Interior Mustang Mods

I really like that four eyed look better.

 

Me TOOOOO! Makes Coogas wanna-bes.

 

Well what a day. I got the dash, console, seats and AC/Heater out by 11:00 AM. Dig out the faulty Capri heater core and find the leak. Go into the house to get mine (1979 AC/Heater core), which I cleaned up last nite, and test the fit. The thing won't fit.

Call up a major parts vendor at his branch near my house, and he's got one for 1981 Capri/Mustang 3.3 L AC/Heater) That beats the Lottery odds. Andy's already on his way for a new battery that fits mine (my battery is 7 years old and it was time) They had both. 7 years ago, they were hard to find, and the one I got didn't fit right. This one does.

Got back home, and I figured why not check the Evaporator? Started opening up the heater case, and there were leaves and those Maple keys (seeds) up the kazoo in there. Cleaned it all out and all is well. No rot, no leaks, no malfunctioning vacuum motors. Life is good. Reassembly tomorrow.

Thanks Andy. Perfect timing all around.

 

A bit cool right now, but warming up to 71 F, and back to this (58 F) tonite, so I may just pull out the flood lights and keep right on. High winds tomorrow and too cool for paint touch ups.

Will post pics tomorrow.

 

Got the heater back in and hooked up, then started wiring in the 6 speaker harness with the AMP switch from the 1985 Lincoln Premium Sound amp switch, the 1984 Cougar AM/FM/Cassette MPX radio, and the 1987 Mustang factory Amp, into a 1979 Fairmont. Thank the internet for wiring diagrams, and Ford for the EVTMs. 5 more wires and I'm ready. Almost 30 different circuits.

BTW, these Amp switches are the same as the Fairmont amp switches, except the AMP On LED light is mounted differently, but the switch mounts in the stock Farimont location.


Finding a Fairmont switch is next to impossible. And harnesses even harder. Lucked out.

 

Dealer Installed Premium Sound - Wiring Challenge

When I took the switch out of this 1985 Signature Lincoln, I noticed a sticker on the radio by a local big name Auto Sound shop. Well, I don't know what their wiring diagram looks like, but they mixed up the wire colours so bad, on the AMP switch, that I spent a good part of the day sorting it out. Almost done. They even changed the power (+ and -) wires. If you didn't have stock diagrams, you'd be going nuts.

No choice. Even EBay doesn't have complete ones. And to top it off, the Lincoln had an Equalizer installed, but it was gone - no wires there, but the AMP switch has them. I can ignore those, fortunately... I think.

Ford made 3 Premium Sound setups back then. This was the next one down, without the stock subwoofer amplifier. Whew!

 

Well, I hit the motherload of Premium Sound wiring diagrams. I say that because:

I have my 1979 Fairmont EVTM (Electrical Vacuum Troubleshooting Manual),
I have Andy's 1981 Fairmont EVTM
I have the 1983 aqua cover version of the Capri Haynes manual (printed in the UK) with great wiring diags and a graphic pictionary of each connector used in the 1979 to 1980 Capris.

And some other wiring diags with all except the full-sized luxury Ford cars, around the mid-80s.

This Grand Marquis site is awesome for big Ford info!

Anyway this thread includes full scans from the 1986 Grand Marquis EVTM.
http://www.grandmarq.net/vb/showthread.php?t=22060&highlight=Premium

My only search word was 'Premium', because there's more use of 'sound' than Premium - I got Premium gas, springs, idler arms, and... Premium Sound hits.

Another lesson for Fox owners, is that the Ford Digital radios past 1987 had parts of the separate switch functions in the radio, which caused many of the radios and amps to fail early. The older radios stand up better.

 

AND Another one, for a 1984 Mercury!
http://www.grandmarq.net/vb/showthread.php?t=13526&highlight=Premium+Sound

Apparently Ford does change their wiring codes every few years, so having access to these different EVTM pages is a real help, if you have a good working unit, but just need to match the wiring colours.

And they have a section on nothing but Car Audio issues for these big Fords, including Lincoln and Mercury. Not TBirds, Fox models, or Cougars though.

 

First time for everything - it beat me!

Luckily I have a nice 1984 CONVENTIONAL Cougar AM/FM/MPX/ Cassette deck. I even fixed the switch, and took out the connections from that switch for the optional graphic equalizer, BUT, 2 wires bothered me enough to stop trying. One might be an antenna wire used on some Cougars to auto adjust for reception. The other is a mystery, mainly because the dealer's contract installer changed the colour codes. I think I know, but I don't want to fry the radio.

I'll have to score a complete system from another full-sized Ford/Merc/Linc.

It has to be less than a 1987 model. !984 or 1985 would be perfect. Anyway, I know this switch is good, but I still need the harness for one without the extra amplifier or equalizer. Maybe a cougar, tbird or grand marquis would be easier to find. Fox guys don't let these go very often. The Farimont option was for a 2-channel amp, but the full-sized had a 4-channel option with the CONVENTIONAL Knob radio unit. They also offered an Electronic model, but most of the owners complain that they had to replace it, and drop big dollars for an aftermarket system of the same quality. The 4-channel runs 6 speakers. The others only run 4 speakers.

At least I gave it a good effort. Learned a few things too.

 

About your "?" radio wires, could they be for a windshield antena? I honestly can't remember but I think(?) my Dad's 87 T-Bird had a winshield antena.can't be positive on that though.

 

The radio was from a 1984 Cougar, which had a power antenna. That wire runs from a power connector with the accessory 12 Volt. The 1985 Lincoln EVTM also shows a memory wire for the electronic radio that it had AND an antenna wire, which went to its AMP. The Cougar didn't. Both amps look alike, but the Lincoln unit wasn't packed with the same number of wires. The AMP, I tried to use the 1987 Mustang AMP, because it was a 4 channel amp. About 140 watts total output (35 per channel). Not an earwax melter, just clear sound through 6 speakers. That's what the Mustang had - 6 speakers.

That's what I'm installing. 2 Kicker brand tweeters in the dash, 2 premium sound mid-range 5.25" in the doors, 2 premium sound 6 X9" in the cargo side panels, slanted 30 degrees to the front, not facing each other, like they do in a stock setup.

The other unknown and unpaired wire is a Dk Blue/Yellow Hash in the Full-sized Grand Marquis EVTM (1985 and 1986), but the switch input side has a Dk Blue/Orange Hash wire. Inside the switch it either passes output to a grey/blue wire (AMP ON) or does nothing (AMP OFF). Problem is that there's already a Grey/Blue wire which goes to the LH Rear, the Blue/Yellow is supposed to go to LH Front and Door speakers. It's missing a wire, and miss matched to boot.:banghead3::banghead3:

I'll wire up the speakers for the 4-channel setup any way, instead of the normal layout (Dash and door in parallel, rear on its own) and it will run fine. The radio has total output of 20 Amps. Not much, but better than most. I'll find one. You can count on it.

 

Had a bunch of prep work to do for the door panels, so I brought them inside and did some final touches.

First I made some new door watershields out of construction grade 6mm plastic, for all 4. Had to close up the old window winder hole anyway.

Last nite, I trimmed out the new speaker hole for the 1985 Lincoln door spacer. This is one simple way to get good speakers out of the way of the window. And the speaker grille is made for it, out of some pretty tough and thick plastic.

And I had to patch the window winder hole now that I have power windows. Only on the front doors. The rear doors have a knock-out in the same location at the window switch - no patching there.

This should work on any older cars that have the switches directly in the door panel, not the armrest mounted type.

Here goes!
After gluing a chunk that I kept after taking out the rear door knockout with permatex, from the backside. Did that to support the padding and vinyl patch.


I cut out a round chunk of the original padding and a rectangular piece, after using a thin box-knife to cut the face vinyl into a squared patch.

The left hand picture shows how I thinned out the top padding to avoid the bulge I'd get if I left it. The window winder compresses the padding after 32 years of use.


Since I had to spray the permatex from the topside, I made a small masking template, Permatex needs both pieces glued and dried for 5 minutes or so, so I sprayed them all, waited and applied them:


I got this:


The Lincoln Speaker enclosure got refinished yesterday, and was ready for installation today. I really like the simplicity of installing these. Good enough for a Lincoln, or its baby cousins!



My doors are factory made for door speakers, but for some reason, Ford never offered door-mounted speakers as an option.


And even with Map pockets that tapered enclosure just clears it. Didn't have to touch the map pocket at all. I painted it the same SEMS 'Camel' colour as the rest of the upper trim.



Tomorrow, I'll be prepping the rear cargo speaker mounts. Some custom sheetmetal parts that I have to make. Had some old galvanized chunks left from some shop tubing I made for my sawdust handling system.

No pics on this, but I made watershield caps from some old tupperware cereal bowls to keep the water off the door speakers. Decided to do that after finding the comments in this thread about how full baffles accelerate the rust on them and since there's not much depth in a Fairmont door for a full baffle, this was my best option. I could have ordered the nice plastic black watershields and got them a week later, or use these old bowls and cut them into half-moons and adapt them. Took a half hour. I'll use the spacer holes to fasten them in and Pro-Form's Dum-Dum to seal out the water. The speakers are the Lincoln Premium Sound 5.25" units - excellent condition. Here's the 'baffle' thread:
http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/car-audio/134819-speaker-baffles.html

 

Frost last night! Gonna take until noon 11:00AM to warm up to 50F! Sunny all week though, and warm for the rest of the week. I think we're gonna have a mild winter, higher than -30 anyway. We had 2 in a row, with -45, so this will feel balmy by comparison.

 

Here's how the Lincoln Speaker bevelled spacer mounts, in the factory screw holes too. Could be they used these doors on the 1979 Lincoln Versailles, I guess. For sure the inside door skins on the Capri and Mustangs had them, but not the angled spacers.:

 

Well I tried mocking up a speaker enclosure on the cargo panels with the old Capri side panels from the back. It would work with round speakers up to about 7" diameter. I have a tool compartment on the driver's side that limits how the added panel would go. The Lincoln rear deck speaker grilles are also angled, and have a wide rear opening. They're made of a tougher, thicker plastic than my cheapie stock Fairmont came with , so they'll actually make the cargo panels more rigid, than they are now.

This is the stock location on the driver's side:


And the passenger side:


This is how the finished installation looked in the back before I found these Premium units:


The cargo cavity behind the panels is about 8 inches deep. Sound insulation is on the backside of the panel, not the sheetmetal - so the baffle enclosures will help stop any sound bouncing around - cleaner...

EDIT: The mounts I'll be making will hold the speakers at a 30 degree angle facing forward, like the rear deck speakers in the 1989 Town Car that I got the speakers, baffles and grilles from. Don't know why Ford didn't think to do that in their full-sized wagons. Makes no sense for the rear speakers to hear themselves. The people up front want to hear the orchestrations.


The grilles mount on the cargo panel, not the speakers. Hole pattern is wider on both dimensions. Works for me, because I have to make the mounts from sheetmetal for a rigid fit. I took measurements after taking out the cargo panels, so I'll do that in the morning, while we warm up enough for working outside.



I went to Future Shop and Best Buy to price out new speakers for the rear as well as the front and door speakers. Future Shop kept on trying to upsell me to a pair of 3.5" Infinities, for a mere $139.00. I looked at their other brands on the wall, and dropped my jawbone. $189 for 5.25" door speakers, and $239 for 6X9s. Plus taxes of course.

Went to Best Buy and got the Kicker 3.5" dash 2-way speakers for $49. 5.25" for $89, 6X9s for $129. 6X9 Baffles were $30 per pair.

I got these 6X9s, the 5.25", these nice formed fabric (1/4" thick) for the 6X9s, and the speaker grilles, for a whopping FIVE BUCKS, no tax, at the junkyard. Solid coax speakers all around.


Now, we're rockin' and rollin'! Mariachi music, Sade, Tina Turner, George Benson, Santana have never been treated to this grade of output, in this car. Gonna be fun.