Dad's 62 Ford Galaxie

[Texas82GP]

Jared,
I'm glad to see that progress has once again resumed.
Your twin nieces are little cuties. It's nice that you were able to spent time with them, especially that you don't get to see your sister's family too often.
I'm sure Uncle Jared left an indelible impression on them. 🙂

I'm been wanting to pick up one one of the Eastwood glass polishing kits. I want to have the windows tinted, but of course the drivers window looks like sh*t.
It's got a nice size scuff that almost looks like a blush. My fingernail does not catch it, but I do have a few typical (vertical) scratches from a bad window sweep.
The scuff I'm sure will polish out, but the scratches I'm not too sure of.
I have two other drivers door windows. All are scratched in one way or another.
One doesn't look that terrible, except it's got a deep wear spot right by the rear window channel.
It's a matter of choosing one of the three, and finessing it to an acceptable appearance.

I'm open to any advice you have to offer. I'm glad you suggested doing the whole piece of glass rather than the area(s) in question. I did see a You Tube video on the subject, and the guy only polished part of the glass. Like you mentioned, you can probably discern between was was done and what wasn't.
I'm also wondering whether to go with kit #1 or #2.

Sorry for the long winded explanation.

Thanks Jack. I appreciate your positive feedback and your interest in this project. It's good to hear from you. I'm glad you fared ok during Irma. I hope things get back to normal in Florida quickly.

The side glass in the Camaro had the vertical scratches in it. Both sides. I believe both windows were out of the red doors that we got at the local Pick-N-Pull. They were the best we had, I know that. The polishing kit did not take those scratches out. We've decided to go with new side glass on the Camaro. It's not too expensive and with the windows tinted, the scratches really show. We feel like the side glass lets the car down at this point.

My driver's side window on the GP is scratched real bad. I might get the number 2 kit and try it out. My side glass is the same as a Monte and is a available so I may just buy a new window. We'll see.

 

[Injectedcutty]

Here's a pic of the engine compartment. This was around three months ago when the passenger fender was off. Not sure why I didn't post it before. It's a little dusty but still shows you what's going on under the hood....
View attachment 73835

Here ya go Jared, I snapped this one last Saturday when you took Brian and I over to check it out!

To the guys, the Galaxie is legit!!! The starter makes it sound like a chrysler cranking over, but man it sounds good!!!!

 

[Texas82GP]

Here ya go Jared, I snapped this one last Saturday when you took Brian and I over to check it out!View attachment 73840

To the guys, the Galaxie is legit!!! The starter makes it sound like a chrysler cranking over, but man it sounds good!!!!

Thanks Scott. The starter is a compact high torque unit from Robb MC Performance. If you haven't heard of him, check him out. He has some nice stuff. Dad's flywheel is the early style and it's amazing someone makes a mini-starter for it.

 

[Texas82GP]

I'm a little slow with the update from last weekend. Saturday morning Dad and Sean worked on adjusting the passenger door and fender some more. Dad also adjusted the passenger door latch. Then Dad and Sean moved on to installing the passenger vent window and door glass. Meanwhile I worked on replacing the weatherstrip in the driver's vent window. I had the same trouble getting the driver's side vent window apart that I had on the passenger side. The nut was rusted to the post and did not want to break loose. I had the stub of the post (flat on two sides) in the vice to back it up and I ended up twisting it off. At that point I got ugly with the nut and the spring with the Dremel. I had another spring from the 4-door 'parts vent window' we bought to fix the passenger side. Once I had cut about a third of the nut down to paper thin and put quite a bit of heat into it, I got it broke loose. Fortunately, it looks like this will be o.k. I think I can put a new lock nut on the now shortened post and still be able to tighten it to get the correct 'drag' on the vent window (so it isn't floppy when you open it). At one point, I had decided to put the broken post from the passenger side back together and use it. This pic shows about how much of the post broke off of the Driver's side. I drilled a hole in the 'T' part of the original passenger post in preparation for welding it back together.

The welding turned out surprisingly well...

Unfortunately after we got the welds ground down I realized the post was leaned over in the opposite direction that it needed to be so I decided not to use it. I tested putting the assembly together with the post that the nub is broken off of and it seems ok so that's how we will proceed. I got all the parts cleaned up and got the main weatherstrip fastened into the frame. We also got the rear divider weatherstrip glued to the rear divider bar. I still need to reset the glass in the frame, roll the four tube rivets that secure the rear divider weatherstrip to the rear divider, and finish putting it all back together. I'll get that done Saturday after next since I'm going to Tulsa tomorrow to join some of the other members for the Route 66 Cruise.

Here are a few shots of the passenger side vent window and door glass going back in the car.....

It's been a long time since you could open the vent window. Note the NOS vent window handle. Very nice chrome. No pitting. Big upgrade. Here's the payoff...

I'm not sure what Dad and Sean will work on this weekend but they will document it and I'll get the thread caught up. Thanks for following along.

 

[Texas82GP]

Last Saturday Sean and Dad spent another day on fender/door alignment on the passenger side. It paid off. They were able to overcome some flaws in the fitup that I thought we would have to live with. Keep in mind, the car already looked great but Dad is striving for as close to perfection as we can achieve. I get it. They made it better.

This morning they turned the car around and worked on adjusting the driver's side door and fender, the hood and hood latch. I thought it was all pretty good but the gap at the back of the driver's side door was tight. They worked on it all day. They made it better. I don't know if they are done or not. We'll find out next weekend. Sean wiped the car down and cleaned the glass at the end of our day. The car is looking good.....

While Sean and Dad worked on panel alignment, I finished up the Driver's side wing window. It took me all day, but it's ready to go in...

It was a good Saturday. Next Saturday I'll work on re-setting the Driver's side door glass in its frame. I hope Sean and Dad will be installing the vent window in the Driver's door. I won't be surprised if they are adjusting the Driver's side door and fender though. Thanks for checking in. I'll follow up with next weekend's progress.

 

[O. D. Showtime]

Coming along very nicely Jared!

 

[DRIVEN]

Can't wait for the reveal on this one.

 

[Wraith]

There was one eerily similar to this at Goodguys in Ft. Worth today

 

[Texas82GP]

There was one eerily similar to this at Goodguys in Ft. Worth today

No pics?

 

[Texas82GP]

It's a little hard to believe it's been a month since the last update. Work on the car continues. Dad hasn't been able to get himself satisfied with the panel gaps and panel alignment. Sean worked on it another weekend with Dad before getting frustrated with the pursuit for perfection. At this point Dad is just going to have to make his peace with the panel alignment before the body work can move forward.

Since the last update I reset the driver's side door glass in its frame. I didn't take pics since you all have already seen me do the passenger side.

I went over last weekend and repaired some damaged wiring. Not too long ago I installed relays in the headlight wiring harness to take the load off of the headlight switch and improve the performance of the headlights. We previously swapped in Halogen bulbs and they really were too much for the switch. I put the relays on the core support under the horns so you couldn't see them. We're trying to keep the underhood appearance very period correct.

Unfortunately, when Dad hung the Driver's side headlight assembly the hot leads to the relays got pinched under one of the bolts. Dad couldn't see it happening with the horns in place. One lead was smashed badly and the other was severed in two. I got both fixed up and did some re-routing to hopefully prevent it from happening again.

Today I had to work but Dad and Sean did a Dynomat install in the cockpit of the car. They started out with some left over material from Sean's project in the trunk of the Camaro. When they ran out of that, they went and bought a box of actual Dynomat from a local stereo shop. Dad overpaid for the name brand Dynomat but he wanted the material today. I haven't seen it in person yet but it looks like they did a really nice job....

That's all the news for now. I'll update the thread as we make more progress.