Sitting Down to a Dish of Elephant...

As restorers, we all know the saying, 'How do you eat an elephant?'. Well this morning I woke up to it pouring down rain. Typically Saturday morning is my weekly long training ride. I'm a pretty serious bike-racer and with all the hours I put in at work, Saturday is about my only day for getting a long ride in. With my ride cancelled and grass cutting out (yes the lawn tractor still lives - charred...but alive) I thought it an opportunity to get a little wrench time in at the shop today. 

So off to the shop for some Mustang lov'in and a helping of elephant. I've been stumbling around the front fenders for 3 years so I decided to focus some attention there and get those things finally mounted. Of course, they can't go on until the splash shields are on. Ahhhh the splash shields - those rusted hulks of metal we all know and love - and replace with those fine 'reproductions' from China. The ones that never come with the rubber seals attached so that one has to guess where the staples go. 

As you all recall, I wasn't afforded the honor of dismantling my car. It came to me instead in 25 cardboard boxes and 17 coffee cans. But the collection of boxes and cans has been steadily diminishing as I've work my way towards completion so it didn't take long to locate the splash shields. Ran into the office, jumped on the InterWeb, found Alex's site, chose the proper day - October 26, 2010 and voila - there is was in all it's glorious detail...

How to Make a Splash (Shield)

I was thinking of calling this post 'Homage de Alex' as without his detailed instructions and photos I would have been up the creek as I didn't have the original shields for comparison or the knowledge of how they came apart.  One of the great things about this community is not only do we have the support of one another - we also have a repository for our collective efforts that are available to others.  

After a quick read, I decided the engineer in me just wasn't going the staple route and that I could attach the rubber seals with push plugs instead. But I first wanted to mock the shields up to make sure they actually aligned. How long could that possibly take - 15-20 minutes? Well 2 hrs later and about 1 mile of walking around the shop beating, drilling, cutting, bending...followed by more beating and cutting, I finally had the rear driver's installed. 'Reproduction' part is a term I use loosely. 'Kind'a in the ballpark is a little closer. Most accurate is probably 'Outside the Ballpark in Extended Parking'. I'm not going to jump on a soap box here as you all know the quality/fit of some of this junk that passes for parts. At one point I was thinking I could make some very cool shields out of stainless and cut them on the waterjet but who would ever see them and did I really need to go that route? In conclusion, 1 shield fitted, 3 to go.