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More Repair & Tech Tips by Andrea~roses4andrea & Others
The first one applies to Retrobird owners. The 2nd one to any year of Tbird...
Tech Tip Home
If you have a retro bird, and your hardtop rack has a broken wheel, you can get one 2" wheel at Office Max. It's a chair replacement wheel. I just pulled the old one off and slipped the new wheel on the shaft. It's a 1 1/2" screw shaft and most are 1", so unless you want to spend big bucks, you do that instead. It works great.
Tech Tip Forum
I went in to the Ford dealer to get some touch-up paint for my car. I found out they don't make it anymore. Now I have a '05, so if your car is older, chances are you can't get any either. I went on line and found a paint company called, Automotive Touchup Company.
They ask for your year, model, then the colors of your year come up, you choose your color, size and price. It was around $30.00 for touch-up and a can of spray paint. If you need any, at least now you can find it.
E-mail address: info@mg.automotivetouchup.com
Retrobird Repair Tips
Restoring Leather Seats
https://www.amazon.com/Furniture-Cli.../dp/B00FOKOKM0
Comes in many different colors!
Applied with a micro fiber cloth twice, and then 15 minutes later buffed it off with soft cotton garden gloves on both hands. Amazing restoration and supple leather result. It fills in cracks, nicely. They still exist but are FAR less noticeable.
Replacement Retrobird Battery.
I found the Group 65-1 is almost the same as the 66. I did have to put a shim on the top, everything else lined up, including vent. Plus I got 850cc.
Buying a new Retrobird car key. Comments from the Retrobird FB Page.
The dealer had only one key for it but they did buy us another that wasn’t coded. I had to go to the Ford dealer to get another key and get it programmed. According to the owner’s manual, I should be able to program the third key, but it’s not working.
Andrea: You can program your key fob, not your key, it can only be done at the dealer, it has to match up with the computer. I had to have it done, but I did do 2 key fobs that I ordered online. That's an easy fix, in Manuel.
In theory you can program a third key if you have two unique working keys. For my recent Fords, that was one of the first things I did. As previously discussed there are reasons why programming the third key might fail. If you don’t have two working keys you need assistance to program additional keys. Ford dealers and many locksmiths have the equipment to do this. If you are computer savvy you can use FORSCAN to do it (Google it).
I went to ACE Hardware, bought my new keys and fobs and programmed the fobs. They work perfectly.
Replacement Maintenance Decals
This is the decal at the front of the engine compartment on my recently purchased 2005 Retro Bird. As you can see, the decal is unreadable.
Thunderbird Bob has a whole new supply of these decals… in fact, he has sets of all four of the under hood decals available!
https://thunderbirdbob.com/ Phone: 219-992-0953
eBay Source For Retrobird Parts ~ Andrea
https://www.ebay.com/str/amormotoringchromedistributor
Tech Tip Home
If you have a retro bird, and your hardtop rack has a broken wheel, you can get one 2" wheel at Office Max. It's a chair replacement wheel. I just pulled the old one off and slipped the new wheel on the shaft. It's a 1 1/2" screw shaft and most are 1", so unless you want to spend big bucks, you do that instead. It works great.
Tech Tip Forum
I went in to the Ford dealer to get some touch-up paint for my car. I found out they don't make it anymore. Now I have a '05, so if your car is older, chances are you can't get any either. I went on line and found a paint company called, Automotive Touchup Company.
They ask for your year, model, then the colors of your year come up, you choose your color, size and price. It was around $30.00 for touch-up and a can of spray paint. If you need any, at least now you can find it.
E-mail address: info@mg.automotivetouchup.com
Retrobird Repair Tips
Restoring Leather Seats
https://www.amazon.com/Furniture-Cli.../dp/B00FOKOKM0
Comes in many different colors!
Applied with a micro fiber cloth twice, and then 15 minutes later buffed it off with soft cotton garden gloves on both hands. Amazing restoration and supple leather result. It fills in cracks, nicely. They still exist but are FAR less noticeable.
Replacement Retrobird Battery.
I found the Group 65-1 is almost the same as the 66. I did have to put a shim on the top, everything else lined up, including vent. Plus I got 850cc.
Buying a new Retrobird car key. Comments from the Retrobird FB Page.
The dealer had only one key for it but they did buy us another that wasn’t coded. I had to go to the Ford dealer to get another key and get it programmed. According to the owner’s manual, I should be able to program the third key, but it’s not working.
Andrea: You can program your key fob, not your key, it can only be done at the dealer, it has to match up with the computer. I had to have it done, but I did do 2 key fobs that I ordered online. That's an easy fix, in Manuel.
In theory you can program a third key if you have two unique working keys. For my recent Fords, that was one of the first things I did. As previously discussed there are reasons why programming the third key might fail. If you don’t have two working keys you need assistance to program additional keys. Ford dealers and many locksmiths have the equipment to do this. If you are computer savvy you can use FORSCAN to do it (Google it).
I went to ACE Hardware, bought my new keys and fobs and programmed the fobs. They work perfectly.
Replacement Maintenance Decals
This is the decal at the front of the engine compartment on my recently purchased 2005 Retro Bird. As you can see, the decal is unreadable.
Thunderbird Bob has a whole new supply of these decals… in fact, he has sets of all four of the under hood decals available!
https://thunderbirdbob.com/ Phone: 219-992-0953
eBay Source For Retrobird Parts ~ Andrea
https://www.ebay.com/str/amormotoringchromedistributor
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