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

Chingon1 said:
@XR7-4.6 haha I can see why they say it’s mainly for track purposes. A plan of mine was to do a section at a time, underhood, door siles like in the miata picture, floor and working back. It seems to me like the biggest area of work is in the rear window section. Does your cougar have a brace back there??
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Just SC L braces, I’m not sacrificing my fold down seats for some scaffolding 🤣
 
Kenz said:
They are cool! Do you ever actully use them though @XR7-4.6 ? :unsure:
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Yes. Plywood sheets, PVC pipe, driveshaft etc have all passed through it at one time or another. A fold down is a must have feature in a car to me, I use the one in my Focus all the time too.
 
Grog6 said:
Fold down seats are rarer than pedaks these days.
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They’re not terribly rare in existence, SCs by their nature tended to be loaded and every one that rolled off the assembly like with the leather option got the fold down mandatory…. But it’s a very bulky item that isn’t often salvaged so now a days they probably are more rare than the smallish clutch pedal in the parts market, but if you picked up a cheap rotten SC parts car there’s higher chance it has the fold down than not.

Most need to be reupholstered too, not just to match your car in most cases but the top portion on most really took a beating from UVs after 30+ years and dried out that area of the leather fiercely making it look warpy. Mines not great there but the Cougar roofline does an excellent job hiding it.
 
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White Lincoln said:
It was made in 82 and 77...

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Those don’t really count considering it was just Mercury badge engineering the entire midsize lineup as Cougars in those dark years. They made 4 door sedans too, the “real”(not that they’re all that desirable) Cougars in those years were the XR7s which believe it or not had unique sheetmetal. These are about as Cougar as a Mustang Mach E is a Mustang, or a dork’s Corolla with a millennium falcon bumper sticker is the millennium falcon.

Fun fact though, the wagons were called Cougar Villagers, and if that name sounds familiar to those of us who remember the 1990s lived on in the Mercury Villager minivan(aka Nissan Quest). I never thought much of it funny enough but my mom had a 94 in Emerald Green when I was a kid. It’s weird to think my Cougar would have been in the same showroom as it and even weirder that it’s name descended from these 70s land barge Cougar villagers but Mercury was kind of a weird brand.
 
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@Kidd-7 I see your reaction but it’s true!

1976 Montego(mercury’s prior midsize model with the exact same body) wagon

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1982 Ford Granada

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I need to take a picture of the wagon at work, lol. It's owned by the same person that's drives that convertible Fox Body.
 
Well I’ll officially add faux suede/alcantara headliner to the list. Bought some material earlier in the month and was immediately disappointed with what came in the package, first of all being folded in squares rather than a roll (I do not think the creases would come out), and the feel and look both not living up to my imagination. Plus with my spare headliner core needing repairs on top of it being another burden I sent it back for a partial return today and that’s that. For the best, the one I have now is mint why mess with it…

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@XR7-4.6
If you ever reconsider, I can provide you two contacts that sell Synergy II brand faux suede, and they definitely put it on a roll. They may have to fold it once. I went to both their warehouses. The material comes on a roll which is about 5 ft. long. They cut by the yard. So if you buy 2 yards x 5 ft., they'll fold it once, then roll it I think.
 
1997ThunderbirdLXV6 said:
@XR7-4.6
If you ever reconsider, I can provide you two contacts that sell Synergy II brand faux suede, and they definitely put it on a roll. They may have to fold it once. I went to both their warehouses. The material comes on a roll which is about 5 ft. long. They cut by the yard. So if you buy 2 yards x 5 ft., they'll fold it once, then roll it I think.
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I appreciate it but I’m good. Really my main motivation is to recover the door/quarter inserts from the current houndstooth which I’m sick of, the headliner just became a “why not” thing to match one of my ideas for those.
 
XR7-4.6 said:
I appreciate it but I’m good. Really my main motivation is to recover the door/quarter inserts from the current houndstooth which I’m sick of, the headliner just became a “why not” thing to match one of my ideas for those.
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So what's the plan for those inserts now? Because yeah, the houndstooth has to go. :p
 
1997ThunderbirdLXV6 said:
So what's the plan for those inserts now? Because yeah, the houndstooth has to go. :p
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It seemed like a good idea at the time lol

Right now I honestly don’t know. 94-97s from the factory with leather seats simply used the headliner fabric for them, which is kind of boring but is my current leaning nevertheless.
 
XR7-4.6 said:
Well I’ll officially add faux suede/alcantara headliner to the list. Bought some material earlier in the month and was immediately disappointed with what came in the package, first of all being folded in squares rather than a roll (I do not think the creases would come out), and the feel and look both not living up to my imagination. Plus with my spare headliner core needing repairs on top of it being another burden I sent it back for a partial return today and that’s that. For the best, the one I have now is mint why mess with it…

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What visors did you use here?
 
Best thing I found for the doors was leather from amazon. I tried other stuff, but the leather makes the car smell good. :)
 
Grog6 said:
Best thing I found for the doors was leather from amazon. I tried other stuff, but the leather makes the car smell good. :)
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Honestly I think leather inserts on the doors makes the door panels look plasticky, like an SN95 Mustang. 89-93s treatment broke it up with metal trim or wood nicely but on 94-97s it needs to be some sort of fabric to break it up. At this point my mind is pretty much made up, it’s too cold to pursue right now but I’m picking up a few feet of black headliner fabric from Michael’s to recover them in. It’ll look factory, nothing more.

I have leather seats so it already smells nice
 
I'm considering stiff leather for the headliner, maybe it won't sag. If it still does, I'll add stiffeners.
 
Totally agree. Leather would be too similar to the vinyl covering of the whole panel. The only way I'd prefer leather would be if it was a contrasting color. All in black, it has to be a different texture; I still prefer faux suede though. I have used headliner fabric before in my Mazdas to cover panels; it was ok but didn't look factory. I'll try to find pics.
 
The light grey inserts on both sides of the woodgrain wrap are headliner fabric. Those panels are black plastic from the factory.
The orange panels are all faux suede.
 

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1997ThunderbirdLXV6 said:
Totally agree. Leather would be too similar to the vinyl covering of the whole panel. The only way I'd prefer leather would be if it was a contrasting color. All in black, it has to be a different texture; I still prefer faux suede though. I have used headliner fabric before in my Mazdas to cover panels; it was ok but didn't look factory. I'll try to find pics.
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I love the look of faux suede and I actually had that in the period right after the black conversion and the current houndstooth. For me to go back to it though I’d want to recover the headliner, sunshade and sunvisors too, and was willing to do it but with the junk I got sent from eBay and my spare headliner core turning out to be kinda trash I’m just soured on the notion. My current goal is to have a black 94-97 interior nobody casually looking inside would question isn’t original.
 
XR7-4.6 said:
nobody casually looking inside would question isn’t original.
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What some communities call "OEM+" mods.

Which I love, but it doesn't entirely make sense. Those who know these cars will know it's not original; those who don't know these cars wouldn't know it's not original regardless what material you use.
 
1997ThunderbirdLXV6 said:
What some communities call "OEM+" mods.

Which I love, but it doesn't entirely make sense. Those who know these cars will know it's not original; those who don't know these cars wouldn't know it's not original regardless what material you use.
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I understand the reasoning but I kinda disagree. I know these cars well but I don’t know everything, every now and then there’s a surprising bit of trivia discovered that has me go “oh wow”. Now I’m not trying to fool anyone, I’m obviously an open book with mods here, but to pull off a conversion that looks so plausibly factory that it can get a heretofore expert ponder “wait a minute” is something I take some joy from. In the 7 years since I did it I’ve never heard anyone ask “ok so seriously what color was the interior originally?” The biggest things that call it into question are indulgences like the houndstooth or my old hurst shifter
 
I think a big part of that is the conventional wisdom that a black interior should be an available option on any car. The fact that it was  not an option seems counterintuitive, at least by today's standards. So when people see your interior, rather than being surprised it's black, they're surprised they haven't seen a black one before.
 
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