Next was returning to the radiator support and condenser I had previously blasted.

I took a bit of a leap painting this. Mostly because I wanted to try a less expensive paint alternative to automotive grade paint for the inner semi-gloss black parts. With that it is Rustoleum semi-gloss black with a hardener over the rusty metal primer laid down a day earlier. I came across quite a few posts in other forums and they have good luck and even a friend who paints cars for a living often uses this on restorations.

So I gave it a try.

Here's my little alchemy set I used. The spray guns were entry level Devilbiss gun set that was around 100 dollars. They work pretty well for the price. The paint and acetone (reducer) was from Wally World (touch up is forever easy) and the hardener was from Tractor Supply. The hardener works really well, usually the top coat (black) takes 2 or so days to dry. I sprayed in the evening and next morning it was dry enough to handle or even wet sand. I have to say, aside from experimenting on the reducer to paint ratio it's pretty easy, just use a good respirator.

So for the front mounts, the ones in the kit aren't exactly the same as OE, so I had to take some liberties.

For the rectangular OE ones I had to cut off the sides on a round one in the kit and use some rubber hose for the inner liner. Such is life when this is all that's available.

The first section sandwiching and tightened on the frame.

The Condenser

Time to tackle the condenser. After plugging the lines and blasting it, it was time to straighten the fins with a pair of duck bill pliers. It's tedious but worth it,

Next was to remove the old receiver drier.

I found one company repoping the receiver drier and the inboard desiccant is both R12 and R134a compatible as I intend to convert this to R134a.

Since the condenser must be thoroughly flushed I cut open the old receiver drier to see if there were any metal particulates trapped in the screens. They were no signs of metal so I had to only contend with chemical cleaning of the old mineral oil out of the coils.

This is my super secret flushing apparatus .

This is the brown slurry that kept coming out. I nearly used an entire gallon of Laquer Thinner before it came out clear.

In these factory air con condensers, at least for the 3rd gens, there are three circuits in the condenser and it's not one long contiguous run, so be vigilant on cleaning.

Whilst the condenser was soaking I assembled the new gaskets, weatherstrip, grommets, air deflectors and such onto the radiator support.

The push clips in the aftermarket weatherstrips were really hard to push in, I became rather irritated and headed out to the store to see if I could find something that would work better. I did, these Dorman clips for imports fit perfectly.

Anything that had rubber was just replaced as the old stuff was hard and brittle.

Next up installing the condenser.

With the receiver off and lines capped I primed and painted the condenser.

Upon waiting for the paint to dry I installed the PS cooler.

I connected up the new receiver drier and kept the main lines plugged to keep moisture out and installed the condenser.

Funny how it used to kind of look like this....

Time for the new radiator as the old one was just rotting away.

So here's a typical '66 FE radiator on the left. It's a two row radiator. The one I ordered is a brass copper 3 row high efficiency from US Radiator. With the extra horsepower comes extra heat and I needed the highest capacity radiator that would fit in the stock location. This seems to be it.

Not only is there one additional row, but there are more columns across for more coolant capacity and area to transfer heat.

and installed.

Maybe hard to tell with the photo atop but that's what it used to look like.

And I even had a first go round of refurbishing the dull very hard to find with this centre logo hubcaps, but I need a better plan to finish the other 3.

Hope you enjoyed.

Cheers.