Interior
Last updated July 14, 2004 Tilt Column Rollbar and seatback Rollbar detail

Tilt Column
I originally purchased the steel tilt column from Haneline.  Haneline resells the Ididit product line.  I had a problem with the steel column in that at full tilt the tilting part hit the stationary part at one very small spot.  This was not good, so I ordered a replacement in brushed aluminum.  This way it needs no paint and it's lighter.
The installation of the column to the rack uses a pair of borgeson joints   You will notice in the picture that the column is painted.  That is because the picture was taken with the steel column in place.

Electric Windows
I got the electric window kit from Haneline.

The kit comes with new regulators that have electric motors on them and was quite easy to install.  The hardest part was running the wires.  I installed the electric windows using the switches that came with the kit, but the more I looked at those ugly plastic switches the less I liked them.  Then I ran across the crank switches and just had to have them.  You can't even tell there are electric windows by looking, but just move the window crank 15-degrees one way or the other and the windows do their thing.  It's pretty slick.

One thing to note with the window crank switches though; the web site says to use part number EWS-2 for older Fords.  This is the wrong part for a vintage pony.  The correct part is the EWS-1, but you have to massage the splines with a jeweler's file and tap the shaft for the screw.

Seats
The seats were quite easy to install the first time.  They came as two main parts; the seat itself and the mounting hardware.

The mounting hardware consisted of the slides and a framework.  The framework bolts to the floor pan where the original seat bolts went.  The slides get attached to the seat and then bolt to the framework.

One small gotcha:  The seats are a bit taller than the stock ones.   This caused my head to touch the headliner, which was a bad thing.  Solution:   lower the floor pans.  Since we were cutting the pans out and welding them back in I figured we might as well push them back too.  The end result is that the seats are two inches lower and three inches further back.  Good for me, bad for anybody in the back seat.

Shift Stick
I went through many different shift sticks looking for something close to the Hurst Competition Plus stick I had in my earlier ponies.  The stick I got from JMC when I bought the 5-speed was the replica of the stock stick with the reverse lock-out bar.  I didn't like this one because I kept playing with the lock-out and it hurt my fingers.

I finally found the stick that is in the car now, which is the right shape, but the bend is just a little too drastic.  This bend causes the stick to ride too close to the floor in the even-numbered gears.  I will have to re-work the holes to make it stand up a little more.

Hurst has a billet aluminum stick as well, but it does not have enough of a bend in it.   This causes the stick to be too high and forward.

There is one other significant difference between the replica of the stock stick and the Hurst stick and that is the thread size for the knob.   The replica had 7/16-20 threads and the Hurst has 3/8-16.

Life would be so much simpler if I was not so picky.

Shift Knob
I fell in love with the big knob from Hurst.  You know, the white one with the 5-speed pattern on it.  Why don't I have it on the Hurst stick?   Hurst, in their infinite wisdome, decided that only people with 12mm or larger thread sizes could use this knob.

I found the FatKnob via a web search.  For an additional five dollars they will put any thread size in the knob that you want.  These knobs are awesome.

Guage Cluster
What can I say about the JME guage cluster?  They are simply awesome!!!

The cluster comes fully wired and well marked, so all you have to do is splice them in where they belong.  Mitch took it one step further and put connectors on the wires so that we can put the cluster in and take it back out easily.