Front spoiler and trunk

More than likely this car did not have the spoiler installed on it from the factory. It was standard on the Mach1 but was available as a dealer installed option on other Mustangs. I think it completes the front of the car.

The Hood scoop was another item that was standard on some cars even on some coupes. It was also available as a dealer installed option. Looks great here too! Ok, so this picture is a little out of place (still shows the freshly restored console not installed. Here is a clean trunk compartment with the year correct trunk mat (oh, what beautiful vinyl)

Engine......purs like a kitten (an angry one)

Here is the engine in all it's glory, Finished and ready to run (and it does too!!)

351 Cleveland 2V from a 1970 Mustang

Seats and door panels

I also learned how to recover the seats for this car (sorry, aftermarket upholstry) You shure do learn a lot when you do the whole thing yourself. They turned out great though. The seats are yet another item that I got from the parts car. The seats that came with my car were from a 1970 Mustang and are a different style. They were in great shape but I wanted to keep it year correct. Also in went the console. Optional on this car, don't know if it came in this car or not but I had it and I like it, so I kept it. Re-dyed and installed! The rear seat Looked great in it's original condition so I opted to leave it alone - looks like it needs to be cleaned though (so does my camera lense) NOS Door panels fit like a glove! Again the door panel emblems are original and completely restored, hand painted and hand polished.

More beautiful interior

The interior is comming along great at this point. The dash, carpet, gauges steering wheel all restored by me, and fit like a glove. Nothing fits like original Ford parts. Even the emblem on the steering wheel is original and hand painted correct. OK, I changed my mind. after seeing the wood grain dash I fell in love with it! I looked for about 6 months for one that I could afford and restor to original quality (or dang close) and finally found it. I think it makes a huge difference. This car came from the factory with the black standard dash but I really wanted the wood grain, I'm glad I changed!

Headliner

This was my first time installing a new headliner (sorry, but this had to be reproduction, couldn't find anything NOS or used) Original headliner was trashed but all the Bows and clips were still intact. Still shows a few wrinkles but that should come right out in the next step using the heat gun. This picture shows the glass, visors, dash, and everything else installed. I did put the headliner in the way the factory did back in 1969. The way Ford did it was to work from the top down on all interior items. they started with the headliner then Glass (both front and back), then trim etc... That is exactly how I did it. Putting the rear glass in was so much fun I wish I could do it again. I used the standard wrap the rope around the seal and pull from the inside and have someone (in this case, my wife) push from the outside and it should pop right in......Yup - it sure does......after about the third try! Rear Quarter sail panels and Carpet set in place for fit

Wireing.......oh fun!

Actually the wireing didn't need to much work. I had to replace some of the wireing that had been chewed up by mice (Yeah....parts car!) but that wasn't real difficult. All ready for dash peices and testing!

The parts car

This is exactly what everybody needs in their garage (makes the wife really love you)

The Parts Car - an unavoidable object needed to complete your project if you want all original parts. I got this beauty for $100.00 bucks!

I was comming home one day and saw it going down the road on a trailer and followed the guy home with it. it turns out he got it in trade for something else and only needed a few parts off of it and let me have the rest (almost the whole car) for $100.00 I don't even want to tell you how many dollars worth of parts I got off this thing.

Exterior trim

Trim peices and chrome really begin to make this look like a car again.

still no "M-U-S-T-A-N-G" trunk letters yet.

All Chrome and trim are original.

Some of the front trim on. All trim and chrome are original and have been hand polished and restored. No aftermarket peices here.

Even the Mustang emblem is hand painted and polished.

Ok, I've got to get rid of those wheels

I completely striped the old faded original paint off of these beautiful Magnum 500's. Three coats of good quality primer and 3 coats of Black and WOW. These really look great on this car.

Cooling down.........

Ok, after the proper bypass washer, Proper thermostat (195 degrees) Proper size 3 core radiator and Proper size fan shroud we have cooled down to an idle temp of 195-200 and a cruising temp of 185. WOO HOO!!!!! (I hate cooling issues)

Cooling By-Pass washer??? what the heck???

OK - Here's the skinny on this little thing.....YOU NEED IT! Ford designed the coolant system so that the coolant bypasses the water pump and recirculates inside the engine during the flow. this little "hat" or flange on the bottom of the thermostat closes off the coolant passage so that it has to take the longest way around the block prior to going back into the radiator. GREAT IDEA, (if your block still has the little washer) When the thermostat is in the closed position it recirculates the coolant in the block prior to opening the thermostat. The funny thing is.......This part is obsolete as well. Ford stopped making these in the early 90's due to the low demand. To my knowledge there are still no manufactures making these aftermarket either. I was able to find a cracked Cleveland block that still had this in it. Most machine shops pull this little brass washer out and throw it away when they hot tank the block, not knowing that it is obsolete. I have seen a very few of them on eBay here and there, but be prepared to pay a pretty penny for this little dude! Here lies a picture of one of the last remaining NOS Ford Bypass plate.

Engine - the never ending battle!

This is what it looked like when I got it home. Although this is a V8 car, it is supposed to be a 302. Here sits a beautiful 351 Cleveland. I think I'll keep it!

The engine that I thought would be a breeze to freshen up turned into a slight nightmare. Since it did run when I got it, I had been moving it on and off the trailer for paint etc. I noticed that it was missing quite a bit. Just for inspection I pulled the carb, intake, and valve covers and you will never guess what I found. A Shirt! You heard me right a shirt was laying in the valley pan. My only guess is that the guy who built the engine layed a shirt over the valley pan to keep dust and debris out when he had to stop for a while and layed the new delicate aluminum valley pan on top of it to keep it from being damaged as well. When he came back to put the intake on he had forgotten that he left the shirt under the valley pan and proceeded to bolt on the intake. after about 11 bent push rods later..........

Yea, what a mess. I can't believe the engine even ran as well as it did.

I contacted the guy and he told me that's probably exactly what happened. The good news is that he gave me all the new parts (and then some) to fix it. OK here we go. New push rods, Rockers, Oil deflectors (that are obsolete by the way) and new lifters, aluminum valley pan and all the seals get put in. Oh baby, now she sounds GREAT.......but wait.....what's this....180 degrees, 190 degrees, 200 degrees, 210. ....ok shut it off.......we have another problem.

A few more pictures of fresh paint and then back home.

Here we are, back home in the garage. (the glass is just laying in the windsheild opening, it was the safest place I could think to put it)

Restoration Begins

Body work and More Body work. We found that there wasn't anything real seriously wrong with this car. it was actually in fantastic shape. Floors were solid, NO rust anywhere! either this car had been professionally don before or it was near perfect. I was able to find stamping of ford part numbers in the rocker panels even. My good friend Lance was my instructor on this car. He is a paint genius! but the education that I got by helping him on this was worth every penny!

It had obviously been repainted once before and who ever did it, did a decent job.On goes 3 layers of High build primer only to begin the block sanding process and then, yup you guessed it, more primer and more block sanding.

Don't be fooled, the interior IS completely GONE only a seat so that I can help steer the car with whats left of the steering column. (notice the seat is wrong, it's from a 1970 mustang)

Oh, baby now that's what we've all been waiting for COLOR! This is the original color for this car 1969 Mustang paint code Y "Indian Fire" We were able to rent a local paint booth and get it done right. 4 coats of base and 4 coats of clear.