[Touring919]

As anyone following from the beginning knows the roof on my car was rough. Something also landed on the roof and kinked the center roof brace. No damage to the skin but the brace had to come out to get straightened. Before putting it back in I made sure no squeaks or rattles were ever coming from up there.
Cleaned and por15 the roof and brace.

Next I put a layer of butyl rubber down. Eventually the whole roof will get it but not until after paint.
The brace got a 3mm thick layer of felt to also aid in noise suppression. Again the whole roof will eventually get that too. But that is the sound deadening stage. A long ways off.

All welded back into place. Amazing how much quieter the roof is already and I only covered 10% so far.

Also amazing how fast brown dust prints get all over everything!

 

[Touring919]

On to something a little fun. Who ever thought I'd say safety improvements were a fun part of a project.
New seat belts arrived! I'm doing a major upgrade for front and rear. This will at least bring safety into the late 80s haha.

Ordered a set of custom belts. All outboard seating positions will receive 3pt retracting belts.
First things first need to figure out where to mount that top loop.
For the front I went with the quarter panel area which I cribbed from some first gen mustang kits. I prefer this location. I have done them from the roof as a 69 galaxie would have but hate how the webbing comes across the neck. This location keeps it on the shoulder and is similar location to even modern convertibles so I feel it is ok. Also keeps the hard top openess uncluttered with webbing hanging down from the roof.

The cardboard represents the upper loop and the L bracket down low is where the retractor will mount.

This location keeps the webbing close to the interior panel and away from the back seat passengers knee. Also keeps the rear foot well completely free of stuff.
Upper loop stud welded in. Cut a finger from and old work glove to protect the threads from weld spatter! I was proud of that idea.

 

[Touring919]

And now the rear. Tossed the rear seat in so I could understand where to mount everything. Front seat lap portion will use factory mount holes. But for the rear one must start from scratch.
So I made a "chalk outline" of me and then figured where to put some holes.

A little armerall should have those seats looking like new.

This will be the passthru location for the webbing. Will mount the retractor in the trunk for a clean properly designed look.
And magically here they are.

After I had the webbing hole cut out I could thread the webbing thru that and then figure out where the retractor had to go.
Next I mounted all the brackets for the lap belt based on hip width and there my hips were on the seat bottom. I'll spare you the pictures of those measurements.
But here is the final location with everything bolted into place.

 

[Touring919]

And here are a couple pictures with the seat in place. Also a picture of the package tray after I added a patch of 16g steel over the original 20g steel to give it more strength in the event these belts need to keep my kids from ending up in the front seat.

 

[Touring919]

Once I start on the interior. A ways off from now. I will add a bezel to the hole in the package tray that will protect the webbing from the metal edges as well as give the hole a finished look.
This was the final cutting and welding needed on the body so now I can finally start prepping for paint! Super excited about that. My sleep schedule is not!

 

[Touring919]

Finishing up the brakes. Got the shoes with their secret sauce material all installed with cleaned up hardware.

Pad material is not so secret. Carbotech XP8 compound. Should hold up very well in an autocross environment.
Had to buy new shoe retainers. But all else cleaned up with some wire wheel and paint. The adjusters of course got some fresh grease.

To anyone starting a new project I highly recommend an assortment of zip lock bags. Sharpie. And some tubs.

In that tub is every nut, bolt, screw and clip from disassembly. And some misc small items. There are other tubs with wiring. One with all the lighting. And so on.

Never would have found these otherwise!

 

[Touring919]

With those brake line clips cleaned and painted it was time to run new lines. Nicopp is about as easy to work with as it gets. Even my cheap summit brand flairing tool makes quick work of this stuff.

Even have the parking brake cables and hardware all installed. This thing is ready for a body to drop back onto it.
Here is a slight deviation on the lines. I will go with a dual master so the rear line comes up around the steering box and stops next to the original 4 way fitting. That 4 way now has one plug so it is a 3 way. One in and the left+right front out.

Next up is finally body paint. Well prep for paint then primer then endless sanding.....

 

[Touring919]

Next up is also engine! Got MY pistons in while I was at fordfest this past weekend.

I was not expecting the engraved name in the pistons! These are racetec light duty pistons. So they will only hold twice the power i plan to make.
Since these are in I should be able to turn the shortblock around pretty quick. It may be a long wait for the cam and heads and rockers to show up so the long block can be completed.

Anyone have suggestions for engine paint? I was thinking of going with cerakote. I'll be painting the heads and intake as well and would like for the paint to not burn off the exhaust ports. I know that is a big want.

 

[Jazzmeister]

I've been pretty fond of the Motor Koater engine enamel from KBS Coatings. It sprays or brushes on. Seems to be resistant to gas, oil, coolant (unlike other products I've tried, notably, Eastwood's hardened engine enamel--coolant sensitive). On my 289 Mustang, the gloss black has held up for over two years now with no peeling or burning off around the exhaust crossovers. Only small issue is that the first heat cycle seemed to soften the paint a little and I got some smudging around my distributor on the intake from touching it with gloved hands. Must have fully cured the material and allowed trapped solvents to escape. I felt confident enough to use it again on my recent 390. I used Eastwood's high-temp exhaust coating for the exhaust manifolds, and it too, seems to handle the heat well over time.

 

[ralph66]

390 looking good (and the 289), i like the '65 engine colours, '66 they went to blue, which while i like the Ford dark blue, the black/gold look beats Ford light blue for me

 

[Touring919]

Those are good looking engines for sure. I'll look into those options jazzmiester.

 

[Touring919]

The KBS line of engine paints looks good. I like that they make the specific corporate colors.
Why did you not use there exhaust paint jazzmiester? That seems to have the same heat ratings as the cerakote stuff. I certainly lije that the KBS has a thumbs up from you

 

[Touring919]

Exciting times. Started to do something other than rust repair. Getting ready for coating the floor and firewall with some chassis black.
First I wanted to smooth over the welds so the modifications to the firewall looked more stamped and less fabricated.
A little Bondo applied by finger just like grouting around a sink.

Then sand it sort of smooth. It is just a firewall after all.

 

[Touring919]

Not shown due to the graphic nature of the torture but I did spend several hours scraping undercoating.
The jist of it is get a heat gun and get the stuff nice and gooie hot then scrap it off with a scraper and for tighter spots a flathead screw driver.
Once that is done I hit it all with a angle grinder loaded with a braided wire wheel. This flings off all the little stuff you can't possibly get with a rigid blade of a scraper. (Think spoon vs spatula for getting all the batter out of a bowl) Since prior to this you cooked it with a heat gun the small remaining stuff is like stone and chips right off. If you try to go straight to the wire wheel and skip scraping there is too much and you'll just smear undercoating around with the wire wheel.
Then for final prep before por15 one does the unthinkable. Hose all that bare metal down with water!

You actually soak it with a degreaser then hose all the desolved grease away. Then you soak it with a rust converter/etching chemical. Then rinse the excess away. But still bare metal and water just seems wrong.
Next is spraying the coatings. Stay tuned.

 

[Touring919]

So amazing to finish a step that includes a spay gun.
After all of the car is dried it's time to put on my two layer plan of sealing this thing up so it does not rust away again.
First spayed two coats of por15. I use a cheap hvlp gun from summit with a 1.8mm tip. With that size tip no reduction of the por15 is necessary.
After the por was tacky. Roughly 1 hr between coats I put down two coats of raptor liner. 3 in the wheel well. My hopes are that the raptor adds a lot of rust protection as well as noise suppression.
I left the vertical firewall with just por. The diagonal area of the firewall on back to the "stone deflector" that "joins" the body to the rear bumper got coated with raptor.

This ended up using way more raptor liner than expected. Need to buy another gallon of the stuff since I plan to coat the trunk and any weld seams inside the interior with the stuff.

 

[Touring919]

Had some unplanned busy work the past couple nights. Amazon lost my order of raptor liner so instead of showing pics of a freshly painted and sealed trunk I stayed busy putting in some sound deadener a little ahead of schedule.

Sprayed the inner roof panel. Inner sail panel and package tray with por15. Now i wont bump my head in wet paint when i cover the floor and trunk!
Then I covered ALL of the roof inner and most of the package tray with butyl rubber sheets. Layer one of the NVH plan.

Didn't make much difference on the package tray. But the roof is crazy. Before knocking on it with one's knuckles would result in the loud metallic ring one expects when knocking on a large steel sheet. Now it is a dull knock that damps out in a fraction of a second. Sounds sort of like knocking on a heavy wood door that had a thin piece of carpet over it. The car body no longer rings/reverberates if I yell "hay!" When standing next to it either.
Can't wait to get the trunk done so I can move on to the exterior.

 

[ralph66]

I get what you mean about lining/insulating the roof, made a big difference in my Galaxie, guess becuase the roof is quite large it gets noisy. looking good

 

[5851a]

The older cars used to have a layer of sound deadener behind rear seat back. It would hang from the same hooks seat backs hook to on top. Our Lincoln had that and long bags of what looked like a bag of cotton candy over the wheel house next to 1/4 panel. It also had insulated covers under the rear shelf speakers to keep trunk noise out. Just little extras here and there, thick padded, carpeted trunk. Sure was a quiet car.

 

[Touring919]

I know what you mean 5851. I had a newer town car and crown vic police car. It was amazing all the little things the town car had to help keep it quiet.

Ralph. My galaxie had that tar paper like curtain behind the rear seat. I will be making a replacement for sure. Something thin and flexible covered with the butyl rubber and some felt. One layer to block noise and one layer to absorb. Just not sure what the "thin flexable" base structure will be. I'm open to suggestions.
Plastic cardboard? 1/8th inch fiber board? Actual thick tar paper.

 

[ralph66]

This is what i did behind the rear seat, its 1/8" thick MDF or masonite (cant remember)