Category Archives: Uncategorized

Non Thunderbird pursuits

Hi folks

I was cleaning in my office and I have these creations sitting around that are getting dusty so decided to clean them and photograph them and maybe sell them if the right person likes them more than I do.

My son and I take Wednesday nights to stuff that is not customer related. Either our own projects, our equipment maintenance, or playing with stuff we have in our “wish to try bin”. We might see something on Pinterest that looks like fun, which is where these things came from.

Do not respond to me in this message. Send comments etc to jdrax@tbirdranch.com

Working during lockdown

This quarantine thing is actually doing me good as I have to sit here and do work. I just cleaned out some window motor cores and found three that looked good so we went into rebuilding mode. Just finished up a 58-60 and 2 for the 64-66 doors, a right and a left. Price on these guys is $125.00 exchange and I guarantee my work. I know new are available however they are over twice the price and I am still not sure if they have solved the problems they were having with them. These I know will work.
I have started some serious cleaning here in my parts department. I have all these parts from when I dismantled cars and just stashed everything because I had no time to sort. So now I am purging out the parts that I feel no one would want to put on their cars, just wish scrap prices were higher. I am listing things on ebay that seem a bit special. I am not listing any dirty old or electrical parts that I have not reconditioned…..taken apart, cleaned and tested them.
One thing I have a ton of is relays of all kinds. If you just want a few for spares, these may be just what you are looking for. I take them all apart and totally clean them inside and out, polish the contacts and test them. Selling for half of new, $25.00 each….. lots of convertible ones.
I will be posting a bunch of pics soon.
Stay home and stay safe. God bless you all.

Squarebird brake booster

Some years ago I was approached to find a way to install an aftermarket brake booster with a dual reservoir master cylinder in a Squarebird. I was also asked to design a bracket system to mount an under dash booster on the cars with air conditioning. These both needed a redesigned bracket system. Up until a week ago, I had just put this off as too big of a project for the time I had.

I am now getting ready to have set of brackets water jetted and bent up to try out for fit and functionality.

I have already got a set of brackets, an aftermarket booster and also a dual master ready to mount up on a non air car and all fits well. One question I have is whether to go with a 1″ bore or a 1 1/8″ bore on the master cylinder. If any of you have input on this please let me know your opinions by an email to.    jdrax@tbirdranch.com .

More listings on Ebay store

please go check out the things I have listed. I have lots of stuff on there right now and I need to sell some of these things so I have more room here to drag more out and get it listed as well. I have so much stuff crammed on shelves upstairs and basically hidden from sight and you know…… out of sight, out of mind…… so true with this.
This summer I will be sorting through a lot of the larger stuff I have and will probably list some of those things here on my blog.

Parting out 77

I am dismantling a 77 town landau with a tan interior.

I have a good dash pad, you can paint it whatever color you would need——————$95.00

I also have a nice pair or roof rail weatherstrips………. $100.00/pr

God bless your 4th. of July weekend

Aqua Floor mats

I have a new set of the rubber floor mats in aqua for the 64-66 birds with the white emblem on them

Ordered for a customer and he did not like the color so I am going to sell them for $50.00 plus shipping instead of returning to supplier. This is below my cost. Regular price is $85.00

pass the word

 

God bless

Frustration with parts..Updated

Well, after a lot of mumbling and a lot of emails to the manufacturer and to the distributor I finally got them to remake their pattern and correct the mistakes with the rear window on the convertible top for the 61-63 birds. I took lots of photos and lots of measurements and emailed them all the information on what was incorrect with their window. I emailed all this information to them along with the exact things they needed to do to make the window correctly. They never even acknowledged any of my emails other than to say they were ordering a top from a competitor to see what theirs was like. I also created a special webpage with all photos showing tape measure with their window on the car…….. never acknowledged that either. To this day, I don’t know if they even looked at it.

Late last week I get an email with a photo of their competitors rear windows. I just replied that it is exactly what I was trying to explain about the problem.

Then I get a message that they will send me a new window and I am supposed to give them feedback as to the fit of the new one. Remember now………. I had already spent hours taking pics and getting them all the previous infor and never even heard that they even looked at it…………… and they had the nerve to ask me to give feedback on the new window prototype………….. why would I believe they would even look at it.?

The window came in Thursday and we installed it that night. I am betting they just copied the competitors window……….. It does fit perfectly and it is exactly the way I explained what they should do to correct theirs.

Bottom line is that the problem has been solved and I have confidence in selling these to customers now, knowing that when they go to install them they will end up with a final product that is correct and very nice. And if the customer has questions about installing the top I can answer them with first hand knowledge that I gained by going through this whole ordeal.

Throughout this process I have not mentioned who the manufacturer nor the distributor is because of good business practices. The top manufacturers do not include their name on anything that comes with the top when you buy it, which I can understand on one hand but I would think that if they were confident in their product they would be happy to have you spread the word about their top. I was told that they don’t want all kind of people calling them with questions on installation etc. I now know that at the factory there is no one who has actually installed a convertble top so they have no knowledge of what it takes to put one of these on. Therefore they could not answer any questions anyway. They just make them and “assume” that it is correct because they are using the “ORIGINAL PATTERN”. They would not believe me no matter what I sent as far as proof because they did not consider me a “PROFESSIONAL INSTALLER” (even though I have been putting tops on thunderbird convertibles for over 45 years) I guess experience does not make one a professional.

So guess what…….. if you want a nice fitting top, this “OLD THUNDERBIRD GUY”  can sell you one with the confidence of knowing that persistence  has gotten the results needed to get it right with this manufacturer.

Hopefully this will help people in the future. God bless!

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Thank you for asking about this. I made me do the research necessary to get this working.

God bless!