ronmanfredi

I bought the wheel from Summit Racing in the 15" for that reason. It's a special order with about a 4-6 week shipping time. You also have to order the matching corvette hub and horn button.

1/8" is what you want. I still have enough to do another car complete if you want them, $50 plus shipping. As far as what I would do different, I wouldn't waste the time trying to bend the panel. I'd just cut the end pieces and install after the main piece. You can use your old wood panel as a template and a cheap scroll saw to cut the new panel, BUT you need to add about 1/8"-1/4" to the width of the area where the side pieces are going to be cut since doing the cut will actually remove some material and then the end pieces won't completely cover the back aluminum panel at the outer edges.

I removed almost all of the moonroof on my 82 to repair the separated frame from the fiberglass roof. You have to open up the sunroof itself and you will see a removeable stop on each side down in the track. Mark the position and take out the screws and stops. Next, put a couple of layers of 2" wide masking tape at the front of the moonroof on the painted roof. Then run the moonroof to the closed position and as it gets within a few inches of being all the way close, then lift the front of it out of the channel so it passes over some of the masking tape. You can now get to the back of it and disconnect it from the drive motor connection. Once you have it out, then you can remove the headliner panel. Now it's time to clean the guide tracks, the sunroof assembly, replace any seals (available from Nostalgic Motors) and then reassemble. If the sunroof frame has separated from the roof skin, then that's another topic on how to repair that.

LOL, well you don't know how I work. I have data on 96 located so far....

Yes, it's been that way since the site crashed a few months back.

All the links that I have tried quit working several months back.

Don Lindner and I are working with John Hull to develop a production list of all cars from 2001-2007. If you haven't supplied Don with your Avant's information, then please provide it to me with the following info: Vin Year, Vin #, Body Style: Conv/Coupe/T-Top, Color and your name. If you have a Mustang chassis, then the last 4 numbers of your Avanti Vin would be helpful also. If you want to keep the info confidential, then please email me at: ron.manfredi@att.net. Thank you!

I have thought about this myself and found 2 cars whose owners had done this, images attached. I don't know where the racks came from, just saw the images that were shown when the cars were being sold.

From looking under the dash, the switch looks similar to mine and the color wires match.

Measure the steering wheel emblem diameter, Studebaker International may have that one.

Do you know the Rxxxx body Tag Number?

Link doesn't work.

Save this

Those came with 305's, either 150 or 185 HP. You need to find one with a plan of changing out the engine and removing the engine computer/carb/distributor. Also, the trans will need an electrical modification to turn on the lock up converter in 4th gear since the old engine computer use to do that. (most trans shops can do this if you don't want to)

Is there a pressure switch at the receiver dryer or in one of the refrigerant lines somewhere? If so, disconnect it and see if that stops the problem. If the carburetor has an idle control solenoid to raise the idle when the compressor is on, then disconnect it and check also.

Yea, that's true. I may paint the throttle body next. Another thought is to wrap the intake runner tops with carbon fiber wrap like I did on the dash.

Avanti Parts Biz. SDI has them also.

More than likely, the sending unit is going bad. Mine was doing the same thing and it was corroded badly. I removed the rear seat, removed the bolts holding the metal lines in place and was able to get the sender in and out. While you are there, it's a good time to replace the 2 gas hoses that run from the tank, down to the metal lines at the right rear wheel well. Just be sure to remove the lines off the tank FIRST so you don't risk a gravety feed of fuel all over the garage floor.

Continuing my attempt to improve the hood height compared to fenders, I noticed that the hinges are sitting on top of the fiberglass nose cap. In looking at this area from underneath the car, the hinge bolts go through the 1/4" thick fiberglass nose cap and then through a radiator core support metal brace. Ok, so the hood is sitting about 1/4" above the fenders and the hood hinge is mounted on top of a 1/4" thick nose cap. 😏 Time to make a change. I took a scribe and traced out the hood hinge where it sat on the fiberglass nose cap. Next I laid out some blankets on the windshield and fenders and removed the hood by removing the 4 nuts off the lower hood hinge bolts. I left the hinge attached to the hood so as to not change any adjustment pertaining to that part. My wife and I picked up the hood and slide it back about a foot. With the hood hinge area now exposed, I got out my Dremel and Die Grinder and cut out the fiberglass area that I had traced out. Once done, we set the hood back in place, bolted it down and took a look at how it fit and operated. The hood now sits almost flush along the fenders and headlight area. But when opening and closing the hood, you can see the hinge flex some where it attaches to the sheet metal core support brace. Well of course it does, this Ford Mustang radiator core support brace was never intended to support a hood hinge! So, I cut two 12" long, 1 1/2" wide, 3/16" steel pieces of steel that I had laying around, drilled 1 hole in the center of the metal and placed them under the braces so that when you installed the front hinge nut, it would stiffen the support brace. Test # 2, problem resolved. Now the hood sits much closer to where it should, it opens and closes well and there isn't any movement in the hinge mount. I'm happy and finished up the job with some seam sealer around the area I cut out. Picture #1 is before, 2-4 after.

When I bought our 06 model, I noticed the hood was sticking up about 1/4" all the way around, except at the windshield area. When driving, the entire back side of the hood would bounce around all over the place too when hitting bumps. In looking at the hood hinge, it was obvious that there was no adjustment to lower the front and sides of the hood to where they would match the fender lines and front end panel. On the latch mechanism, you can adjust it up and down, but when doing that, you are actually bowing the hood down in that area. The bump stops at each end of the hood are adjustable, but that doesn't help the area close to the latch. In looking at the hood, it's obvious that it is bowed downward in the center, from the front to the back. This means that you will never get all the gaps around the edges to where they are all flush, yet you can get the sides really close to flush with the fenders and the back side by the latch. To tackle this, the first thing that I did was to add a bump stop right next to the latch area. I had an adjustable one from a vehicle that I had, so I modified it as necessary and installed it as shown. I temporarily loosened the latch and set the hood up correctly using the 3 bump stops that were now along the back side of the hood. Lastly, I set the latch to where it would lock the hood in place where there was even pressure on all 3 bump stops. The center bump stop will prevent any more "bowing" of the back side of the hood and help stabilize it.

The 2001-2007 Avanti's are really unique looking and beautiful to some. So when you open the hood, what does it look like then? My 2006 engine looked pretty plain, so I decide to upgrade the appearance by painting the valve covers. There are some aftermarket valve covers available, but for the money, you end up with "Ford" or "Ford Racing" made into the cover. So, I spent less that $100 to paint the covers to match the car color, including a new gasket set. Here are before and after photos:

Does your Avanti's drivers side washer nozzle hit the hood when it's closed? My 06 model did, in fact, it appears the factory cut out a portion of the hood and ground down the back side of the nozzle to try and get some clearance. It's obvious the problem is that either the hood was made incorrectly or it has "dropped" over the years due to a weak structure. I decide to remove the windshield wiper panels to see what options I had to fix this. The factory drilled a 1/4" hole at the top of the panel and stuck the nozzle in it. In order to lower it, the panel needs to be thicker in that area, so I took a piece of 1/4" thick plexiglass that I had laying around and cut a 4" long strip that I could glue underneath the existing nozzle hole. Before installing the strip, I trimmed out the existing hole to make it square so the nozzle could drop down through the panel. Next I drilled the 1/4" hole into the center of the plexiglass strip, which is where the nozzle would now attach to. The last thing to do was to glue the strip into the underside of the panel. I installed the nozzle into the plexiglass strip and the placed it into position. It was a perfect fit, so I glued it in place. Here are the after repair photos:

https://www.stangerssite.com/CVparts.html

My drivers side door lock had the same problem. After lubricating all the parts thoroughly, it now works fine. On the window wiskers / rubber, you can get the correct ones from Studebaker International or Nostalgic Motors.