We had another nice weather day and I had some free “away from family” time.  I decided that I could get the most “bang for the buck” by working on the trim for the front of the car.  The car’s “mouth” looked pretty lonely without a grill or trim.  I had already refurbished most of the parts and purchased  new mounting hardware so I was able to just jump right in.

First up was the wide trim that is installed in front of the grill.  I still had some original Ford pieces that I had repainted.  The plasticized chrome portions were a bit scratched  but overall they looked OK.  They went on fairly easily and I was ready for the next pieces of trim in no time.

Next up was the narrow chrome strips that cover up the screws for the wide trim.  My old trim was pretty bent up so I had purchased new trim and mounting clips.  I was very careful to position the mounting clips so that the chrome strips lined up with the wide trim and the headlight buckets.  Unfortunately several of the new mounting clips broke during that process.  Luckily I was able to salvage enough used clips on the old trim I was discarding to make up for any that broke.  Other than the broken clips there were no issues installing this trim and I was now ready to move on to installing the grill.

I took the old grill that I had repainted down off the shelf in my garage where it had been sitting for about 15 years or so  I brushed off the cobwebs and carefully dropped it down into place.  After that it was a simple job to bolt it into place.  The pony and corral and fog lights were the next parts to come down off the shelf.  They had even more dust and cobwebs on them but they looked OK for 47 year old parts.  I had installed fog light support brackets on the grill when I repainted it so the new fog lights bars slid right into place.  I bolted it all together and connected the wires. Then I stood back to admire my work.  I don’t have any pictures right now but as soon as I back the car up out of the garage I will take a few and post them here.

A quick test showed that the fog lights functioned perfectly.  I have to admit that I doubt they will provide much value as far as lighting goes.  They are more for show.  I just happen to like the way they look on the car, even though technically they aren’t correct for a non GT car.

My last job of the day was to tackle the front bumper guards.  I had requested that Herbie install them when he painted the car, but he forgot to do so.  From talking to Herbie and from reading online it sounded like it was possible to install the bumper guards without removing the front bumper.  A quick survey under the car revealed that it was an extremely tight fit.  So I crawled underneath and spent what was probably the next 2 or 3 hours attempting to insert and tighten down 4 bolts, two per side.  Looking back on the job now I would have to say that it would have probably been faster to just remove the bumper for the install.  But I was able to finish the job without damaging the new paint job so I’m happy with the results.  A little hard work can be good for the soul sometimes.

Work will probably slow down or even stop for a while until either the weather begins to warm up or I obtain a heater for the garage.  But I’m sure I’ll find some Mustang related work to do inside my house.  And when I do I’ll post it here.