Alan and the crew at A&R are the Best !!!!!!!!

Ken

 

I believe the wifey is planning on covering the dash in leather. She is in charge of all cosmetic items. I'm just trying to get it going down the road

 

Kodak Easyshare Z5010. Its a pretty old camera but works great. 14 megapixels

 

Made my first trip over to A&R this week and they are moving right along on the list. Before and after on the cowl area and wiper posts.




Mark Dunbar knocked it out of the park on making these door hinges disappear. The hidden hinges cleaned up the body lines on this car sooo much and he made this major fab work look easy

 

Looking really nice! Didn't know you were going to shave the door hinges, that is a ton of work to get right, looks like they are doing a great job on it. I assume you are shaving the handles too?

 

Quick answer is yes on the shaved door handles.
Here is the long answer. I went for a visit and they did such a nice job on the hinges. The door felt nice, level swing, door gap good etc. BUT when it closed it had the factory latches that just don't work that well. Felt clunky and I've heard the old single latches have been known to open every now and then....YIKES! So Mark and I discussed some Bear Claw latches. Then we both had figured out the Bear Claw latches may not work with the original outside door handles. Sooo now I have some solenoids coming . Heck he has the doors off laying on the workbench may as well just work them over More soon.....

 

Yeah, I think if you shave the hinges, you may as well shave the handles. Do yourself a favor and buy the best bearclaw latches you can. Those cheap Chinese Autoloc ones don't last long.

I have stock latches on my car, but with suicide doors I installed automatic power operated safety pins so I don't have to worry about them popping open at the worst time!

On a side note, if you want to sell the latches and handles I might be interested in them.

 

Okay I will let you know when the latches and handles are available and we'll see what we can work out.

 

Trying to clean up the back of the car a little bit. Frenched tail lights and license plate, third brake light, smooth gas tank door, filled in bumper bracket holes, etc. In progress pic.


The hidden door hinges created some extra work to get the doors to open. There is some geometry there that I still don't have exactly clear in my head LOL. Anyway, here is the original and the modification. Dunbar comes through again !




Here is the other side that still hits about to be dissected.


These folks have been great to deal with. Good people! Car guys with talent!

 

NICE!
Can't wait to see the finished product! BUT... good things come to those who wait....

 

I did the door hinges the same way but I engineered the linkage to utilize the inside and outside door handles to work with the bear claw latches. I even made linkage to use the original door lock cylinder in the right door...just like Ford built. Decades later, it still works great. I tried very hard to keep all the stock appearing stuff intact.

 

Hey Keith, got your PM. Looks good, no one will know anything has been done to the fenders, that's how you know it's done right!

 

Another trip to A&R. One of this week's highlights is some Bear Claw latch installs. Talk about nice opening and closing. Wow what a difference! The new car feel in an old car ...cool!

 

Nice job!! I really like it, looks familiar.

 

thanks. I would of guessed it was a new one with the latest pixel count. Ill have to keep a eye out for these

thanks again,
jimbo

 

Are those power windows too?

 

Yes sir power windows.

 

Next you are going to say you're taking out all the rattles too... You're going to forget you're driving an old car!

 

Awsum !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

A&R moving right along and I got a nice surprise this week. Instead of just priming the raw steel areas where work was done they actually primed and dusted some paint to match. Can hardly tell this fender has been worked. Nice job Dylan!


Plan is to get the worked areas roughed in and do blocking when the final color is done at a later time.


Parts here and there


Love the new door latch assemblies.


Reworked the entire lower valance panel pretty good. Fabbed up a license plate box, filled bumper bracket holes, and cut out some rust. My favorite part is the corners on each side that Mark cut out where the factory had some lead, and reshaped the corners from being squared off to having a nice radius to match the rest of the body lines on the back of the car. A subtle but great improvement