Mustang Restoration Build, 2011 Edition

[rusty959]

K, so, this is my third thread for this car that cover a period of about 4 years. Here is the link to the last one, which links to the first one if you want to take a peek at times past.

Anyways, I just got out of school for the year so I am back to work. There is the possibility that I only have the month of June to work so I will be putting a lot of time into it, though unfortunately I work two days a week strait open to close in another town that will keep me from working and Im still bringing stuff home from my apartment at school. So progress here at the beginning might be slow but I figured id go ahead and get a thread up. The chance of other people motivating is always good. Anyways, on to the boring pics.

Turns out that while im away at school my dad likes to pile stuff in on and around it as much as he can. Most of it is crap. So tonight was largely spent cleaning.

Though it probably doesn't look like Ive done much, this was actually quite a bit of work. Either way, looks a lot better now.

Insert random pic here.

Here is my major focus for the near future. Im lining up an engine but so far Ive done essentially nothing to the engine bay. That will soon change.

This area was the worst area on the car when I got it besides the floor pans. From what I was told by the previous owner the battery leaked and obviously corroded everything. I have the sheet metal piece but I still need to do something about the frame. Unfortunately the welder I have isn't powerful enough to do the frame piece so it might have to wait till I can get it to school. Though important it doesn't really carry much of the cars weight so I would still feel comfortable sitting an engine in the bay with it like this, though I probably wouldn't chance driving the car. That won't be happening all that soon though.

Not gunna lie I started this project when I was extremely young. Some things I didn't exactly do right. Though this roof has been blasted and sprayed with self etching primer... It was way to thin and got some spot rust through it. It also has crap all over it, as does a few spots on this side of the car, thanks to people not being considerate of all the time and money I put into this car. Thanks family. (In their defense they didn't actually crap on it) After this year I will have a cover on it.

Close up of the transmission that will be going in for atleast the start. It is a non WC t5. Has almost all new parts in it (as I bought it) but it won't shift into some gears and is locked up. Near the end of the school year I stripped it apart and I think I found the problem but I need to find what I need to do to fix it. Not a massive priority right now though.

More goodies, this is what will be driving the engine. I don't really want to do a carb setup so I will be running fuel injection ran by this, a megasquirt system. For those unfamiliar with megasquirt, it is a build it yourself ecu that you can program to work on pretty much anything. Should be interesting.

Here is the wiring harness that will be used with the megasquirt.

That is all for now. Tomorrow I should be doing a bit of work in the engine bay. I am trying to decide if I need to take out the brake lines in the engine bay before I clean it out... I feel like I should but having working brakes is super useful....

Feel free to chime in and say whatever you want. Constructive criticism/tips are always useful as well, im pretty much completely self taught at everything I do.

[Crump]

awesome

[Kevin]

I can't wait to see the car when it's all finished! Your work is phenomenal.

[rusty959]

Thanks guys. Though maybe you are thinking rusty of dc though since I haven't really done much work to be phenomenal

Anyways, had only a few hours to work today, and a good bit of it was spent looking over the car deciding my plan of attack. But, here are a few pics

First thing I did was take out the trans cooler and cleaned it up... was pretty nasty if you saw it in the previous pics.

Not sure why I only took a pic from the outside but I removed some of the old fuel tubing. This is it here, and it went back into the engine bay in the front and had a filter on it, which appeared to be filled with rust. Either way, of no use to me now, Ill be running all new lines.

Then set my eyes on getting rid of some of the wiring up front. No clue what some of it went to, not that I really care, because ill probably be running all new wires. Again not sure why I only took a single picture here where some of it went through the firewall, but whatevs.

Took out the hood hinges and pedal, and other random crap. This fender is getting scrapped, its too far gone for me to spend my time fixing it. A new one is only $150. Thus it gets parts put on it, lol.

And here is where I left it and now that I could see things a bit better started eyeing stuff out. The area around the steering column looks pretty bad, never really looked at it before. When I get back ill probably pull that out as well as some of the break lines and blast it to see how it really is.

[bcpballer64]

Looks like good stuff man this will be a beauty when she is done. I know this is way off but what color you looking at?

[finkster]

off to a good start bro. The more basic (stripped) the car is, the better you will be able to concentrate.

What engine are we looking at? Also what is your budget?

[Mtnbikecrazy55]

cant wait to see more, i love these cars

[rusty959]

Looks like good stuff man this will be a beauty when she is done. I know this is way off but what color you looking at?

Eh, ive shot a few things around for awhile, mostly goes between a dark candy red (kinda like "meadecherry" but darker) or a similar color in blue or a gunmetal/silver. But like you say, its a long way off so I have time to think about it.

off to a good start bro. The more basic (stripped) the car is, the better you will be able to concentrate.

What engine are we looking at? Also what is your budget?

its a 351w and my budget is all.

Lol, but in all seriousness Im a college kid, so cash flow isn't my strongsuit, but if I need something nice, I save up and buy something nice. Budget for what I do in the next month will be about $1500 or so.

cant wait to see more, i love these cars

I can't wait either

[rusty959]

Started out today by manipulating the wire through the firewall. You don't know how many times I was tempted to just cut it off. I seriously doubt I will reuse any of this wiring but I guess you never know, so I kept it in one piece.

After getting the main harness from behind the dash disconnected as well, here it is all out on the floor. whoot.

Looks much cleaner without the wiring.

Removed some more crap like the emergency break handle

Removed the brake pedal and assembly.

All that is left here is the steering wheel. It is not that far from being able to be pulled out but I might need to steer it a bit tomorrow and having a steering wheel there makes it much easier.

With the brake booster out I tried removing lines. Got one off but the other two are being stubborn, so I sprayed them with some wd40 since I couldn't find my penetrating spray and left them to sit overnight. If they don't come off tomorrow ill probably just cut them since I was somewhat planning on bending new lines anyways. It isn't completely needed since Im led to believe these aren't the original lines by any means but I might as well while Im at it.

I also bought about $200 worth of stuff today, mainly paint, but I forgot to take pics. Will try to get some tomorrow. Should be a full day of mustang, im excited.

[rusty959]

First accomplishment of the day... moving the stang over a few feet. This is a much bigger task than it might seem...

Here is a closeup of why I have to re-sandblast the roof...

Next 3 are closeups of the suspension so I can take a look at some parts

What my manifold so I can hook up multiple compressors to my blaster looks like finished.

$140 worth of paint as promised

After this I got to work putting the plastic back up. Did it a bit different this year, we will see how it works out.

Was getting pretty late by this point and I didn't want to make so much with two air compressors running so I only hit a few areas to check the metal. I did forget to get a pic of the apron to the front of the drivers shock tower but it looked clean as well. Im happy to say that it looks like I won't have to replace any of the metal in the firewall above where the toe pan will go.

Hit a little bit above where the steering wheel goes through the firewall as well as the transmission tunnel. Both cleared up quickly.

Got mad at the crap so I hit that too.

One more day to work before I have to go to work, hopefully ill get a lot of work done on the actual car tomorrow.