I don’t normally get much done on the car during the winter, since it’s cold in the garage and it’s the time of year I get my indoor home projects done. But since I want/need to have the car done this summer, I did work on it this past winter (indoors as much as possible…). The first to be addressed were the wheels. I had picked up a really nice set of 10-hole wheels many years ago. They had no curb rash or salt damage, but the clear coat had developed a lot of really fine cracking over the years. So I wanted to re-clear them. First I wet sanded them all with 400 grit, without sanding through the original clear, so I’d have a nice flat surface for the new clear.

Note the casting date on the wheels: April 20, 1988 (2nd shift) – made in 1988, but a bit after my car was actually produced, in the fall of 87.

I wanted to use a quality urethane clear, but to save the hassle of getting out the paint gun, cleaning it, etc., I used the 2K stuff you can buy in a can from auto paint jobbers now. It’s got a 48 hour life once activated, but one can would be the right amount for the 4 wheels and caps, with very little wasted.

Note that since this stuff has isocyanates in it, you need to use a decent respirator and paint in a ventilated area.

The 4-wheels and caps with a fresh coat of clear. They turned out great – very high gloss.

With the wheels done, I did some work on the front bumper assembly. I had previously painted the front bumper cover, but needed to assemble it to the reinforcement. I had purchased a new reinforcement from Ford way back in the 90s.

along with a new front bumper Ford oval badge (beside the original):

To install the bumper cover to the reinforcement requires large rivets and a special rivet gun. Some places sell these rivet guns for crazy money, but I got mine at Harbor Freight on sale for under $20.

The first step was getting the bumper cover fit to the reinforcement, which took a bit of finesse:

Once it was positioned correctly, I was able to install the rivets. Note the freshly installed Ford oval badge, too :):

Then I reinstalled the bumper-to-fender mounting plates, which I had replated when I got all the nuts and bolts done.

The final step was to apply the red stripe to the section of black molding. I had originally ordered the car with the optional red body side molding stripes, but I think the dealer forgot to include it when they rolled my order from being an ’87 model to an ’88 model. So the car was originally built without them, but now I’m getting it the way I wanted it in the first place…

The next mini project was to get the doors and related systems finished up. I started with the glass guides. Here’s how they looked to start:

To restore the “fuzzy stuff”, I used the loop side of some Velcro material, after carefully and thoroughly cleaning off the old stuff:

and the finished product ready to reinstall in the doors:

Next up I reinstalled the exterior door handles onto the doors. I had to replace the driver side handle, as it had broken like so many do. The replacement is made of die cast metal, whereas the originals are plastic. I had to have my son hold the door handle in position while I riveted it on (same large rivet gun as used above for the bumper cover). That was a bit nerve racking, as it takes a lot of force on the gun to pop those rivets, and I was worried about the rivet gun “recoiling” and scratching the paint. We got them on OK, though.

The original lock cylinders were reinstalled as well.

Next to go on the doors were the exterior belt trim and mirror. Again, I had all NOS pieces, purchased back when I first got the car back in the late ’90s.

As you can see in the picture below, even NOS parts don’t always fit so well. These outer glass sweeps didn’t have anything close to the right curvature on them, and had to be carefully hand bent to the correct shape.

Once I tweaked them, they were riveted in place. Amazing to me how many parts on this car are riveted on, as it’s very rare to see rivets used on production cars built today.

And the next part to get riveted… the retainers for the door outer belt moldings:

The door outer belt mouldings then slide in place over the retainers, and are held on with a single screw at the back:

The final pieces to install were the door mirrors, which I had previously refinished. Note they are the “flag” style mirrors that went into production on convertibles part way into the ’88 model year, just in time to catch the very last few T-Top cars ever built (T-Top cars used convertible doors). Probably only a month worth of ’88 T-Top cars got these mirrors before production of T-Top cars stopped, so they’re fairly rare (vs. the ones that mount the mirror in the forward corner of the door/window opening that were used on all the earlier cars).

Next up was to hook the battery up and run the window glass up and set it. It would be the first time the glass had moved in about 15 years, …except when I connected the window switch the glass didn’t actually move. No power to the motor. I am not an electrical genius, so it took me awhile to trace the issue. Turned out when I had reinstalled the dash, the power lead for the windows got trapped in the cowl side area. Since I hadn’t seen the connector, nothing got connected to it. After figuring that out and getting the glass to move, I had to tweak the glass adjustment to get it to seal as well as possible to the new seals. The factory manual for “Repairing T-Top Water Leaks” has great instructions for adjusting the glass. It’s available for free download from http://www.foureyedpride.com/

The final step to completing the doors was installing the door trim panels. I had previously restored the door panel cards themselves, but I still needed to re-do the armrests. I replaced the driver side armrest (badly warped/crushed) with an NOS one I had picked up sometime over the years. It was black, so needed to be recolored, as did the rest of the pieces to ensure a good match to the interior. First step was a very thorough cleaning – an important step to getting good results with the dye:

Pieces ready for the SEM Color Coat, after cleaning and light sanding, and cleaning again:

And after the Color Coat – this stuff leaves a great finish:

The door switch bezel plates always warped from heat, so again I had picked up some NOS pieces many years ago:

Next I disassembled the switches to clean all the dirt and dust out of them, clean the corrosion off the contacts, etc.

Here’s the new switch bezel installed:

And the completed armrest assembly, with armrest pad reinstalled:

Time to put it all back in the car. First I reinstalled the original door water shields, then installed the door panels:

And finally the armrest/switches, and the door release handle bezel. The doors (and the entire interior!) are now completely done.

The next part to go on was the original buck tag, which is screwed into the radiator support on the driver side. The “TR” code is for T-Roof.

And the final update for this installment of the blog – installation of the fenders. I wrapped the edges in tape to keep them from getting scratched, then proceeded to spend MANY hours playing around with the adjustment of the hood and two fenders until I got them to where I was happy. I’m sure I could do it much faster if I had to do it again…

Tape removed. Not many parts left to go on…!