Isabel's West Coast Sister by relentless

5 minute(s) of a 94 minute read

Daryl, I may have the valve covers on the wrong side. I oriented them the way the PO and engine builder (Jeff Jahns) had them on the ones I took off. The oil fill is toward the back on the new covers, will that make any difference? Maybe I should swap them anyway? I did receive the five volume service manuals today so I will take a look in the book.



Al, I am going to have these re-chromed and keep them for an all-chrome look for the engine bay at times. They have the walking cat on them and probably wouldn't look good on a truck anyway.

Robert, I first want to show you what the steering wheel hub cover looks like. I had three sizes of covers, and went with one that fit inside the tilt-away. It looks like you chose the largest of the three hub covers.



As for the radiator support, I suppose anything is possible. But I don't know this car or '69 Cougars well enough to say. I do know that it looks factory and if it was done after it was sold they did a heck of a job. I haven't seen any evidence any of the sheet metal in the front of the car has ever been replaced.

Glad you like the wheels, but look at that stance! It looks like it just launched for a drag race! I measured 5" from the top of the tire to the wheel well. You mentioned that you only dropped the front of your car 1 or 2 inches, but it looks like I need to do a much larger drop. How do you think I should proceed?

Thanks for checking on the lock rod for me. I hope that '69 rod is a bit longer than the one on the car now.

Some more goodies showed up today. First was the replica rear spoiler. I later found out you need to order the extensions and mounting hardware separately. The chrome fender moulding also arrived today, but missing one bag of mounting screws. I also received the SS side mouldings, and they sure look nice. Finally I received the mounting hardware for the new aluminum radiator. I had to tap the frame where the lower radiator mounts attach, and cut a small section off the bottom of the driver's side lower mount to make everything fit correctly. But that big 3-row aluminum radiator sure looks handsome on the car!









I also cleaned some rusty mounting bolts and hardware. I just painted them black for now, and will be looking for something a lot better. But at least I can look at the pictures now and see less and less rusty components that I have yet to fix.  





My wife helped me out by removing the rug backing that was embedded in the trunk. We had to use a 3-M paint removing pad to remove some of the dried rug cr@p. I will be re-painting some of the trunk as a result. She also was able to remove the duct-tape stickum from the front firewall.  













Robert, I measured the vertical distance from the ground to the front fender well at 29 3/4" and the distance from the ground to the top of the tire is 25". What are the dimensions on Isabel and how do you think I should proceed to lower the car? Thanks in advance!