danthecapriman

I think it’s just silver originally. I don’t know how they applied it at the factory but it’s not very hard wearing and just rubs off in time/weather. The trim on the windscreen rubbers and door cards is chrome effect, and that’s got that silvery coating under the plastic, but, again that falls apart and peels with age. Some of the dashboard trim and facia edges should have a silver lining though too, I think.

Hopefully you can get it back out on the road before the winter and dreaded road salt comes… Glad you managed to get a screen though!👍

Fantastic work on this. It certainly does make restoring or repairing things harder after someone has been fucking about and done a crap job. Far better if it’d just been left with rusty holes! At least your not having to undo someone else’s bodgery and then still deal with the the rust!

I’m afraid I’m going to rip the arm rest/door handle off the inside of the door when trying to close them from inside!😆 Its ridiculous how much you have to slam them or force them to close. Breaking the window is the other worry. Ill definitely stick the badges on I think. I’m glad you lot have said the same, confirms it for me! I think drilling holes is asking for trouble long term. Fingers crossed I don’t screw up the decal for the ‘II’ logo. Although I think I do have two, just in case.

I’m leaning towards sticking the badges. As said, later cars had stuck badges anyway, and, yes, drilling all the holes perfectly in line in the exact right places without a template would be an awful job. Even worse if I screw it up! Theres the FORD letters for the boot lid, ‘Capri’ badge which goes on top of the Roman numeral ‘II’ sticker and the old style ‘L’ badge. Then a pair of 1600 wing shields for the front wings. That’s a lot of holes to drill. Interesting. Glad it’s not just me having the problem at least. I’ve just ordered some of that gummi pfledge stuff. Never heard of it before but sounds well worth a go. Cheers chaps!

I’ll give it a try in the week. They are starting to squash to shape on their own but it just seems exceptionally difficult to close everything to me! It’s kind of annoying as it’s preventing the car going out on the road at the moment!! Got to fit both the door top exterior chrome trims, and badges too. Question for y’all… On the badges they have pins which push through holes I’ll need to drill in the panels, then secure with little clips on the backs. I’ve been considering not doing this and instead cutting the pins off the badges and sticking them on with proper trim adhesive tape. Reason being that drilling holes usually promotes rust in the long term, whereas adhesive won’t do that. Obviously it would mean effectively damaging the old badges doing it that way. What do you reckon?

This type: Door seal on left, boot on right. Some rubbers I’ve seen do have small holes in one side, presumably for that reason or maybe drainage if water gets inside but these have nothing at all. As you shut the door there’s a whoosh as all the air is forced out!

Here’s a few pics of the stuff I was on about in the last post. Bonnet latch/spring which was an absolute arse to fit. New and old bonnet latch. Old one worked ok but looked awful! Been waiting for a couple of bits and doing a few odd jobs around the car in the meantime. One of which was to use some clear Dynax UB wax on the inside of the stainless centre caps for the wheels. 3 of these are new old stock items and I selected the best one from my original four to make up numbers. The wax is to try and stop the sprung clips on the inside from rusting and breaking. Might be a bit over the top but do it right! Here’s a crappy pic of the sill carpet, stainless sill step trim and replacement footwell kick panel all fitted. Im still having trouble with the new door seals. Passenger side one has relaxed significantly since last time, and moulded to shape really well with the door being closed on it. It’s still pushing against the door but you don’t have to slam it nearly so hard to fully close it now so hopefully it’ll sort itself out in time. Drivers door seal is still a bitch! It’s incredibly hard to shut the door fully and you can hear the air being forced out of the gap in the rubber when you try, it’s that tight. I’ve re-aligned the door and striker a touch so it closes better and lines up better now but I’m hoping it just needs the door leaving closed on the seal for a few weeks to flatten it and shape it. I don’t know if there’s anything apart from that you can do with the seals? Maybe a light coating of vasaline or something might help make it a bit softer and more supple?? The fuel door is open as I was filling the void in the hinge with cavity wax. They have a tendency to rust from inside out if you don’t. Also did the bonnet leading edge while I was at it. While messing around with the bonnet, I wasn’t happy with the release handles operation. It worked, but felt very slack and loose. Turned out I was missing a tiny clamp which holds the cable outer sheath still while the cable is pulled. Without it the whole cable moves around and you loose that firm ‘pull’. I can’t remember this car having this clip while I’ve had it tbh, but it’s got one now! It’s been cleaned up, painted silver and fits under the slam panel where nobody will ever see it to appreciate my fantastic paint job! Im almost done now, it’s just the door seals causing problems that’s slowing things down. I’m pretty certain you won’t be able to close the drivers door fully properly from inside the car the way it is now. Obviously that doesn’t help if you want to drive it! I need to bleed the brakes again too, I’m pretty sure there’s a bit of air still in the system somewhere. Im also installing lights and sockets to the garage next week. Shouldn’t be hard but takes time away from working on the car itself. Edit: Heres the grill badge after the touch up with silver permanent marker! Brilliant idea that was captain 70’s!

Now you can un-clench!😆 Sounds great, glad it seems undamaged.

Hopefully they’ll be able to find one somewhere. Probably be a few days wait to source it? I was chatting to an autoglass fitter a while back while he was doing my old work van screen and he looked up all my old cars and the screens were available still, even the Mercury! I reckon you’ll be fine.

Boring work has been continuing on this, mostly adding yet more cavity wax and clear wax where it’s visible. Didn’t take pics, cos, it’s boring! Also got the two footwell kick panels fitted back in… then had to remove them because I forgot to connect the earth wires for the interior lights first!🤬 refitted them again now though. Took the grill off and stole @captain_70s idea of using a silver permanent marker to restore the faded ‘FORD’ logo in the middle. Looks much better now so thanks for that one! Then while that was off spent a ridiculously long time trying to get the stupid bonnet release catch spring thing back into place under/through the slam panel. One of those jobs that was incredibly frustrating trying to get it to fit right. Then refitted the release hook and cable. Everything works perfectly which is good. I then decided the original bonnet spring and latch mechanism were not in keeping with the current state of the car! So I bought a new old stock replacement which is like new in that anodised gold-ish colour. Hermes decided to take 13 days to get it to me so it needs fitting and adjusting yet. Then that’s the front end finished and also means the car can be driven without the bonnet flying up. Pics to follow as I forgot to take any. I also decided to spend a few days cleaning out the garage and laying a new floor since winters on the way. I’ve put down some rubber/foam type tiles on the floor just to tidy it up and keep it cleaner in there. They’ve got grip mouldings on too so shouldn’t be slippery. Loads of old rubbish and empty boxes of parts binned too, and there’s very very little left to actually fit on the car now which is a relief. Its not the best garage ever but it’s all I’ve got for now. It’s dry and safe for the car though which is all I need. And… How was that for a spooky prediction!

🥳🥳🥳👍 12 months! That must have been so frustrating! Glad you got it sorted though, fingers crossed for the MOT.

Great stuff @Shite Ron Cortina looks a lovely place. Most definitely interested for the Capri trip! One of each mk would be a brilliant way to do it too.

@Shite Ron at my rate of working it’ll take me 6 years to finish mine! Joking aside, I’d most definitely be interested in convoying with your mk1 when you do it. This trip with the Cortina’s looks brilliant fun. Anyone fancy being my co-driver!?😅

This really looks like great fun! Maybe I should do one for Capri’s. Capri’s to… hmm Mind, I’d love to take the Mercury to Italy and use its immense girth to block up some of their tiny roads!