1966 Coupe Slow Build

AlmostCoffee

Active Member
Feb 4, 2020
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Canada
Alright well, I know I offered to do some "how to" videos on some of this stuff but frankly I was taking forever with it and it felt very weird talking to myself in front of a camera in my garage alone so i've settled on a little build thread. I'm currently waiting on some parts so I figured this would be a good time to get this ball rolling even though I haven't exactly done a lot on the car yet. I'm having some trouble uploading images so please bare with me.

I mentioned in my greeting that I had some experience with bikes but not too much with cars. Here are some of my forever ongoing projects.
cone shovel.jpg

Here is my 1980 shovel chopper. Lots of custom parts made by myself, pretty standard vintage chopper, not period correct.

pan shov.jpg

Now THIS is my pride and joy. 1958 Panhead bottom end shovel top end engine. I made or modified almost everything on this bike including lacing and truing wheels, the frame is a 70's shovel front half I have grafted to a hardtail off a early pan frame that was wrecked, machined my own axles, built the springer from a few stock knucklehead castings I found, machined a new stem to accept modern bearings, etc so forth you get the idea. NOW ONTO THE CAR

car original.jpg

This is the 1966 mustang coupe A code I picked up. I chose to do a mustang because my dad had one when he was a young guy and it was stolen within three days of purchasing it. I plan to get the car ready to pass safety by may latest so that my dad and I can cruise it around stockish this year, next winter I'll do the majority of my performance upgrades. From afar the car looks great from a distance but as we all know that means precisely f**k all when you're trying to get something on the road that'll pass inspection.

complete interior.jpg

The interior is the elusive "aqua" colour. Finding a dash pad in this colour was impossible, so I ordered some vinyl and some spray adhesive from 3M and i'll either try to re wrap it myself or pay a local guy who has done a ton of them to fix me up right. We are not going for "perfect" on this car because I intend to drive the heck out of it, but I do love the retro feel of this interior so the only thing I intend to change is the carpet; which I have purchased.
 
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Here are some of the parts I have picked up over the past month. I know I'm a bit early on most of this stuff but there's no better feeling than dumping cash on parts you've always dreamed of owning.
shocks.jpg


I picked up these bilsteins as take offs from eBay for a great price, they supposedly have 90 miles on them, they look brand new. I have fronts en route from open tracker as we speak, shout out to open tracker for being honestly the BEST place I have dealt with, can't recommend them enough (even though the shipping to Canada made me greatly rethink the route I was taking).

torque boxes.jpg
subframe connectors.jpg


I picked up these torque boxes from USCT as I liked the fact that they should be much easier to install than the OEM style ones. I had originally planned to make my own subframe connectors but these guys are very nice and came with the kit; it would've costed me almost as much to make my own. I will weld on a strip of angle iron in areas I see fit so that i can stitch these to the floor during install as well.

wilwood setup.jpg

Dynalites for the front
 

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master cyl.jpg

I chose to try to run a 7" booster attached to a 1" bore wilwood master cylinder. I have a prop valve and will run a residual valve in the rear as I plan to run drums until I upgrade my 8" rear end. You need a residual valve for drums as they typically require some pressure to remain in the system in order to function correctly. I chose a 1" bore based off of other disc/ drum and disc/disc kits; they all seem to run a 1" bore so i believe this will work.
tko.jpg

I picked up this TKO 600 for a steal of a deal. This one has been modified by kesler(?) to fit into a 66 mustang. This one has the .82 overdrive if I have measured the ratio correctly, so i'm thinking 3.55's in the rear will work nice. The guy I bought it from had it in a 66 2+2 and was converting to auto so his wife could drive the car. He gave me everything including clutch cable and will be giving me his driveshaft if it won't work for him with his new setup. Luckily for me I ain't married, right?
I also have started accumulating the pieces required to build my own adjustable strut rods, rollerize my spring perches and do the arning drop on the front end. I will be doing a 1" sway bar, 4.5 mid eye leafs in the rear, drop coils and am considering a quicker ratio steering box as I can't stand turning the wheel 47 times to make a slight right. Now onto what I have been up to this past month or so.
 
The original subframe rails where the leafs attach on the rear were virtually non existent. Here's how you (or I at least) patch them.
subframe patch 1.jpg

Grind off the paint following the subframe inside the trunk. This will expose plug/ spot welds along the entire rail. There is also a few welds on the rear in the bottom I didn't take pictures of.
subframe patch 3.jpg

The new sub frame patches are flanged to fit inside the existing rail on the bottom. I'm sorry I don't have better pictures but What I ended up doing was locating the existing leaf spring mount hole on the old ones via a few measurements. Write those down, they're important. Next, I measured the new frame patches from the leaf mount eye to where the flange starts on both sides. Do the same on your old rails on the car, mark them then use some tape to make yourself a line to follow when cutting them out.
trunk repaired.jpg

Once you have the old subframe rail cut out, I cut two slits in the bottom of the frame rail on the car and peeled a section back to allow the flange to enter the existing rail. Find your new subframe end its new home via your measurements taken from the old ones. IF THE NEW SUBFRAME RAIL DOES NOT SIT FLAT TO THE TRUNK FLOOR I found i had to jack my car up from a few different areas in order to flex the body in such a way that the rails would sit flat to the floor. Use the holes from the spot welds you removed to weld in the new rail, making sure along the way nothing has moved. I have never worked with metal this thin so excuse my welds. After that, I chose to plug weld the flanges on the new rails a couple times per side and weld up the seam. I covered everything with an extremely liberal amount of rust paint, undercoat and rocker guard as this was not fun to do and I don't want to do it again any time soon. Repeat on both sides if required like me. This is my finished back half of the car.
subframe repaired.jpg
 
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Now onto the interior.
car disassembled.jpg

I managed to figure out while doing some patchwork in the wheel well that both my inner and outer rocker on the passenger side were mostly body filler. Damn crooks!
I'm not 100% on how to do this but i'm thinking I will support the body with a jack under the front leaf mount. I will weld in a brace along the door from the inside so that I can hopefully test fit the door.
dicked rocker.jpg

floor rotten.jpg

There were a number of old repairs to this side of the floor as well. Brazed in so they've been in there a long time. Taking the seat riser out was a major pain as it was all braised in as well. I've decided to do this half of the pan along with the rocker when it shows up. Lots of work but it'll be worth it.
wheel well.jpg

I made a stencil from the other wheel well for this repair which i have rough cut out right now. I'm assuming this is the wheel that turns in this dif and that's why this side is so far gone but who knows. I am not looking for perfection on this repair as it's hidden by the wheel.
jake.jpg

Jake is VERY unimpressed I turned our "movie theatre" into a work station.
 
Since I'm waiting on my rocker I spent the day having a few beers and making this
firewall.jpg

I won't weld it in until the rocker and floor are done to avoid misalignment, but i'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Once welded I'll throw some sound deadening material on it as well so I can run super 44 mufflers (yes I know; how cliche) without getting tinnitus. I have mass backed carpet as well and will sound deaden the floor as well. So this is where i'm at! Waiting on my rocker to continue.
 
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Alright well, I know I offered to do some "how to" videos on some of this stuff but frankly I was taking forever with it and it felt very weird talking to myself in front of a camera in my garage alone so i've settled on a little build thread. I'm currently waiting on some parts so I figured this would be a good time to get this ball rolling even though I haven't exactly done a lot on the car yet. I'm having some trouble uploading images so please bare with me.

I mentioned in my greeting that I had some experience with bikes but not too much with cars. Here are some of my forever ongoing projects.
cone shovel.jpg

Here is my 1980 shovel chopper. Lots of custom parts made by myself, pretty standard vintage chopper, not period correct.

pan shov.jpg

Now THIS is my pride and joy. 1958 Panhead bottom end shovel top end engine. I made or modified almost everything on this bike including lacing and truing wheels, the frame is a 70's shovel front half I have grafted to a hardtail off a early pan frame that was wrecked, machined my own axles, built the springer from a few stock knucklehead castings I found, machined a new stem to accept modern bearings, etc so forth you get the idea. NOW ONTO THE CAR

car original.jpg

This is the 1966 mustang coupe A code I picked up. I chose to do a mustang because my dad had one when he was a young guy and it was stolen within three days of purchasing it. I plan to get the car ready to pass safety by may latest so that my dad and I can cruise it around stockish this year, next winter I'll do the majority of my performance upgrades. From afar the car looks great from a distance but as we all know that means precisely f**k all when you're trying to get something on the road that'll pass inspection.

complete interior.jpg

The interior is the elusive "aqua" colour. Finding a dash pad in this colour was impossible, so I ordered some vinyl and some spray adhesive from 3M and i'll either try to re wrap it myself or pay a local guy who has done a ton of them to fix me up right. We are not going for "perfect" on this car because I intend to drive the heck out of it, but I do love the retro feel of this interior so the only thing I intend to change is the carpet; which I have purchased.
The dash pad can be died ,sems plastic paints works great for this . You can get it anywhere automotive paint supplies are sold
 
Here are some of the parts I have picked up over the past month. I know I'm a bit early on most of this stuff but there's no better feeling than dumping cash on parts you've always dreamed of owning.
shocks.jpg


I picked up these bilsteins as take offs from eBay for a great price, they supposedly have 90 miles on them, they look brand new. I have fronts en route from open tracker as we speak, shout out to open tracker for being honestly the BEST place I have dealt with, can't recommend them enough (even though the shipping to Canada made me greatly rethink the route I was taking).

torque boxes.jpg
subframe connectors.jpg


I picked up these torque boxes from USCT as I liked the fact that they should be much easier to install than the OEM style ones. I had originally planned to make my own subframe connectors but these guys are very nice and came with the kit; it would've costed me almost as much to make my own. I will weld on a strip of angle iron in areas I see fit so that i can stitch these to the floor during install as well.

wilwood setup.jpg

Dynalites for the front


I actually bought the contoured SFCs from USCT as well simply because it would cost me almost as much in metal to make my own(though I went with conventional torque boxes from VA mustang). I already have global west SFCs installed on my car(the DOM tubing increases rigidity over more rectangular SFCs like USCT) but my plan is to cut out the bottom of the contoured SFCs and weld them to the sides of the Global West tubing...which lets me get the benefit of both the superior torsional resistance of the GW connectors...but also gives me the advantage of tying the SFCs into the floor that the USCT connectors gives...best of both worlds for maximum rigidity(If I had used convertible inner rockers when I replaced my floors I would have just used one or the other...but the combination is meant to make up for the fact I didnt learn about the rigidity increase of using the convertible rockers until after the floors were in)

If you have floor work and rocker work to do anyway, I would seriously consider convertible inner rockers
 
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I actually bought the contoured SFCs from USCT as well simply because it would cost me almost as much in metal to make my own(though I went with conventional torque boxes from VA mustang). I already have global west SFCs installed on my car(the DOM tubing increases rigidity over more rectangular SFCs like USCT) but my plan is to cut out the bottom of the contoured SFCs and weld them to the sides of the Global West tubing...which lets me get the benefit of both the superior torsional resistance of the GW connectors...but also gives me the advantage of tying the SFCs into the floor that the USCT connectors gives...best of both worlds for maximum rigidity(If I had used convertible inner rockers when I replaced my floors I would have just used one or the other...but the combination is meant to make up for the fact I didnt learn about the rigidity increase of using the convertible rockers until after the floors were in)

If you have floor work and rocker work to do anyway, I would seriously consider convertible inner rockers
Yeah I didn't learn of the convert rockers until after I had ordered new carpet and all that and don't plan on doing the drivers rocker so I'm staying with the coupe inners as well. I had considered tying "jacking rail bars" out of 1" DOM from the subframe connectors to the inner rockers for added rigidity but I have no idea if it's worth it or not. I remember reading a test a guy did and he basically ended up saying his sub frame connectors were useless from the point of his tests anyway. I'm thinking the trunk "firewall" plus torque boxes and sub frame connectors must do a fair bit but i'm a newb so maybe i'm wrong.
 
Yeah I didn't learn of the convert rockers until after I had ordered new carpet and all that and don't plan on doing the drivers rocker so I'm staying with the coupe inners as well. I had considered tying "jacking rail bars" out of 1" DOM from the subframe connectors to the inner rockers for added rigidity but I have no idea if it's worth it or not. I remember reading a test a guy did and he basically ended up saying his sub frame connectors were useless from the point of his tests anyway. I'm thinking the trunk "firewall" plus torque boxes and sub frame connectors must do a fair bit but i'm a newb so maybe i'm wrong.

Well, "worthless" is subjective to the test. SFCs by themselves dont do much...but let me show you a couple of pictures....

20190911_113911_zps1vjjjfij.jpg


Hard to see here...but this is the front driver-side wheel of the car coming off the ground....at this point I am jacking the car up from the driver-side REAR torque box...the front wheel is coming off the ground BEFORE the rear wheel. To be fair, there is no engine or transmission installed at this point...but the global west tubular SFCs are installed....along with this stiffening mod of mine:

20190903_114724_zpsecus4ogt.jpg


I "spiderwebbed" the entire front end of the car...I believe the front end structure allows more efficient transfer of stresses through the subframe connectors....this is all without jacking rails tied to the SFCs or even a rear seat divider(which I have yet to install...I plan on installing it along with foxbody coupe braces like this:
 

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Interesting; I have an export brace and will get a monte carlo bar but I haven't considered the shock tower to firewall bracing there. Originally I had planned to bend up a cross brace similar to the cross brace in the fox out of DOM but thought the 14 ga divider welded in would probably provide enough rigidity. Now i'm rethinking the brace...
 
Alright, well I got a presumed case of COVID which set me back a bit but i've been back to normal for about a month now so heres what I got up to.
trunk.jpg

Trunk patched up and sprayed with extremely liberal amounts of trunk paint as I got lazy on grinding down welds haha

rear seat.jpg

Rear divider fit alright. It seems one of the pillars is a bit cockeyed as opposed to the other so it didn't end up as perfect as I hoped, but it'll do the trick.
floor.jpg

New floor pan and rocker in epoxy 2 part primer and lots of seam sealer (got a little carried away with the sealer)

rocker.jpg

And the rocker painted up. We couldn't find an exact match for the paint by my local paint shop matched one as close as they found. I think it turned out alright. The door gap turned out perfect, but for whatever reason I could not get the rear of the rocker to tuck nicely. The old one did the same thing so I think the rear panel might be a little bit out, as the rocker lined up perfect with the torque box, inside sheeting and door pillars. The car drove nice and straight prior and this is my first time doing any metal work this involved so I am pretty happy with it. Along with a bunch of small hand made patches in other areas and this all took me quite a while. I'm waiting on a new passenger seat pillar (pan?) to weld in, after that my interior will go back together.
 
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I scored a 351 Cleveland complete for 75 bucks Canadian. I have a local guy who does great work that is interested in going through it for me/ building it up a bit next winter. I believe it is a 1970. Does anyone know if a Cleveland will fit with a 7" brake booster? I am okay with notching my shock towers and will be running a cowl hood. I figure running a clutch cable or hose will be a challenge to say the least as well, however my dad loves these engines so it would be really nice to be able to run it without giving up power brakes.
engine.jpg
 
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How much work are you willing to do? You can get that engine in there with full shock towers.....if you graft in towers from a 67-68. A little more expensive, but much cleaner and will even allow you to fit a big block if the Cleveland doesn't drink enough gas for you....future engine swap options. 67-68 tower swap isnt very difficult, only marginally more so than direct tower replacement(drill out some spot welds, do some trimming, weld in new ones). Also allows you to use 67-68 front aprons and radiator support...for a bigger bolt-in radiator.
 
How much work are you willing to do? You can get that engine in there with full shock towers.....if you graft in towers from a 67-68. A little more expensive, but much cleaner and will even allow you to fit a big block if the Cleveland doesn't drink enough gas for you....future engine swap options. 67-68 tower swap isnt very difficult, only marginally more so than direct tower replacement(drill out some spot welds, do some trimming, weld in new ones). Also allows you to use 67-68 front aprons and radiator support...for a bigger bolt-in radiator.
As far as I can tell, the shock towers in the car don't appear to be OEM (they seem smaller somehow?) and from other forums it has been said these engines will fit with different motor mounts, but it's tight. I'm not entirely sure if i'll use the Cleveland yet however. It seems like routing a clutch cable would be next to impossible, i'm not sure if the brake booster would interfere with the valve cover, I would need different headers, etc. I could probably hit my ~400 hp at the crank goal with my 289 with cheaper parts, i'm just not sure how reliable that would be. My dad hasn't been into cars since the 70's though and he's convinced the 351c is the best thing ever produced so I may have to put some aluminum heads on there to shave some weight and stuff it in anyway haha. I won't send it to be built until I'm positive it'll fit though.
 
As far as I can tell, the shock towers in the car don't appear to be OEM (they seem smaller somehow?) and from other forums it has been said these engines will fit with different motor mounts, but it's tight. I'm not entirely sure if i'll use the Cleveland yet however. It seems like routing a clutch cable would be next to impossible, i'm not sure if the brake booster would interfere with the valve cover, I would need different headers, etc. I could probably hit my ~400 hp at the crank goal with my 289 with cheaper parts, i'm just not sure how reliable that would be. My dad hasn't been into cars since the 70's though and he's convinced the 351c is the best thing ever produced so I may have to put some aluminum heads on there to shave some weight and stuff it in anyway haha. I won't send it to be built until I'm positive it'll fit though.

65 Shock towers are different from 66 shock towers(one or the other is slightly shorter, cant remember which) but neither will fit a 351c without notching...that 3.7L v6 in my profile pic is the same physical width and height as a 351w(which is almost 3" narrower than the 351c). I have about an inch or so clearance to the shock towers on each side from the valve covers...the headers I made are very tight with half an inch clearance at points to the shock towers(less at the steering box) and that is with 3 primaries rather than 4 per bank...but also a 60 degree rather than a 90 degree bank angle. On the other hand...I have personally seen a 460 crammed into a 66 before somehow, so it must be possible. As far as the clutch cable goes..ditch it and run a hydraulic slave and lines, you can route them however you want.
 
65 Shock towers are different from 66 shock towers(one or the other is slightly shorter, cant remember which) but neither will fit a 351c without notching...that 3.7L v6 in my profile pic is the same physical width and height as a 351w(which is almost 3" narrower than the 351c). I have about an inch or so clearance to the shock towers on each side from the valve covers...the headers I made are very tight with half an inch clearance at points to the shock towers(less at the steering box) and that is with 3 primaries rather than 4 per bank...but also a 60 degree rather than a 90 degree bank angle. On the other hand...I have personally seen a 460 crammed into a 66 before somehow, so it must be possible. As far as the clutch cable goes..ditch it and run a hydraulic slave and lines, you can route them however you want.
I definitely like the idea of going to a hydro clutch, I just happened to get the cable kit for free with my tko but I can spend the extra 350 bucks or whatever for the hydraulic setup. There's a guy who goes by dodgestang who has a 351c in his 65 fastback with unmodified shock towers... but from what I have read the ford powertrain headers you need are almost as much as a stroker kit for the 289/302 which is wild to me. I still don't think I'd ever fit a brake booster in there with the Cleveland and the weight is an issue as I want the car to handle well. I'll do a bunch of measuring and pricing out before I make a move either way. Regardless the Cleveland was cheap so I figured I would pick it up anyway and have the option.
 
You can build your own hydraulic clutch kit as far as that goes, not really all that difficult....slave, master, hydraulic line, and a way to connect it to the pedal at the correct throw. As far as the power booster...they may make pedal effort easier, but they don't actually stop the car any better than manual brakes, so you aren't actualy giving up any stopping power, just a bit of leg effort....but if you go hydraulic clutch...you reduce leg effort there...so its a trade off in the end.

To be honest the onl=y reason I went through the effort of swapping this 3.7L in(and it was a LOT of effort, custom headers, custom oil pan, mounts, tunnel mods, etc) was because base power is 300HP...which is easy to get with a SBF, but the thing I couldn't duplicate with a SBF of any type was the 270lb weight...can always make more power, but you can't always drop engine weight.