Progress Thread 74 Mustang II - Build as semi-daily driver

Yes, i'm happy that there is this set of cragar wheels with the car. It's a 13' rim and the tires for this rim size are getting rare... But perhaps i will buy some koyo R888.

For the car i could get an 5.0 from a 2001 explorer and an t5 from a v6 mustang and a bellhousing from an 94-95 mustang v8 (that matches the longer inputshaft of the v6 tranny). The engine will get a carb setup. I have a holley 4180 from an econoline, which i think will be the right thing for an daily driver.

Here is a photo of the combo:


For the eninge mounts i reused the v6 frame mount and combined them with a set of f150 engine rubber mounts. to get the right height i had to bolt between the mounts a piece of rectangluar pipe. My description doesn' get it well described, but i will take a picture.
The engine is now in the middle of the car. I'm not sure, but i read that from the factory the engine was a little bit offset...
The engine sits higher (about 1 inch) to clear the power steering box because i have used a 66 mustang oil pan. To get the right driveshaft angle (3° nose up) the original double hump crossmember had the right height for the thanny, but i did had to elongate the mounting point.
For bellhousing fitment i had to work the tunnel with a hammer ;-)
But now everything fits i didn't have to buy and fabricate much stuff. so im happy with this solution (perhaps till i want to close the hood).

Because the engine has the explorere serpentine belt the radiator fits in there with enough distance to the pulley. For cooling the car will get an e-fan in front of the radiator. I have to keep the "normal" hood lock (is it the right word?). In germany the TÜV doesn't allow hood pins on street cars... so every other soludtion would not be suitable for me.

I have read here in the forum that the subframe form 74 is weaker then the later ones. Has somebody more details to this?! Is it just the wall thickness of the framerail?!
I want to strength the car with a subframe conector. Or has somebody another idea to strength the car sufficient?!

The photos hide the ugly areas of the car (eg the driverside door has a big dent)...
But you are right: it has very few rust and the paint is not perfect, but okay. i'm still happy with this car.
The inside was a little bit smelly. I removed the complete interior and damping material. And i will use new damping material and carpet to solve it. The driver seat lower part has some flaws but i will swap it with the codrivers seat, because on the codrivers seat will be the child saftey seat...
Also i will change the look of the inside a little bit. For examlpe i will use a black carpet and the uppert part of the dashboard needs new vinyl leather, which will be also in black. So the interrior will change to a two tone black-blue look.

The change with the radiator support from 74 to 75+ is clear to me. Im also aware of the hood clearance problem. I have ordered an dropped air cleaner from summitracing and hopefully i will not run into problems. But because i have a RPM performer intake... i'm not sure if the dropped air cleaner alone will be enough. But now i know which scoop fits. Thanks!

Thanks for your pictures... I have a much better understanding of the options with the scoop now.

Here is the picture of the engine bay, when i bought the car (the v6 was allready removed):


Now I'm here:

I made some progress:
I got the heads from milling back. I wanted to have the compression ratio bumped up a little bit and from the heads were 0.5mm milled off. Also new valve stem seals were installed and every thing was cleaned by the machine shop.
Engine was painted with VHT engine paint. I like this color and had some paint over from my 66 mustang.



Here are the pictures from the modified v6 engine mounts. I weldet a section of 100x50mm square onto the engine mounts and used rubber mounts form the 80ies F150.


The engine now sits in the middle of the engine bay. I think from the factory the engine was slightly offset...
Timing cover, water pump and balancer are from the 2000 explorer (as the rest of the engine). I will use a electric fuel pump instead the mechanical pump.

Here is another picture with the bellhousing test fitted:

And again a new picture of the car:


I finished the engine bay (brake lines, steering, hydraulic clutch cylinder,) so that I'm able to install the engine and tranny.

Hi all,

here is a picture from the car ready to install the engine:


And here are the pictures from the engine installation (yet in the old barn):

After the engine install i had to move out from the barn and now i just have this little garage to finish the project:


For the install of the T5 transmission I noticed that it perfectly fits to an 10 inch drum i had removed from my 66 Mustang. I then made a bracket to mount the drum to my car jack... The first time I installed the T5 on my own within 5 minutes.

Here is another picture of the mounting bracket:

Hey guys,
i was working on the underbody which is quiet ok: the underbody protection is hard and brittle and only few spots the underbody protection fell off and a little bit of surface rust was there. I'm not sure if this is the original unterbody protection and if its based on bitumen?! Can anybody tell me, how the car was delivered from the factory?!

I'm still far away from running...
At the moment im rebuilding the rear axle.
And then I have to finish the engine, exhaust and wiring.
And then I have to do the complete inerior...

Ah ok. That seems to be the same bitumen stuff. I also read that it gets gray with age...
At my car it wasn't as bad as on your picture. 90% of the protection where still sticking to the sheet metal. I used "fluid film" on the first half of the unterbody and I'm realy impressed that the protection is soft (and much darker) again. The spots with surface rust where reworked and painted and i will use new bitumen protection on them. Let's see how it will be looking when I'm ready... and hopefully it will protect the underbody many years...
But I'm realy happy that i didn't need to remove the old protection.
Fluid film is from a company in germany (so no problem for me to get this stuff), but i have seen, that it also can be ordered on ebay.com
I will use it also on inside cavitys to seal them better against rust. This is the actual purpose of this stuff.