long time no post dudes.....currently working 3 jobs and it's all I can do to keep it together but gonna ride the wave while I can. Unfortunately time marches on and the "Rocks" heater core decided to start relieving itself all over my floor and carpet (would you believe the wife's mustang is doing the same thing but that job is going to be hell so it's going to wait it's turn) So here are some heater box pics to help anyone else who might tackle this. It's not a complete rebuild of the box ..just pulled the front half out and redoing the foam on one door...and otherwise cleaning up while I wait for a new core ( Original fell to pieces pulling it out. So you start by pulling the heater floor vent unit off (2 screws)...pull of the glove box door and liner. After that getting to the box bolts is pretty easy except one on the top in the mostly inaccessible part under the dash. Apologize for some of the dark pics always thought the Rock smelled pretty good for an old car but the insides of the box stank I think the metal bits were originally anodized but 45 years old they are covered with some surface rust and decaying foam insulation. The rear doors foam is in decent shape so I left it alone/too afraid to wrestle it out of there and break something fragile since it still works ok. 2 vacuum motors are involved in the operation of the unit...this one is internal to the box..with a vacuum line with a white stripe going to it. Still seems to work fine so I cleaned it up. NOS ones are going for $149 so far...still on the lookout for a cheaper one as a spare. Not sure but I think this door controls vent or defrost selection?
front part of the box pulled and and being cleaned up to coat with a rubberized coating someone got creative with the sealing foam on one corner for whatever reason...will have to simulate I guess the external vacuum motor is shot...found a NOS replacement for $30...a steal. Yes Virginia the rotating axle for the blend door DOES go through a simple hole in the casing....yeesh.. cheap cheap
various brackets and such shown another shot of the internal vacuum motor back in place and hooked up to the door back half cleaned up, rust treated and sprayed for protection new foam
still waiting on the heater core...has now been put as expected Jan 14th...ugh...original order on Nov 22ned. make sure to put the rod back into the box first...doh! external view of rod and external vacuum motor mount external vac motor....note 2 vacuum connections (1 snapped off) replacement I found had slightly longer attachment arm which I modified with a new hole...pic later. blower speed control springs..... back in place using trim screws trim screw part number
aaaaaand STILL waiting on a heater core (due Feb 1st now) so at a standstill what to do?? Then stumbled across this 73 Gran Torino Shot on the interwebs.... and thought "dayum that's not half bad!" have always wanted to extend the railroad tie further down......it's just such an abrupt ending...but never found something suitable that i wanted to risk. Until now. The 73 bumper and nose are of course different but I figured it would be close enough with some further modification. the spoiler is a 90s vintage Econoline piece which is both plentiful still and cheap. (80 or so rancherobux with shipping and new in the Ford Box) non chrome bumper version. F7UZ-15001A06-BA note the curve...although mounted looks straight which I guess is due to some optical effect lots of mounting holes already in flange but there is quite a bit of trimming involved on the ends you need to get the flange down to 1 inch. Most of it fits between the chrome bumper cover and the beam... except for the center and the ends. Measurement pics to come. and finally a mockup pic my son took. At this point the area is cleaned...holes are drilled..which was a PIA as far as cutting through for some reason, maybe I need better bits. It holds in place pretty well as is..but of course it would walk around. I think I put in 8 holes for push mounts . Just want to put on protective paint and final mounting should be a breeze. Note for a non tucked bumper it will be easier than mine....had some interference at the bumper mounts.
" have always wanted to extend the railroad tie further down..." A former Alabama football player (Landon Dickerson, now with Philadelphia Eagles) is mechanically inclined and actually mounted a railroad tie for a bumper on his truck.
Landon Dickerson sounds like one of "us". Brief description of his love of mechanical stuff in link below if anyone is interested. Why the Alabama center has a wooden block bolted to the front of his truck - al.com
Auburn football still has a ways to go. Should have kept Gus. But basketball.... Wow. Bruce Pearl hire was comparable to Bama hiring Saban.
HuevosRanchero: Sorry I hijacked your thread into sports talk. I'll be quiet now. ( I admire the work you've done on your Ranchero. )
Don't sweat it, I like to see it lively around here! I just don't get to stop by as much as I used to....I'm milking 3 jobs as much as I can while they are available...(2 of which are music related...so that's my kinda work...) Hard not to love that rail road tie bumper!
Out of curiosity, are you a musician or do you do technical stuff like speakers, sound systems, recording, etc. ?
Part time musician....Band dates are coming up again starting this weekend. I do music at church now also. My regular job is CNC Sheet Metal Fabrication equipment repairs.
so, completion of the front spoiler project....nice and easy gave the stuff in the area a fresh coat of black stone chip you can see some of the holes i drilled for fasteners above...used a 1/4 drill bit final size after pilot holes. yeah yeah yeah...don't give me a lot of lip over my crappy cuts...I had to nibble to make sure I didn't take too much off...would have looked fine with a single cut. From each end I had to reduce the mounting flange to 1 inch for 19 inchs and finished with a 45 degree exit cut you can see the exit cut here next to the white push panel rivet. Not the surround cut for the to bumper cover bolts on the bottom. I didn't want any stress on the plastic that might crack later not that I expect much flex from the iron girder. You can see i used GM screw rivets.....the plastic screws I replaced with stainless as they plastic ones are too fragile
the types of fasteners I used....again...I found the push panel pins too inflexible for regular use...unless you want to keep gouging your holes until you manage to force them in. The plastic screw rivets were much better but again I used stainless screws instead of the plastic ones they came with. Should be fairly easy to remove should I ever need to.
Was a tough May, feeling pretty burned out at the moment but we must soldier on. Hopefully I can spend more time around here some time soon. (Spending a lot of my miniscule resto time on our Buick Reatta right now, once I had gotten the wife's Cobra AC working). Anyhoo a couple more front spoiler shots and the completion FINALLY of the heater box project. I can happily report that I can for the first time I can recall, control air flow to the defroster vents, dash vents, AND the floor vents.... 100% function at the moment. Hope it lasts til I'm dead cause I don't wanna do it again. Money shot.....this is a real bugger to remove ...much easier to put back in. Has to be soldered properly on the pipe in order to have the proper poke through distance on the firewall. Not to mention this is basically all the support the unit gets inside the box. floor eye view
