What did you do with your Thunderbird Today?

[XR7-4.6]

As an aside the NOS manual climate control head I found was a bust. I assumed the light outlines around the lettering I noticed in the listing must have been a protective film but upon inspection, nope it seems to be the textured lamination delaminating from the printed layer, bummer. It didn’t cost much at least but I’m going to see if I can get my money back, this is godawful has a few nicks in it too so even though it’s NOS it must have been tossed in a cardboard box with a bunch of other junk

View attachment 16526

Attempt 2…



Much better! Rolled the dice on a used one on EBay before I just gave up on this project idea for good. It’s a keeper, faceplate is near mint, red mark is unfaded and miraculously the square release holes weren’t oblonged by the salvage yard that sold it….

Also gross

 

[XR7-4.6]

And after much quality time scrubbing it piece by piece with good ol dish soap and an old toothbrush…



MINT!

 

[Vicinity]

Whaat how did the font stay

 

[XR7-4.6]

Whaat how did the font stay

The printed text is underneath the outer layer so it won’t rub off from cleaning it. Nevertheless I would avoid submerging it in water as I suspect that is what de-laminated the NOS one I since returned.



Speaking of text I’ve still been playing around with the Power Acoustik’s background. In spite of being a Luddite I did use AI to cartoonize this pic into this creating this