Charlie1

Mine is a 66 convert. Continuing restoration from standard interior to deluxe. Got new door panels, clips, paper, courtesy lights, escuthceons, pistol grip handles, etc. Old stuff off, greased everything and replaced one window regulator, and then new stuff on...with difficulties but expected.

Put all back together and now new door handles don't reach the splines on the shaft...door panels stick out too far, I guess. All TMI and Scott Drake products from NPD and California Mustangs, too. I doubt Ford had longer door or window crank handle shafts for standard vs deluxe interiors. Anyway, looking for workaround options...Ideas: cut padding out from behind vinyl to reduce space; use escutheon as a pattern and cut out all the door panel behind it; etc. I'll start with option that doesn't destroy a $75 door panel, and that's grinding down the back of the chrome escutheon and thinning that up by 1/8"; I just have to get close enough to get splines engaged and get allen bolt in solidly....anybody encountered this?

Canary94GT

Yeah my new TMI 1965 pony door panels were much thicker-seeming than my old panels... probably just because they were new. Didn't have that much of a problem though. That just doesn't seem right to me. Do you have the ability to show us some pictures of the shaft/panel situation?

rmodel65

doesnt the pony handle use a different parts that had longer studs

Canary94GT

Oh I did not read that it was a conversion... it would most likely be different then. My suggestion would be to find an article on converting interior (like on mustangmonthly.com) and see if they say anything about the door handles.

Charlie1

Thanks, guys. I'll do some searching. I do have four years worth of Mustang Monthly mag's, too. And maybe I can do some part number comparisons to see if the door handle mechanism show different numbers on pony vs standard.

Canary94GT

Yeah, there is a different door handle control assembly for Pony interior.

You can see that the Pony handle shaft is much longer in the pictures:

Pony handle

Standard handle

Charlie1

That's it! That is what makes this site so great. Thanks for the tip...I'm ordering the parts now.