Hey guys, so its been a while since I posted here, but I recently just started to work on the interior for the 72. I started by taking out the original worn out bench, and also the worn out carpet and sound proofing, and alone, I had to have taken out at least 150 pounds out of the car by doing that. Also once I had the sound proofing up, I found the original build sheet, always had the understanding that ford usually put them under the seat cushion, guess I thought wrong. Plain to order up a new carpet from dearborn classics, but don't think I'm going to put sound proofing in just to save weight, the noise doesn't really matter to me as I don't daily drive the car and when I do drive it, it is usually only short trips, or I'm just taking it to the track. I also ordered up the wedge double locking sliding brackets that one of you guys posted up in my previous thread for the interior. I'm also very happy that my floor pans are in perfect shape, with very minimal surface rust, plain to just scuff up the original paint and little rust that is there and spray it with por15 chassis coat black paint. Also plain to spray the inside of the seat rail channels with eastwood frame saver. I also ordered up a set of corbeau fixed back fx1 pro race seats, in black, super excited about putting them in and they should also save a bunch of weight as they only weigh 19 pounds each. Well here is a pic of the way my floors sit now, and I will post up more pics as I make more progress.
No rust is great news, but I'd put some heat shield/soundproofing in there. The weight you save, maybe 8 lbs, isn't worth the noise and heat you'll be getting. Youwant to save some weight, yank that dash and build a custom aluminum one; put in race buckets, etc.
Yeah may end up doing some sort of sound soundproofing, but ill have to see how I feel about it once I get the race buckets hopefully next week. Also was thinking of maybe using that stick on roofing stuff from home depot, from my understanding it is just like dynamat, just a lot cheaper. Was also thinking maybe a spray on bedliner product would also work.
The Home Depot stuff you have to be careful with. You put it too close to real heat, like the headers, it'll start melting. Dynamat is made for it. You could probably get away with the HD stuff on the floor and doors, but put the good stuff on the toe pans.
The Eastwood stuff works reasonable well and tolerates heat. I used Dynamat in the Ranchero and Eastwood in the van. The Dynamat is easily twice as good at reducing sound than the Eastwood. The Eastwood product appears to be identical to the Be Cool product.
I've read about several people finding the build sheet under the seat, but when I stripped the original carpet and sound deadening material out of my 73 Mustang, that's where I found the build sheet. It appeared that it had absorbed some of the oil from the sound deadening and that helped to preserve the sheet.
They just tossed them in there, wherever. Sometimes they were shoved into the door panels before they put the trim on.
Found mine under the headliner of my swiss-cheesed 74. My sister had a 76 Monte Carlo and she found hers under the headliner too. Both were in very good condition. Found it in my POS 2001 Taurus under the backseat. Still have that sheet, for no good reason.
Yeah mine was the same way totally absorbed the tar in the sound proofing, probably going to toss it in a frame just for the hell of it lOl.
At the bare minimum use the Dynamat up to the firewall padding/ insulation. I got stuck having to throw the seat in and drive my 70 Torino with only the bare floor once. Was cleaning up the floor to re-paint it. Anyway, in a five mile drive the floor got so hot it melted the soles of a nice pair of shoes and it felt like being in an oven. Save yourself from going back later to fix the problem, insulate the floor now.
I'll take your advice those flowmasters especially with high power motor like mine really throw some serious heat.
Wedge bracket=Dissapointing So I got the wedge bracket in the mail after waiting two weeks which was long in my opinion. My first impression of it was pretty good till I went to test fit it in the car. Almost every hole lined up except for the front inner hole. The tab is wielded on there backwards, as it wont even sit on the seat rail. I gave them all the correct info telling them what year ranchero it was going in, and also that it is going in a car that was originally equipped with a bench seat. So tomorrow i'm going to give them a call and hopefully they have good customer service and they will express ship me the correct one, and if not i'm going to try to get them to take it back,and I'll order up the corbeau's. On the good note, the floor painting is all done, and it came out looking really good. I also got my race seats, and they are also going to look really good in the car when I get them installed. Well I post up some pics soon.
All set hopefully they had me take measurements of my mounting points on my floor pans and they said that they match up to a car that originally came with factory buckets. So they are swapping me the incorrect one for the correct one and also selling me the passenger one at a discounted price. Pretty good company in my book so if anyone is putting in race buckets use wedge.
