I have a question regarding the kick panels in my 1968 Cougar. The originals have an area that is perforated in order to accommodate those cars that were equipped with stereo. The reproduction replacements that I received do not. Since I would like to keep the original look, does anyone know if there are reproductions that have this feature? If not has anyone tried to repair a damaged piece successfully? Mine are cracked at the screw holes. Thanks.
You just have to drill a bunch of holes to simulate the speakers in the reproduction.
Yep, what Randy said… I took a piece of 1/4’ metal plate and clamped it to the original kick panel over the speaker holes. Use a prick punch and transferred all the holes onto the plate. Then drilled the plate the same size as the speaker holes are. Then used the plate as a guide clamped to the repo kick panel and drill the speaker holes. Easy, but time consuming.
Calling Don Rush…Calling Don Rush…there’s a part to be manufactured that should already be repro’ed…Calling Don Rush…
This is something we’ve looked into, and have contacted suppliers about. It would just be a matter of creating extra tooling to modify the existing panels (possibly by making inserts for the molds so that the holes would be molded in to the panels, rather than punched through after the fact, IIRC). I haven’t heard any updates but it was sounding like it could happen.
For now though, DIY holes are the only option.
You know, I was thinking a similar thought. I have a good friend who has several older CNC machines. I don’t think it would be terribly difficult to fabricate left and right-side jigs and jaws to hold respective kick panels. Then it would just be a matter of programming the hole patterns for drilling. Rather than stocking a bunch of different kick panels / colors, perhaps operate it more as a service, wherein people send their kick panels for precision drilling. The initial tooling and programming would be time intensive, but that cost could be amortized over a certain anticipated number of customers. Would there be any interest in that type of thing? If so, it’d also help to have some price point recommendations for consideration. Lastly, does anyone know if this same issue exists with cousin Mustangs? If so, that could also play into market feasibility and pricing analysis.
(FWIW, I happened to pull my right kick panel off today while starting an antenna replacement. It looks to me like the speaker hole pattern was accomplished by melting rather than drilling. Or maybe the forms were pulled while the plastic was still elastic. Who knows, but they don’t look drilled – too messy on the back.)
Edit: Ha! Andrew beat me to the response.
(FWIW, I happened to pull my right kick panel off today while starting an antenna replacement. It looks to me like the speaker hole pattern was accomplished by melting rather than drilling. Or maybe the forms were pulled while the plastic was still elastic. Who knows, but they don’t look drilled – too messy on the back.)
Yes, it looks like they used heated rods and poked all the holes at once from the factory. Easy and fast…