using their pictures write your own little sentence or you could use their description if it's good enough and hit the go button when it sells it's really this easy print label boom and the beauty of it is you get wholesale UPS rates which sometimes are 30 40 percent less than what uh than what you would find at the retail counter so that 15 you're giving eBay at least you're getting some of it back on the back end so maybe when it's all done and said considering you aren't paying PayPal fees you aren't paying retail shipping maybe it's more like nine percent to list your item there and here's why that nine percent is so very valuable in my opinion they are putting all your items in Google so you Google I'm looking for a 1969 Cougar whatever Boom eBay is always at the top you even if they don't have it they put it at the top so the marketing is amazing so let's talk about sourcing your product I'm in the business it comes easy to be me people find me they they see my ads they're like hey will you buy this well let's talk about you sourcing stuff as an individual that doesn't have a parts business and a 30-some year reputation I'm gonna say it's easier than ever right now to Source this stuff the generation that has hordes of this never got into computers they never got an ebay account if they did they just surfed it to be able to figure out pricing and what other people get the generation that owns this stuff from the 50s and 60s and early 70s they did the swap meet thing swap meet thing is a very inefficient way to sell product I'm telling you I've done them both back in the day it's all we had great but there are senior citizens that just need to get rid of this stuff garage fulls of it they got it for next to nothing they got you know they parted out a car to get the parts they needed for their car and they knew that this was valuable stuff that shouldn't be thrown away and they might need it someday and they've stacked and stacked and stacked it now that they're elder or they've passed away their kids want it out of there the realtor needs to show the place they need to get the junk out of there and you can literally get this stuff so on my thirty thousand dollar uh purchase there's about 10 000 individual Parts when you look at every stick of trim every emblem every radio there's about ten thousand so I paid about three dollars a piece for my items and for me to make it worthwhile to sell on eBay everybody's got their minimum I don't want to invest more than 10 minutes to get fifty dollars out of item that's my level you might be different maybe you'll spend 20 minutes and be happy with thirty dollars well I'm running a business so this is a side hustle and I I have to draw the line so sourcing your stuff you just start looking on Craigslist and offer up and Facebook Marketplace and you're gonna find people that are um wanting to sell this stuff cheap in fact uh as soon as I got this thirty thousand dollar uh two trailers worth of inventory I thought I don't want to deal with this stuff I just want to get my cougar stuff so I put all this stuff up for sale the day I got home for thirty thousand dollars and I was very upfront hey I bought this just for the cougar stuff if I can take one in 15 items out of it and and get thirty thousand um I'm happy to provide the labor to bring it bring it up to Oregon and show you what I got crickets had it advertised for four months No in fact I got some snack I put it on eBay I put it in several places I got some snide comments like well if this is so valuable why would you sell it because I have a job so the stuff is out there in quantity in fact I want you to look up mag Mustangs here on eBay this guy keeps upwards to 20 000 listings going at all times and if you go on there you're going to find that all his prices are 120 to 200 percent of retail and you're going to look at and go are you crazy why is he asking these prices here's the reason he's asking those prices is he doesn't want to sell more than 100 items a day because there's no way to get them all packaged so he has to slow down the sales by upping the price and if you look at his feedback he's got good feedback and he is selling lots and lots and lots of items and the last two tranches of inventory he got were offered to me and it was Rose City Mustang in business since the 70s guy had zero computer skills didn't want him time to retire just get this 10 000 square foot Warehouse empty that's all I care about the other local business that recently sold out was r s Mustang another uh small one-man show that had been in business since the 70s again just get it out of here I made my money and I'm assuming uh that the items were sold at about two dollars a piece and those aren't this is happening all across the country that's not an anomaly the generation that's been into these cars forever is aging out and you don't have to be an expert on these because eBay is so broad the internet is so broad that if there's numbers anywhere on it you can take these numbers and put them in a search engine and it's going to narrow you down what I often do is sometimes I don't have enough information so I'll put my listing on eBay knowing there's holes in it knowing I don't have it quite right and I'll say eBay Community I don't know what I'm doing with this Buick part I think it's this anybody that knows for sure can you uh chime in and they will they will they will say no that's a 70 and a half Chevelle only so the the there is innumerable opportunities to buy inventory out there and some of these people are desperate enough if they like you and they trust you they'll consign it to you you of course get a better deal if you just cash them out and walk away but you you could work an agreement like that with them so I've covered getting your inventory next I need to talk to you about what is the best way to Market on eBay and one of the first things where almost even the pros make a lot of mistakes is pictures your smartphone has all the capabilities you need you have no more excuses on why you have bad pictures building something like this and it doesn't have to be just like this this was built out of scraps for very little money building something like this is key and for our website we we have it peeves this camera and when we take the picture these light up boom and then we go in and edit and we drop the background for eBay I think uh a more raw approach less like a corporation uh like Amazon or whatever it goes good so I don't I leave the scratched glass as a background but the main thing is light and another thing is 12 pictures why take three pictures when eBay gives you the ability to do 12. and for you you're thinking three's enough front back side good enough well you might not realize that the person that is really contemplating this is going back to that auction three times in the week to really think about it and he wants to thumb through pictures and giving them 12 pictures gives them something to thumb through so you give them every single angle you zoom out you zoom in it just makes sense to do 12 pictures eBay now allows you to do videos why not if it's an eight-track player and you want to prove that it works stick a tape in it put a battery to it show them it works so search words is the next important thing you need to load that up that title where they give you 80 characters fill them in just I mean don't make stuff up but really think hard about what people are going to be searching for under these items and fill that title up here's something I do eBay gives you lots of tools and most people ignore them I promote my listings and you're like I'm giving eBay 15 and you want me to hit a button that says give them three six or nine percent more well maybe there is 20 of this particular carburetor on eBay right now and maybe you're the only guy that hit the promote button at two or three percent I don't usually do the nine or ten they want you to do nine or ten I don't usually do that yours gets bumped up to the top of the category and as they go to other websites throughout the week guess what's in the sidebar is the advertisement eBay linking you back to this carburetor that two percent can really help you especially if you're competing against 10 or 20 other guys that have this exact same item so think hard about I mean so instead of uh lowering your price 10 or 15 to make yours look more attractive than everybody else's why not go five percent higher than everybody else's and know that when somebody goes to search and they see yours front and center and that's all they see and it's a hundred and fifty dollars and it solves the problem that they have they don't care about scrolling like I found it I want to be done so so I highly encourage you to promote all your listings another thing I do is I always let it be offer why because the eBay algorithm gives you better placings if you'll do that and once you engage a customer and they hit that button maybe they lowball you you can set it to their automatically rejected so you don't have to deal with lowball offers but anyway once they engage with you they're more likely to focus on your item you've already opened up a somewhat of a dialogue with them so always let them do an offer even if even if your 150 item you have it set at 140 and you go back and forth and you end up taking 142. it makes sense okay presentation is everything most people want to get in a hurry and say eh I don't need top dollar I'll just put it on like this this looks like a piece of piece it looks like something that maybe you could have faith in I go a little extra distance on some of my items and I recondition them these seals available for the Galaxy cougar T-bird on my website cheap and once you put them in they work these old 50 year old seals they just don't hold like that that's a core so at least clean them up I use a glass bead Blaster you could use a wire brush just get them wet and wiping them down it just shows you care a little more uh when Chrome on on Chrome items you need to get four ought steel wool this stuff is great you can get it for uh 27 a roll on Amazon this will last you 20 years if you use it like most people do for me I go through them a little faster than that but a little squirt of Windex or a simple green on these Chrome items and very little effort and you can really make it pop and taking the extra time what other people don't do uh really matters another thing along with your 12 pictures is to concentrate on the defects you think it might slow you down and hurt sales some people just you know they put it in the picture but they don't say much no get a little pointer even use your finger if you have to and say missing stud we want you to know this before you purchase returns slow you down negative feedback slows you down and being very upfront about your parts it really gains credibility and Trust in your items so whatever you might think it's the effect and not worth pointing out and maybe you even say hey my camera is not powerful enough to get this little spec here but I want you to know about that spec and your buyers are smart they know that your competitors have those specs too but they aren't pointing them out they like you if you need that connection with them I also want to mention uh I forgot to mention earlier that you have to have a white background black velvet might look pretty cardboard might be good enough asphalt whatever no it's you have to have a white background why a big reason you're using eBay is their multi-million billion dollar marketing structure they are paying for Google search words for you and Google has requirements to get their top listings their top recommendations and one of them is a white background so if you're using a background like this or brown or any other color you're really hurt in the search version so get some White cardboard get some white signboard uh pee in a piece of plywood white it doesn't matter it really helps with the lighting too so huge tip there okay shipping this is of utmost importance you gotta you gotta do it right we pretty much never have anything get broken because we do it right when you're wrapping something you gotta have padding around it you know I I invest in this you can get this free from different dumpsters and businesses and whatnot I Rely heavily on the United States Post Office because they give you so much free stuff for for boxes and whatnot but keep in mind when you're shipping something you can't go with a box that's this long you gotta have a crush Zone those are gonna have bumps they're gonna other packages are gonna smash into it you got to go a little longer on all areas I use a lot of this brown paper here it's cheap Uline is a place that you can get a lot of that stuff from again there's lots of businesses that would be happy if you'd show up once a month and take stuff away from free there's a carpet store here locally come this way and they love it when I show up twice a year and take away these carpet tube cores they probably pay me to do it but of course I do it for free but going there twice a year I get a uh I guess six month s These are nice and thick and then you put them inside the box now you've double wrapped your long pieces of trim and whatnot here's another tip I want to give you on shipping so many people on eBay and this this works well in my favor they won't ship internationally that's ridiculous I sell parts all the time that there's lots of them listed and they'll pay more for my part that maybe is lesser quality because I hit the little boxes as I will ship internationally what you're not realizing if you're if you're choosing not to ship International unless eBay takes care of everything they take care of the tax the custom forms and often you don't ship internationally it goes to a hub in Kentucky and costs very little for you well the customer always pays for it so there's I can't think of any reason not to ship internationally International people are less likely to return items as well and they're thankful because their window of opportunity and buying is so narrow and you've you've helped them out so I just find shipping international to be easy and eBay takes away the fraud you'll never get fraud on eBay you will on some of the other platforms but eBay takes that out you aren't going to get your money yanked back from you because it was a illicit account eBay needs that hey future Dawn here hey I made that video and like the next day we got this email saying there's a change in eBay policy so check this out I want to talk about communication um I hate to be married to my cell phone but uh the eBay app works really well and you'll get people asking questions throughout the day in the evening it's good if you can get on them right away uh I've also let people know at times hey it's Friday evening and I'm going to take the weekend off so can we talk about this on Monday and most people are like oh yeah no problem but you got to be a good communicator you are going to get some of the dumbest questions that it's it's so you're going to want to come back with something snarky sometimes but take the time to give them full sentences and be patient with them and sometimes know that they aren't trying to be snipey they might be a different nationality and not have the English skills they might be senior citizen they might be rude and you might still make the sale and you'll be a best of friends so so um answer all the questions you can and sometimes it's okay to say I just don't know and sometimes I've even said I'm sorry I've already boxed up the item and and I can't take that picture for you I've already done my 12 pictures just be honest with them it's really important to have good communication and I always check the box for returns and I hate getting returns but it gives it gives the customer so much more confidence to know that if he bought the right wrong part he can return it and once in a while you're going to get scammed a little bit you know they're going to say one guy tried to say that I sent him a broken item and I'm like no I packaged it myself was there any damage in the package no there wasn't that makes you mad but still um look at the big picture you know I'm selling multiple items a day I'm keeping 400 listings going I got this ten thousand dollar a month income stream coming in the big picture is um don't worry about the outliers the rude people the one guy that tries to return something after he broke it just just keep on keeping on in summary I've talked a lot about having this as a side hustle or even a career and yes you can if I did this full time I I'd bring in eight hundred thousand dollars a year gross um you need some space to do that and I personally don't want to have more than 400 auctions going at a time but instead of thinking of this as a side hustle I want you people that have these parts to collections to really think about getting started here because the day you die or you're no longer capable of going out and getting dirty in the garage and wrapping stuff your wife or relative is going to have to deal with it and they are not going to have the capacity to get top dollar out of your stuff and some guy like me will come in and say gee this is a mess I don't even know what you have here there's no labels on everything ah my five cent on the dollar bid is this nobody knows your inventory like you do if you're a collector of parts and memorabilia and such so at a minimum start writing tags down on stuff so your relatives can look stuff up and get an idea what it is you want to go to sell it you know there's some organization uh start throwing away garbage because when a guy like me comes in and bids a thing and we see a lot of garbage we're like yeah what percentage are you being salable get the garbage out of there wives you're gonna have to give your husband some encouragement here um then start putting it on eBay you can do it you have an iPhone your wife has it somebody you know has an iPhone that's all you need and start out small do an emblem and build on it and you've had this stuff on the shelf for years and who cares if it takes you five years to get your 600 items listed they're still on the Shelf they're cleaned up now they're labeled and one day somebody's gonna buy that item pretty much everything I put on eBay sells I mean something some things this is a long game if you're trying to get good money out of stuff know that when you put it on it can take nine months sometimes two years to sell an item because we're talking about obscure things here that not everybody needs that maybe isn't in the best condition that maybe there's 20 of them already there on eBay but I guarantee you as long as you're not putting out now garbage on there everything you put on there sells so that 500 items in your garage or 40 items or whatever it is that's some real cash and like say if you let somebody else deal with it later sweep up after you you're getting five cents on the dollar maybe if you got good stuff and it's labeled you're getting 30 cents on the dollar if I come in and it's cougar stuff that I really want and need I will pay 50 cents on the dollar but that ain't 100 100 cents on the Dollar on eBay so try it get somebody to help you now I gave you a broad overview here just shotgun style here but there's guys that have YouTube channels maybe they're not dealing with antique car parts but they will every week focus on another part of increasing your eBay sales there's there's a dozen of them out that are really good look at the ones that have you know 50 and 100 000 hits on their videos those guys have something to teach you watch those videos you don't even have to watch them put your air pods in your your headphones on and listen to them and there is some excellent advice on so you could be a YouTube Pro so good luck get on it get going don't do don't uh don't dilly dally on this you're not getting any younger get out there and get your hands dirty in the garage

Reconditioning Vintage Headlight Vacuum Actuators

2023-10-17T13:26:00-05:00

Reconditioning Vintage Headlight Vacuum Actuators

YouTube Transcript:

today i'm going to walk you through rebuilding an actuator for a hidden headlight system on your cougar your cyclone your torino marquis there's a whole range of them that use either a version that looks like this or a version that looks like this and of course the main difference on this version is how tall the shaft goes up otherwise they're the same so i say rebuild i'm really talking about reconditioned because we're not going to split them open here we don't have the machinery for that it's a lot more work what we're going to do is focus on this bellows dust cover this is not a seal and you will see little tiny weep holes in there don't worry those are supposed to be there because this does not hold air so when this retracts and expands the air actually needs to breathe in and out of here first thing you need to know is whether your unit is even worth tackling and if it's not worth tackling we of course have them on our website already reconditioned ready to go with a core charge if it sounds like a tambourine probably isn't going to be the best but don't give up on it yet here's a quick way to do it not everybody has a handheld pump up vacuum mighty vac tester so you put your index finger over here and you put your hand here and if it holds rock tight and doesn't go down even a little bit that internal bellows is without perforation now we know yours is going to leak on the top that's why you're reconditioning it the top not only tests the bellows but it is testing the seal here and almost all of them are bad so just to verify that yours needs done you'll hold now this one we're not going to we're not going to open this one up we're not going to mess with it because look at that it holds well so we mark these as used and we sell them under a different skew on our website okay here we go let's see if this one here's one i be blasted it hasn't been opened up put my look at that that's not going to hold any vacuum that's that's the type of actuator on your 69 or 70 cougar that when you turn off your key with your headlights down it just lifts right up and not only is that annoying and not attractive that's a constant vacuum leak when you're running your car you don't want that so again before we even start this project let's make sure this is a unit worth tackling and this one holds tight see that isn't that drifting down at all i'm pushing hard on it but up here it's bad so first thing we're going to do after we've bee blasted it is we're going to take this seal off and commence to reconditioning okay the 6768 actually these were used on 69 t-birds as well as well as well as the lincoln's side note some of them have internal springs and you can just hear that spring you can just feel it and that was a fail safe that they did starting i think 69 on some cars and so if anything went wrong with your system it it opened your headlights meaning it closed this so you got a giant spring in here and they really give a ton of pressure let's see if i can i'll have to do it this way and i don't like that because you're putting constant pressure i mean look how hard that is to pull back so you you guys with the six nine t-birds and some lincoln's and such if you got these don't even don't even bother go find yourself some earlier ones or ones off of 678 cougars that don't have that spring the reason being you're creating constant tension vacuum on your entire system so if you've got the tiniest leak uh it's gonna find it and and your headlights are gonna creep up so every time you park your car the car show they're going to go up get this other version and you won't have that problem so i find these easier to build than the tin cans and i'll show you why first reason is they go in a vise easier because you have this nice die cast bracket don't clamp them this way you'll ruin it clamp them this way and make sure you don't hurt your lower nipple and we're going to get digs here we're going to just chop right through all this rubber hook that off to the side zip time cut that off if it's still in place next we're going to get a punch my goal here is to not disturb it as much as possible meaning when i'm done here i want it to look like nobody was ever here so you got four crimps one two three four i leave that crimp alone there's no reason to take all four out and that one is hard to re-crimp because of where it is with the top port so you're going to just go as gentle as possible just a few swipes on these crimps we'll call them okay now that i got my three crimps opened up i'm gonna get a smallish screwdriver and i'm gonna poke in next to the rubber dust boot i'm going to go under this retaining ring a thin washer take that off save it don't bend it take off the rest of my duct spoon now we got to go diving for the seal that's right here and on a good actuator i'll show you another one there this is easy to get off but on this one where it's disintegrating it's kind of hard it might come out in pieces but that's okay we'll just keep digging at it yeah i'm ripping it right here that's okay piece off there and if a little piece of rubber gets left behind in there somehow it's not optimal but it's not going to ruin anything there we got it all out like this and now we're ready to beat blast look at that look at all the ick that's in there that's from water getting in there and that's how these actuators go bad first you get a perforation somewhere in the dust boot then that puts a little rust on this shaft once this shaft has some rust on it it's now working like a rat tail file against this seal and eventually that seal gets so bad it just falls inside then the car is parked you got no winterization and water is just filling it up and if it sits with water in here long enough it's toast but i think this one could be saved it won't be optimal because once i b blast this it'll be if you put it under magnifying glass it'll be pitted and you're never going to get perfect seal on that but good enough now let me show you another one that's the opposite end of the spectrum this one the boot has gone bad but obviously it wasn't outside because there's no rust on here so on this particular one i'm gonna be blast it while it's still together because when you're glass bead blasting something you're putting ground up fine glass inside your unit which means you got to get it all out so on this particular one let's not even get any glass bead particles inside [Music] okay after you think you've got all the glass speed particles out of there now we can start reassembling and the camera won't show it but there is just a little bit of pitting on this shaft again a micro a microscope telescope uh would really show it but it's what we got in the comments if you have a better idea for grease uh let me know but this is what i've been using and it seems to hold up i don't know what the factory used the factory was very sparingly using it i kind of glob it on because my theory is second time around you're trying to fill up more of that pitted rod so i i'm kind of and then i i put it down here too because i want my seal to have a tight fit and vacuum will make it squeeze down on that grease so here we go and you know i'm not a you know i don't rebuild these for a living there's people that deal in this industry and again look in the comments because some people are going to say well here's how you really should do it and i'll defer to them i'm just a guy that answers the phone and it behooves me to do this in front of a camera instead of doing it over and over and over on the phone with no pictures so here's the seals i've been using we are still working with daniel carpenter to reproduce the original seals here's what the original seals look like let's get a close-up of that two others have gone before me and reproduced this seal and this seal neither one of them were to factory specs and you aren't going to get 50 years out of them believe it or not some of these actuators after 50 years work perfectly so before we bring out this version we want it to work better than original i feel that the silicone based aftermarket one that looks nothing like that works better on used shafts just because how squishy it is just the vacuum just kind of sucks it into that rod again you you might have a different opinion i'd love to hear you for me so i use some snap ring pliers it's nice and flexible there and i gently place it over the shaft here and roll it over see this is the part that doesn't seal so these are sharp edges here and if i roll it over i'm not ever really poking the inside of the seal with these sharp edges and sometimes you can actually get this in without even using a tool if you're if you're lucky so i'm just kind of squeezing it in usually you got to get a screwdriver to coax it in the rest of the way and then it's better to use an old screwdriver than a brand new one because you don't want to puncture the seal in any way [Music] okay once i get it in there i just kind of wallet around to make sure it's set and i'll put a little more grease on it now let's see how well it holds i mean that's that's holding rock hard that ain't moving a bit so we got success now we're gonna get my little guy here the dust bellows so when you people that really want to do this right you will index those holes so they're facing towards your radiator because if they're facing this way as you're going down the road road spray or maybe somebody power washes your grill i don't know tiny bits of water could get in there easier this way than this way now i don't think the factory cared which way it was facing so that's just for you people that that uh really really care and you can rip this boot pretty easy so we're gonna be gentle we're gonna get it there and we're gonna stretch it but not too far and again i think i think the best way to do it is you put it over the stud and roll it here we go roll it over now we're in place now we're going to set it down there and i'm going to grab one of these rings and i put that on the wire wheel to make it a little pretty you know they're all dirty when you take them out here's what here's what an old yucky one looks like put them on your wire wheel or b blast them or whatever you'll get it pretty and remember i said you don't need to disturb that fourth crimp this is the fourth crimp i talked about i'm going to take my retaining washer and make sure it's straight and i'm going to go under that one and if i did it right i should be able to snap this ring in place without much effort and the fourth fourth one takes a little more effort let's get this screwdriver as close to the edge as possible so we don't bend the ring just like that now we could stop there but i want to have i get a little pointy hammer like this and i slide it on the top and i'm trying to recreate the crimp and since this die cast has somewhat of a memory if you hit just where and that it works better if you make sure that this is pushed down because remember you got rubber underneath it just a little bit just just that much let's do the fourth one there now at first glance after you paint this nobody's ever going to be able to tell you got in there i mean there's your four cramps you didn't break this and it's important that when you're taking it out you don't over extend because die cast breaks easy this is pot metal and that's a very thin casting and if it does break no big deal you'll put your crimp here instead of here but again we're trying to make it look like nobody was there so last step we're going to zip tie the factory used a white zip tie i use black zip ties so i know this this is my unit and it's been reconditioned and it's not factory actually i'm just out of white zip ties so this is what i've been using for last couple months there you go your unit is good for another i won't say 50 years but uh you know it should be good for a long time because you're not parking it out in the gravel driveway in the wintertime like the first decades were okay this was my cleaner of the two that i left the ring on because that seal hadn't fallen apart and it shouldn't be rusty inside there so it shouldn't need for me to get a bunch of contaminants in there a side note on a really cold day you start hammering on us these will break so get them nice and warm by the wood stove or your heater or whatever before you start tapping on it and as i rebuild these i notice that some have very definite crimps on it like this one they really crimped it and some of them they just barely crimp it it's much easier to do the ones they barely crimp okay let's pop this snap ring out here get under there and we're gonna try to do it without bending the retaining ring too much there we go and i just broke the casting there because i didn't bring it out enough it's always good make mistakes on here on film so that shows you what you're up against so i'll get some pliers and straighten that out there's our little white zip tie isn't very white anymore and you see we did get some sand in there after all look at that now here is one that has not been exposed to the elements and did not completely disintegrate on us and these are the best ones to rebuild because i'll be able to take some four out steel wool and just gently clean that shaft and that's your best unit and these when they're like this watch this watch how easy this is going to be to remove this i'm just going to poke my screwdriver there and look at that that's how easy they are there we go there's what an original untampered with seal looks like here's what they look like inside see how over the years they had little tiny ribs in there and see how those ribs have worn away and you'll notice they're worn more on one side than another that's because these are designed to cant back and forth in your headlight bucket so you're going to be wearing out the seal here and here more because your as your headlight door goes back and forth this rocks and the can rocks so make sure when you get these back in that they actually can't and they aren't rusty and you didn't over tighten this and there's no blockage because they need to move back and forth [Music] and just in case you wondered what it looks like inside this is the bellows and they're pretty hardy um some people will if they have a leak in here somewhere instead of throwing it away they'll say well they'll spray some it's called flex seal in there and i don't know how long that lasts that's a temporary maneuver i think but uh that's what your bellows looks like and it sandwiches down there and your other piece goes on it and as you oh here's one that was full of water look at that so look how pitted that shaft is all the way up here so this one we can still service but it's just not as good a unit as we'd like now if it doesn't hold air on the bottom nipple like this one don't even send it to me that rubber bellows has got a perforation a leak in it and we can't do anything with it so there's what an ugly one looks like that's been full of water for years 970 version and again on other models that goes way into the other years we have a little different system these tin cans a little more tricky but no big deal good news is you only have to build one of them so here we go here's one that yep that one's leaking not a lot but you know some of them some of them take what 20 minutes an hour to drift up well we want to get rid of that on your car so it'd be best if you have i'm gonna build one eventually i just haven't built a wooden jig to put in here but what i'm gonna do is just not go very tight just just going to get it snug i don't want to dent that can there's no reason to and first thing we're going to do and again i'm going to leave this crimp alone there's no need to take out all four crimps let's leave one there so you got a template and what you're trying to recreate when you close it so i'm gonna get my screwdriver in there and i'm just gonna work it and then from the other side and work it [Applause] get this ring out without damaging it there we go there's my ring [Music] and this seal is not completely eroded so this should be an easy one watch this bunk there we go now i can go be blast this and get glass particles are in there or i can try to just brush it away with a wire brush i think on this one i'm actually going to bead blast it because i want that that silicone seal i'm putting in there i want it to have a good seal now had i just used a wire brush i don't think i could have got in those crevices good and so i'm gonna make up for the seal here and i'm going to really be generous with this lithium grease i just feel it'll make a better seal if it's got a good coating of lithium white lithium grease on it [Music] [Applause] so [Music] so [Applause] [Music] and i want to show you one more version that you're going to encounter that's a little bit more difficult this is a service replacement notice here instead of four individual crimps it's crimped all the way around and sometime in the late 70s i don't know early 80s they changed suppliers and they had a different mechanism for closing them and it just takes a lot more time you're just going to have to get your screwdriver in there and then just work work work it's a soft metal and just work work work work work all the way around and then when i go to close it instead of hammering it all the way around i just crimp it in four spots so when it resembles a factory piece instead of a surface replacement piece but yeah you can see the two differences here so there you go uh we have these for sale whether you have a good core or not so you can buy them on our website with without the core some people send their core in advance sometimes they have to give you the bad news and say oops you didn't do the test and it doesn't hold pressure on that bottom nipple we can't do anything with it so if you've got extra units that are clean you can always send those in to work against your reconditioned unit but i say do it yourself the hardest part is getting them out of the car as you can see it's not that hard so buy our little kit and do it yourself and if it only lasts 10 years no big deal you can do it again the kits are cheap thanks for watching

Rebuilding Tensioner and Idler Pulleys for Mercury Cougar, Ford Mustang, Torino, Lincoln, etc.

2023-09-06T00:25:00-05:00

YouTube Transcript:

A few years ago we did a video on these on how to put in new bearings in these idlers and tensioners and we kind of knew what we're doing but since then Scott's taking it on himself to become well the world's foremost leading expert on how to get in here and get out of here without any detection it's it's really cool to be able to put this together and never know that somebody was in there so every one of these is bad even if you think they're good once they get rolling at 2000 RPM they make noise or they're going to be bad I mean these bearings weren't designed to they're sealed and the grease is 50 plus years old yeah and heat and time and moisture everything's against you so we have you send things in and we make them like new and Scott is if you think you're a do-it-yourselfer Scott's going to show you how to do it and what to buy so roll it away Scott thank you all right these are the the small and large bearing these are the flat bearings two different sizes these are the 6869 typically use this smaller bearing on the what I call the small bearing pulleys then in 70 they went to a larger bearing larger cap larger shaft the whole thing so they're they don't crisscross you can't get a pulley to put on this one and vice versa we also do the other Style the wide-bearing ones and I do have these new and I can rebuild them too most of them look at the pictures and I do we do have there's two sizes of these from the factory and we do have to cut them so you can tell from the back there's a little bit of a where it breaks into the wherever they use that hole I don't know I think they use it for other applications so yeah these are the style bearings we sell all these they're all on the website we'll put links up probably this is what I what I get start with when I when I rebuild them for our our pulleys for resale or from what you send in I do typically sand blast them to clean them up just to keep my hands clean as I'm doing this but you don't have to do that I'll do that but honestly when they come in when originally the bear the brackets should be natural steel some say phosphate and oil I think that's right pulleys are usually glass or chassis black the Caps are more of a natural but they're really not a natural color we don't get into that now I do have one customer that he does send them in already done but I have to file on the straighten them out just so I can hand fit the cap in the bare the bearing cap afterwards so I do booger it up a little bit but so if it's already restored prior to me getting a hold of it I'll do the best I can but it's going to might be might not come out as perfect as pretty as you left each you sent it to me and thought it was going to work so anyway I like to start off by cleaning these in the bead Blaster so just so I don't get everything so filthy this one's pretty clean so I won't do this one I'll do this one so gonna go bead blast

we're back we got this one cleaned up pretty good I'll hit it again when I get it to fully taken apart it's easier to get the bracket in this shaft and everything now these are my jigs I guess what you would say now there's two different size you can probably I don't know if the camera can see that but it's for the so it rides on this Ridge here so when I press it off it's not going to distort damage or bend the pulley so it's a nice fit for each one and again it's I have to have a separate one for a large and a small bearing so this is what I got so let's put this up here and then I'm going to press it I'm going to push that down it'll take the pop the cap off and it'll push the bearing or the pulley off of the bearing but it'll be trapped on the shaft and the bearing will still remain on the end of the The Idler The Idler bracket that off

all right so this is not a fancy hydraulic press it's just the one you get at Harbor Freight or wherever made in China look at all this so push it in there set it up push my cap already fell off I heard it that's it and this is what I end up with I'll go ahead and I'll press the other one off and then I'll pull these bearings off and I'll show you how I do that it's just a regular bearing remover

all right then just snug it down you don't want to scratch the want to scratch the shaft on this thing so I just snug them down so I just go real light

foreign

got these bearings off cleaned up as best as they normally do so this one is the early bearing and there's no part numbers stamped on these you typically we see a big S not always I think that's a manufacturer's mark But the small bearing ones typically do not have a part number large bearing ones do you can see there's a doaa number on this one here and so do the the service replacement and the 1970 and newer versions there's d0 D3 D5 d8 numbers for these they're all exactly the same ex with this larger pulley this larger bearings well these are exactly the same larger bearing it's the only difference most people can't tell the difference so all right now the next piece is straighten out our dust caps and hand fit them back in there so we can they can be seated on the on inside the lip on here and I'll have to what I'll have to do is I'll have to file a couple of notches so I can get it in there so it'll snap in and then I JB Weld it after that's the last step but this is you have to do this before we put the bearing back in here so start working on these all right so I got these already cleaned up before and prep for straightening and you can see they do get a little bit puckered up from when they were pressed in because that's the only way to get them off the alternative would be to drill a hole use a little bolt to press them off but you're still going to do the same thing but then you'd have a hole to clear up so what I'll use a like a body hammer tap these down flat then I'll dress it up on the grinder and the wire wheel because it does distort the full complete circle because I'm stretching the mat a little bit and that'll make it a little bit smaller and then I'll start filing little notches so I can index it and fit them in exactly where they go so we can go back and it'll be perfectly flat as possible so start working on these some some take longer than others basically what I'm going to do is I'm going to start working these down flush I just use it on a flat surface and I you know make sure that I've got you know holding it flat when I'm tapping on this thing I'll start with the big piece the big flat side to get it fairly flat and I'll finish up with the tip with the flat or the the other tip

and once I get it flat you can I can put it on the table and I can kind of you know use it as a straight edge and I'm satisfied with this one now that I've got these fairly you know as flat as they need to be because they it's they just need to be iron out the wrinkles and get it flat so now what I'm going to do is I'm going to dress up the circle I need to make it because it makes it when I flatten the middle it expands it slightly so this way it'll fit back in there and then I'll take I'll run it down you'll watch me do this then I'll put use the wire wheel and that'll kind of Polish it up more and knock the knock the sharp edges off just a hair so that's my process and that's the way I do it watch your fingers

so I can see the hair more straightening one low spot there this one too so I'm gonna readdress these a little bit make them better

foreign so what I'm going to do now I've got this smooth and flat again so now I need to make it make some little notches so I can use I'm not going to take these notches out I don't I'm not going to use a Dremel tool and take them out it's not worth it but some are it's hard to see but Summer's more pronounced than others so this one here is a lot less pronounced so that one will be the one that I kind of like slip it past the other ones I'll Notch out and I try to line up The Notches because you can barely see where they go and they use like some kind of a jig so they're like it perfectly with it 120 degrees apart

there so I'm going to set this up so it's going to be index so it only gonna be oriented one way so what a lot of times what I'll do is I'll just do this so I can make sure I clock it and then I'll mark where I want to where I'm going to file

so that is I'm not going to touch this one because it's really light and if I have to I can hit it but I'll do the harder ones first as I press the least amount of metal removal as possible so this is where we start I'm going to carefully put this in the vise snug it on the cap so it doesn't push it over bend it because my vice is well used

take my gloves off because I use the a one of the edges of this file is worn down more so one's sharper so I like the sharper side because it cuts a little better and just make a smooth constant Strokes because I don't want to go wide you can once try to

got a little bit of a notch there fairly even what I'll do is I'll dress this up and I'll show the camera what I've got [Music] I don't know if you can see that but I've got a little bit of a notch there now that's where I start and I'll do another one here and I'll see if I can pop it into place

foreign

pass as you saw I dressed it up a little bit on the on the wire wheel again so now I'll try to test fit it in there

fits in there snug you know it's oh it's a little loose fit but the JB Weld will hold it in there it's not gonna it'll be it'll be in there flat so it'll look just like it did and the JB Weld help fills in a little bit of the cracks and when it's mounted in the car you really can't tell all right so now I'm at the point where I'm satisfied my caps both fit I'm cleaned up now I'm ready to press in the new bearing and you can tell you the only bearing only goes in from the front side front side of the this is the front side of the bearing the pulley because you can see there's these little lands down through down in there that that will stop the bear the bearing from going through so it's basically it's a stop both both of them have the similar things so let me lube it up it's a little dab will do you I don't like to put them in dry they'll go in dry they came out dry so eventually it just goes in a little easier while I'm at it might as well just go do ahead and do the shaft too

all right small bearing it's gonna go up there use this to push it in all right so I've got it all set up so I'm just going to press it in just walk it in It generally goes in pretty Square although I'm not this my press is a little bit wearing out a little bit now okay now once I get down there I'll re-center it because I don't have much of this Gap here with my uh little tool here I want to keep it going real square and steady

and even still they normally go in all the way but sometimes you have to now I'm feeling for where it's going to stop there it stopped now it's in all the way

and there you go and yep all right all right going back to these just it just occurred to me after I started this has a flat surface so you can so it's I push on the full bearing so I'm not pushing on the center and I'm not pushing on the outside the outside is preferred on this because I am pushed at this the it is going on to the out inside of the pulley outside of the bearing here so it's important to push on the whole thing so you don't don't distort it or anything these are pretty rugged so I don't think there's going to be ever be a problem okay and now what I use I use this cap again I'll leave it in there now finish it up and I'll post post or press the other side on gonna put my flat surface in there because I'm I want to keep the keep tension on the bearing not on the pulley because I don't want to distort the pulley because these are just steel they're mild steel kind of so I'll put that there put it on my flat thing

that in there set it up Square press it in there let's keep an eye on it where it goes in and it'll find its way it'll go and it'll seat itself you could if you want to come closer it'll seat itself against the inner uh race or part of the bearing there and it if I put too much grease and it's already starting to come up it'll start squirting out a little bit but I can also feel when I hit the bottom there I hit the bottle yep

now we've got a bearing it goes on there now just the next step is to clean it up and I'll put and put the caps on the JB Weld so and sometimes there's a little bit of a you can feel a slight little wobble and I checked with the bearing company and they do that on purpose they said because there's sometimes or they expect a little bit of expansion with friction so then that it accounts for the expansion of the metal so then it'll run true and it won't but sometimes this one doesn't have it but sometimes they do have a little bit of a slight wobble so so that's it except for the cat now we're at the point now where we're assembled we're ready to put the cap on but in order to use the JV well JB Weld likes oil clean dry contacts so I've already cleaned it used it with lacquer thinner and base I want to clean this um the Land There because I get probably a little bit of oil or grease from the thing and possibly a little bit of the sand from the bead blasting clean that and also clean your clean your cap The Ridge and the lower Edge a little bit just because you want a good you know good surface good cleaning thing I'll leave that up there and I'll put a little bit of JB 50 50. A little dab there

mix it up I use a popsicle stick you can use whatever

and you'll follow the rules on the directions on the thing because they say not to use it I think under 50 degrees or something so we're about 60 degrees in the in the shop today so basically I get a little bit and I carefully try to just put it in the thing you know a little gets but gets on the berry it won't hurt anything the bearing is not going to get welded in anywhere so I try to get a little bit work it around on that little bit of edge it's easier to apply it with a little bit smaller amounts than larger

okay now I line up my notch [Music] hopefully it all goes It goes back in there really easy and I just use this to tap it in so that looks good clean the residue with your towel and this you know clean spot basically or doesn't really have to be because it's cleaning up the residue voila we have a finished rebuilt bearing and the cap will be looking good and you can see that that is very close to how they were originally and just I just put I'll put this in the office where it's a little warmer overnight it just it just a matter of minutes usually to get the JB to cure but that's that's my process of how I do it and this is my experience after more than 250 different bearings that I've put in the bullies so the best way I could do it and then most of the customers that just painted black the whole thing because the service replacement ones are all black that's why they're black mostly or they've you know been redone at some point in their life but the NOS ones like I described earlier a little different so could finish them up however you want when you install them on your car

How to Open your Stuck Door!

2023-09-05T23:47:26-05:00

How to Open your Stuck Door!

YouTube Transcript:

okay here we are on the West Coast Classic cougar wrecking yard and a request we get all the time people ask us how do you get in old cars have been sitting in Fields Forever and you push and push the door knob and nothing happens you know you don't want to break the window you don't want to annihilate the door panel to get to the mechanism here this often works if the car's been there way too long forget it but uh sometimes it's just your regular daily driver that'll lock up on you and what's happening is that door latch has worn out so there's a tolerant there's a little lever that goes up and down and the tolerances is worn and the the track in which it goes up and down has widened so when you go to hit the button it's not quite hitting the top here what I'm going to do is just liberally soak everything I can related to that latch just spray the heck out of it and then I'm going to go in here I'm going to put a curvature on my straw and try to really just use half the can if you have to get in there and eventually you'll soak that latch just go and go and go and go and then get inside the car the car's completely sealed well maybe you can book her with a wing window if it's a project car you know you're going to restore you can pop the rear window trim and take your utility blade just go all the way around the Rubber and your glass will come out you'll figure it out but our goal here is not to mess with those valuable door panels so I'll go inside and I usually take the lock Knob Off put on my vice grips go up and down a few times and as you're going up and down up and down you'll actually feel it release so let's see if it works [Applause]

[Applause] there you go now before you close the door you might want to change out the door latch because if it did it once it's going to do it again so now you've got your inside now you can easily get inside and service it pop off your door panel whatever you need to be doesn't always work but just cougars Mustangs Torinos lots of Ford products from this era that's a trick I've learned

nope nothing crap I'm a liar [Music] this one's gonna come open that's another one

DIY Tilt Column Repairs - 1967-1978 Ford / Lincoln / Mercury

2023-09-05T22:35:00-05:00

1967-69 locking lever pin: https://secure.cougarpartscatalog.com/store/p/15384-Catch-Locking-Pawl-Tilt-Steering-Column-Repro-1967-1969-Mercury-Cougar-/-1967-1969-Ford-Mustang.html

1970-78 locking lever pin: https://secure.cougarpartscatalog.com/catch-locking-pawl-tilt-steering-column-repro-1970-1973-mercury-cougar-/-1970-1973.html

1967-69 flange bumper: https://secure.cougarpartscatalog.com/store/p/15386-Steering-Column-Flange-Bumper-Tilt-/-Tilt-Away-Upper-Flange-Repro-1967-1969-Mercury-Cougar-/-1967-1969-Ford-Mustang.html

Please note that we no longer offer a tilt rebuild service. For tilt column service, you can contact Tony Augustine at 6t8cougarguy@gmail.com. Tony is a trusted colleague of WCCC and we've sent many customers his way since our column specialist (DW) retired.

YouTube Transcript:

Hey Don Rush here over the last couple years our tilt column rebuilding service has really caught on and we're getting columns coming in and out of here every day I want to talk about a couple of new parts I believe that there was a design flaw in all 67 to say 79 Ford tilt columns and that design flaw is the pins on these teeth so when you adjust your column you are releasing this lever and going to the different adjustments anyway the pans over time work out and once these pins work out this becomes misaligned once this is misaligned you break aluminum castings the easy simple solution is make oversized one with circlips it'll never work out these columns are so valuable these days that well hundreds of dollars sometimes over a thousand dollars you do not want to risk damaging them the aluminum used parts are becoming them very hard to come by and by the way we'll buy your broken used unwanted tilt columns you don't want to wrist break it so even if yours isn't coming apart internally I say let's do the upgrade dawn who does our rebuilds here is going to walk you through the ones that we think you can handle at home the other ones in later years kind of hard you really got to dig deep into the column to service those so we suggest you send those to us we have another video showing how you do send your column to us preparing it wrapping it and everything and our service there unfortunately we cannot take your phone calls and give you advice over the phone on how to rebuild your column but if you go to classic cougar community.com there are several that will help you free of charge and the search words there are tilt tilt away at classic cougar community.com so I'm going to turn this over to dawn I'm DW with West Coast classic cougar and I'm the guy who fixes or brakes your tilt columns today we're going to discuss what donned it was talking about about these pins the replacements on it that will keep coming apart what we're going to do is I will show you how to do a 67 68 or a 69 and you can do this while this is in the car it is relatively easy we've got a 68 column here most of it's pretty well tore down but for our purposes it will work fine you've got three screws on this can that you're going to want to take off and you can take that off and slide that out and then you will see on this that you've got a pin here on this jaw and you have a pin over here on that jaw and what we want to do is is replace them but we don't want to take and have this flopping all over the place so what were you going to do is you're going to take the snap ring or the circlip off the ends of these pins and then we're going to use it as a dowel and we're going to start tapping it don't go wailing on it just tap it make sure you're on top if you have a little trouble with it to locate or get it started use a punch smaller punch but if you just tap on this lightly take your time if you need to get a punch and I think I will get a punch and drive it all the way through that one came out that's fine put our clip in which anybody it has to work on these nose is to be a real pain at times besides done I'm going to tap it back get it back on the other side and then of course like everybody else I lose it can't find it cost and then we finally locate it and start put it in on the other side cus some more there now this pin is not going to come out it's real easy to do you could do it on both sides probably easiest just take a punch start it don't go all the way through I can turn it around put that on there give it a couple light taps don't go crazy this is soft metal and it will break this has the circlip on it so i want to move it around all the way if it wants to today okay take my punch couple sharp blows get popped all the way up pop this flush and now we'll take our other surf clip and put it in their columns done which cannister back on locate the locating hole here and the locating groove down here and you would be good to go put your three screws back in put your steering your turn signal back on and your steering wheel and this column would be you'd never come back out again it's it's there so you don't have to worry about that feeling okay on the sixty seven eight and nine we also have the plastic bumper we have these reproduced the plastic bumper fits right here and this bumper comes up against here and on your tilt away when you when it tilts away this slams against this piece and this piece will break over time the bumper that fits right there yeah but only when you're on video that suckers going little little I'll have to work on their wallet you got it this piece fits right in here it's a little bit difficult to go in but it will go in now when it slams up against the stopper it won't break this now it'll cushion it we have these for sale we have manufactured for for us and they're available now I'll save your column it'll save you about 1,600 bucks okay this is a 70s this is of 72 but we can this applies to a 70 through 78 column you have a unlocking paw and the locky paw catches on on a pin just like the 67 68 and 69 these pins slide they move around inside and when they move to the side too far they will one end will fall out then the locking paw will only catch in one little spot and eventually we'll break it and chip it such as you can see here there's a chip on here some of them are chipped worse and then won't the tilt function won't tilt anymore it'll just go back and forth and flop around we have the pin to solve that but it's real difficult to do it at home the reason being is your lock mechanism when it needs to come out your tumbler it's with a gear system inside and when you pull this out after you screwed everything you've lost the index on the under Gary inside and to put it back together is difficult but if you could get that off and you pulled your locator your pivot pins out still you cannot get to that pin because this pin is inside here so you eventually have to unscrew three allen screws to pull this piece out along with the shaft then you get this here this is the piece you'll have to replace we've got a pin in here that will pop out real quick I'll show you that right here this has been wobbled out because the pin has moved around over time it's not wobbled out on this side this is still good three quarters of this is still good and this is still good if we put one of these pins in here with the circlip one of the snap ring whichever you want to call it you put that in there we've saved this piece you won't have to purchase it you'll be able to keep it this functionality will be good it's still a solid piece just a little worn here you really don't need it in doing that if this locking pas only has a small chip on it such as this one you could still use this this is a very expensive piece you could still use this and it'd still be functional and it'll save you a lot of money just by putting this piece in but for you to do it it's going to be a little bit difficult it's not impossible but every time we rebuild a column here we replace these pins with these snap repair snap rings or Sur clips that they're the best thing going for for an expensive column you did there worth every penny and we put it in every one we rebuilt I hope that helps and saves you a column look a day

Sloppy Steering Syndrome - Problems & Solutions Video

2023-09-05T03:40:00-05:00

YouTube Transcript:

This is our 2014 annual open house and I've always wanted to say we're live in front of a studio audience so pan around here that's awesome we didn't even have an applause sign they just did that so this is Mike banks and you've had this car for a year and a half two years a year and a half yeah yeah what we're doing today is we're doing a video we're not going to fix anybody's power steering or suspension problems or anything but the number one call I think I get behind electrical which I know nothing about so don't call me the number one call behind that electrical is my car has slop you know it wanders it should it do this should it do that and so we're going to put three four five cars starting with Mike's on the lift here and give you a how-to on what to wiggle and what to check for and what the remedy is so far away let's put this up on the hoist so so you mentioned that this had maybe had a little slack coming down here and you felt it wasn't tight what was it feeling like just a little bit of play in the wheel so you're you're constantly you're driving it you're working it and you're not you in my opinion pick a side and kind of hang there until yeah until you need to yeah switch a lot of people say well it's an old car you got to expect the technology wasn't the greatest and that's completely wrong these cars were designed to run at 75 miles an hour all day long and you should be able to do that on bias-ply tires with one hand that's that's my opinion I've driven some cars are extremely tight and that's been an eye experience so let's start wiggling and see what we see here the first thing I always do I want you to look for anywhere where you see it moving where it shouldn't so I'm going to do it first what do you see look at joints here I'm going to do it this way yeah okay I feel something right here hear that clunk clunk clunk clunk is that looking like you know I'm going to have you do it and I'm going to look so first go back and forth and I'm going to feel right here in this joint okay I'm feeling clunk right here just a little bit okay stop now your idle arm that's a number one place always like the idler arm seems rock solid that's aftermarket it's been replaced its greased okay do it again yeah yeah I'm feeling a little bit I'm feeling in the bearings which can just mean repack and then tighten them down but most likely means new bearings you know how many miles you think this car has about 50 thousands what I was told were they easy little old lady miles or where they dragged Peck force beat eliminator miles right on let's go over and do it on this one go ahead and wiggle this to her for me yeah I'm feeling a little bit a little bit of clunk clunk in this this outer tie rod in now here's something else I want to pay attention to let's watch this joint Andrew why he shakes it what's going on there see that now here's the problem of these control valves you'll take it to Firestone Goodyear wherever the local shop and they'll put it on the rack and they'll say oh look sir look at all this slack here when I will wobble it back and forth well that's a misnomer these power steering systems were meant to be charged pressure right there so you can't do that little test until it's running so we'll have to put it on the ground and start the car to actually test that one but a lot of people spend a lot of money on a part they don't need now grant a lot of them do need that part but let's not waste money where now this is going to be hard to test cuz you got hitters in a big block so for me to reach in there I'm going to I'm going to look at the power steering box next how hot burn let's see if I can

oh and the horse beam stuff doesn't help and a locking column yeah we're screwed but what I'm going to do here in a second I'll explain it to you is I always like to get both hands on the steering box one on the pitman arm and run on the rag joint and I rakh that that that that that rag joint back-and-forth ever-so-slightly just a little bit and for every tiny movement you give there you should feel a little bit here a lot of people think a little bit no movement no big deal you'd be surprised the smallest amount at that spot translates to this on the road a lot of people don't know you you can adjust these and we'll talk about that later overall I'm seeing this is pretty tight

okay this is Connor and this your 68 how long have you had it had it for about two years now this month and you drove it from Seattle yep how was it down i-5 in the rats um a little sloppy a bit okay well let's start wiggling stuff get on the other side of this tire and we'll see what happens it's good there wiggle it really hard grab it side to side okay I can see what's going on here look at this Andrew look at this right there that's given much unit you can stop wiggling there that's giving you a ton of slop right there these are only good for about 40-50 thousand miles by the US made not the import and you get a little more life out of it you shouldn't have to have an alignment after you change that but if you feel any pulling and isn't tracking down get alignment because you'll chew up your tires let's look at the rest of this these bushings look cracked why don't you grab right here right here yeah and give it some forceful pulls back and forth yeah okay

I'm seeing some cracked worn bushings here if you do replace these you got to get an alignment go ahead we let tire again I want to fill this joint those two those two joints feel good which I'm going to assume even though this one's split open I'm going to assume these are going to be good to go ahead and do it again okay I'm feeling a feeling a little slop in here and then you didn't have it on film Andrew but I saw a little little excessive slop here I'm seeing some we pige here - I think this control valve needs to be rebuilt because when we had it on the ground and he had the car running I saw this going back and forth a little too much so there's something that needs to be rebuilt and lastly yeah you got a ton of slop here yeah look at that here you can get the camera in here I'm moving I'm moving this that much and the the pitman arm is going nowhere so you got you got three areas if not for that need attention so you're going to need to adjust or rebuild rebuild replace on the idler arm replace on there and you know these these are original lower control arms and you know as your as your in there and you know you might inspect them see if maybe they don't need to be rebuild to actually look okay yes the inside and see the bushings here but we start peeling things apart and getting in there you might consider you know looking at the whole front end

okay now okay does that mean okay go or okay that we're pretty soon we're gonna get going Oh actually that's the word we gotta suck in our guts oh here it is no screw that this is Scott hey what's wrong your car oh it's an old piece of junk I have a I have a special attachment for this car because back when I was a kid I used to drive by Tom Peterson's furniture warehouse on 82nd in Portland in this white XR at the time white X r7g color white it was just an old dirty beater sitting out there in the parking lot and a guy named Chris broast used to drive it to work every day so him and I were into Cougars at the same time as kids so and my whole driving career I've been associated with this car and by the way the second owner got in touch with me there and sent a bunch of did he find the original owners manual oh yes yes indeed cool it's not in the car because I don't anyway back the power steering so what's it doing on the road it's a little slack yeah it's a little you know in some of the interstates you know have them lovely groups that are Bodie so you're fighting it you're fighting it down there and you know you know especially because right now I'm running with the Raider wheels and the bias-ply tires it's a little bit more of so you're a glutton for punishment did you not get the recall letter actually I have a copy of it Ford you sent it to me you ought to go to the dealership I should yeah okay well I have another set of wheels all right let's put it in the air see all right

whoo

audience is amazed

this is a small-block car without headers so Andrew this is going to be a good one for to show how I'm going to test the steering box oh you got a rip boot here that's that's a huge $10 part so I'm going to grab up here when Scott gets out of my way I'm going to grab up here with my left hand on the rag joint burn my elbow on this pipe ooh I feel I feel something in the column you got to tilt column in this yeah okay I'm just rocking the rag joint back and I can feel a click click click click you got some you got some looseness prior to even getting down to this area you got something going on that tilt column yeah I can just but just by wiggling I can hear a click click click click hear that yeah now let's that's hot yeah you got something going on there ok now I'm going to grab here oh look at this buddy like this I'm wobbling this rag joint back and forth and nothing is happening on this pitman arm you got nothing so you're going down the road you're doing this yeah a little bit and you're having to overcorrect yeah your steering box might not be ruined or any need rebuild but at minimum it needs a substantial adjustment yeah so you got you got two problems right here before you get to anything over here to adjust a steering box and granted only slightly worn boxes can be adjusted most of just need to be rebuilt but when Scott gets home he's going to try to adjust his box and here's how he's going to do it he's going to reach in there probably not a wrench that big but he's going to get in there and he's going to break this nut I broke the nut because they can become kind of stiff and he's going to look how this is indexed and he's going to turn it one quarter turn tighter and then he's going to leave his screwdriver there and then lock it in place and really refit down and he's going to drive it around the block or he's going to you know see how it feels and if that and it probably won't because there's quite a bit of slop in yours but if that doesn't do it he's going to do the procedure one more time wrong into the wrench I think it's one you know so he's going to go 1/4 of a turn further on the box and then he can feel on the rag joint and by the way when he's doing this in the driveway the tires are straight ahead so now he's going to feel in this one I knew had slop in it and maybe he's going to say that's good enough and this one this used box that actually did it I don't feel any slop here I'm moving back and forth I got this firmly planted here look at that so on this particular old box that somebody turned into a coin for a core on a rebuilt they actually could have got by for a number of years without buying a rebuilt from us if they had known that some people just want to do everything at once and then they know they're good for another 40 years and hundred and some thousand miles but anyway don't go more than a half turn quarter and then half because what we got inside there is worn gears this is what your slop looks like is you're going down the road and by adjusting it you're taking these worn gears and you're pushing them closer together you're not really fixing anything it's just a remedy but taking worn gears and mashing them into each other it's going to feel terrible going down the road and you're going to ruin your core and if that doesn't work you just call us up and we have a rebuild on an exchange basis so when I grab that rag joint and I was going like this I could feel something going click click in here so this is this is taken out of a 68 tilt look what's going on there and that you joint remember remember I could hear that click click sound I'm not saying yours is bad but that right there you're swerving all over the road if you got that much play and this isn't for the average guy to to service so there's one area the other area starting in 68 you had what was called a collapsible column you got in a wreck and this was designed to collapse as opposed to skewer you like the 67 jump in here dawn what are you showing us well let me ke I think you probably done it already this this one the you can see no claws

there'll be two - looks like pins and they're just plastic and I what they did is I cut this one here you have a plastic piece there two of them and there's pins there and you can see it come out the other side on here and that would collapse when most people put these in or try to put a man they put them in wrong and they will hammer on it a little bit no break these mm-hmm try and put it back in and try and tighten them up a little bit because you get the slop here yeah here right yeah and now transfer to your wheel and now I'll actually put maybe one two inches on your wheel or you'll feel the vibration yeah here's something else sometimes people get into these columns and they mix and match them they got a 68 column and a 69 column both on the issues they say oh they're close enough they put them together well here's what they don't realize these are indexed to go a certain way and they'll get them 180 off which means this little D shaped thing is indexed wrong which means the tiny little knotch all of a sudden will see that that's indexed wrong in your average mechanic it a shop is we're used to modern cars modern cars are never going to have this problem so they can replace everything in your front suspension and still go I don't know and here we go you know it's the simplest of things so something to look at so I think you got two maybe three problems going on there that is causing yours to wander

you drove all the way from where in Canada Victoria BC oh my goodness and you got your wife to driving this car with no AC yes she didn't drive though I did they deserve an award my friend she's a good navigator okay so what's it doing steering all over the place all over those we hold a straight line and corners are an adventure powder how many miles on this car this is I rebuild a 1500 since total maybe do you know this is new since I first built yeah I was well over a hundred thousand I told the speedometer oh yeah and going on 50 years but everything's been replaced are most things right well we'll find out what wasn't okay looks like everything's new here what it didn't you replace that I don't remember the steering box probably uh-huh everything else has been redeemed upper lower control arms tie rods everything okay well let's let's go ahead and wiggle this here and see if I can feel any now that feels pretty good there let's do the other side over here yeah that one's real real tight do it again so I can look at the idler arm and this

this one of all the this is the tightest one so far this is tight in every area let's look at the steering box Oh headers yeah fun ha ha ha we're going to take a break we're going to come back to this one water break ok I'm moving the

rag joint ever so much grab on to the pitman arm and I got a ton of slop in here look at that I'm I'm getting no movement on the pitman arm and look how much I'm moving the rag joint yeah so let's adjust this one and see what it does

oh I've got trying to get movement moving at all it seems to be speed right on to the so much paint hunter I don't think I can move it okay what we found on his car is every bit of the suspension was rock tight not a little bit of barring play everything was brand new just like it was supposed to but the steering box was way loose I suggested adjusting it but in the end when you got a lot of slop in your box all it's going to do is make it a little better and he had so much thread paint on his threads that he couldn't adjust it so anyway this is you know a lot of times you don't need to get your car in the air you can look at this look all that slop so so if you were to put the camera underneath the car you'd see that that was the area that was giving you all the slop like that he's going down the road doing this and the cars doing nothing yeah so you got I don't know how much that's that's four inches or so of play what do you see any what's that idler I'm doing going up and down yeah so there's your biggie right there slab if I go 12 o'clock in 6 o'clock I might

feel some ball joint looseness there what do you what do you see there Marcus you poke under there and see what you see on that upper ball joint yeah so upper ball joints

this is mark Mullen and he came all the way from Hong Kong yes via BC but yeah he spends most of the time in Hong Kong so that was interesting so what's your car doing like a lot of the folks it's wandering very slightly on the steering column but everything else seems to be tight but if I can get rid of that I'd be happy okay I think on this one I want to show the control valve tested for slack while it's still on the ground so he's going to start it up we're gonna poke the camera I'm there and show show what it looks like so go ahead and he's going to point a light under it and we'll tell you when to start it up and just gently

rock the steering wheel back and forth

okay why don't you give me some side-to-side movement here I don't really feel any movement here go ahead and do it again tight there tight there

this really looks tight everywhere to be honest with you Wow this steering box has I'm going to say it's got minimal play this one I'll bet if you turn that steering box in a quarter turn you're done on that one I'm seeing fresh components here everywhere oh the steering column you got a tilt or fix taste I'm going to grab onto that rags right now I'm going I'm going to see if I can feel anything in the steering column I kind of do feel a little bit in there I wonder I wonder if we lowered it down and if I grabbed on to it as tight as I could sometimes if you can put vise grips on the end of the thing and hold it stationary then rock your steering wheel back and forth I wonder if maybe inside your column in that two piece column we don't have some slack okay let's go back down

Wow for the other a little likes so that's about 20 this is the amount of play that I'm getting.

1967 - 1968 Cut-a-way View of Door

2022-08-18T10:07:52-05:00

We receive frequent inquiries about where components are located within the doors of the 1967 and 1968 Mercury Cougar or Ford Mustang, so we put together a cutaway view of how all to components look installed and where they are installed.

Any of the part numbers you see listed on the cutaway can be entered into the search bar of our site to access the product details page of each part, open full sized exploded view (click here).

Happy knuckle busting!

67 - 68 Cougar Featured in Hemmings Motor News

2021-12-09T01:54:00-06:00

The 1967 - 1968 Mercury Cougar was featured in the July 2021 Hemmings Motor News in an article titled "All signs point to the 1967-’68 Mercury Cougar's continued popularity".

The article briefly discusses what they believe led to Ford dropping the Mercury line, but why the 67-68 Cougar is still a good investment today. The article ends by stating "Ford might’ve killed Mercury, but one of its most iconic models is still thriving thanks to a clean-sheet approach—by forward-thinking designers—that has aged well."

Click here to read the entire article:
All signs point to the 1967-’68 Mercury Cougar's continued popularity

Universal Joints Charts for the 1967 - 1973 Mercury Cougar / Ford Mustang

2021-04-29T23:11:00-05:00

Click here to view a list of Available U-Joints.

1967 - 1973 Mercury Cougar Light Bulb Charts

2020-09-02T00:27:00-05:00

Ever have a hard time figuring out what bulb number you are looking for to replace that burnt out bulb in your classic 1967 - 1973 Mercury Cougar? Well we have taken the guesswork out of it; we have poured over the manuals and compiled a chart of what Ford/Mercury states as the bulb you need for each application.

1967 Mercury Cougar Bulb Chart

1968 Mercury Cougar Bulb Chart

1969 Mercury Cougar Bulb Chart

1970 Mercury Cougar Bulb Chart

1971 Mercury Cougar Bulb Chart

1972 Mercury Cougar Bulb Chart

1973 Mercury Cougar Bulb Chart

Deciphering Ford Part Numbers

2020-06-26T16:25:00-05:00

Ever wonder what those Ford Part Numbers actually mean? Let's take a look at an example.

Example Ford Part Number: C8ZE-9425-AK

Here is a quick breakdown of what that part number means:

C8 = made originally for the 1968
Z = Originally designed for the Mustang
E = It was designed by the Engine Engineering department of Ford

9425 = Part class number, most if not all Air Intake Manifolds will use this part class

AK = This indicates the version or revision of the part, for example they would use different letters to differentiate between a part made specifically to fit the 302 and a part made specifically for the 351 Cleveland, or if they made a revision to the part they will indicate that by giving it a new letter.

Here is a webpage that give more info about deciphering part numbers: https://m.roadkillcustoms.com/decode-ford-part-numbers/

PDF about deciphering part numbers:

https://www.lincolnoldparts.com/pdf/Ford_Part_Number_Breakdown.pdf

The Master Parts Catalog is what dealership service departments used to lookup what part number they needed to order for a car or what an exact part number represents and fits.

LincolnOldParts.com offers the pdf of the Mercury Lincoln Master Parts Catalog from 65-72 as a free download (right click link below and choose 'save link as' to download pdf): https://www.lincolnoldparts.com/pdf/parts-books/1965-1972-Lincoln-Mercury-Accessories.pdf

Diagnosing Erratic Temperature Swings on the 1967 - 1973 Cougar or Mustang

2020-05-28T23:14:00-05:00

Erratic temperature swings?

Most likely you have air trapped in your cooling system. Air rises to the top of the cooling system and gets trapped, causing the cooling system to vapor lock. When the radiator is made the higher point in the system, the air will escape into the radiator and it will be vented out through the radiator cap and the overflow system.

There are a couple of ways to resolve this and free the air.

1. Free trapped air via the vent plug.

2. Fill the system as normal with your antifreeze mixture. Use a 50-50 mixture of antifreeze and distilled water. Auto parts stores will sell in-expensive to determine the concentration of antifreeze in your system.

3. Find the small threaded plug with a hex fitting on the thermostat housing where the upper radiator hose attaches to the engine. Loosen the fitting to the point where air starts to escape and inspect the thread sealant and re-apply as needed. Be sure to run your heater to allow water into the heater core.

4. Add antifreeze to replace the air being expelled through the plug.

5. As fluid starts to seep out of the plug tighten it up, top off the overflow tank, and you're done. If you continue to get erratic temperature readings, or fail to get heat from the heating vents, re-open the screw and let any residual air to escape.

6. To vent a system in this method raise the car such that the radiator is higher than the thermostat housing. You can do this with a jack and jack-stands. NEVER WORK ON YOUR CAR WHERE THE JACK IS THE ONLY THING HOLDING IT UP, THROW SOME STANDS UNDER THAT UNIT! You can also use a sturdy set of ramps or a nice steep hill where you can park with the nose of the car pointing up the hill.

7. You'll need to let the car warm up so that the thermostat opens for the system to vent in this method. AVOID BURNS AND PROTECT YOUR EYES, NEVER OPEN THE SYSTEM WHEN HOT! Let the car warm up from cold with the radiator cap removed. You may get some spillage while the coolant expands and the air bubbles out. This coolant will be hot.

8. Allow the engine to run, with the heater on (fan can be off or on low) until the thermostat opens and all the air is allowed to purge. Once the thermostat opens you will see the coolant level inside the radiator bubble and drop. Continue to add antifreeze to maintain fluid level. Again be careful as the coolant and any steam released by the system will be hot. Once the upper radiator hose becomes hot to the touch and no further air issues from the system carefully replace the radiator cap and ensure the overflow bottle is filled to the Max line.

9. Continue to allow the car to run to allow the temperature to stabilize. If you don't have a temperature gauge allow the car to run until the fan cycles on and off at least once. During this time ensure there are no leaks from the system and that the upper radiator hose gets hot to the touch (especially close to the radiator). If not then allow the system to cool, and repeat the steps above to purge any remaining air.

*NOTE* If you are not comfortable leaving the radiator cap off during warm-up then you can accomplish the same thing by leaving the radiator cap on and allowing the car to cool down after step four and then repeat steps one through four again, making sure the overflow bottle is maintained full. The heating and cooling cycle will push the air out through the overflow bottle and then suck coolant in to replace the air when the engine cools. The car must remain inclined for the whole procedure.

When should I check my cooling system?

The best time to inspect your heater and radiator hoses is cooler weather. Less obvious signs of decay can be seen and felt by grabbing hold of a cold radiator or heater hose and giving it a good squeeze. Brittle or cracking material, a spongy feel, or a hose sticking to the inside of itself are bad signs.

Why is my car overheating?

There is no one answer for this question but here is a list of places to start to isolate the problem.

1. Before you do anything else, tune up the car. Many overheating cars are out of tune, running lean or with retarded timing. A lean fuel mixture will overheat your car. If your engine runs lean you can chase your tail looking for problems in the cooling system and never figure it out. The easy way to do this is richen your jetting a couple of steps. If the overheating is better, you're on the right track.

2. There is a lot of misinformation about ignition timing and cooling. Retarded timing contributes to overheating. Advanced timing helps cooling. Advance your initial timing a few degrees and see if it helps the car run cooler. However, if you advance to much you risk detonation and that too will cause you to overheat. If you start to detonate back off the timing. Overheating cars should always run vacuum advance. Vacuum advance helps cooling.

3. Radiators: Your radiator is the primary means to bring the engine temperature back to the optimal temperature. They can be dirty, clogged, poorly designed, too small for the engine, fin density too great for the low rpm airflow...you get the picture.

4. Airflow. Inadequate airflow can cause overheating. You have to get the air through your radiator and out of the engine compartment. Obstructions to that airflow can cause a cushion of hot air to build around your block and engine compartment. A properly fit fan shroud sealed to the radiator helps to channel the air through your radiator.

5. Inadequate coolant flow. If your overheating at idle, stop and go traffic, on grades or towing you might benefit from higher flow rates through the radiator. Hi Flow water pumps and hi flow thermostats allow more water to pass through the radiator where it has a chance to cool.

6. Modified gear ratios: Generally speaking lower ratios give slower acceleration, higher top speed and less braking power. Higher ratios give more acceleration, less top speed and more braking power. Changing gear ratios may generate more heat in the engine and potentially cause overheating.

7. Coolant composition. A 50/50 mixture does not help cooling it raises the boiling point. Run 100% distilled water with water pump lubricant or distilled water with about 15-20 % antifreeze. Both cool better than 50/50 and still lubricate the water pump to prevent corrosion in system. When the weather cools return to 50/50.

8. Cooling the transmission is added work for a poorly constructed radiator. Do not obstruct airflow or heat the air by placing the cooler in front of the radiator where it will overheat the cooling air. Transmission and engine oil coolers constructed within the radiator can also tax your cooling system. Using external coolers may help.

9. The elusive manifold vacuum leak. Trouble at idle may point to a manifold vacuum leak. If you find you're too fast an idle speed, rough idle or stalling, misfiring on acceleration or adjustments to your carburetor seem to have limited effect than you may have a vacuum leak causing overheating.

10. Use a better grade of gas. If you are not running premium fuel and experience overheating a higher grade may help. If there is no improvement, try advancing your timing a few degrees. A little extra octane will allow you a little extra timing without getting into detonation. Earlier engines were designed for better gas than is sold today.

11. Head gasket leaks from the cylinder to the water jacket are a definite cause of overheating. That's bad news and a whole lot of work.

12. A stuck thermostat. Many thermostats are designed to fail in the open position but thermostats have also been known to stick partially open and impede coolant flow.

13. A slipping water pump belts can slow flow rates from the water pump and impede coolant flow resulting in overheating.

14. A fan blade with insufficient blade count or incorrect pitch may not draw enough air resulting in overheating.

15. Headers without thermal coating can cause overheating.

16. A stretched timing chain or belt can cause overheating.

1967 - 1973 Mercury Cougar Buck Tags Decoder

2020-05-20T00:18:00-05:00

Buck Tags can give you a lot of useful information about your car. This was the info used by those on the assembly line to know where to drill holes in the body. The buck tag is located on the radiator support on the 1967 - 1973 Mercury Cougars.

The picture of the buck tag shown above is a photo of the buck tag we discuss in our video "Is it numbers matching? 1967 small-block Cougar decoded":

The Buck Tag decoder chart below is provided courtesy of Phil Parcells. Used by permission.

Please let us know about any corrections and/or additions and we can forward the information to Phil.

If you are interested in more information about the different tags on your Cougar or Mustang, we would highly recommend Cougar by the Numbers, Mustang by the Numbers and The Mustang and Cougar Tagbook, all of which are written by Kevin Marti, owner of Marti Auto Works, which holds the license to the Ford production database for the 1967 - 1973 production years.

1967 - 1968 Drip Rail Removal

2020-05-04T18:43:00-05:00

Scratching your head about the best way to remove the drip rail moulding from a 1967 or 1968 Mercury Cougar or Ford Mustang?

Grab a block of wood, something like a 2x4, start at the back of the drip rail moulding where the quarter window is located. From the inside of the car, position the wood block next to the edge of the trim and tap the block with a hammer to loosen the trim. Move the block of wood sideways towards the opposite end of the trim until you have loosened it enough to remove it by hand!

You can see this process at 3:55 in our Rusty Roof Video

1967 - 1968 Dash Pad Removal and Restoration

2018-02-13T16:56:00-06:00

67-68 Dash Removal

Ready to tackle restoring the dash on your 1967 / 19678 Mercury Cougar or Ford Mustang?

Here are links to our Toggle Switch Nut Remover Tool and our Dash Parts section.

YouTube Transcript:

00:05 today we're going to tackle our own
00:07 Javier Cueva's 1968 xr7 cougar dash pad
00:11 replacement a lot of people have emailed
00:14 in and said can you show us a video on
00:16 this or that or the other one by one
00:18 we're going to get to them this is a
00:20 driver it needs everything so we got
00:23 ninety seven thousand miles but it's
00:25 been parked out in a driveway for about
00:27 a decade and the moisture with all the
00:30 pitting going on and the UV rays have
00:32 not been kind to it
00:33 Javier can't afford to do everything
00:35 right off the bat but he wants to focus
00:38 on this area when he gets in the car
00:40 this is what he looks at and this is
00:41 sorry-looking everything about this dash
00:44 is tired the bezel the Chrome's bad the
00:49 gauges the backgrounds bad we got broken
00:52 off knobs bad dash pad bad paint here
00:55 this is bad everything here so he
01:00 doesn't have a lot of money so we're
01:02 going to try to on a budget make this
01:04 look as nice as possible and the first
01:08 thing we're going to start off with is
01:09 disassembly I like to start off with
01:11 these toggle tips on the xr7
01:13 you can take them off after the fact we
01:15 got this handy little tool here don't
01:18 use a screw driver you'll screw up the
01:21 chrome bezel and if you have good wood
01:24 grain you you risk the chance of
01:26 slipping and putting a big gouge on it
01:29 it's much more stable to do it on the
01:32 car when you have this fragile flexible
01:34 old plastic piece in your hand or on the
01:38 bench you don't want a muscle on them
01:41 you risk the chance of cracking them as
01:43 some of these are unusually tight now we
01:46 got a row a Phillips screw sole on the
01:48 bottom here I would refrain from using a
01:54 power tool here because as I feel this
01:59 coming out I see that the head of the
02:01 screw is catching on this plastic if I
02:04 had a power drill here I would have
02:06 snapped this already
02:09 and by the way this last screw over here
02:13 and I can tell this is an original screw
02:15 this last screw over here is supposed to
02:18 be chocolate brown painted to match or
02:22 at least not stand out too drastically
02:25 from the wood grain fascia that it sits
02:27 with I can see the remnants of the
02:29 chocolate paint on there I can see the
02:31 small head that is what's supposed to be
02:34 on the car and rarely is at this point
02:43 if you got a nice car you're going to
02:45 want to put a towel right over here
02:48 because you don't want to scratch this
02:49 column we're going to repaint this
02:51 column now if you have a nice dash pad
03:02 that's a definite no-no but what you saw
03:04 me do was rip this out of its foam
03:07 setting here because this is so warped
03:11 it was interfering with the cluster this
03:13 pads getting thrown away never would you
03:15 want to pull on this dash pad on it on a
03:17 good dash pad okay it's giving me some
03:22 resistance right here that's the
03:24 speedometer cable you should be able to
03:26 gently thread that speedometer cable
03:29 through the firewall enough to get your
03:32 hand back there barely enough room to
03:35 get your hand back there I should say I
03:38 stress be careful here all this is very
03:41 fragile and if you just bump it on the
03:44 wrong place you can break it so we're
03:46 going to go slow here and usually
03:50 they're just finger tight there we go
03:55 now we can take it a little further the
03:59 next thing we'll need to do start
04:02 unplugging this main plug usually comes
04:05 apart real easy if you know where to
04:08 squeeze right here and on the opposite
04:11 side and a little bit of a wiggle here's
04:18 a plug next to it gentle now we can get
04:23 it a little further here comes the wiper
04:27 switch let's wiggle as we pull that's
04:31 the wiper switch
04:36 lastly the tachometer
04:48 some of you will find that your
04:50 tachometer doesn't work and when you get
04:52 behind this - you're going to find these
04:54 two wires hooked into each other
04:58 that's the only way the Carl run if the
05:00 tachometer is missing or broken so a
05:03 correctly working tachometer of course
05:06 will be hooked red red black to black
05:09 now as I took this dash out I wiggled
05:13 and I notice there's no nut on here
05:15 almost always that nut is broken in fact
05:18 most times they'll get in and you'll
05:19 find that this whole stud has been
05:21 broken off reason being that's a pretty
05:23 hard stud to get to now if you are so
05:27 fortunate to have a car that has been
05:29 put back together properly or never
05:31 having been taken apart in the first
05:32 place the way you're going to get to
05:34 this nut on the back side by the way it
05:37 goes right in there the easiest way is
05:40 if you don't have a console you would
05:43 take out your radio assembly and reach
05:46 in there and get it I suppose you could
05:48 take out your ashtray assembly including
05:52 you know the housing here and reach in
05:54 there - but one of these two areas is
05:57 going to have to come apart if you have
05:59 a car that still has that stud I highly
06:02 suggest if it's if it's still there take
06:05 the extra time don't just pull on your dash
06:08 I'm going to take off the whole glovebox
06:10 assembly it's easier than taking out
06:13 just the liner
06:19 oops we got a nut that broke this car's
06:22 rusty in some areas from all the
06:25 moisture it's had in the interior too
06:29 we're in trouble this is held on with
06:33 the screws up here and five-speed nuts
06:38 also known as self-tapping nuts I think
06:41 on the back and they're shallow and a
06:44 5/8 socket we'll take them off I like
06:46 using a spark plug socket because I can
06:50 grip this with my hands or I can put a
06:51 wrench on that but I don't like putting
06:54 a ratchet back there reason being as
06:56 those studs are so fragile that if you
06:59 can't get it off with finger pressure
07:01 the next step is it's going to break
07:04 with the ratchet anyway so I'm going to
07:06 feel for these five studs back there and
07:09 I'm going to take them off with my
07:10 fingers and if it gets stuck and it's
07:12 more than my finger pressure can do I'm
07:15 going to back it off and try it again
07:16 and work it back and forth and
07:18 inevitably I'll go back there and I'll
07:21 either find it already has broken studs
07:23 or I'll break a stud in the process it's
07:26 actually no big deal because it's an
07:27 easy fix and the fix is actually makes
07:30 it better than factory okay your first
07:35 stud is about right here and look at
07:41 that I broke a stud and that one was
07:44 already cracked see that discoloration
07:48 don't sweat it it's going to happen
07:54 okay we got it we get out one of these
07:56 nuts off without breaking a stud so we
07:58 know we got one good stud back there by
08:01 the way we have these on our website
08:26 these plugs probably have not been
08:28 undone since they were new so don't be
08:32 ashamed to use a little help
08:39 now comes the dash pad now we have
08:54 another set of screws from the dash pad
08:58 itself to the cowl your next row of
09:13 fasteners is 3/8 nuts that studs are
09:17 embedded into these dash pad so these
09:22 are pretty easy to get to after the
09:24 clusters out just little guys with a
09:28 captured washer on them
09:38 okay your next challenge is getting to
09:41 these studs right here this is a non AC
09:44 car so it's not going to be too hard to
09:46 pull this out if you got a
09:47 air-conditioning car you just got that
09:49 much more to deal with there it's not
09:52 too bad though
09:55 so just let that hang there although
09:57 we're probably going to replace it with
09:58 a good used one look how pitted that is
10:07 that was embedded in the corner of the
10:10 dash pad and there's the flange to nut
10:13 that was holding it on the other side
10:15 now let's get the other side stud
10:24 don't put away that 5/8 inch socket yet
10:26 you got one more speed nut holding a
10:29 stud right here you probably actually
10:37 don't need to take this panel off to get
10:40 to the stud you can reach over there
10:42 we're going to do some dash painting
10:43 today so we want to get that out of the
10:46 way now to wrestle this stud out the sad
10:56 part is
10:56 had it been embedded in a good dash pad
10:59 and been that rusty there'd be no way to
11:02 not rip this out of its anchor here okay
11:09 now we're ready to take out the dash pad
11:11 we have to give it some forward pressure
11:14 towards the windshield because these
11:16 studs if you notice right up against the
11:19 metal there we go okay now we are going
11:31 to strip these down all the way when we
11:34 send these into West Coast classic
11:36 cougar for restoration there doesn't
11:38 need to be anything on them now this
11:40 little middle piece here it's kind of
11:43 more off than on leave it on what we're
11:47 going to do is when you get it back
11:49 suppose you could epoxy it in place but
11:53 I like to use these little trim screws
11:54 we sell on our website and then take it
11:57 over the grinder grind a little bit off
11:58 and put one screw there there there
12:04 there and there you can't put any screws
12:07 here because it'll interfere with the
12:09 installation of this metal so now that
12:13 was kind of a weak system from the
12:15 factory those peen Dover melted over
12:18 plastic studs they're always broken
12:20 everything else is coming off let's get
12:24 our handy dandy tool again to take off
12:26 these rocker switches or toggle switches
12:30 I should say keep in mind which way they
12:34 go
12:38 each plug is different Ford was always
12:40 good that way you couldn't hook them up
12:43 to the wrong piece so from the driver's
12:46 side black to red three black three blue
12:50 two three eights on that socket okay now
13:01 we're going to take this woodgrain
13:02 fascia off be careful not to pry too
13:11 much here you'll break that plastic
13:13 especially over here because if you pry
13:15 on this too much you'll take a chunk out
13:19 so we really want to be gentle in that
13:23 region we're not going to go for that
13:46 one we're going to use a screwdriver on
13:47 that one
13:56 this is a 68 in 67 this wiper knob
14:01 switch is a little more low-profile 68
14:05 you're going to have to get your allen
14:06 wrench out
14:10 don't forget your set screw priming your
14:14 it's your trip ometer and this is your
14:17 reset that has to come out now you can
14:21 take it off in every one of these I see
14:35 well just about every one of these I see
14:37 somebody's been in there and done
14:39 something wrong looks like they over
14:41 tighten some screws here when we go to
14:45 replate this will will go ahead and
14:49 enforce it with epoxy this little piece
14:53 when you send it in just tape it to the
14:56 bezel and we'll try to do something with
14:58 that other places you'll see little
15:02 cracks where they've over tighten screws
15:04 or just from age probably just from age
15:06 the most part we're going to nor cracks
15:09 like that the assembly still going to go
15:11 together okay with a crack like that I
15:29 think it's best to use a screwdriver in
15:31 tight spots
15:36 okay the only thing that holds this
15:39 woodgrain fascia on are these bezels
15:42 nothing else it's important we take
15:46 these out properly because from my
15:50 experience you're able to bend those
15:52 tabs once and then twice when you
15:57 reinstall them but any more than that if
15:59 you bend those tabs back and forth three
16:01 and four times they're pretty much going
16:03 to break off so we're going to bend
16:05 these tabs as gently as we can up and we
16:09 aren't going to go any further than we
16:11 have to because if we go any further
16:12 than we have to we're going to pucker
16:14 this area and leave a wrinkle in our
16:19 bezel there we want to want to make it
16:22 look like there's no trace like nobody
16:24 was ever here also I found that you
16:27 don't have to bend up all three tabs you
16:30 can just bend up these two tabs and
16:32 leave that one alone and just hook it in
16:34 there let's see how good we can get how
16:37 these come out notice the rest on that
16:43 that might even break when I go to
16:44 reinstall it it's weak if yours does
16:48 break we do have used replacements
16:59 there we go it's ready to be bead
17:01 blasted we're going to repaint those
17:03 black
17:19 okay that's what we want to see it
17:21 looking like when you send it in for
17:22 restoration we got one more step though
17:26 oh no we're not done yet
17:29 these have to come off for two reasons
17:35 one you're going to send them in for
17:36 rechromed and two it's going to be
17:39 easier to polish this lens with them off
17:42 let's get a little blade here now if you
17:49 happen to slip and scratch this I don't
17:51 think it's a big deal nobody's going to
17:52 see the backside of this
18:03 that gets carefully put in a ziplock bag
18:06 and sent to us for restoration here's
18:22 one piece everybody forgets to remove
18:23 see that piece there so if we can light
18:26 this up and show you what it is it says
18:29 high beam in red in 68 you need to pull
18:33 that lens out of there because we don't
18:35 want it to be chrome-plated and you're
18:39 going to reach in on this side and this
18:40 cavity and push on that stud ever so
18:45 gently and as we push on the stud look
18:47 what's happening there you go it's got a
18:52 little leg there so push on the stud the
18:55 tape comes undone put it off to the side
18:57 you will reinstall it later I know our
19:03 how-to videos are a little bit dry
19:05 they're good to put you to sleep
19:06 if you ignore everything in this video
19:09 start paying attention now this is the
19:11 critical part when you send these idiot
19:22 anyway yeah wrap these right
19:26 I mean don't don't skimp I know bubble
19:28 wrap is expensive and they hose you for
19:30 it down at the office supply place
19:32 wherever you get it but this thing needs
19:34 to be cocooned like multiple layers like
19:40 keep going spray foam I don't care what
19:45 you do and don't wrap them together wrap
19:47 them individually I know you know how to
19:50 wrap stuff but it's just so
19:52 heartbreaking for me to call you back
19:54 when your stuff gets here from another
19:57 country and say yeah we got Chrome's
19:59 here newspaper doesn't cut it
20:05 you know I would go another three or
20:08 four labor layers after this bundle it
20:11 with this then go a couple more layers
20:14 put it in a big sturdy box and insure it
20:18 for two hundred and fifty dollars okay
20:22 now we're going to start putting it back
20:24 together
20:24 got a couple products here that are
20:26 going to make a world of difference easy
20:28 to install check that out that is a
20:33 little ugly so we're going to go to the
20:36 website and get a set of these overlays
20:40 and these are 3m and they are designed
20:45 to be left in the Sun without fear of
20:49 them curling or delaminating or fading
20:54 and of course they're not a perfect fit
20:57 but you don't see that that you only see
21:00 a little bit through the gauge lens
21:11 we'll put all four of these on and that
21:13 is going to make the world a difference
21:15 be good to splash a little white paint
21:18 on these needles to make them show again
21:20 now is the time we're going to change
21:22 these translucent filters as you can see
21:29 they all got burn spots and they're
21:30 cloudy look at the difference between
21:32 this translucent filter and this one
21:35 you're going to have much brighter gauge
21:38 lights with this
21:49 to expedite this video I chose to grab
21:52 the already completed pieces that we've
21:56 been using these as demos in the
21:58 showroom for well a year and a half so
22:02 you know got a little bit of shelf wear
22:04 on them I bet over a hundred and fifty
22:06 people have handled these in the last
22:07 year and a half but it's a good
22:10 testament how well this product holds up
22:12 so we're going to skip right over how to
22:16 install all this overlay on the faded
22:19 bezels and these are actually our
22:21 Javier's faded bezels here we Darrel
22:24 just did these for us but that's on
22:26 another video keep in mind when you get
22:29 this service from us it required it does
22:32 include this emblem and these two
22:35 buttons will be rechromed although on
22:37 this demo they are not rechromed but
22:39 yours will be do know that now do you
22:43 remember how our switches go I think I
22:46 do I think it went black red the bigger
22:51 black and blue in that order and the
22:55 foMoCo logo goes in the up position I
23:01 use simple fine steel will to clean
23:04 these up and this tool is just as handy
23:07 for installation as it is for taking
23:09 them off
23:15 then we get put on remember how his tips
23:19 are broken off on a couple we have these
23:21 tips brand-new and man are they tight
23:25 you will have difficulty getting these
23:27 on I sell these products all the time I
23:37 have my hands on them all the time and
23:39 even I'm kind of surprised how nice this
23:42 turned out so we skipped ahead and
23:44 assembled at all actually Xavier did he
23:47 sprayed this with gloss black which now
23:49 he realizes with his mistake but still
23:51 it looks much better the big news here
23:54 this vinyl wrap three pieces it also
23:58 includes the overhead console piece
24:03 we sell them with these in cap pieces
24:05 and this piece that's the number one big
24:08 improvement here biggest bang for the
24:11 buck too by the way number two a big
24:14 improvement is the reek Rome
24:18 also we got new gauge faces remember how
24:21 faded these were before that really
24:24 helped we put new toggle tips on we got
24:27 a non-working junk radio out of the
24:30 wrecking yard just because he's going to
24:32 go with a secret audio system and
24:34 doesn't care if this works we put
24:35 reproduction knobs on it he opted for a
24:38 junkyard shift handle instead of a new
24:42 one
24:42 haven't rebuilt the clock yet but that's
24:45 later he's got a lot of work to do on
24:46 this car the floor mats I think are a
24:48 big improvement overhead console bezels
24:52 in place a few bulbs a turn signal wand
24:56 and that's about it it really turned
24:59 this interior around just doing those
25:02 minor a couple of major but mostly minor
25:04 touches so this just changes your
25:08 attitude as you drive down the road
25:10 looking at your car this is such a focal
25:11 point and gives them inspiration to do
25:14 the rest but overall for not a lot of
25:17 money I say he turned around the
25:19 interior of this car and probably
25:22 increased the value of it 1,500 to 2,000
25:26 bucks considering how shabby this looked
25:29 before... I like it