Mods or changes you want to do…… but never will.

1997ThunderbirdLXV6 said:
...and hardtops are  sporty:

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I agree! I drove a '57 Bel Air 2 dr hardtop for bout 10 yrs as a daily driver. Bought it while I was in the Army for $100 with a blown 327 and sitting behind a barn since '68. Got the original 283 power pac with 2 4 bbls in the deal. Guy had to dig it out of the back of his shed. It had been there since his sons had swapped out the 283 for the 327 in '65 to race on the local track till they blew it. Restored the car and drove the hell out of it. My '55 Ford Fairlane I have now is a 2 Dr post car and I wish it was a hardtop like the '57 was.
 
As far as carbon fiber goes, it's easy, if you buy the right stuff.
I've made stuff with CF, including coverind a Corvette top with CF.
W used a 12k material, clear epoxy, and used vacuum bagging to apply it.
we sanded and cleaned the glass top extensively.
When we got it cured, he put it on,and sll was good until full summer hit, and the CF delaminated from the top. the expert I showed it to said the "thermal coefficient of expansion was so different, it ripped thru the epoxy. So I did tests on metal.
Taking it to bare metal does the same thing. Adding etching primer to bare steel gave me the best adhesion, but it still failed the epoxy after 2 years.
I gave up on covering the red cougars hood with cf.

To do cf, materials, these places are good

www.fibreglast.com

Fibre Glast Developments Corp LLC | Fiberglass & Composite Materials

Fibre Glast is a leading supplier of fiberglass & composite materials. A source for Carbon Fiber, Kevlar, Fiberglass, Resin, Gel Coat & much more.
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Welcome to the Composite Envisions

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I did R&D for 15 years.
You need a good vacuum pump.
 
I'll take a 64-65 Falcon/Comet hardtop please! Sprint or Cyclone get extra points! :biggrin:

Joe
 
A black and yellow 57 bel air 2dlr was my dad's 'mustang' when I was 3.
It was his racecar, and he won the front mustang emblem in 66, with a 289 engine. Dude was still pissed 30 years later, lol. Joe, mydads second, and last, racecar was a 66 mercury cyclone, with that same289. he gave it to my sis in '75. without the race heads and cams. She loved it until it burned in the middle of town.
 
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After seeing how stiff one of these cars become with a full cage, I got the idea of trying to build a full cage for a street car, but have it completely hidden. It would involve significant cutting of the factory inner body panels to tuck the tubes as much as possible, and probably modification to the dashboard, and probably custom headliner and custom A-pillar and quarter panel interior trim pieces, plus probably cutting off the rocker panels to hide sill bars in there. It would be a ridiculous amount of work, and would probably add 2-300lbs to the car, not to mention the cost and learning curve of bending the tubing precisely enough to pull this off. And then if it was done right, nobody would ever see it or even know it was done. So it isn’t likely to happen, but if time and money were no object, then that is what I would do.
 
MadMikeyL said:
After seeing how stiff one of these cars become with a full cage, I got the idea of trying to build a full cage for a street car, but have it completely hidden. It would involve significant cutting of the factory inner body panels to tuck the tubes as much as possible, and probably modification to the dashboard, and probably custom headliner and custom A-pillar and quarter panel interior trim pieces, plus probably cutting off the rocker panels to hide sill bars in there. It would be a ridiculous amount of work, and would probably add 2-300lbs to the car, not to mention the cost and learning curve of bending the tubing precisely enough to pull this off. And then if it was done right, nobody would ever see it or even know it was done. So it isn’t likely to happen, but if time and money were no object, then that is what I would do.
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Ruf puts hidden cages into the 911s they tune, it’s really cool

IMG_8037.jpegIMG_8036.jpeg
 
1997ThunderbirdLXV6 said:
Opening Rear Side Windows
This would be so cool. I love driving with open windows. Unfortunately this would be hugely complex.
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Oh man, that would be cool.

I have a related mod I wish I had the money to make happen. I've always said that the MN12 Thunderbirds should have been named Torinos instead, nothing about them says "Thunderbird" when you look at them, but they have the similar intermediate body lines of a '70/'71 Torino.

1970_ford_torino_cobra_sportsroof_chiolero.jpg

So my never gonna happen mods would be change the rear passenger windows to more closely follow that Torino shape where the bottom angles up instead of staying horizontal. I would also change the nose to look more like a Torino, meaning round headlights (inside the same size light buckets that are on Thunderbirds already), an actual center grille (though the proportions would still be the same as what the Thunderbird has now, not nearly was wide as that pic), and a separate bumper (meaning new separate lower valance as well) that still kept most of the same design shapes as the '95 design. And a separate chin spoiler.

The tail would also be changed to more closely match the Torino. Probably, just to keep it simple, that means changing the rear lights to look more like Torino rear lights (vertical) and probably with a blacked-out surround. Again, separate bumper with a separate lower valance.

1971_Ford_Torino_spoiler.jpg

And some real metal rear window louvers.

1970_ford_torino_gt.PNG

I really like that side strobe stripe, too. I was never a fan of molded-in duck rear spoilers so I'd go with either nothing or one of those pedestal wing spoilers.
 
You would not believe how noisy those rear louvers are. They rattle constantly. I had them on the '83 firebird. and the black bra,lol.
 
Maybe I should start a trivia thread too but who can name which 1960s car popularized rear louvers?
 
No, older body style, Definitely fastback, tho. The older ones I remember from the 60's weren't fastbacks. Probably just before mustang II. I do remember a yellow Mach1 with louvers, but the white with blue Cobra really grabbed me. I was riding a bicycle, lol. We used to watch them unload new cars. The MII was tiny, i remember.
 
Z cars had louvers. But I thought late 60's Mustangs did. Maybe that was aftermarket?
 
Before Z cars, before Boss/Mach 1s or the aftermarket picked up on them.


I’ll drop a key hint… on the car that popularized them, they were functional.
 
Z cars had them. Looks like the one I remember was a first few years fastback
 
Never would have guessed that, and not sure I've ever noticed them on the Lambo
 
Zep5.0 said:
Never would have guessed that, and not sure I've ever noticed them on the Lambo
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That’s what makes them interesting (to me anyway), louvers are probably the least significant aspect of the Miura but also the most copied part of it, and also something it was never intended to have, it was supposed to have glass showing off the engine, but back then nobody could figure out how to keep it from fogging up, so louvers became the ingenious solution to vent the engine compartment and have visibility

I do think Ford was the first in American cars to copy it with the Mach 1s optional louvers and the Super Cobra concept car… which is appropriate since the Miura’s styling was inspired from the Ford GT40, returning the favor
 
Grog6 said:
The roof is structural, so replacing it is going to be rough. A member at the old place had one with the roof off, and it was flimsy; if you sat in it, the doors wouldn't open.iirc, it was casper.
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I have to call some bull unfortunately. Theres a youtube channel that took a mark 8, cut the roof off, took the doors off, and beat the piss out of it. I.e jumping it, drifting it, crashing it, and probably more I havent seen. Cars been alive for a year in that condition
 
There was a guy named casper on the other site; I can't find it from google, too much noise. I did hear also that the guys who did the short wheelbase cars made a vert, with serious frame bracing. With jl's subframe connectors, it wouldn't be a problem.
Try it, it might work. :)
 
Wile E. Coyote said:
I have to call some bull unfortunately. Theres a youtube channel that took a mark 8, cut the roof off, took the doors off, and beat the piss out of it. I.e jumping it, drifting it, crashing it, and probably more I havent seen. Cars been alive for a year in that condition
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Are those the guys I called retards a while back? I hope there aren’t more than one 😂
 
Dude here made a mark dune buggy,lol. Not much surprises me, these days.
 
A full proper repaint of Pearl using the Cadillac version of Chameleon White (not sure of the actual name), a Gen 3 Coyote engine, and a TR-6060.

All of these are cost prohibitive of me to do, but would definitely do if money weren't a problem.

Realistic for me, would likely be a 4.6 4v swap and a wrap of some sort. I already have the TR-3650 that will be going in, lol.
 
I could make you a deal on parts, if you ever want to hubswap. Heck,I could sell you converted knuckles with bearings.
 
Grog6 said:
I could make you a deal on parts, if you ever want to hubswap. Heck,I could sell you converted knuckles with bearings.
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I have all that already for Pearl. What I'm missing for Pearl are brake system components that I'm working towards getting. The direction of Pearl is the ATS route for which I've already got the caliper adapters.

For Gold Bird, I plan on keeping her stock with minor exceptions, like doing the PBR upgrade. The Cobra PBRs you offer, while definitely better, will make it so I need to hub swap, which will also mean I would need wheels for her.
 
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