1994 Thunderbird Experiment
This is the T-Bird I propose to experiment on. It is a fun car to drive. The only trouble I have had over the years was the brakes and the AC. The brakes were flaky when I bought the car. Oh, they would stop it but almost too good. Eventually the rear brake lines died and this finished off the power brake booster which was probably what was always wrong. The AC problem was a cracked hard tube to the compressor. One of the things I really like about the car is the climate control. Just set the temperature to what you want and forget it. The ride is nice and the steering is superb. I tried half-heartedly to sell it over the last three years but when I got down to $750 and no takers I gave up. I fixed everything and now I'll just keep it. You can no longer buy it for $750!
About this time I saw a really neat 1950 Ford custom at a car show. It was parked right next to me and I got to talk to the owner. The car didn't really look just right but it was a custom so I never tumbled to what I was looking at. I was really puzzled by the interior. Then someone going by said to his friend, “ You know that is a Thunderbird”. Bingo! Now I knew what I was looking at.
This is it at a different show. The owner said he had a custom shop build it for him and they used an Easyrods kit. Then he described the process and I began to realize that it was actually something I could do. Below is a graphic from the Easyrods site.
OK, so this looks a bit weird. Of course, this is meant to show the parts added. Please go to the site and see how this works. There are many pictures of completed cars. I looked into this and discovered there were a number of possibilities but one intrigued me. It was possible to make a pseudo 1951 Ford but with modern (1994) running gear. I drove a 1951 Ford sedan
through a year of High School and 4 years of college. Now I could almost have it back. I really have no desire to restore an original. I got my share of restoration with the mustang but I have never really tried a custom. Hmmmm...
I began by viewing all the info on the site. I sent an email note asking if more detailed instructions or videos were available. The answer was yes and they were $15.00. Refundable with kit purchase. It also said that they would be at the Hershey antique car show and flea market in a couple of days. This is not too far away, about a 4 -5 hour drive. I decided to go. So my wife and I went down. We took the T-bird and it got about 23 mpg. I had no idea just how BIG this show is but after a mile or two of walking I found Bob Hess the owner and designer of the Easyrods kit. He showed and described the process and pointed out some tricks. He was very interesting and helpful and I got a copy of the video. On the walk back I poked around at a few booths. If you can't find what you want there you either just didn't look or ran out of steam like I did. I really didn't do much as I still had to walk at least a mile back to the car.
2008
Time has gone by and I have ordered and received the Easyrods kit for my 1994 Thunderbird. It arrived in two boxes one small containing metal parts, glue, and instructions. The second box is big and was delivered to Youngstown Alloy and Chain which is owned by Pete George. He is a good neighbor and has helped me out a number of times.
I haven't gotten started on this project yet because the garage I want to use had roof issues. I have been working on this for the last two weeks and have at least a week to go on that job. You can see some of the roll roofing behind the big box in the second picture.
The roof job is finished and even cleaned up. It took nearly 4 weeks to do and I was used up afterwards but my brother came shortly after this and he is interested in the T-bird project. One day we stripped the stuff off the back-end and tried on some the fiberglass parts.
The first fit looks good in the second picture but the trunk did not fit between the fenders. It sure looked like a lot of grinding would be needed. The instructions were quite clear that you are not to grind gaps until after fitting and gluing. In another place it described how important it was to sand the inside of the fiberglass quarter skins. After doing this the fit became much better and the trunk would almost close.
There were a number of problems with fit. Some of which I believe can be traced to the fact that this car was wrecked sometime in its past. Where the skins fit over the edge of the fender wells the skins were pulled too far forward so the gas filler hole was off a bit more than I liked. As suggested in the video I cut a couple of inches off the forward end of the quarter skins. This improved the fit again and with just a little hammer work on the fender edge the fit improved again. About this time I moved the project to the newly roofed garage. If I draw the fender bottoms in with clamps it tips the tops out enough that the trunk fits between. It is still tight but again better. As I worked on the roll pan at the back I began to realize that if I was going to have external bumpers I needed to provide some type of mounting for it. Pictured below is what I came up with. The idea is an extension of the front and rear bumper mounting suggested in the instructions.
This turned out better than I 'd hoped. Remember that the real rear bumper for the T-bird is under the roll pan and the external bumper is just for looks. There are '51 Ford fiberglass bumpers available and I plan to use these for both front and back. I will mount stubs to the fiberglass bumper which will slide inside these and then bolt on.
One of the “funner” things was attaching the trunk latch and solenoid and getting everything to work. To get the latch to engage I had to get the trunk to shut. With proper sanding of the insides of the quarter skins I got the parts to line up and work. Positioning the latch in the trunk was difficult as it was very difficult to decide where to drill the holes. I got it done but I had to adjust the latch pin a lot. The trunk light works. The solenoid unlatches the latch, The temporary wire pig-tail sticking out from under the trunk lid lets me unlatch without having to use the button in the car. I also had to redo the trunk wiring harness to split out the back-up lights because they will be in the fenders and not in the trunk.
I need to do a lot of fitting for taillights, trunk lid handle, keyed entry, license mounting and light and any trim I want to use. I'm planning on making it look like a stock '51 back end with some custom touches.
Well, this is a far as I am no glue yet I'm still fitting. Because I am working in this relatively open garage (shed) I occasionally get visitors (helpers?) Click here to see them. {WARNING: Do not click if you have arachnophobia!}
2008/07/05
The taillights have been a puzzle. I finally drilled the holes for the mounting studs and the longer I looked the more I realized that I had goofed. The center of the light did not line up with the fender ridge and the taillight housing did not fit over the fiberglass very well. The side spears also will not fit. I really want the side spears to be there. Yes, I know about the gas cap problem but I think I have a solution for this problem. I re-drilled the holes so the centerline lines up and with a little grinding the taillight body now fits pretty good but this makes the spears worse. Still thinking bout this.
I bought some modeling clay and I am using it to make trial fits and to see how things will look when fiberglassed into position. I used it to look at the taillight fit and to trial fit the trunk lid handle. It was interesting and worked quite well. They used to model whole cars with clay so it is not a new idea.
I was reading the written instructions and on the DOs and DON'Ts page the last DON'T is “Don't remove the trunk torsion rods”. I had read this but I forgot. sigh, the video (older than write-up) says to remove them as they make it difficult to adjust the trunk lid fit. The latter may be true but reinstalling these torsion rods is a scary process. I strongly recommend that you DO NOT remove the torsion rods, besides it is dangerous to do so. I have a repair manual for the Thunderbird and it has a section on removing and installing these rods. I made the tool they describe and used it to do the deed. The first rod which hooks on the left I was able to do by myself but the other side gave me problems. It would not slide around the hook. I could not pull on the tool and pry the end around the hook. As I have often done I got my wife to play anchor. While she could hold it, she could not pull it into place. It requires a little more than a 90 degree twist to catch the first hook. Between the two of us it finally snapped into place.
07/15/2008
I am back to experimenting with clay again. Here are a couple of pictures that demonstrate what can be done to model possibilities.
Everything attached to the fiberglass is done with the clay. Note that the fiberglass appears to be about 6 inches wider than a real '51 Ford. I will make steel bits to extend the SS trim. Since I am planning on powder coating all trim,I can add pieces to extend the fit. Here I have used clay to model a extension of the trunk trim. On a real '51 the “trunk” trim is actually mounted on the body not the lid but, of course, I must make some changes.
8/26/2008
Taillight & back-up light idea
I cut the socket fittings out of the taillights for the T-bird and glued these to the inside of the fiberglass quarter overlays. Then the sockets can be locked into place and the taillight housing or backup light housing can be fastened over the bulb. This should work without modification for the back-up light. The tail light will require boring out the housing to allow the bulb to pass through.
Well I did it and it works. I may have mounted the backup lights a bit low but I'll live with that. Interestingly the epoxy glue I used seems to be the same as the panel adhesive that comes with the Easyrods kit. The two parts, one black and one tannish white appear the same and the setting time (very slow) appears to be similar. I'll keep this in mind if I run low on the "official" adhesive.
The next step is to glue the passenger side quarter overlay. I have sanded the paint from the appropriate places on the rear fender but I'm still chicken to glue it on as this is a no backup step. Since I'm doing this a bit differently than Bob Hess's original instructions, I want to make absolutely sure I haven't forgotten something that must be done first.
9/10/2008
I have now glued both quarter skins on to the car. I did the passenger side about a week ago and the driver's side today. Each had its own problems but the process wasn't bad. The epoxy sets very slowly. You have about 90 minutes at 70 degrees. These two photos show the glued joints on the fender.
The first image is the glue result after a couple of days. All screws are removed and the holes counter sunk and filled. The second image is the just glued left side with the pressure plate and screws in place. I left it like this for at least 36 hours. I have also glued the gas cap in place. So we have some real progress. The next two images show the fenders from the left and the right.
On the left you can see the position of the fender with foam just peaking out of the seam and maybe the paint stirrer stick keeping pressure on the inside top seam. On the right the seam is covered with 3 layers of fiberglass cloth and resin.
11/7/2008
Much time has passed. I have made some progress but it is snowing today and the weather from this time on is very iffy. After I was satisfied that the epoxy had completely set for the quarter skins, I began filling in the gaps around the skins and fitting up the bumper. The following picture shows the rear after filling the gaps.
I had some real “fun” with the bumper. It is just a fiberglass/resin shell and needs some sort of stiffing and a mounting point. I bought a 6' x 1.5”x1.25” angle iron and notched and bent it to fit the curves. I decided to glue it to the bumper shell using leftover epoxy. This worked fairly well EXCEPT that it moved as I was clamping it and I didn't realize it. This resulted in it being off center by about an inch. Either I had to buy a new bumper or figure out how to “unglue” it. What a mess! I then remembered something my Dad had told me many years ago that the epoxy bond gives up about 300 degrees. Hmmm.., if I heated the angle iron using my torch and monitored the temperature with the IR thermometer I might be able to get the bumper off the iron without ruining the fiberglass. IT WORKED! This also allowed me to see that I really didn't have a good glue job in the first place. The next gluing was done a chopped fiberglass resin and I was very careful that it was centered and did not move.
When I worked at mounting the bumper I decided that the stubs on the bumper would not be needed. I just bolted the angle-iron to the stubs on the car. This picture shows how it all fit. I am quite happy with the result. I think I will need to modify the ends of the bumper a bit to have the look I want.
I have begun fitting the trunk handle to the trunk. The curve if the handle does not fit the curve of the fiberglass trunk and I am building up fiberglass and filler to make it fit. Attaching the handle is a bit of a sticking point right now but I think I have it solved. I have changed my mind about how to do this at least 3 times so who knows. Pictures later.
On 6/15/2009 my wife passed away. We had been married for nearly 44 years. I am working on the T-Bird now as a way to distract me to some extent from the loss.
7/17/2009
I have switched from working on the back-end to the front. I have removed the fenders, hood and front fascia. I did not saw off the front bumper right away as I was trying to see how this affected the process. The bumper is quite massive and in the way so my son suggested removing it by drilling out the spot welds. I still didn't want to saw off the supports yet. I did this and with the bumper out of the way I could better understand what I needed to do.
I also have the hood mounted. I had some difficulty with the latch not lining up but finally discovered that the whole mounting for the latch was adjustable and was shifted completely to the wrong extreme.
I finally got out the saws-all and cut off the driver's side support. I then worked out how the blocking panel went in and now have that attached. I also want to keep the windshield washer system in place. I should have room for my custom grill even with it there.
Now to work on the passenger side.
8/19/2009
Much progress has been made since the above. Putting the blocking panel in on the right side was a bit interesting. I did not really want to move the vapor collection box so I built around it. The next step was the placement of the fenders. This part is still not done but they are in position with all bolts and screws in place. I then started on cutting in the headlights.
I am using original 1951 headlight buckets. These actually fit with about 1/4” clearance at the back and I had no way to check them out first. Sometimes you just get lucky. Since these buckets mount in anything but a round hole, (See photo below) it took some fancy guess work to inset these into the fenders so they were vertical and centered.
The next step is to wire the lights up. I bought a set of lights from Yogi's that have a halogen bulb for the headlight and sets of LEDs for the parking lights and turn signals. The T-bird has two bulbs for parking lights and uses one of them for the turn signal. I wired that one into the LEDs and removed the other one. Interestingly the color code for the headlight wires is the same in 1951 and 1994. I only got the left headlight wired today. It works!
9/7/2009
All lights in the front are wired and working. Now I'm starting on the front bumper. I have made progress on both the front bumper and the grille. The grille is still only a mock-up.
Alan and I went to Star Supply to get some steel for the bumper. I found a heavy duty channel that I thought would do for bracing the fiberglass shell of the bumper but I couldn't find what I thought I wanted for the bumper support struts to mount the bumper on the car. I was looking for box section stuff but Alan is carrying around this ugly chunk of inch and a half U channel that is used to hang pipes and lights etc in industrial settings. He was sure it would be useful but I was doubtful. I bought the channel I had picked and his piece. As the pictures below show it was nearly perfect for the job. Thanks. brother.
The first picture shows the fit of the stub from the bumper as it slides into the support on the car. I have now brazed a bolt into one of the holes to be used to clamp the stub in position against the open side of the U-channel. The next picture has the three contact or support points numbered. Number 1 shows where the support channel is bolted to the shipping tie-down lug. Number two is a side support for the channel and 3 is the the rear support for the channel against the sway bar mounting bracket. These three points make for a very sturdy mount for the bumper support. The third picture also shows the right side and the new mounting for the auxiliary power steering cooler. The bumper supports are also attached to the gravel pan with three #12 sheet metal screws. The front screws had to be cut off inside so the stubs could slide all the way in. Notice that I have the bumper supports above the gravel pan. The directions indicate to run them below but I thought it would make the bumper too low.
The first picture above shows the fully installed front bumper and the second is a mock-up of the grille with a T-bird symbol painted on it in flat black. Since it does not show up very well I painted the rest of the grille ivory which is the third picture. This comes pretty close to what I envision for the custom grille. I originally wanted to actually cut out the part in black. There may actually be ways to have this affect without cutting it out. I am surprised how good it looks just painted flat black. Cutting the bars causes structural problems. I'm still thinking about all this. Oh yes, notice the chrome strip below the hood edge in pictures 2 & 3. This is the trim off the leading edge of a 1965 Mustang hood. It fits very well and is even the right length. I'll buy a new one of these and use this one to continue the trim down around the fender edge.
Progress has continued but it does not show much. I have built the grille and installed it. It still needs to be powder coated and I'm still debating the way to make the Thunderbird symbol. The major happening is that the car had a coming out party. The first time it has driven out of the garage in more than a year.
The first picture above shows one of my ideas for a fender skirt to make the fender line more like a 51 ford. I am still thinking about it. The grille is not a mock-up but is fully assembled. The T-bird symbol is just flat black paint.
Shortly after this the right front brake line failed (rusted out). This was not the easiest replacement I have had to do. I suspect the original lines are put in before the engine. I got it done and then looked over the left line and decided to replace it also. Left side was much easier. The rear lines were replaced about 4 years ago. Brakes work fine now.
I then started working on the license plate light and bracket. I discovered that I could use the original T-bird license light socket with the 51 fixture. With just a little trimming the socket could be forced into the socket hole for the 51 light fixture. That solved that problem.
If you look close you can see the light up under the trunk handle. The license bracket I built is also shown. I powder coated the trunk handle trim. It is not one of my better jobs but it was in pretty poor shape and looks better now. The second picture shows the back end put together except for the trim across above the bumper. The lumpy looking stuff by the backup lights is body putty that shapes the fender to fit the original curves of the 51 trim. The trim covers this up nicely.
This is scary as I'm nearing the point of real bodywork and paint.
For those of you wondering why nothing is going on, it is winter in PA as the picture shows.
So I fuss around with Ebay looking for stuff. I did find a NOS lock tumbler with keys for the '51 Ford trunk handle. Now I can make it so I can open the trunk from the outside with a key. I also found a new multi-function turn signal switch for the Bird as the current one shuts off the wipers when the left turn signal is activated.
See you in the Spring!
