1969 Mercury Cougar XR7

I’v been working on sorting out my pulley’s. I have...

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 19:20:23 +0100

I’v been working on sorting out my pulley’s. I have had a slipping alternator pulley and I haven’t been completely happy with the alignment of the water pump pulley.

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Thu, 28 Mar 2013 05:24:11 +0000

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1969 Ford Mercury Cougar

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 07:30:52 +0000

1969 Ford Mercury Cougar

Sorry for the long absence. Been extremely busy with life. Still...

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 07:28:57 +0000

Sorry for the long absence. Been extremely busy with life. Still need to do a bit more work on the Cougar but here it is.

Freeze plug disaster

Sun, 06 May 2012 23:53:25 +0100

So I poured a little bit of fuel into the carb and cranked the engine, it fired up for a second or two. Boy!!! Was I excited… UNTILL I heard this water noise. I got out the car a water was pouring all over the floor.

I thought:

Could it be the radiator?

The hose?

The water pump?

None of those!! next thing I saw was the water was coming from the side of the engine block!!

I stuck my hand in and feel, a freeze plug had sprung a hole. These things had probably never been replaced and had rusted thin. As soon as I started the engine the pressure just burst the plug.

My lack of knowledge led me to ask a few people what to do. I spoke to various “professionals” who said with that size V8 in that engine bay, it would NOT be possible and the engine would have to be taken out. It turned out that there are actually 6 plugs and two sit right behind the engine mounts. One behind the starter motor and another behind the exhaust manifold. Apparently when one goes then they all start to go. Great! Just Great!!! Back to square one.

In the meantime I imported the required plugs and started to try remove the ones I could. That was the two front ones that had nothing in its way.

Below is a picture of a plug with the engine mount in front of it.

Now what do I do about that??? I decided screw it, there is no way in hell I am going to take that many steps back and take the engine out again!!! So I had to make a plan. I had to take the engine mounts out without taking the engine out. Sounds crazy right? Wait till I’m lying underneath it smacking it with a hammer. So I pulled the crane over the engine and hooked it up.

So I left one mount connected and disconnected the other and lifted the engine slightly, the problem now was I had to get the old plugs and and put new ones in. I put a car jack underneath the engine as well as tires where I could and finally some wood across the cranes legs so that if the engine fell I would be okay.

I made a hole in the plug and then using a size 32 spanner I then levered them out with great force smacking my hands a few times. I then use an appropriate size socket and put that in the new plug with an extension and then used a big hammer to knock them in. Sound easy but wait till you have to deal with the horrible angles and not enough room to move your hammer. With great difficulty I managed to get the new plugs in :)

I didn’t get too many photos of the other side as I was struggling for much longer because the exhaust manifold comes further down and there is no way of removing it. I must be honest, the one plug I was originally concerned about on that side but is holding out great. I have two spare plugs if something happens.

This is just a cool photo. I love these rims.

Fri, 04 May 2012 06:50:54 +0100

This is just a cool photo. I love these rims.

Some engine assembly

Wed, 02 May 2012 19:26:00 +0100

So I had painted my water pump black along with the radiator and power steering pump. Below are some pictures of the water pump on the engine with a new flex fan which straightens slightly at higher rpm.

I then put the radiator in with the chromed bracket.

And finally the new stainless steel radiator hose.

I then filled the radiator with anti freeze, checked a few things and connected a few wires and then I could finally start the engine up. Well… That didn’t happen as I had hoped!!

Rear lights and valence

Wed, 02 May 2012 18:42:13 +0100

Finally it was time to start with the fun parts…

The restored rear light assemblies could now be attached.

I would just like to point out the rear valence which is the piece that is cut out for the exhausts. This piece was lost over the years and I managed to find one a a scrap yard here, LUCKY! The people who painted the car first did not put one on so it was originally missing. I had just put it on before the rear lights.

Inside paint

Wed, 02 May 2012 18:31:10 +0100

Once I got the car back, the paint job was looking much better and I was excited to get started on the assembly.

However the interior paint was peeling badly and needed to be cleaned off and painted again. This is what it looked like after I had cleaned it nicely and removed all the loose paint.

I thought about what would be the best paint in this situation and it had to be Hammerite, I used the hammered texture to help with carpet grip. Once it was painted, it looked great, was quite a big job as Hammerite is quite thick and needed a couple of coats.

This should provide a good protective layer for years to come.

Restoring 40 year old parts to their former glory

Wed, 02 May 2012 16:52:00 +0100

While my car was at the panel beaters, I spent the time sanding all the parts down to bare metal and spraying them to look like new.

Here is a photo of my little spray booth with an extractor :)

Here is my rear light before I sanded it and painted it.

And after… Including the front fog lights.

Here is my radiator after sanding as all the other pieces looked. Bare-metal.

I stripped my hand brake, painted it and fixed it, it wasn’t pulling back after it was released.

Below is the power steering pump before I restored it.

My power steering pump looks like it is new, believe it or not, its 40 years old.

No how could I possible put any of the restored pieces back on with rusty bolts. Some I sent in for galvanizing but others I just used a wire brush, cleaned them and then sprayed them. Below are the nuts and bolts ready for paint.

My rule when building a car is the “bedroom test” If the part isn’t clean enough to be put in a bedroom for storage, then it isn’t clean enough to go on my car!!

Finally time for assembly :):):)

Body Work

Wed, 02 May 2012 16:27:00 +0100

Sorry for the long absence. Engineering has been getting the better of me AGAIN and in the December holidays I pushed to get as much done as I could on the Cougar. Let me try fast track to where I currently am.

Well after my car had been utterly ruined, the paint work needed to be done again so this I had completely stripped the car down AGAIN. With the body being so badly chipped, I had no other options.

Now it was time to send it to someone to do the bodywork again, this time I was even more nervous. Below are some photos of the body work that was done.

There was a bad dent on the side that had been filled with so much body filler, I’m surprised it didn’t fall off!

This patch had been fixed with fibre glass but metal was to be welded in.

Finally the car was resprayed, this time in a slightly darker orange which was against my wishes but the couldn’t match they previous colour.

Now it was time for me to start with assembly. In the mean time I had been refurbishing parts like the grill and rear lights etc.

Fuel Pump

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 08:44:00 +0000

So this morning I called the post office to ask about my long awaited fuel pump.. It was there :) I had to collect immediately.. Even though I have an exam on Friday I could not miss this opportunity to get the engine running for the first time in a year. There have been numerous problems like the freeze plugs which I will talk about later. Never the less I have managed to sort all these problems out. Like a little kid opening a birthday present, I ripped the packaging open and immediately started to fit the pump. After about 20 min of putting the pump back on and connecting fuel lines, I cranked the engine a few times…. In no time at all the engine started :) Music to my ears :)

Turns out that last year when I ran out of fuel on a third tank, it was not actually a problem with the fuel gauge but rather the fact that the engine was being fed by gravity feed (pressure from the fuel in the tank) because the fuel pump wasn’t working. So today it started up on a quarter tank. This is fantastic :)

Now to just get the rest of the car assembled… But for now, back to the studying.

Okay so, firstly I am extremely sorry for my lack of...

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 15:39:49 +0000

Right side of the Grill

Grill Open

Grill Closed

Left Side of Grill with Emblem

Okay so, firstly I am extremely sorry for my lack of participation in my own blog. University and engineering has been getting the better of me and I have not laid a hand on my car for the last few months. However soon I will be able to catch up on some lost time and hopefully get my baby running by the end of the year. For now I just want to get started on my blog again and carry on from where I left off.. The Grill.

My last post on the grill months ago showed everything restored but nothing assembled. Since then I have assembled the grill and it is busy waiting in the bedroom (out of harms way) to be put on the car. Personally this grill has turned out to be one of my favorite parts on the car, it looks brand new and I am so happy with the outcome. Instead of boring everyone with more on the grill, I will leave it here with these final pictures until the grill in actually on the car.

Once again I’m sorry for those of you who were keeping up to date with this blog.

"Don’t find fault, find a remedy."

Sat, 12 Nov 2011 15:44:17 +0000

“Don’t find fault, find a remedy.”

- Henry Ford

Assembly of the newly restored grill Okay so now that everything...

Thu, 08 Sep 2011 17:33:59 +0100

Assembly of the newly restored grill

Okay so now that everything had been either taken down to bare metal or sanded appropriately, it was time to paint. I bought myself a spray gun and used an old compressor. The pressure of this compressor proved to be problematic at times, I kept running out of air which stopped the even flow of paint. I made some changes with a regulator and an extra gauge so that the pressure of the tank would go up to about 7 bar but the air pumped out would be at about 2 bar. It’s not ideal but I was making do with what I had. It took e a couple of attempts on easier parts before I even attempted to spray the grill, I only had one chance to get it right, I did not want to sit an sand it again. I made a small spray booth with a desk on top of another desk and a fan in the back. It helped for dust and ventilation. The grill is very difficult to sand with 2000 sand paper and then polish, so doing it right the first time was the only option. I managed to do a job that I am faily happy with. So once everything was painted I started to assemble everything. The stainless steel trim that holds the bulbs in place were in a terrible state. I put a polishing brush on my wall grinder and polished all these stainless rings, they came out looking brand new. I still have not fully assembled the whole grill but this is a good idea of what it’s going to look like. You wouldn’t think that the grill is 42 years old.

"There is joy in work. There is no happiness except in the realization that we have accomplished..."

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 19:37:47 +0100

“There is joy in work. There is no happiness except in the realization that we have accomplished something.”

- Henry Ford

Broken Pewter The one side of the grill was broken. I think the...

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 16:59:12 +0100

1) Before rebuild

2) After re-builder fixed it

3) After I fixed it

Broken Pewter

The one side of the grill was broken. I think the car was in a small bumper bashing at some stage on its life.

Due to it being pewter this proved to be problematic. One can’t just bend pewter as they please or weld it easily, it either breaks or melts. I called a few places to see if I could have it welded as there are people who can weld pewter but no one could guarantee that it would not melt away. Obviously the re-builder had the same problem. The first photo shows what it was like in the beginning, there was one break and the whole side of the grill was badly bent. In the second photo, if you look closely, there are 3 breaks and it is slightly straighter, the re-builder had tried to straighten it but didn’t do such a great job. Now the third photo is from after I fixed it and painted it. It was very difficult to straighten this grill, I was worried about breaking it in more places or even worse breaking the grill completely. I used pliers, a vice grip and a cloth to prevent damaging it. I did small movements fighting to get the edges lined up and everything straight. Each time thinking, ‘It’s going to break, it’s going to break.’ Eventually I was fairly happy with the job, it wasn’t completely straight but I quit while I was ahead not pushing it and breaking it. I then sanded it down to bare metal in that general area ensuring it was completely clean. Using JB weld i glued the grill back together, this took a few times to mix it and let it dry, after that I sanded it down and smoothed off all the edges to look like it never was broken at all. A coat of 1k edge primer and 2k black paint and the grill looked as good as new. Personally I was very happy with the fix.

The cups that hold the light bulbs had not been painted, so it...

Sat, 27 Aug 2011 09:23:32 +0100

The cups that hold the light bulbs had not been painted, so it really looked terrible. Sanding everything is a daunting task so I tried to find better options. Due to these cups being mild steel, I sent them in for sand blasting, a photo shows these cups sandblasted, as well as the eyelid covers for the grill that roll up to expose the lights. With the grill being pewter it could not be sandblasted to remove the paint that the rebuilder sprayed on. To remove his paint which had been chipped in places and to smooth it off removing the pit marks totally I had to sand the grill. (Sorry I was robbed and my computer was stolen so I lost a range of photos including where I had sanded the grill down.) It took hours and hours to sand in-between all the cross members of the grill. A small section of the grill is showed after it was sanded. Also all the small parts that open and close the grill for the lights were in a terrible condition, I used a wire brush on a grinder to get majority of the paint off these steel parts and then sanded them to make sure they were good for paint.

I would just like to make a tribute to my gardener who so willingly helped me sand all the parts that needed sanding, between us there were weeks spent in sanding everything. He had been working for us for about 5 years and sadly died in a car accident about a month ago.

Restoration of the Grill The photo’s are of the grill...

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 10:33:06 +0100

Grill on the car

Light cups not painted

Restoration of the Grill

The photo’s are of the grill before I started. The problem with these grills are that they are pewter and after 40 years the grill has eroded in places causing pit marks. I decided with this particular orange colour that a black grill would look the best. Painting it would also help fill the pit marks. Another way is to send it for copper plating putting micro layers of copper on and sanding it down between layers, thus slowly filling the pit marks.

When the re-builder painted it, he put spot putty on filling these pit marks before painting. Although there were still pit marks visible. In order to restore this grill to the appropriate standards, it required a lot of man hours.

In the next few posts I will go into more detail.

The first time I heard the cougar with its new straight through...

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 20:15:00 +0100

The first time I heard the cougar with its new straight through exhaust pipes start was three years after I started this project. Here is a video of it running, the video doesn’t have the greatest sound quality but gives you a good idea of what this thing sound like.