When you're like me, not having something to write about is like not having a job. Nothing to give you a feeling of satisfaction, or accomplishent. No self worth, No warm and fuzzy feelings of security.
So,..despite not having a job, everyday I stay the course and try to change that. Along those same lines, and so that I would in fact have something to talk about, I purposely went downstairs to snap a few pics to create a platform for this cobbled together update.
Last week, I took what will be the center plate that'll go between the tail lights to a laser cutter. I was supposed to have it back by now, but haven't gotten the call. For those that skim through these updates, and don't know what "plate" I'm talking about, the plate is having the word CYCLONE cut out of it. When I get it back, I'll box it to give it some depth. I'll add "fins" like I did to the original valve cover, and I'm gonna back light it, and mount it between the Shelby tail lights. It will serve as the shine through for the back up lights. What I haven't been able to come up with yet is the lights. I'm gonna use some sort of surface, or recess mount LED lighting,...but that is still YTD. If I can get what I really want to work, I'll use dual mode LEDS that illuminate in two different colors. One color, white, will be used as B/U lights. The other, (red) will serve as a third brake light.
That is still a project in the planning stage.
What isn't in the "planning stage" was the grille(s)
If you are paying attention, you'll see I used a present, and past tense in the same sentence.
The "present" part of the grille is that I'm working on it. The past tense part is yet another "version" that made it all the way to implementation, that I ended up not liking after the fact.
This is the grille.
Now you to Mustang Guys, this looks absolutely normal. To anybody who owns a Fairmont, they should recognize immediately that this grille is completely altered. The egg crate portion reveals where there used to be spars crossing over the egg crate. Those spars were originally part of a removable frame that is now "modified" to be as you see it. Just a rectangle.
To get to this level has required patching and sanding the cut away areas, sanding and smoothing, priming and sanding until you end up with a separately paintable frame that will eventually get painted body color (orange).
This version, although it looks like to most casual observers to be the stocker, is what will go on the car. Yeah,...I wish the spars weren't thicker than the rest of the egg crate,.....maybe I'll add body color pinstripe on top of the spars against a matte black background,.....I'm still thinkin'.
What will not happen, is "Plan A"
Plan A still uses the frame you see in the top pic, but gives depth, and an obviously modified grille facade to the front end.
What it doesn't give, is a place to put the hood latch, The safety catch spring, or the release cable.
I knew all this stuff when I started this folly. I was gonna use hood pins as the means to secure the hood, exactly the same solution as I did on the red car.
The typical hood pins are cheesy. I went through several torsion clips on the red car as a testimony to that fact. Most of them offer no security when the car is parked in a Hotel parking lot, and those that do, are equally cheesy, and a sure fire failure at the worst possible time at some point in the future.
No, said the finger
Besides. I paid money to have the catch spring, the latch, and the cover, powder coated. Why the hell would I leave it on the table?
But,......S.O.P. for me is that I have modified stuff to accommodate the Plan A grille. Stuff that I now have to reverse.
First..
The headlight buckets have little mount points for the stock grille integrated into their frames. I cut those off so the Plan A would slide by. Now that the stock grille is back, I had to create a way to secure the bottom,......again.
The Plan A grille provided just enough room for the factory hood latch to bolt up. But the integral bracket that held the release cable, and the attachment point for the cable stood proud of that and the grille would not fit. I cut it off so I could flip it, effectively reversing the stand off. But I would have to reweld that onto a powder coated mechanism.
How much of that powder coat is gonna get melted off when I do that?
Regardless, Now that Plan A is out of the picture, I have to restore the latch back to its' factory orientation. That means I gotta weld it back together.
How much of that powder coat is gonna get melted off when I do that?
For what ever reason, I threw away the factory upper grille mounts that secure the grille. So I had to make some.
Looking at them,....I'm not happy. If I can find factory replacements, I'll use them. If not, I'll make replacements the more closely resemble the factory pieces.......Again.
When you get the grille in place, it leaves a significant gap between the top of the bumper, and the bottom of the grille. Every other Fairmont running around just deals with that gap by raising the bumper as high as it can be oriented. Doing that however, effectively "drop the pants" on the lower radiator saddle, and lets that malocclusion hang out for God and Country to see.
As clearly evident on the protruding chin of the Hurricane of 1991.
So,...Since everything on this car is pretty much set in stone with the Monster,....the solution was obvious.......
Fill the gap.
The gap is 1", the filler stands 3/4" above the top of the bumper. Was it as simple as screwing that strip on back?
Nope. It's 90 degree angle stuff. It has to bend backwards and forwards 3 times. Cuttin, sectionin,' weldin'.
And this was most of last week.
Yesterday,...I decided that I was gonna finish wiring the car. After all I got the new, sequencing LED tail lights, I got the new, H4 bulbed hologen head lights.
What I don't have are new sockets, and the old ones are typical for any piece of plastic that has been on Earth for 40 years.......Dry,....brittle,...crusty, and originally rated for low powere sealed beam headlights. Nothing you'd want to waste your time tying into your new wire harness, and attach your four H4 halogen lights to.
So,......I wanted to wire it,......I don't have what I need.
There now,......I feel much better.