I’m enjoying the warm, for the middle of December, weather by working in the shop on the T’Bird without having to have the wood stove going. This afternoons project was to mount the latches in the top which hold it to the body. These are a pair of Chrysler K car hood latches, the stud is located sort of behind the Thunderbird shown here, and the latch itself is welded to the top of the quarter panel. Since I chopped the top by whacking 2 1/4″ off the bottom of the sail panels, the latches had to be re-mounted.
The die-cast trim piece had to be shortened 5 1/2″ to fit the new sail panel width, and I found the stainless rear window trims and mocked all that up. Looks pretty good, now I’m debating whether to leave the little Thunderbird emblems on the top. I kinda like them, so they may stay.
I wanted to trial fit the stainless trim that goes on the front of the top over the windshield, and spent over half an hour searching for those pieces. I’d trimmed them to fit on Monday, so I knew they had to be somewhere in the shop, but I couldn’t find them. It was frustrating.
I had put all the dash and interior pieces that before had been just tossed in the back seat area under the tonneau cover in a big Tupperware storage tub, and put it up on a shelf. As a last resort, knowing I would NEVER have put those exterior stainless pieces in that container of interior parts, I looked, and sure enough, there they were. The dangers of putting things away is that it’s hard to remember where I put them.
So, the car is looking pretty good. I think I’m not going to try to chop the soft top, this hardtop looks pretty cool Much less work than making a new soft top anyway.
So, now a new battery and finishing up the disc brake swap, started 6 years ago, and it’ll be ready for its new two-tone silver paint job. I can see it now…
Cool McCool's Garage 