I originally bought the car in 2008 and started dismantling it for restoration in the spring of 2023. It spent 8 years indoors and then spent the rest of those years parked beside my garage under a tarp, which did not do the car any favors. What took me so long ? Well they didn't
start making repo panels for this car until 2019 (thanks to Don Rusk of West Coast Cougars).
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With the 1970 Satellite Convertible waiting for its radiator to make it driveable, I decided to start taking the Cougar apart so that I had something to work on during the winter.
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Back in 2008 I removed all of the dash panel and console to keep them safe.
In May 2023, I started by removing the seats and then the carpets. Not pretty was it ?
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I am not going to go through how I took the car apart, but instead I would rather show some of the interesting things I found during the dismantling process. For example, on the left you can see a piece of carpet that has a sewn border (serging).
As it turns out this was a dead give away that the carpet had been changed in the early 80's I am told.
In the end picture you can see a tube running inside the A-pillar. This is one of the 4 sunroof drain tubes that ASC installed.
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Surprisingly the trunk mat was mostly intact. It will make a great template when making a new one.
The third picture shows the crazy motor and relay setup that was used to make the tail lights sequence. It hangs off a bracket in the rear dropoff area under the LH quarter filler, which is under a layer of underlayment, which inturn is under the trunk mat.
It was destined to fail for sure.
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The car was literally carpeted with underlayment. It is quite evident with the trunk mat removed. After 50 years it turns into a crumbly mess. I carefully removed it all and sandwiched it all in between layers of cardboard to hold them flat
for the one day when I will be using them as templates for new ones.
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The one that goes over the gas tank will be extra challenging to reproduce. I guess I have a couple years to worry about it...
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The car was still sporting all 4 of its original headlights. Evident with the TS (tungston sol) and the Ford logo etched in them.
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On the left is a top view picture of the RH Lucas fog light. There is a plastic protector that mounts over the lower condsor mounting holes. For the G cars the bolt goes through the fog light pocket in the valance panel, then through the plastic protector, through the lower
consensor bracket and into the lower radiator support.
The last picture is of the AC drier showing the decal and a stamped date code of Oct 30, 1967. This is a lot earlier then when the car was built (Feb 29, 1968), but there is every indication that the drier is original to the car.
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There is a ton of vacuum lines on these cars, so it's best to take as many picuters as you can up front.
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Here's a few other under the hood decals which will need to be replaced.
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There were a few factor markings that were uncovered while taking the car apart. "199" was written in lower radiator support, "74" was written on the RH cowl side panel and a "4", was written by the sttering ram mounting bracket, which
was probable meant to be an "X" to indicate some sort of inspection was performed.
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Here's a few last shots of the interior being removed.
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The picture on the left shows the factory blackout around the windshield defrost ducts. The picture on the right shows that the opening for the shifter was taped over before the factory painted the car. Not sure why they bothered.
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Pulling the 390 engine was quite a bear as the transmission housing was broken and there was some interference with the steering linkage.
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The engine compartment didn't look too bad with the engine pulles, but after close inspection, there were a ton of problem areas which you will see in the following pages.
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