The Pony Car Project-Sharing The Wealth

The Pony Car Project has involved a lot of parts purchases. I find parts and services in a lot of places and spread a lot of money around.

 

Last week I was looking through Ebay and found a console armrest with a nice "buy me now" price as well as a "or best offer" option. I had been looking at these for some time. It may have been an option for the Mustangs or the one for my car was just removed and replaced with a fitted plastic "armrest delete" piece. Most of the armrests seemed like they were a lot of money and the last one I found was about half the price and appeared to be in good shape. But the seller would not negotiate much. So I gave up for a week and tried again. He finally moved $10 so I bought it. It arrived today and I installed it. It will need to be painted black. More about that later.

 

While negotiating on the armrest, I noticed that the seller also had a set of dash speakers. But again he would not move much on the "best offer" price. So, I gave up and took a trip to Best Buy where I found a set of 4" automotive speakers for only a couple of dollars more(with tax) than his "best offer" price plus shipping. I bought them and within a few hours had them fitted into the dash to replace the missing and damaged speakers. I have good tunes now♫ ♫.

 

One of my primary sources for Mustang parts is Late Model Restoration (LMR). They are a Texas company that specializes in 1979 and newer Mustangs. They have many interior parts, carpets, exterior trim pieces as well as engine and drivetrain parts. Many parts are reproductions, but they also stock a lot of Ford Racing parts. Their prices are usually cheaper than other places and they also offer free shipping! I currently have an order for console parts on it's way this week. The shift lever lower rubber boot is gone and the upper shift boot bezel is broken. Additionally they have a replacement seal for the emergency brake lever. Another useful product that LMR stocks is black vinyl paint that matches the interior components for the year of Mustang that I have. It will coat plastic and soft parts like the armrest that I bought(it is grey) and a passenger door armrest that is also grey. Some of the interior was previously painted but the original color can be seen through the paint. I plan on repainting some of those parts.

 

And finally last week, Les Schwab got some of my money. I always wanted to rule out tire imbalance as part of the vibration of the Mustang. I also recently noticed the left rear tire was losing air. And finally I could tell that the front end alignment was out of spec. One wheel had excessive camber and the front wheels were noticeably toed out. So on Friday I took the Mustang to Les Schwab. They fixed the flat for FREE since it was one of their tires, balanced all four tires and aligned the front end to the proper specs. The Mustang drives much better now and I really do think a lot of the vibration is gone. Money well spent!



 The console armrest unit I found on Ebay.

 The armrest bolts onto the back of the console and is quite solid when bolted in. Obviously the color does not match, but when the next order comes in from LMR it contains black vinyl paint that matches the Mustang interior.

 The armrest fits nicely between the seats and is available for both the driver and passenger. In addition to being an armrest, it is also a storage unit and has racks to hold audio media. Unfortunately the racks fit cassette tapes and not CD's! I was a bit concerned that I would hit it with my elbow when I shifted gears, but it has just enough clearance. It will also tilt up out of the way.

 I bought some smoked fog lamps from LMR. They were made to spec for the Mustang and nicely fill the holes in the spoiler.

Now that Les Schwab aligned the front end, the steering wheel is level when I am driving down the road. Now I can see the windshield wiper switch on the end of the turn signal stalk and know when it is off. That was something that was hard to determine before.