Topic: Rear Tie Down Brackets

[J_Speegle]

............ My take on the TSB was that the stickers were being ignored so much that the related service problems prompted the additional attention that the TSB was meant to initiate .

+1  Normally the reason TSB's were often produced was to make service managers aware of changes, problems/issues or how to address things.

Marcus will look through my very small stack of confidential minutes from the dealer- factory reps  meetings to see if there is anything in those.

[Anghelrestorations]

Bob.....so you are saying for sure you have seen original cars before 1969 that had these stickers on them?  Just want to confirm that.  The way I read the TSB was that the stickers will be an additional item added to the car besides the TSB to help to remind their removal.  It seems the stickers would only be added after they knew it was a problem and not before they knew there was an issue. 

[Bob Gaines]

Bob.....so you are saying for sure you have seen original cars before 1969 that had these stickers on them?  Just want to confirm that.  The way I read the TSB was that the stickers will be an additional item added to the car besides the TSB to help to remind their removal.  It seems the stickers would only be added after they knew it was a problem and not before they knew there was an issue.

Marcus,yes I have seen the stickers on the rear valance of 65-69 (years of interest)Mustangs for many years. Not as much now as many cars are restored. I am not special in noticing these. This was brought to my attention decades ago by others. It was probably Special Ed on a 69 or 70 since those are the only years he cares about    but I then started to look for them on 65,66,67 and 68 where I also found them . That is just my story many others discovered them their own way.Many times I would find full ,partial , small paper or adhesive remnants of the stickers. Plus the stickers are illustrated in the assembly manuals in the body section. I think even without personal visual confirmation the fact that they are illustrated attached to the rear valance in the assembly manual would be enough of a smoking gun for a skeptic on the subject. As I said before many have seen the stickers and with that said it has been a common joke for years among the junk yard dogs and restorers alike how much the instructions were ignored given finding so many still attached. That is why in my mind the TSB had to be issued to bring this oversight to the attention of the people who were suppose to be removing them that there was a necessary mechanical need for removing them above and beyond the reason of re use at the factory.

[J_Speegle]

Bob.....so you are saying for sure you have seen original cars before 1969 that had these stickers on them?  Just want to confirm that.............

+1 I know Bob and I have had the discussion many times about how hard it is to know what others don't know - we often assume that many details that we believe are common knowledge really are not. The only way we discover these differences is to share and talk about tons of stuff

This is just one of these things - guessed that you already knew about the decals and that they had been used since 65 production

One of the nicer 65 examples - in this case a Dearborn car

Likely have them (if I looked hard and would accept ones of lesser condition) examples from every year. Not that there are any differences, that I've noticed  or their location of application



BTW nothing in the four reports from the annual meetings related to the tie downs - though it was a nice refresher to reread some of the issues and complaints

[67gtasanjose]

Bob.....so you are saying for sure you have seen original cars before 1969 that had these stickers on them?

Marcus,yes I have seen the stickers on the rear valance of 65-69 (years of interest)Mustangs for many years.

... Plus the stickers are illustrated in the assembly manuals in the body section. I think even without personal visual confirmation the fact that they are illustrated attached to the rear valance in the assembly manual would be enough of a smoking gun for a skeptic on the subject.

One of the nicer 65 examples - in this case a Dearborn car

Likely have them (if I looked hard and would accept ones of lesser condition) examples from every year. Not that there are any differences, that I've noticed  or their location of application

Very important to note this decal and the TSB are for ONLY factory installed  DUAL EXHAUST EQUIPPED MUSTANGS,models. (read as only cars with the LONG tie down brackets) not for the single exhaust or Cougars since they have been involved in this thread.

I checked the 67 Osborn Body manual and it notes it for Dual Exhaust, and so does the TSB. I imagine other year assembly manuals will note the same, for GT dual exhaust

NEW QUESTION then. Does this indicate that the single exhaust car tie down brackets were not requested to be removed and/or returned?

Richard

[mgmradio]

Richard, the decals were used on all cars. Here is a picture of the one on my 65 vert, single exhaust .

[Anghelrestorations]

I am under the opinion that its not typical that the single exhaust style tie down brackets were removed from cars.  They dont cause a clearance issue so would not see a reason to be removed.

As for returning the tie down brackets to the assembly plant there is no documentation anywhere that shows this was done or requested to be done.  Or at least havent come across anything yet.

[J_Speegle]

I am under the opinion that its not typical that the single exhaust style tie down brackets were removed from cars.  They dont cause a clearance issue so would not see a reason to be removed.

Have to disagree - have seen plenty of cars without so where did they go? 

Think your focusing on this 69 TSB as a sole indicator. Nothing in the print suggests IMHO to ignore the factory placed decal if its a single exhaust car nor did they stop installing the decal on single exhaust cars in 69. Don't think they spent all those dollars on the decals and the instructions because they liked spending Ford's money 

[67gtasanjose]

So the decal was placed on all cars (single & dual exhaust)? I must have misread the '67 assembly manual, will look again tonight when I get home.

Sorry for any misleading information, I'll re-read the notes in the Osborn.

Richard

[J_Speegle]

So the decal was placed on all cars (single & dual exhaust)? I must have misread the '67 assembly manual, will look again tonight when I get home.

The picture I posted above is from a single exhaust car  have found them on other original single exhaust cars. Now have not cataloged each finding to specific  year  yet

[67gtasanjose]

OK, got home and looked again at the 1967 Osborn Body A.M., I actually did seem to read it correctly:

Last page of the manual,in the right column: (best I can make it out)

"8- (C4ZB-65104A76) DECALCOMANIA - DEALER INSTRUCTION, ADHERED
      TO THE LICENSE PLATE AREA,  SEE VIEW "B"  (FOR DUAL EXHAUST
      SYSTEMS ONLY )."

Now, other years (or earlier years) might be different instructions and nothing preventing assembly workers continuing old habbits from the earlier years. I'm not saying that other (67) single exhaust cars didn't get them but it looks more like they should NOT have recieved them, even if they did.

Just my opinion and I am no expert, just trying to help out with what I found in research.

I looked up the decal engineering number in GOOGLE and noticed there had been some troubled discussion over at the VMF forum several years ago. It doesn't sound like something everyone agrees on at this time.
http://forums.vintage-mustang.com/vintage-mustang-forum/496980-my-first-mca-type-show-how-refresh-exhaust-manifolds-2.html


Richard

[Bob Gaines]

The 65 manual does not discriminate on single or duel exhaust. I do not have a 66 body manual to check . The 67,68,and 69 manuals do use verbiage to indicate duel exhaust only . I most likely is a case of slapping them on everthing that came down the line apposed to picking and choosing. I never gave it much thought until I checked the manuals because it has seemed to be non discrimate regardless of the year. We have seen other things disregarded like that . Pinch weld black out  on darker colors, heater shield non removal, engine lift hooks to name a few. Just like those examples mentioned I have seen evidence examples of the tie down sticker on 66-69  single exhaust cars too.   

[J_Speegle]

Found this one while doing a search for another thread. Another single exhaust car with the tie down bracket decal. Sure I can find many more though their condition will not be as nice.

This time from 9F03F188xxx

[krelboyne]

I have heard that Ford wanted those tie down brackets back, for reuse on other cars. I have a friend whose Father worked for a Ford dealer in the 1960's and 1970's. My friend said that his Father told him the dealers were supposed to remove the tie down brackets in pairs and send them back to Ford. I think that he said there was a 50 cent bounty on them. They didn't feel that it was worth while to remove, keep track of, and arrange for return for the half dollar.

[Anghelrestorations]

Scott....the main problem with the idea of returning them is that as of today nobody has ever seen any documentation that talks about this.  With as Many Ford and Mercury dealers there were at the time you would think there would be something out there.  It may be more of an urban legend than anything else. 
We certainly do think they were taken off some of the cars, just cant say for sure if they were returned.