Build Thread '83 T-top Coupe - Welding Holes in My Rear

[Davedacarpainter]

BTW, here's my son Andy with his new to him Mustang. It's a 2009 V6 and the monthly insurance payments are almost what my wife says she'll be paying for monthly payments.

You can see my wife's new Audi A4 in the background, she totaled the pathfinder. Pretty soon we'll all have new vehicles, sure, mine will be a little older, but I'll have T-tops!

This little red car is for me as a sign from God that I don't have to rush anymore on the blue car. SSA, slow, steady and anal. New theme for Robby.

 

[Boosted92LX]

So... where does that leave Doby?

 

[RaggedGT]

Storage... For Robby
lol

 

[Mustang5L5]

Your wife's got good taste.

I'd like to get myself a nice Audi when no more car seats or booster seats are in my life. Only 10 more years

My wife doesn't care a lick about cars. I could hand her keys to a fridge and she'd drive it without complaint.

 

[Davedacarpainter]

So... where does that leave Doby?

Soon to be out of the garage. He's not a dead project, but it'll be a little bit before anything else happens to him.

 

[Davedacarpainter]

Storage... For Robby
lol

True dat.

 

[Davedacarpainter]

Your wife's got good taste.

I'd like to get myself a nice Audi when no more car seats or booster seats are in my life. Only 10 more years

My wife doesn't care a lick about cars. I could hand her keys to a fridge and she'd drive it without complaint.

Don't kid yourself Mike, then you'll need car seats for the grandchildren.

 

[Boosted92LX]

I like Audis too.. very nice!

 

[02 281 GT]

BTW, here's my son Andy with his new to him Mustang. It's a 2009 V6 and the monthly insurance payments are almost what my wife says she'll be paying for monthly payments.

You can see my wife's new Audi A4 in the background, she totaled the pathfinder. Pretty soon we'll all have new vehicles, sure, mine will be a little older, but I'll have T-tops!

This little red car is for me as a sign from God that I don't have to rush anymore on the blue car. SSA, slow, steady and anal. New theme for Robby.

 

[Davedacarpainter]

It's my brother that lives in Stillwater, we're safely ensconced in Broken Arrow.

The boy wants to go to OU, so the car color works out pretty good.

I would have to have an orange car to live in Stillwater, i mean, really! Who wants an orange car!

 

[Mustang5L5]

Don't kid yourself Mike, then you'll need car seats for the grandchildren.

No way. I had kids starting at age 33. If my kids do what I did, I'll be in my 70s when the grandkids come along. I might have to change my diapers alongside them!

 

[CarMichael Angelo]

It's my brother that lives in Stillwater, we're safely ensconced in Broken Arrow.

The boy wants to go to OU, so the car color works out pretty good.

I would have to have an orange car to live in Stillwater, i mean, really! Who wants an orange car!

You'd have to drive something other than a Mustang to know the answer to that Dave.

 

[Boosted92LX]

You'd have to drive something other than a Mustang to know the answer to that Dave.

I owned an orange Mustang, so how do you explain that?

 

[Noobz347]

I drove orange before orange was cool:

 

[stpete]

I had an orange '69 Charger in high school for a couple months. In about this condition. It would do burnouts all day long, but only had one functional brake. I paid $50 for it and sold it for $500 two months later to a guy who heard I had one and just showed up at my door. When the guy came to get it, he climbed in through the drivers window. I asked why and he said the doors never work right. He was correct, you had to climb through the window or use the passenger door.

 

[Boosted92LX]

I drove orange before orange was cool:

I had one of those too, but wore the tires out. Go figure.

 

[stpete]

I had one of those too, but wore the tires out. Go figure.

Noobz had a fancy one ... no duct tape.

 

[Noobz347]

I had one of these after wearing out the Big Wheel:

 

[Davedacarpainter]

I didn't get much done today since I didn't have the new a/c evaporator with me. That's one of the first things to go back in the box.

I did check out the vacuum actuators with my harbor freight vacuum pump. They checked out fine. One was a little sticky, but held under vacuum. I wiped the inside walls with a small amount of dielectric grease. It's smooth now.

I found out my gasket kit isn't perfect. It was meant for Doby. It's an '86-'93 heater box kit. They don't have one for the earlier models. The only problem so far is the blend door in the upper plenum. I'll just need to go find a sheet of that foam from someplace (Hobby Lobby?).

I do need to get some new vacuum lines too. That can wait though. The main line from the engine bay was chewed up by those rat bastards that made the distributor area as their home.

 

[Davedacarpainter]

So, I went snooping for high density foam......jeez, you'd think I was looking for a unicorn.

I was in Lowe's when it struck me that my tool box liners are HDF. I looked in the toolbox section, no luck. I also remembered that i've used that stuff for drawer liners at home. So off I went to the shelving section and sure enough, they had this.

It's half the thickness of what I need, but God invented glue for a reason.

Then the search began for thicker HDF. Why? Do you know that gasket that sits between the heaterbox and the firewall? The one the heater core and a/c condenser go through into the engine bay.

No joy at all here. When I was in Lowe's i went by the door matte area, that made me think of my mixing room at work, we have some HDF connecting mattes in there to make our feet feel ever so comfortable while mixing paint. I could cut those pieces into a new gasket, if I wanted a yellow and red gasket. What I did instead was to look for them at Lowe's. They had them for $20 for a pack of four squares that are 2'x2'. It came to me that Harbor Freight had these too. Who would be cheaper, Lowe's or Harbor Freight? Harbor Freight had the same ones with a different label for $7.50. FTW. They are the same density as the original gasket material.

So I cut out three layers of them to replace the gasket.

The gasket is two parts glued together. The larger piece is thinner and happened to have the exact same thickness as the matte, easy peasy. The smaller piece is thicker by about 1/2. So I took two of the layers and glued them together. Then I rough shaped them and took some 40grit sandpaper and started to thin the two layer sandwich down to match the thicker gasket piece.

I used a round wood rasp to shape the holes for the a/c evaporator and heater core to fit through. They're not quite finished, but real close.