ShelbyFoister.com – Est. 1981
21Jan/120

The One Month Update

Today Hazel is one month old. After a month of fatherhood this is what I have learned.

1. Your wife is going to be possessive, emotional and irrational at times. Shut up and clean the bottles.

2.  Your wife is going to be very busy during the day, especially if you are working. Feeding a newborn every 1-2 hours is very frustrating. Shut up and prepare the bottles.

3. Your wife is very lonely while you're at work. She may refer to inanimate objects as "Wilson", or if you have pets she may speak to them as if they were Wilson. When you get home from work she's going to talk your ear off. Prepare for this any way you see fit but when you get home, shut up and listen. When she starts to speak too fast to keep up just listen for inflection, or the end of sentences and respond with "Wow, great idea.", "Fuck yah! That's what I was thinking!" and my favorite "Hahaha!"

4. Cook huge pots of stuff for her to eat during the day. My favorite is chicken noodle soup. Use a crock pot. Make it microwavable.

5. Shut up and clean the bottles.

6. Try to take at least a week off of work. Do all of the laundry, dishes, cleaning, lawn work during this week. Try to be available to help when needed but get these things done before you go back!

7. Watch the baby in the middle of the day when you can so your wife can sleep.

8. Stop updating your blog and feed the baby while she scrapbooks.

10. Ten is a nice round number.

 

 

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2Sep/110

Pay no attention to the man behind the Glass

Today I received my driver door glass from AAPD.net. I have heard a lot of horror stories about the contour of aftermarket glass not matching the contour of stock glass. However I have not heard anything specific about Scott Drake reproductions, which is what this is. I just ordered my butyl tape from NPDlink.com and I will attempt the assembly next week when the tape comes in. I really hope this glass matches the stock contour, so far I have had nothing but trouble with reproduction parts...

 

Here is the glass. Dachshund not included.

Scott Drake - Driver Door Glass

 

I also talked to a restoration shop and a chrome shop today on the phone. I have to give a shout to the guys at http://www.vintage-mustang.com for the recommendation. I called Orlando Mustang and Peter was so helpful. Even though I was not spending money with him right then he was more than willing to talk to me about chroming and recommended a great shop called Space Coast Plating over in Melbourne. I am willing to ship my parts to someone I can trust, and so I will. Space Coast quoted me a price I was very happy with. They were very helpful and honest with their answers, as if they enjoy what they do and are not out to just make the quick buck.  I was figuring a lot more.

Thanks a lot to Peter C (Pmustang) from vintage-mustang forums, Peter from Orlando Mustangs and Space Coast Plating (Sorry I cannot remember the gentlemans name I spoke to). I can't wait to do business with these guys.

Chrome Plating http://spacecoast-plating.com/

Used/New Mustang Parts and Restoration Services http://orlandomustang.com/

Very helpful group of guys (and girls) that are very responsive and thoroughly enjoy the hobby. http://www.vintage-mustang.com

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1Sep/110

So Many Pieces…

Alright, so by this point everything is removed but the transmission and the engine. Obviously I'm leaving the suspension and the steering in place so that I can deliver the car to the restoration shop as a rolling chassis and not just a pile of parts that can't be moved around the shop. I would just like to add that when the car pulled into my garage I really had no tools for this kind of project. I had a very small ratchet set and 99% of the disassembly was done with this set. As I have gone I have bought all of the tools as I need them. I am mechanically inclined and working on cars is nothing new to me but I have never taken on a project of this magnitude.

All in Pieces

 

I removed the window trim with the correct tool, but being a complete newbie with it I am afraid I may have damaged the trim in some places. I really hope not, I don't want to buy new stuff. I'll need to inspect it and hope I can straighten it back out if it's serious. For removing the window itself I used a large flat head screwdriver and drove it down between the glass and the body. The rear window was the most labor intensive part of the entire disassembly process. What a nightmare...
Here is the tool used to remove the trim, I found it at Advanced Auto Parts for under $10.

Trim Removal Tool

In the first photo on this post you can see the exhaust laying on the ground under the car. Par for the course I didn't have the tools I needed to really remove the exhaust. Not that pulling out the exhaust was hard but I could not get the car high enough to easily turn it so that the high arc in the back over the rear axle would clear. So I decided my objective was clear, this shit needed to come out and I don't care to save it so I'm going to man up and buy something dangerous (if used improperly).

Reciprocating Saw, Wins!

My advice to anyone removing exhaust on jack stands. Just cut it out, don't waste your time trying to find the best angle to pull it over the rear axle.
As I removed everything from the car I put all the screws and bolts and such in baggies with notes that indicated what they were for. I put all of the parts in boxes and labelled them. I tried to group all of the parts together into categories that I would be restoring them in. Such as Lighting, Interior, Body, Dash, etc... Unfortunately as I labelled and added notes inside of the baggies I didn't know what every little piece was called so I have notes that say things like "Bolts with threads on both ends go through the bottom clamp on the steering column and into the threaded piece on the bracket that holds the pedals" and my favorite one "Screws that hold the weird box thing to the front radiator support on the driver's side." I have since learned that it is called a  voltage regulator. But that's ok. I'm not going to correct myself now because when this car is done I'm giving all of these little notes and scribbles and greasy diagrams to my wife to make a scrap-book out of. Here are a few photos of my organization process.

Trim Organization

All of the trim, busted up or not is tied down to cardboard and hanging in my garage. Once everything is polished or replaced I'll be wrapping it in paper and putting it in the attic.

Boxed Up For Later

All of these boxes have labels and are organized into restoration groups.

Organization Process

This is what my organization process looked like. As I removed things I would drop it in its respective box and add it to the label. Anything that would not fit in a box was labelled and added to my spreadsheet. Yes, I have a spreadsheet also.

Click for the larger image to be displayed in all it's glory.

Restoration Log Spreadsheet

 

Maybe I am a little anal, maybe I am a little OCD. But I'm not going to lose anything. And I know how much this thingamajig costs even if I don't know its proper name.

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29Aug/110

Bentley

IMG_0156

This will be Bentley's debut on my blog! I considered posting this in the Fatherhood section but the more I thought of it the more I started feeling like though I am the disciplinarian for this little bundle of energy, I am more like a friend, or a companion. So that's OK. Bentley is a 1 year old Dachsund. I know, he looks like a Beagle, but he's not. He has the same coloration but I promise you he is a short haired Dachsund.

I just want to share a few photos that maybe no one has seen yet. This first photo is the first one we ever saw, it's the photo taken by the breeder. We fell in love with him through photos and really liked his name so we kept it.

 

 

Bentley in the Log

To my left you will see a photo of Bentley with his head stuck in a stuffed log. He was chasing the stuffed squirrels. They escaped. He sat like this for probably 10 minutes while we laughed at him. He didn't want us to remove the log, he loves it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hiding Behind My Leg

This is one of my favorites. This was probably 6 months ago, but he still sleeps like this hiding behind his own leg and opening an eye when one of us walks by.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bentley at f/1.4

This last one is right after I got my 50mm f/1.4 Canon lens. This photo was from standing height and wide open. Another one of my favorites.

So say hello to Bentley!
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26Aug/110

Welcome Home

Man I fell way behind on this. The project has progressed but the blog posts fell way behind. I got so involved in so many things that I neglected to update.  Where was I? On may 5th the car was shipped from Oklahoma to Florida. May 7th the car arrived at my house.

First Look

As soon as the hauler pulled up I had a moment of clarity. "Holy shit am I capable of this?" I had a few minutes of being overwhelmed before my "working" brain kicked in and I realized it was all nuts and bolts. In the photo above I was already placing monetary value on this project. Fenders, quarter panel, door glass, bumpers, etc...

Into the Garage

 

Steering was actually really free. All that's up front is a V8, no fluff. Much easier to steer without power steering than modern vehicles. This was a really exciting time right here. Justin, Ryan, Mickle and Mickle's cousin all pushing the car up the drive way.

Finally Sitting in my Garage

After everyone left I pulled my Volkswagen in. My little VW is considered a small car by todays standards and it's lowered two inches. Look how much taller it is!!

Part of the Family

Sitting next to my first born. She's in pretty bad shape. But it's just sheet metal, and there is very little rust. There actually isn't any rust in most of the areas you would expect there to be. Well, there she sits... she is now in about a million pieces and the project is probably going to take a little longer than I initially anticipated. I'm going to add a post everyday until I am caught up on this. Here's a little sneak peak at the next post...

Panels Removed

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