1968 XR7-G Hertz Restoration by XR7-Gry

8 minute(s) of a 108 minute read

So, after a much needed pause from this car I am back working on my G. I had just too many unfinished projects going on here at once and unfortunately I had all kind of problems to finish them, and especially to get parts that were reasonable good quality seems to be a growing problem. So I decided to put my G on hold and focus on my brothers 70 XR7 convertible and the 68 XR7 GT to get them out of my way and free up some space.

Now I have been working on my G for a few weeks and the first thing I did was to install the new windshield. Yes, I know I had put in a windshield a long time ago. Unfortunately the first one cracked when I put on the lower windshield molding, as I just could not make the restored molding to sit and finally tried to get it in place with a wooden block and a hammer. Well, my hammer and my windshield did not go good together, and the catastrophe was a reality. Oh well, with the new windshield in place I could hang on the front fenders and get them adjusted to see how the front would line up. 



Then I installed the front valance and test fitted the NOS Lucas fog lights. Here you can also see that I have installed the buckets for the grille/headlight assemblies, the vacuum motors and the horns. 

By the way, here is a picture showing the visibility of the license plate frame with the rear bumper in place and trunk lid closed. I like it a lot.    
There is no trunk molding on my trunk lid simply because I have no good trunk lid molding for the car yet. I ordered restored front and rear trim sets for my G and the other 68 I have been restoring, but unfortunately the trim I got from WCCC were ruined by poor workmanship in the process of restoration and far from the quality I expected.   WCCC sent another 2 sets my way as a replacement, and from those two sets I puzzled together enough good trim to finish one car. I just gave up to puzzle together a nice set for my G out of the remaining trim and now I am trying to find what I need to complete it elsewhere. So far I've been lucky and found some NOS moldings, but I still miss the trunk molding and a good RH hood molding. I have no cores anymore either as I sent all mine away when I ordered these, otherwise I could have shipped them somewhere else to have them restored. In fact, that is what I urge everyone else to do if you are going for show restoration trim for your car. Also I had to replace the rear bumper I first bought for the car because the chrome started to flake off. This time I bought one from a chrome shop in LA, CA that I would like to recommend. Their name is D&R Chrome and I have had a lot of bumpers restored there through the years and they all turned out really good and they actually realize that a bumper has two sides so they sandblast the rear so the chrome will sit there as well. As you might understand I have not been too happy with the restored parts I have bought for this car from WCCC. I guess it's just a result of my ever lasting bad luck.   

The next thing I did on my Cougar was to install the car stereo and to get everything under the dash hooked up and functioning. My plan was to make a quick connector for the radio so I could fast and easy pull the modern stereo out of the dash and put in the original radio fro shows. To install the new CD player/radio in the original radio place I ordered a bezel made for the DIN opening. http://static.cougarpartscatalog.com/67mustcdbezel-chrome.html?attribs=76. I am not sure if I had totally wrong expectations to this part, but the description said "Bezel - Radio - In-Dash CD Player - CHROME - Non Console - Repro", and @$100 I think I was in my full right to expect something made out of metal and that it would fit in my dash and also that the chrome was good quality. After all, the original style radio bezel that is made in nice chrome plated metal is $56.... So when I got my shipment, opened the package, and found a cheep made plastic bezel with a finish that hardly anyone should call chrome I was unsure if I should laugh or cry. What a piece of junk! I then tried to install the CD player using this plastic "chrome" bezel in the dash, but it became very soon obvious that this $100 part is absolutely useless as it just does not fit. So instead for using this, I decided to use my Dremel and just cut the opening I needed in the correct reproduction bezel I had bought for my original radio and just order another good bezel for that later. http://static.cougarpartscatalog.com/c8zz-18842-ar.html?attribs=76  



Picture above shows the modified original style bezel at the top and the miserable plastic bezel at the bottom. 




Here I am doing the wiring for the car stereo. You can also see that I have installed a set of Blaupunkt speakers in the front speaker pods. The stereo in the car is meant to be very discreet, but still have good sound quality. So in the trunk I have placed a 300 Watt mono amplifier with a 12 inch sub woofer. That should take care of the lower tones. I also wanted to put in a set of Infinity tweeters in the front, but there is not really any good place to put them, so I decided to make some small brackets to install them under the dash. To make the brackets look factory made I painted them with a wrinkle paint. 



To my surprise all the wirings to hook up the switch and the rear defogger were already in the car. That made it very easy to make the fan work, just connect the switch and one wire in the trunk and it was working  I wish everything would have been that easy. 



Here are things about to come in place. 

With all the wirings done and also the original seat belts back in place it was time to get the front seats installed. I have not really tried to make the interior as original as I could have. Instead I decided to do it the way I am sure they would have made it if they didn't have to care about the cost back then. So the seats are all leather and they are just wonderful looking (and smells good too). A big thank you to Randy Goodling for helping me out with these, I really love them. Oh, and since I used a flash in my garage when I pictured the interior the seats looks a lot brighter than they actually do.