When a seemingly small job snowballs out of control

 Window seals and the rest...!

Today I set about replacing the window to door felts in both doors and on the small rear quarter panels and seeking factory paper work..

Fortunately, Nev put me onto a cheap trim removal set from ebay, so I was prepared. 

This set as saved the paint work and a heap of trim clips and not a screw driver in sight..

I started with the main door outer trim parts as they had hardened and or had gold coloured paint on them from then the car has had a closed door respray.

They came out a treat. So far I have only replaced the outer ones. I have new inner ones that attach to the top of the door trim and are held in with staples. As these are in good condition, I figure I can doo them mid week with out having to take the car out of the garage. So will save this job for another day.

I also replaced the rubber seal that joins the front of the door to the lower part of the wind screen / A pillar. 

This also was a simple job.

I then set about replacing the same type of seals on the rear quarter panels.. Plus I had a bee in my bonnet about seeing if I could find the original build sheet that was most likely hidden under the carpet somewhere in the car.

So the front seats came out, and the rear seat came out then I lifted the carpets and I found 2 build sheets! Both could be removed with reasonable success. The one on the side of the tunnel was face down and harder to remove. The front one is in reasonably good condition.

The first picture is of the front build sheet.

The second is the one from the tunnel that was face down

I will now try and preserve them so they dont get damaged and further.

While I was removing the carpet and the sound deadening on the front passenger side, I found that the sound deadening was damp. Fortunately there was not much rust due to the damp. I suspect that the heater core has a leak.

I have left the sound deadening out to enable it to dry and for the floor to dry also.

While I was at it, I re routed the speaker wires to the door channel so they don't get crimped.

Curiously, there is a hole in the middle of the floor where I think a rubber grommet should go, but it is the same on the drivers side.. So have asked a question on one of the forums.

While doing all this work on the car, I constantly come across old mud wasp nests in the most strange places.. The little buggers have created nests all over the place. So they get removed and vacuumed up. I have not found any living creatures in them as they seem to be very old.

Here are a few I removed today.

While the carpet was out, I found 2 holes in the tunnel that I dont think should be there. I think it is a manufacturing fault rather than rust, so have covered them with 100mile per hour tape and will look to fix them at some point.

Anyway, back to the window seals. Once all the seats, carpet and rear trims were removed, the replacement of the outer seals was relatively simple. Again, the inner ones are attached to the inner trim with staples. I have not replaced these as they as Im trying to figure out what Im going to do with the rear trims as they are fairly dagy but also brittle. So will leave them in place for now.

As part of the dash cluster repair, I had to partially remove the top part of the dash, so today I removed it completely in order to clean up around the dash area and all the dead bugs in the gap near the windscreen. I found that the black crash pad seemed to have new bolts and by the looks of it is a reproduction item. This is not an issue, just interesting to see that it has been replaced.

I have new door rubbers to go around the bottom part of the front doors, so that's a job for another day.

I have placed a post on the 71-71 mustang forum to see if someone can tell me where I can get these rubber parts. They don't seem to be in the Scott Drake or CJ Pony parts catalogue.

The ones on the car have gone hard and are in poor shape.

While I have the rear seat and panels removed I took the opportunity to remove the rear seat belts in readiness to replace them and or use them as examples for what I need. I'm yet to have the discussion with the VASS engineer re how I can mount the new ADR approved rear seat belts as per 1972 Australian ADR's they need to be lap / sash and the ones in the car are lap only.

At one point today, the garage floor was covered in interior parts. I did not take a picture but should have. The back seat and front carpet are now in storage in the train room for now.

I'm now waiting on the new LED light fittings to go into the dash and then I can reinstall that during the week.

Well, thats all for now. The oil sender adapter is still leaking so will have another go at that this week.