The wood siding project is now completed, and it has exceeded my expectations! As I mentioned before, it is a 3M NiDoc vinyl that I ordered from CustomAutoTrim
.com in California. It came to be almost identical in color and grain as the original Medium Cherry that Ford produced. The color and grain selection I chosen with their help was Dark Teak (4ft x 21ft) for the main wood siding, with Blonde Teak (4ft x 6 ft) for the trim pieces that went around the main wood siding. The four feet width was cut in half to do both sides, as the panel is 17 inches top to bottom and the length of the car as measured with extra for the tailgate. As it was above my skill set, or shall I say my confidence to do the job myself, I contracted the work with a car detail shop that also handles body wraps for high end cars and commercial company vans. The shop is Performance Auto Spa in Plain City, OH (
www.perfautosp a.com). Seth and Tim were my contact person there, and they were awesome! The job took longer than anticipated as the removal was their biggest challenge. It took them a while to remove the old siding due to the age and the car being a lifelong Florida car, thus it was dry and brittle. It broke off in chunks as they used wood grain vinyl remover by 3M, heat guns, and other adhesive removers. Despite the challenges, they did not give up, and wanted to see the project go through to the end. What we all thought to be a two or three week project, turned out to be three months...grant
ed, they did the work in between other jobs. I recommend them highly!
Before they tackled the wood grain job, I had the lower rear fender wheel well touched up after it was marred by the tire blow out last October. The color was Bright Bittersweet (2G). The interior was Vaquero (DZ). Marti Report shows only 1,465 Pintos to be painted in this color, and the interior was only done with 257 Pintos. I had no idea how uncommon the Vaquero color in the Interior Décor group was when I first purchased it.
The detailing was long and arduous as it had a single stage pant, and the paint meter shows it to be very thin which was typical of cars of that era. I did not want to go too deep, so there are still some minor marks and scratches that could be seen if looking at an angle under light. Maybe I can consult with the body shop to see if I could go further or leave it as is. It looks great, so maybe it's better to leave it alone!
I also added NOS OEM wire wheel covers that I found from a collection that was being sold by his son, as the collector had passed away. I kept the full-sized wheel covers in case I want to switch back and forth. Let me know your thoughts!
Okay, wish me luck in uploading the pictures! I will try to include before and after pictures if I can.
Happy Motoring!
Dan