Here is a scan of a brochure advertising this car from 1978.  My TBird is exactly like the one pictured except for the moonroof.






Here she is in all her glory, just after passing her first Virginia State Inspection since 2003!  I thought about putting Antique tags on it as the previous owner had done, but there are so many restrictions on when you can drive and for what purpose, so I thought it best to tag it with standard tags so I wouldn't have to worry about it.


All she needed to pass inspection was new brakes all the way around, a new master cylinder, and a wheel cylinder for the passenger side rear.  Everything else checked out.


After driving the 'ol bird for a few days, I noticed a BAD vibration, especially in left hand turns.  Replacing the driver's side wheel bearing did the trick.  Apperently it had been replaced before, but not repacked correctly and the rollers inside the bearing were literally rusted and grinding themselves into pieces.  Not too good!!!


The heart of the beast!  The 351M engine as it was when I bought her (except for the new master cylinder I put in).  Well taken care of and pretty clean for being 31 years old!


The fact that this car is a special edition is noted on the Opera Windows.  Also notice the etching in the glass follows the body line when you look close - I love that about the 77-79 TBirds.


My cell phone was having some trouble getting the lighting right for this picture apperently...notice the Haynes manual and the multimeter in the seat.  I started testing wires to try and determine why the power window motors, door locks, and fan blower were not working.  And just for the record, Haynes manuals are OK for little piddly stuff, but when it comes time to seriously tear into a car, they don't pass muster.  I was on eBay that night looking for a Chilton's manual and some dealership EVTM manuals.


The back seat.  Notice the section where the rear quarter window would be is covered by a custom panel - I think the roofline on this TBird is pretty cool.  The seats are in pretty good shape, although the top of the back seat is torn in places and sun damaged, but you can't see that from this angle.


The passenger side floor panel.  This model came from the factory with a CB Radio.  It didn't work and was laying in the trunk when I bought the car.  Notice the wiring laying up under the dash - that's for the CB and part of it is for the radio as well.  The Thunderbird emblem on the dash has the top broken off the "d" at the end.  I am really hoping I can find a replacement on ebay soon.


The door panels in this car are unfortunately shot.  Multiple cracks, broken clips in the back, etc.  None of the passenger door electronic switches work, and only the driver's window rolls up and down under its own power.

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And now the REAL fun begins...

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The day after Thanksgiving, my friend Sam and I started to investigate why the blower motor for the A/C system wouldn't turn on.  Heat is always a nice thing in the winter time...right?  I mean, how hard could it be?  According to the Haynes manual, it is a pretty simple circuit...little did I know what a big can of worms I was opening...LOL


After wrestling with frigid cold temps and some really hard to find bolt locations, not to mention old dry rotten vacuum hoses, we finally got the blower motor housing out.  And what a MESS we did uncover!


I was reviewing the diagrams in the manual while Sam finished disconnection the vacuum lines so we could pull the blower housing completely out of the car.  The smell at this point was pretty rough.


And here's why the smell was so bad!  MICE POO!  EVERYWHERE!  Mice had completely taken over the A/C ductwork in the car.  Once we removed the blower motor from the housing, we quickly figured out why it wasn't working.  The entire housing was full of stuffing and poop!  BLECCHHHHH!!!


The housing and everything underneath the dash was in good shape overall.  Once we removed the blower motor, the entire housing took a bath in a tub full of hot water and bleach to start killing the mouse poop germs and smell.


This view is from the passenger side floorboard looking up into the evaporator housing for the A/C.  Completely full of stuffing.  No wonder the blower motor burned up!!


Another view of the mouse nest from the opening where the glove box mounts.  Notice the entire air duct where the blower motor is supposed to push the air through is blocked by the mouse nest!


When we removed the kick panel on the passenger side, we discovered another bad thing - the wiring harness for the blower motor had overheated and melted.  Tracing the wiring back, there were several points along the way where the harnesses or wiring jacket had melted.  What a mess!


As I began to pull back the carpet, I found more mouse issues.  This was certainly starting to explain the weird smell in the car...


After examing several sections of the carpet and finding them to be either damp, rotted out, or just plain gross from mouse "stuff", I decided the carpet had to go.  And, that meant the seats had to come out.


The passenger seat was pretty easy, as was the back seat.  The driver's seat proved a little more difficult, mostly because of the wiring for the power seat motors underneath.


The blower motor housing smelled a lot better after its bath in hot Clorox bleach and water!  Now to wipe it down and dry it off before the bleach rusted the brackets...


After we removed the driver's seat, we found a REAL mess!  GROSS!!  Pills all over the place, a box of Tic-Tacs, and a Hypodermic Needle.  Scary!  The pills were just an anti-biotic, but no idea why a needle was down there.  Someone call the bio-hazard team!!  I let my trusty ShopVac take care of this stuff.  Not to worry, the carpet is coming out anyway, right?  :-)


Now to get those seat belts off.  Was that a T50 Torx bit?


The passenger side looked much better and was not damp like the driver's side was.  Apperently there is a windshield leak on the driver's side.


There are several damp spots on the drivers side carpeting. Surprisingly, the floor underneath still feels solid though...


It was pretty clean under the back seat.  No rust, no water.  Just some dead bugs and torn up underlayment.  Nothing the ShopVac couldn't handle.


The inside of the blower motor housing.  The trapdoor is going to need something to help seal it up, and it needs to be sanded since the bleach caused some surface rust on it.


The fresh air intake, right in front of the windshield under the hood.  The plastic vent cover warped slightly with age, and I think this is where the mice must have gotten in.  Tons of leaves down in here too, but again the ShopVac saved the day!


Woah the phone is tilted sideways!  LOL  I wish I could get a better angle down this hole.  This hole is where the resistor goes for the blower motor switch.  It is on the outside of the evaporator box.  There was stuffing from the mice all the way to the top until I stuck the ShopVac down in there.  After cleaning it out though, it was clear that the evaporator core was ruined by the mouse poop. 


Ahh there we go - a bitter angle.  See the mouse mess all over the coils?  That's why all the air coming out of the A/C vents smelled like the sink drain at a busy fish market.  In order for the A/C system to be used ever again, this thing had to come outta there!


Since I was working in the air ducts on the firewall anyway, I figured I should go ahead and inspect the heater core as well.  Let's see, brittle heater hoses...rusty metal pipe sections, green stains down the front of the heater core housing...this could spell trouble.  When in doubt, rip it out!


I love the gauge package in this car, but honestly, Ford, what WERE you guys thinking?!  This has to be the least accessible dash I have ever worked on.  You've got to take half the interior apart just to get to the wiring behind the lower panel!  LOL  Not really, but it seems like it.


Here are the A/C controls.  The front looks great.  I wish I could have gotten my camera behind it so that you could see the melted wires on the back. Whatever happened should have blown a fuse, but it was bad.


In order to get the trapdoor out of the blower motor housing, I had to dismantle it.  It was sealed with glue and then stapled together with large staples.


Finally after carefully removing everything, we can compare the old blower motor and the new one, with a new blower fan installed as well.  The old one is completely covered in mouse poo!!  GROSS!!!


After being thoroughly disgusted with the mouse mess and tired of working to try to get the new blower motor to work, I decided to clean up the center caps for the wheels that had been sitting in the trunk since I bought the car.  The emblems needed re-gluing, but they turned out looking pretty good for 31 year old plastic. 


This picture is kind of hard to see because the auto-focus on my BlackBerry is...well...sub-par to say the least.  This is the resistor for the blower motor.  Nothing but a series of springs.  Depending on what position the switch on the fan speed selector is in, power is routed through different sequences of the springs to increase resistance, thus turning the motor either faster or slower.  There's no school like the old school!


Another view of the blower motor resistor.


And the carpet is finally out.  Floor pans and the general condition of things looks really nice.


The flooring on the passenger side had mouse droppings underneath the carpet that I assume fell down and worked their way under over time.  Grossness!


Time to start removing the underlayment.  Did I mentioned things were smelling pretty raunchy in this car about now?  Yeah...nasty


Not much water at all on the passenger side.  Just a few seams of rust that's mostly surface rust.  I think I will need to sand and spray paint this before I put new carpet down.


They hid build sheets everywhere in this car.  Copies of the build sheet were under the seats, under the carpet, and under the trunk carpeting.  They were torn up a bit, but I salvaged one enough to possible frame and keep with the car.


That is some nasty old carpet.  I don't think Febreeze has got what it takes to solve this carpet's smell problems.


Under the driver's seat was a real mess.  Even after thorough cleaning, it's still a mess.  This combined with the smell made me decide replacement was my only option here.


This was some really nice deep cut pile carpeting when it was new.  You don't see this stuff in cars anymore much!



The driver's side had a lot more rust than the passenger side, mostly due to a leaking windshield.  Still haven't pinpointed the leak exactly yet, but I am hoping Apple Auto Glass here in town can help me out with this when I get some $$ together.


You can see the water stains on the cardboard wire covers as well as a lot more rust on this side.


Driver's side back seat looks pretty good.


Here is a view inside the evaporator housing at the A/C evaporator coils.  Just look at all the nice mouse poo.  GROSSSSSS


Just disgusting.  This has to come out.  The only question....how to get it out?  RIP OUT THE ENTIRE A/C SYSTEM ha ha ha




To be continued........