madhatr

I sadly need to sell my Bright Yellow 2005 Mustang GT. Due to my disability and the need for money to buy my sister a little more time on this planet before cancer takes her.

My baby has sat up for some time only being driven a few miles a week. 4 years ago when I bought her from my dad before he passed she had 60,000 miles on her. She now only has 63,000 miles on her.

I have a number of things I need to repair and perform before selling her. I finally got around to getting the airbag recall replaced this week, now the airbag light blinks 1 then 6. Code 16. I am guessing the cabling under the passenger seat. The rear window defrost connector has come loose. I have the repair kit for that. The biggest issues I need to address is mildew smell and damage caused by water sitting in the car. I caught the issue of the water flap in the trap under the hood scoop to late. In turn the passenger seat will not move forward or back. The drivers side seat motor fights to move. Due to the humidity in the car the rear window tint has started bubbling. Other than the water damage the drivers side seat belt does not fully retract, the daytime running lights no longer come on, the drivers side outer door handle no longer springs back causing the driver to push the handle in before getting in and closing the door, both of the doors internal vinyl covering around the armrest have come off, and lastly me or my wife pulled the car to close to the curb and the black plastic that screws into the underside of the front bumper got pulled off along with the black plastic that is inserted in the air ports on the lower half of the front bumper.

1. I am planning on taking the seats out and sanding down any rust the rails that they slide on.
2. I can remove the tint with a hairdryer but I am worried that it will take the rear defrost wires with it.
3. I saw that the seat belt retraction can be fixed by soaking the belt in soapy water, that the belt has become stiff.
4. I will check the wiring for the pressure sensor for the airbag and maybe try the jumper reset.
5. I have no clue as to why the daytime running lights are not turning on. I will start by checking the fuse box.
6. I have no clue what to do to fix the outer door handle.
7. I still have the vinyl covers so I will remove the inner arm rest and such and attempt to glue them back on.
8. I can not find the name of the plastic guard that was screwed under the front bumper or the inserts.
9. I have no idea how to get rid of the mildew smell. I have heard several methods, most of them involve either baking soda or some kind of enzyme that destroys the mildew moldy smell.

If anyone can help with advice on how to fix the things I can't figure out how to and part names it would be greatly appreciated.

mrkabc

Do you have any pictures of the bumper damage or door panels? Where did the moisture come from? Did you leave the windows open during the rain, or is this a flood damaged car?

1. No need to sand down the rust, unless it's really bad. There is always surface rust on the seat brackets. Some white lithium grease should solve that problem.
2. Be gentle with the hair dryer and you shouldn't have a problem with the defrost wires.
3. Never heard of that one. You should get a new belt - don't mess with safety items.
4. Airbag wires are yellow. Check under the passenger seat to see if the wiring is disconnected. If not you may need to replace the sensor (s).
5. You are in Canada? What DRLs?
6. The door handle is a cable that goes to the door release. If it's obstructed, kinked, or not lubricated, it will not retract. You'll need to pull the door panel to find out - 8 mm bolts around the perimeter of the door panel, pop the power window controls and the cover behind the door pull to find and remove the 2 Torx bolts. Don't forget the lone 8mm bolt kind of hidden in the center of the door panel!
7. By vinyl covers you mean the inserts? Those won't glue back on. The inserts were mounted to foam that has rotted away. You can either throw them away and attempt to sand off the foam or you can get some material from an upholstery shop to replace it, and use upholstery glue to secure the new inserts. AM sells them as well but they are no fun to install.
8. Need to see a pic for this one.
9. You need mildewcide - your best bet though is to thoroughly clean the carpet with the drivers/passenger seats taken out. Hopefully you don't have mold in the headliner or in the seat cushions or you will have a bigger problem.

Check back with us, we can offer more advice with more information.

madhatr

The water originally came in through the cabin air filter. Something that Ford charged me several hundred dollars to clean. The problem continued and I demanded the weather stripping issue repair that Ford released instructions to their mechanics. I got a replacement air filter and cabin filter and I plan on removing the flap altogether. I will also Lysol down the cabin filter and behind it.

1. Being a classic Mustang man, I am used to the inter workings of my '67 Mustang GT's. The passenger seat stopped sliding forward via the bar under the seat and the lever on the top back of the seat. Thinking in old terms I just assumed that the seat ran on rails and had rusted causing it to no longer move. I'll remove the seat and assure all the bars and levers line up under the seat. I guess I will know more when I get under there. At times the powered drivers seat will get stuck in the fully reversed position. If I play with the joystick it will either move normally like nothing is wrong while other times it will move about half way forward and stop, or worst of all a few times my wife got in the car and it got stuck in the fully forward position. That may require greasing the rails or more likely a new power seat motor so I may not invest in repairing that.

2. Is there anyway to salvage the window tent on the back window? With it being so humid in the car it looks like somehow water got in-between the tent and the window. I will first try repairing the rear defrost wire, running the rear defrost and kinda squeegee it down. The tent is hard to see through currently but there are no big bubbles or discoloration. If all else fails I'll carefully peal it off.

3. I saw several videos on YouTube showing that over time the seat belt can stiffen up so it stops rolling smoothly when winding in and will dangle out of the door. I will try the method they showed of dipping it in warm soapy water to loosen it up. If that doesn't work a new belt or the spring loader.

4. I did notice the other day that the 16 airbag code did not occur when there was a passenger in the seat so I'm guessing it must be the pressure plate sensor.

5. I'm not in Canada so DRLs are not required but the fact that they stopped working all of the sudden concerned me that something else might be wrong. I download ForScan and I'm going to try changing the value and see it that fixes it, otherwise I fear corrosion or a bad SJB.

6. I will take the door panel off and check the door handle cable.

7. The vinyl inserts seemed to start the process of peeling off the foam the day I got the car. I searched for repair options all those years ago so I really hoped they had come up with a solution by now. I have seen hard plastic replacements for several hundred dollars and even a video of a guy that taped around the missing insert, sanded down the foam and then painted the foam with a special paint. It actually turned out looking good. Unsure as to what kind of spray paint he used but it seemed to fill in the surface of the foam leaving a nice smooth almost leather like looking texture.

8. After going through pages and pages up front bumper diagrams I found the parts that fell off started with the Undercar Shield followed by the Front Bumper Cover Grill. Luckily they only cost about $24 for each of them, plus of coarse special screws.

9. Luckily the headliner looks good and so do the leather seats. I will give mildewcide a try.

New issues.

My wrench symbol has started coming on and I lose acceleration so I will pick up some throttle body cleaner, I am hoping that is all it is because when I run diagnostics on the car it errors out on the throttle body and skips that entire set of test.

Also what would you recommend for cleaning the dash, leather and most importantly the steering wheel? The foam covering on the steering wheel has years of ground in dirt and oil. I can scrap at the foam and it starts to come clean but I don't want to use any chemicals that could damage it.

Thank you so much for all the help so far and any other advice you can give.