The weather here in Texas is great. It is the perfect time to drive the Mustang and that is what I'm doing. In the evenings, I tackle a small project or two to improve the car. I'll document those here until I move on to something larger that deserves its own post.
The stock style antenna on the Mustang is a small item but makes the car feel a little dated. The antenna is 32" which is considerably higher than the entire car. I wanted to find a replacement about 18" but the closest I found was a 15" Votex antenna on Amazon. While I was afraid it would look strange being so small, once installed, I found that it looked just fine and is now shorter than the car's roofline.
The LMR center console I received with the Mustang had a USB outlet and a cigarette lighter installed. The wiring leaves them constantly powered. There is a LED light that illuminates the USB ports that constantly then uses battery power. Additionally, they don't look all that nice.
I purchased some much nicer looking USB chargers that fit in the console from Amazon. The include provisions for both a USB-B and USB-C and have no light. I pulled the console, installed them, and also used some of the SoundSkins Insulation Strip material to keep the various parts of the center console from rubbing together for a quieter ride. This was a quick easy improvement.
Another small project on the interior is one of the plastic pieces inside the arm rest is broken. The part number on the piece is E7zz-6113580-A which is being remade by Daniel Carpenter using Ford tooling. I ordered one from NPD and swapped it in without trouble. The broken part functioned but seemed ready to fully break in half at any point.
As part of adjusting some body panels and fitment, I want to adjust the hood. The bumpers for the hood are not horrible but at one point were painted over and don't look very nice. NPD still sells Ford bumpers (F49Z-16758-A) so I purchased a pair and replaced the two under the hood. I adjusted them so when the hood is closed they just make contact. I'll likely choose to work on fitment a bit more later but for now they are doing a better job than the ones previously installed.
The body side moldings behind the front tire were removed at one point. They were put back on using white double sided tape which is losing its grip on the edges and is visible. I decided to remove the driver's side, clean it up, put it back on with some 3M tape, and while I was at it replace the 5.0 emblem. I put it on with 3M Acrylic Plus tape (#06384) which is 1/2" wide so I put two strips beside one another for a full inch of coverage along the top and again at the bottom. Once it was on, it held firm and doesn't appear to be folding off the panel as it was before. (While the emblem and molding look crooked in the photo, they are not).
The front right corner of the front facia has not lined up with the fender properly since I purchased the car. I loosened all the bolts thinking it would be a quick fix but it certainly was not. I was able to improvement alignment with my wife holding the facia in place while I bolted the fender back to it from under the car. It isn't perfect but I image few things were with these cars when they were first made. It stands out less than before so I'll take it.
On another night after work, I installed a new hood seal and the two plugs on each side of the cowl under the hood. The hardest part was getting the old seal off. You pull it up to remove it but the clips were not very flexible but ultimately came off by pulling toward the engine and up. The new seal is made by Fairchild (#F4077) fit great and was exceptional quality. I'm glad to see that as I've heard the Daniel Carpenter versions are not good. That said, the two cowl end plugs were made by Daniel Carpenter (383689-PR) and fit perfectly fine but are a relatively standard plug. I don't know if this was really worth it but I picked it up when buying other new seals for the car (all Fairchild from RockAuto).
Additionally, I changed the four bumpers which are along the fender and support the hood when closed. Prior to installing these parts, the back of the hood, near the cowl, was about 1/8" low. I thought I'd need to adjust the hinges to fix it but installing these new bumpers fixed it. This was unexpected but great news as I didn't want to loosen any of the hinge bolts as they all look to be untouched and covered in factory paint.
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