New to Site, Old to Car

JimmyS

New user
May 20, 2017
6
0
Glasgow
Hi All,Some background information from a new member. I've owned my Cougar since May 2002. It was bought as a low mileage ex-Ford company vehicle. I'm still very happy with it, although it is no longer used as a daily driver, nor has it been for a number of years.Here is a picture of it taken a few years ago next to one of my other favourite coupés, not mine unfortunately...Here is a picture of it last June on the hard shoulder of the M74 after I lost an argument with the central reservation barrier...Some clown swerved towards me as I was overtaking and my first instinct was to avoid him making contact. I ended up in the gravel with the rear of the car trying to overtake the front. I managed to stop that happening but couldn't avoid hitting the barrier cables to the front and rear. I made it to the hard shoulder with no further incident and the driver in the other car headed over the horizon, never to be seen or heard of again. Fortunately no one was hurt but my car suffered panel damage. I bought an MOT failure on eBay and cannibalised it for spares replacing the front offside wing, lights, bumper etc.]I still need to have the rear offside quarter panel repaired and various scrapes sorted out almost a year on.I must save up more pennies and get on with it!This looks like the great place for Cougar advice and information. Having had a look through various posts, it looks like I should add replacing my water pump and belt tensioner to the to do list...All the best,Jim
 
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Moderated post approved.

Hello Jim and welcome to the forum. (y)

Sorry to hear of your accident and well done on getting your Cougar back to almost ship-shape.
 
Hi and welcome to the club.
Lovely car, great to see you going to such lengths to keep her on the road.
 
hello jim and welcome.

did the police ever catch the ba***** ,its sad to hear what happened but really glad you kept her as she looks very clean and tidy.

you could probably push most of that dent out from the inside ,just take out the quarter panel inside and push it out.
my melina coug had been bashed just below the lower crease line and i managed to "ping" it out with some force.
 
Urf! That dent, ending just below the swage line... Honestly, you got lucky there.

Take the rear interior out and you could probably punch that dent out. But if nothing else, remove the rear speaker and spray that entire void with zinc paint or underseal. Protect it until you can get around to fixing it properly.

Welcome to the club, mate.
 
Hi Jim and welcome to the club

Nice to hear of another fanatic

Dent would probably push out mostly from the inside with maybe minimal tidying up needed

Good luck with it, let us know how it goes
 
Hi Guys,Thanks for the welcome. Here are another couple of pictures of the rear end damage. When I was learning to drive I had no qualms about pulling trim panels off of my old man's Cortina to push out dents, so perhaps I should just get on with it!I got in touch with Police Scotland when I got home to report the incident. There was a barrier to repair and I was curious to see if it was captured on CCTV anywhere. It wasn't, a good argument for dash cams. Strangely enough the Police hadn't heard from the other party involved. I find it hard to believe the other driver was oblivious to what was going on behind them, but the lurch to the right was so sudden and violent something unusual was clearly going on in their car. Waking up from a snooze perhaps, or maybe just a psycho? I'll never know.Thanks again,Jim
 
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Hi Jimmy - you should get the bit I've circled checked out, especially since it was a year ago, you may have compromised the rustproofing of the sills there....trust me I know from bitter experience :(

 
Hi Jimmy - you should get the bit I've circled checked out, especially since it was a year ago, you may have compromised the rustproofing of the sills there....trust me I know from bitter experience :(



Yes! If nothing else, throw some dirty oil or zinc paint at it. Grease. Vaseline. Get your dog to lick it. Get one of Captain Kirk's green-skinned girlfriends to ooze over it. Just... do something.

See, I spotted that too Steve, and that was my first reaction. Poor girl is going to rot - probably already has given how long ago this happened - so immediate treatment is mandatory unless you want to be looking for a new Cougar next year.

Consider pulling the rear interior too, and inspecting what's going on inside. Jimmy, you're a paid member so all of these tutorials are available to you. Get on it for your own sake. And ask if you need help. :beer: