1973 Convertible HELP

73vertstang · Nov 28, 2007

Hi All,

I'm a new member to this site. I am restoring a 1973 Convertible with a 351C. I have stiped the car down to just a rolling chassis. I had the car Soda blasted and
it's currently in the body shop. I have replaced both floor pans, both quarter skins, both outer rear wheel wells and the tail light pannel, the rear valiance and the battery apron. She's going to get a new NASA hood and front and rear spoilers. I'm replacing the old speedo and idiot lights with a speedo and tach, I also have a new center bezel with the gages. I have a new under dash wiring harness to support the tach and gages. What I neglected to get was the engine to the top of the fuse block loom with the tach and gages. I am sending the wiring looms out to be refurbished soon and wondering if the orignal engine to fuse block can be modified to support the tach and gages? I need some advice.
What do you all think. I have two pict's the first is what I started out with, the second is after the car was soda blasted.

73vertstang · Dec 5, 2007

A few more pict's

I see my note has got a few views, so heres a few more pictures taken last week.
The body work is all most complete, and see's going into primer and paint. Should
have her back by Christmas (What a present!!!!) Any one have any thoughts on
my question about the engine compartment wiring for the for the tach and gages?

Or am I just

First pict shows the new floor pans, in both you can see the effect of the soda
blasting

72mach1 · Dec 5, 2007

I dont know if it does or not, just stopping by to let you know people do reply everyonce in awhile =)

BTW, did you have rust around either of the tail light buckets? mine rusted out and I need to fix it before it starts eating everything else....

jikelly · Dec 12, 2007

Wow, and I thought I'd gone pretty far stripping my stang down. All I did was remove all the paint from the body and that was an a load of work.

I stripped and coated my trunk in Por-15 3 years ago. Last month I discovered that water had been pooling in the trunk under the bubble\heatshield\sound deadener stuff and guess what, there is rust there. CRAP!!!

I'll pull the carpet and go nuts on it this summer. Maybe I'll leave the deadener and carpet out next time. Probably I'll just get some of the roll on bed liner and do that on the trunk floor.

Damn I hate rust!!

stackz · Dec 20, 2007

we did a few idiot light to gauge pac conversions when we were restoring 71-73's in the 90's. hate to tell you but you need to get a good underhood wiring harness as well. I cant fully remember since it's been about 14 years since the last conversion was done but I think the alternator harness is different as well. I'm pretty sure this is because of the way the voltmeter in the gauge pac works as the feed from the alternator goes to a single terminal mounted to the firewall where the underhood harness ties in. I'll know in about two days if you really need help as my brother still has the car I built for him at my parents house and I'll be there for christmas. We did a complete deluxe interior and gauge pack install in that car for him.

its a nightmare if you dont have both of the main harnesses. underdash and underhood. then all you need is the tach cluster, the triple gauge set with sub harness, and the alternator harness.

try to get a 73 harness set if possible as these had a better chance of having the extra sets of accessory plugs on them for stuff like the seat belt warning light, power windows and locks, underhood courtesy light, rear window defroster, the extra set of footwell lights, etc.

one good thing about going gauge pac is that normally this adds the extra set of grille lights as well.

stackz · Dec 20, 2007

reread your first post and thought I'd add in. how far down is the car stripped?? shell?? if not you might want to completely pull out the dash while you're replacing stuff. seems you had quite a bit of rot on the car so you really need to check the cowl area out good. It's really known for rotting out around the two little upper edge drip rails since leaves tend to pile up there causing water to sit. Also, you'll want to check out the air vent inlet area really good too as this is known to rot out and cause lots of problems.

on BOTH sides. A/C equipped cars had a vent on both sides. just be careful when pulling out the heater housing so you dont break off the moisture outlet on the bottom side.

Platonic Solid · Dec 20, 2007

stackz said:
... A/C equipped cars had a vent on both sides. ...

Are you referring to the air intake chimney? Each of my five 71-73 A/C equipped cars has only 1 on the passenger side.

stackz · Dec 20, 2007

Ill take your word on it. Its been so long since I've been under the dash of one might be mistaken. I just could have sworn there was something we capped in there??

oh hell, it was non-a/c equipped cars that got the cap over there when converting to a/c. because the two lever pull fresh air vents were replaced with the single evaporator/heater core housing.

hehe.

Platonic Solid · Dec 21, 2007

stackz said:
oh hell, it was non-a/c equipped cars that got the cap over there when converting to a/c. because the two lever pull fresh air vents were replaced with the single evaporator/heater core housing.

hehe.

That makes sense

1973 Convertible HELP

73vertstang

New Member

73vertstang

New Member

72mach1

jikelly

stackz

stackz

Platonic Solid

stackz

Platonic Solid

Similar threads

1973 Convertible HELP

New Member

New Member

Similar threads

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency