To The Guy That Designed It...

[Bubba Bob]

... I'd like to punch you square in the mouth.

That's right. Some great Ford emplyee decided to put vents in the cowling to allow fresh air into the car... THe prolbem? With air came water... and trash. The trash would get clogged up around the air vents under the dash and eventually rust them out. After the air vents rusted out, water would enter the cabin and eventually rust out the floor. THis design was on ALL Ford Mavericks, and a hand full of Mustangs.

That's where I am at now. 1972 Ford Maverick with one large hole, and dozens of smaller ones

I started "My Project" today. Which is cutting out the floor and welding new floor pans in. Of course, no one makes reproduction floor pans for the Maverick... Gah.

Yall pray for me.

Pix:

[Honda_Boy]

Must resist.... urge.... to bash.... Ford..... AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

IT'S FORD!!! What'dya expect?

I kid, rust is big issue with a lot of older cars like that with any make.

[JDoors]

Hey! I miss those fresh air vents!

Ahh, ACTUAL, REAL, DIRECT, fresh air. Not some gerbil hiding behind a small grill on the dash blowing through a straw.

BTW, my BIL and best friend both have had Mavericks. They were typical American cars for the day. You can knock 'em all day long if you like, but ... YOU ARE WORKING ON A 1972 MAVERICK. How many foriegn cars from that era do you see tooling around? Just yesterday I saw BOTH a Pinto AND a Vega. No Hondas or Toyotas from that decade in sight. They were fragile little things even when brand spanking new (they had other good qualities though).

[Honda_Boy]

Shoot, there was a fair amount of OLD Hondas, Toyotas, Datsun/Nissans, BMW's and VW's rollin around at Import Alliance this year. One of the cars sittin at the Dyno was an old 240Z or 260Z (not sure which) with a V8 in it. I see the same 260Z passing by my work everyday. There's also an old first or second gen Civic and an early model Accord driving around town too. I see more old imports in a day than domestics.

Edited August 1, 2008 by Honda_Boy

[isteve]

I had a 1984 toyota 4X4 pickup. Around 1990 I was driving and the spare tire fell off, when I went to pick it up I realized the whole crossmember had rusted off. Turned out the whole frame was getting pretty rusty and a year later the frame folded in half.

The fact that you have a 36 year old car that can still be worked on say something. Is it a Maverick Grabber?

[Bubba Bob]

You can knock 'em all day long if you like, but ...

Don't get me wrong. I love the car. I wouldnt be about to put this much time, energy, and money into it if I didn't. I just wish Ford would have thought this deisgn over a little bit...

Is it a Maverick Grabber?

Nah. Just a simple four door the an inline six.

[TheTerrorist_75]

Grab some pointers from here. Search for using a '71 Mustang floor pan. Also good tips on filling in the cowl vents.

http://mmb.maverick.to/index.php

[Pete_C]

... I'd like to punch you square in the mouth.

That's right. Some great Ford emplyee decided to put vents in the cowling to allow fresh air into the car... THe prolbem? With air came water... and trash. The trash would get clogged up around the air vents under the dash and eventually rust them out. After the air vents rusted out, water would enter the cabin and eventually rust out the floor. THis design was on ALL Ford Mavericks, and a hand full of Mustangs.

That's where I am at now. 1972 Ford Maverick with one large hole, and dozens of smaller ones

I started "My Project" today. Which is cutting out the floor and welding new floor pans in. Of course, no one makes reproduction floor pans for the Maverick... Gah.

Yall pray for me.

Pix:

I once had a Mercury Comet (Think it was a 72, but not sure) basically same as maverick but a bit fancier.

Three on the floor , 351 engine, big fat tires (it was stolen for the aluminum rims).

If I recall, it had some fine heavy duty screening under those cowling grills, and a cleanout down below to allow you to flush it out. The AC used the same drain/ cleanout for the condensate and it used to clog with algae every summer.

Same deal on 77 F150 (400 McClellan engine) (the floor rotted out on the guy who bought it, he put a foot through the passenger floorboard ).

Now you want something really worthy of a Ford Engineer, check out an 84 Rolls Royce Corniche.

Some genius realized you could get by with a single hydraulic reservoir, and pump for the power steering, brakes, automatic transmission and hydraulic level ride (shock absorbers) if you used pure hydraulic mineral oil of a certain spec. So they did. Since hydraulic fluid is not compressible they put pressurized nitrogen spheres at the top of each shock to fill it with gas to compress. Unfortunately there is a flaw in the design and the seals are not perfect. So if left sitting to long all the nitrogen bleeds past the seals and blows the fluid out of the lines and back into the reservoir, then the nitrogen all bubbles out the vent hole.

Start it up , and the pump refills the lines, brilliant design makes sure that no air is left in the line, it all winds up in the shocks, but is not enough to absorb the pressure when an 8000lb car hits a bump and suddenly you have several thousand pounds of pressure on the hydraulic system and all the brake lines blow off and the power steering hose ruptures. Really hillarious to have happen to you , no brakes, no steering and the transmission disengages. Then they tell you it costs $5000 to replaces the lines and recharge the nitrogen spheres.

Yep, Ford missed out when Rolls hired this designer. (Probably the same guy who came up with using a plastic line on the high pressure side of the fuel pump to fuel injector distribution system too, which Bosh refuses to make replacements for since it is a fire hazard and trying to make one out of anything other than aircraft fuel lines results in a feedback causing the pressure to surge and sag).

Edited August 1, 2008 by Pete_C

[JDoors]

As long as we're at it (I think I recounted this before so I'll make it short):

Had to replace the heater core on the Mustang. On my previous car you took out the glove box (a few screws), the core cover (few more screws) and replaced the core.

On the Mustang you had to remove the steering column, the windshield, then the entire dashboard. THEN remove the core cover and replace the heater core. The book says it's an eight hour job. It took me eight hours (and I cheated; I only dropped the column "just enough," and didn't remove the windshield at all).