I ordered and received my “old man” white wall tires this week. I also painted my steel wheels white in preparation for tire mounting. I am using my Mercury dog dish hubcaps. The look is period correct and exactly what I had envisioned for this project.
Those dog dish wheels are going to look fantastic. I’ve always felt that one tragedy of the massive aftermarket for vintage cars is that unless you watch old episodes of Rockford, you forget that 99% of vintage cars were pretty plain looking daily drivers and grocery getters. One of the coolest Shelby’s I’ve ever seen was a plain white 65 GT350 with plain steel wheels and a roof mounted luggage rack.
Might was well run those “old man” tires on “old man” wheels - lol!
Mounting Tires
I stopped at a local tire shop to ask about having my new tires mounted. I was told it was $200 to mount each tire 
. I reminded the sales lady that my rims were bare and I already had my tires. She stated that she understood me the first time 
. I thanked her and went on my way back home.
I paid $410 for my tires and there was no way I was going to pay $200 for mounting each tire. So I mounted the tires myself. I figured, how hard can it be? I took a quick video tutorial on YouTube and went to work.
Step 1: get your tire ready with soapy water.
Step 5: Repeat steps 1-4 three more times.
Steven
I took some time this morning and cleaned the blue protectant off of the mounted tires. I used hot tap water in a bucket with Dawn dish soap. I scrubbed the cleaning solution on each tire with a kitchen sponge with a green scower-pad attached. It worked like a champ.
Steven
$200 each. There’s a bargain.
Do you have to balance the tires?
In our area, the going rate to have customer-supplied wheels and tires mounted and balanced is $25.00 each. The only chain in the area that won’t mount customer-supplied tires is Town Fair Tire. Nobody tries to charge such a ridiculous amount.
Yes, I will have them balance. That was included on the astronomically high price I received. I will get them balanced when I have the car alignment performed.
I was really taken back by the price. I am completely deaf in one ear and hard of hearing in the other. I thought my CROS device picked up her voice incorrectly, so I repeated what I had said. I know everyone is dealing with inflation, but their prices are ridiculous.
Steven
If burn tires off like I like to do. Invest in a couple of sons to put the tires on. On a particularly wider rim, I use ether. A bubble balancer can be found for cheap these days. If your not cruising 70mph plus, it’s perfectly fine.
Make sure the shop has a hub to balance the wheels by the lugs, not the center hole.
While I liked the way my walking Cougar GT-C fender emblems turned out, I didn’t like the sticker aspect of the finished product. So I changed it up with my latest idea. These emblems are made with real metal and chrome.
Like everything on the convertible, it’s a mashup of Cougar and Mustang parts. So I thought to myself; why not do a blended Cougar and Mustang emblem?
So here is my new walking Cougar fender emblem assemblies.
Looks good
I like it! Is the cat attached to the emblem?
No, each emblem is separate. Each emblem has its own mounting pins. I will have to make a template for mounting. I am thinking about cutting the pins down and using 3M adhesive for mounting each emblem in its proper position. I’m not sure I can bring myself to drill mounting holes in the fenders.
Steven
3M tape will allow them to appear as one without adding to the thickness of the emblem with a backing plate, but a backing plate curved to match the fender (if that’s where these are going) may look more factory-ish.
Love the emblem, though.
I installed my headlight/grille assemblies today. I have some adjusting to do but overall I am pleased. It’s slowly looking like a Cougar again with every part I install.
It’s hard to get good head on pictures because my shop is small. The pictures below shows my custom thin XR7S grille bars that I made along with my Cougar #1 inspired walking Cougar emblem without the Cougar lettering.
Have a safe and blessed weekend and Independence Day!
Steven
Just looking back at your emblem and thinking you could just mount the cat on the plate instead of the 302 numbers (assuming it fits). Mercury would have used a metric designation not cubic inches so you wouldn’t be losing anything and it would call out that the cougar, itself, is high performance.
Ignore what I just said. I realise now that the 302 is attached to the V so my idea would lose that feature. Carry on.
Jody you made a good point at what Mercury would have used. To be honest, it never crossed my mind. I would have liked to use my original idea of the 5.0 Litre GT-C emblem but in the end using the sticker just didn’t feel right. I toyed with the idea of using the reproduction GTE emblems with a 5.0 insert; at a price north of $300 a pair and Don’s WCCC review that wasn’t an option. My complete emblem package with shipping set me back $70.
Here is a picture of the left side emblem being test fitted on the fender.
Steven
