- Bought the car back from Kim
- Transfer Title
- Gas tank out for repair
- Collect insurance quotes
- I have a set of factory service manual set from Kim to keep in the car (for working on the car with)
- Bought a new set of clean factory service manual set to keep in the house (for research and study) from Auto Krafters
- Bought a three CD set of the 1972 Ford dealers factory part number books via EBay
- Collector car insurance in place
- The repaired gas tank was installed with a new sender unit and filler tube gasket
- Installed the gas cap I bought via EBay
- Installed the rear bumper
- Installed the new fuel pump and filter
- Bought a set of replacement Maverick emblem's via EBay
- Bought a Ford dealers sale pamphlet for the 1972 Maverick via EBay
- Bought a wiring diagram for the Mav via EBay
- Bought a dealers color sample for 1972 cars via EBay
- Bought a spare front grill with lights and emblem via Ebay
- Bought a Maverick key ring in a color very close to the Mav's color
- Brought home the Maverick and it is in our garage.
- The spare grill arrived and is in fairly good shape. Just as described by the seller on EBay
- Picked up a spare parking brake assembly for the inside of the Mav. The one in the car was jury rigged back when I first owned it. It works great but found another one cheap so I picked it up
- Got a 1972 Maverick owners manual off of EBAY
- Got a great deal via EBay for a rear view mirror to replace the glass in the current rear view (the current mirror glass has black spots)
- Spending most of the time cleaning off the 34 years worth of dirt that has built up on the engine and under the hood. I can once again see that the valve covers were painted blue.
- Ordered a few items from the Eastwood Catalog to help with the rust clean up and under hood touch up painting
- Made a good deal of progress on the cleaning. A few cans of engine cleaner, some elbow grease and my special crap catcher. Here is a link to a before cleaning and the current after photos. Still got a way to go, but it is a start. At least you do not get dirty just by opening the hood.
- My special $1.00 seat belt upgrades are still in place. I noticed when I owned this car in 1976 that the seat belt release buttons were just about the same size as a quarter. I just could not resist trying to see if quarters would work. Well 30+ years later I would have to say the answer is yes. All four of the 1972 quarters are still in place. looks like something else I will need to clean. This is a photo of the drivers seat belt release.
- Picked up a spare dash from Ebay. It is blue where my car is black. I really did not need it, but the price was great and it came with the instrument panel, wiring harness, all the buttons, switches and knobs as well as the speedometer cable. Just to many small parts that I would hate to need to try find later.
2006
The Mav fired up first time and after a few quick adjustments it was running smooth. It took less then 10 minutes. So we let it idle while Kim moved a few thing around to get out of his backyard and we put the tools up. The Mav sat and idled for at least 15 minutes. Then we parked it at the base of the driveway (still running) for Kim to take a few last photos leaving his house. That took another couple of minutes. So it was time to head home.
We started down the street, got about
15 feet and the Mav died in the street and did not want to restart. Some quick
troubleshooting and we found that gas was not getting to the motor. We hooked
up an electronic fuel pump Kim had around with a clear fuel filter. It started
up. Within a few minutes we could see that the fuel filter was collecting a
bunch of crud in it. We had put on all new rubber fuel line and blew out the
metal fuel line, however Mr. Murphy decided to step in. Since we could now stop
and start the engine at will, we decided to hit the road once again. Bottom
line is that about 1:00 PM. Kim backed the Mav into the driveway of our house
without any issues during the three mile drive. I gave Kim a ride back to his house
and came home with the old messed up hood to practice some body work on.
A side note: For the last few days, something about the hood stripe was bugging me. Today I figured out what it was. It is not the same as the the one that was on it when I had the car. On the old hood the strip was between the hood scoops. This hood has them outside of the scoops as well as a stripe along the front of the hood just above the grill. I will have to make sure to get the correct stripe kit for the '72 Grabber when the time comes.
Prior to replacing that small hose, the engine would start and after about 10 seconds die. Since then it ran for the 3 or 4 minutes I let it run.
Since I had all the stuff around to start cleaning off the small amount of surface rust. I figured to give it a shot. Since I am new to this auto restoration stuff I needed to find an easy project to start on. Lucky (I guess) for me, the jack and lug wrench were among the worst rusted part that are easy to see. Perfect to practice on. If I screwed them up, they could be easily redone in the future. So, that is what I did. A little rust stripping, a little rust encapsulation and a little painting. Not much real world progress, but a moral victory. At least it is a start.
Continuing with the working on the cheap mode, I removed the tail lights to re-paint
the bezel's and the blacked out part of the rear. I figure it is small enough to be
good practice on, yet big enough to make a noticeable improvement. Yet, if I
screw it up it will be small enough to re-do in the future.
Here are the before and after photos.
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| BEFORE | AFTER |
NEW RULE: If I did not notice it before mixing the Bondo, DO NOT fix it after mixing.
Cheryl was in Houston visiting her parents over the holiday weekend. Work gave
us Monday off, so I had a 4 day weekend to play with the car. I was able to
finally get around to doing the compression test with 100-120 PSI across
all 8 cylinders(see the results).
I did have quite a bit of oil on each of the spark plugs. From what I can find
in my research, I suspect that the valve guides may be leaking oil. Since I had
to remove each spark plug anyway, I went ahead and replaced them all with new ones.
The timing was dead on the mark so I did not have to mess with it.
I was over at my parents for dinner and mentioned to my dad that I was thinking of putting the Pertronix points replacement system on the car. The biggest reason being the cost of points, condenser and a tach/dwell meter would be most of the cost of the pertronix system. He pulled my old tach/dwell meter out of a drawer in the garage. It is the same meter I used when I first owned this car back in 1976 (along with the same timing light I still use today). I was not able to adjust the idle speed to below 800 RPM so I will have to work on that.
- Compression test completed
- New Spark plugs
- Timing set
- Idle speed sort of set
Surprise, the plan for this month is to continue working on the cheap. I did win a $100.00 American Express gift card so I can pick up a few more cleaning supplies to work on more of the rust removal and primer where needed. It looks like I will be leaning toward body work more then mechanical stuff. It requires more time and less money then the other stuff. I'll let you know how things progress.
It's only rust. So far all I have encountered was surface rust. Nothing that
a quick shot of some sandpaper or a wire brush would not take care of. That was
until I pulled the battery out to clean that half of the under hood area. Under
the battery try, I found my first really badly rusted spot. Looks like a little work to
fix this spot. Overall
not bad for a 34+ year old car.
This is how it tuned out after being fixed.
This is the result of some rust removal, rust conversion, rust encapsulating, panel adhesive and new
metal. All finished off with some seam sealer, primer and paint. I used the panel adhesive for two
reasons. First being this is not a structurally important area and is very flat. Second, I do not have
a welder to have welded in new metal. I'll have to keep my fingers crossed that this
ends up being the only bad spot on the car. So far so good.
Once again this month the focus will be on cleaning. With the cleaning and touching up of the under hood being the main area of focus.
I am not sure home much will really get done this month. I would like to do as much as possible. Around here it cools off and starts to rain in November. I figure that gives me at least two full months of nice weather for working.
However, September is also a busy month for us. This year my parents will be celebrating 50 years of marriage on the 11'th. Followed in a few weeks with my mothers birthday. I was happy to start the month off with a 3 day weekend. I did not do any work on the car the first day. Instead I went to a 60'th birthday BBQ for the brother-in-law of the original owner, Joe. It was great to see them all. Joe's sister, brother and son were all there. These folk have always been like family to me. It hard for me to remember a time when they were not a part of my life. It was truly great to visit with them and gave me a new burst of excitement about working on the car. Joe has passed on but I hope when I complete this project. His family will enjoy seeing his old ride on the road again as much as I will enjoy having my fist ride back on the road again.
While a lot of the cleaning has been under the car and knocking surface rust off of the frame. Here are some photos showing a little progress under the hood.
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| BEFORE | NOW |
This month started off well. I got a new tool for my Birthday that should help with some of those rusty nuts and bolts. However, I did not get much work done. I lost one weekend due to work. I had to travel to Eagan, MN for a weekend installation of some special order products for one of our major customers. I was able to take my "weekend" on Tuesday and Wednesday of that week. I just did not feel like doing much those days.
No real plans for this month. Hope to get some more body work done. I have the trim under the front bumper off (from last month) and I am working on fixing a few dents. Like the area between the tail lights. The front trim is an are big enough to make a difference, small enough to redo if needed and hidden most of the time, making a good area to practice and learn on.
I really did not get much done this month (cue the violin music). I had to make an unplanned work trip to a customer outside of Minneapolis. I left our house at 4:30 am on Thursday and was back on Friday night about 5:00 pm. Needless to say, I did not feel up to working on the Maverick that weekend. Then my Grandmother passed away just before Thanksgiving. So, I really did not feel like doing much that weekend either. I was sad at her having passed on and more so because I was not going to be able to addend the services.
Once again no real plans for this month other then try to do what I wanted to
last month. This month will also mark the 1 year anniversary of my getting the
car back from Kim. Looking back, I have not got as much done as I had hoped.
Maybe we will have a warm winter (so far been colder then normal) so I can get
more done.
What I did get done was:
Back flushed the radiator. I was surprised by how little rust came out. The
cooling system was real clean. It took a few minutes to get my baby to fire up.
But, it did start under its own power and ran smoothly. It took about 10 minutes
for the blue smoke to clean up. It still smelled from burning oil, but was not
belching blue smoke all the time. I even took it for another quick ride around our
town-home complex.
I ran out of touch-up paint and did not want to order any more until after catching up on all the Christmas bill. I did get paint just in time for it to get cold and stormy. We lost power twice in two days.
2007
The first week of the month I was sort of sick. Not sure what I had, not really "sick" sick. Just felt like all of my energy had been drained. NO, It was not a hang over!.
Then we had a bit of a cold snap where it was just not fun being out side or even in the garage.
Another weekend was taken up with problems with both the DirecTV TiVo box downstairs and our home wireless network . That same weekend was also my dads birthday.
I also had to do some work on our Mystique to replace the rear trunk struts (what a pain to figure that out) and an oil change.
Enough of the excuses, maybe something good will happen next month. I did manage to get some more touch up paint and smooth out a bump on the front under bumper trim.
The DirecTV folks called and moved our upgrade from the middle of next month to the end of this month. I had to do a bunch of list minute things to get ready for that.
The Mystique stuck back again this month. I had to replace the battery. I really should not complain. I knew it was coming and it was still the original battery from the factory when the car was built in 1998.
It has been rather a cold and rainy month. Just not very enjoyable to be out in the garage and work.
I do know that next month and maybe even April will not be very productive as far as the Maverick project goes. I need to have a little work done on my person and will have a few weeks of recovery time where I need to take it easy.
I do not expect to get anything done on the car in April. I will still be somewhat restricted on lifting and moving heavy things for most of the month and we have plans for a couple of weekends toward the end of the month.
Along those same lines of thinking. The (San Francisco) Bay Area Air Quality Management District sent me a letter early this month. They offered me $650.00 to drive my Maverick to an approved wrecking yard and have it scrapped. The idea is to get 1985 and older cars off of the street. I'll be passing on that offer. I'm still hoping to win the lottery and being able to have the money to get Chip Foose to work his magic on my car. Not counting on that however, I will continue to have lots of fun working on my Mav as time and money allow. Smog Cops be damned, this is a collectors car and will only be a "weekend car" once it is complete. Not a daily driver.
One of the reasons not much got done this last month was our plan to stop by the all Fords car show held every April at Knott's Berry Farm. This was the first car show I have been to in many years and we had a nice time at both the car show and the theme park.
This damage was done back in either 1976 or 1977 when I fist owned the car. It was hit in the parking lot of the Jack In The Box I worked at way back then.
As a side note: I sent an email to one of the local adult education centers. They have two different body shop classes that meet one night a week for about 4 months. I asked if the class would be good for a hobbyist or just people wanting to go into the profession. I also asked if you could bring in your own parts to work on in class. In my case the body is in good shape and it is the front fenders, doors and other stuff that is easy to remove that really need attention. The only contact given for email did not know and said he would ask his instructors and get back to me. So far it has been about 2 weeks, and I have not gotten any other information from him. The class starts at the end of August, so I would like to find out soon enough to try to register. Otherwise, I will have to try again after the first of the year.
Here is a link to the class information. It is not the most user friendly site. You may have to search for "auto body" to find the class's they offer.
I did not do as much as I wanted. I continued to work on the rear valance and started on the trunk lid and rear spoiler that attaches to it.
I even put some paint on the sides that will not be seen once installed
to see how it would look. The back sides were not smoothed out since the only
way they will be seen is if someone were to lay on the ground and crawl under the
car. These are good enough for now.
Changing the color from the red of the replacement fender to goldenrod yellow.
I also got some work done on a small dent behind that light on the fender as well as the trunk scratches. The rear spoiler is still a work in progress.
I am not expecting to get much done in October, The weather is starting to turn cooler and damper. The rainy season should kick in by the end of the month. Also, we need to make sure we have the funds to cover two Birthday's, and the upcoming Christmas holiday. Not to mention property tax's, car insurance and the truck licence renewal are all coming due by the end of the year. Guess that is why this is a hobby car... So you can do what you can when time, weather and other resources allow. I am still enjoying myself with it.....
With luck, I can work on the small golf ball size dents on the front fenders during November. Only time will tell for sure.......
2008
I can not post any after photos until after the show airs. BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, What is that? bat-crap - its the alarm. Time to wake up. I just had the most wonderful dream....
Needless to say, in the real world not much got done again this month. It might be March before the weather is nice enough to get in the garage and get started again. I did do a little work on some rough spots on the passenger side door and front fender.
Real world progress: Zilch, Zip, Nothing. But the weather does feel like it is about to turn to spring. We are exiting February with cool foggy or over cast mornings but afternoons are pushing the upper 60's. So March looks like it could be good for getting back to work. One would have thought that with this being a leap year, February would have been more productive.
I do not think much will happen in April. Our complex is having all the buildings treated for subterranean termites this month. We need to clean out a 3 foot area along at least one wall in the garage and move the washer and drier out of the way. They need to drill holes into the cement floor for the treatment and then fill in the holes. So the garage is going to be tore up for at least 2 weekends (one before and one after treatment). We also have our anniversary coming up in April.
With my lack of progress I am starting to wonder if I might be better off selling my much beloved Maverick and get some of my money back. We can use the money on better things. Then again, I do enjoy the time I do get to spend working on it.
It is hard to believe that another month has gone buy and I did not get a single thing done to the Mav. It just seemed like every free day of the weekends was taken up some other project that needed to be done around the house. I'll keep my finger crossed for next month to be work related travel free and we get caught up on the home front.
On a sad note, I also went to Ken Metherell's funeral on the 12'th. Ken was a cool guy and a real old school car guy. I met him back in High School when I first met Tracy.
Not expecting much to happen in October. One weekend is my birthday, the next is Cheryl's. We also have a driving trip on the books for wedding in Santa Fe.
Since winter is due to settle in and the start of the rainy season. I expect all chances of any progress to be put on hold until March or April.
2009
I am posting this photo of the hood as motivation to make sure it get done.
We also put more effort into cleaning the inside of the house so the garage has to wait. Our biggest limiting factor is the room in the trash and recycling cans. We can fill the recycling bin up real fast and we have the largest size of recycling bin the city offers. I am leaving the posting of the photo of the hood as motivation to make sure it get done.
2010
FOR SALE: 1972 Ford Maverick Grabber. 302 V8, AT needs some finishing work.
Not sure how I feel about that? Need to think this over a little bit. However if you have an interest in making an offer, use the email link below and let me know what your thinking.
THIS PROJECT ON HOLD UNTIL??????