Fall / Winter Projects?

Anybody got any Mustang II Projects planned for the Fall or Winter?

Unfortunately a lot of the work I was going to do this Summer has been pushed back by weather and family comittments, so most of my projects are now Fall and Winter Projects!

My '78 Ghia is outdoors, so I've really got to hurry to get paint on the engine compartment and front suspension. I had good weather yesterday, but due to other projects around the house only managed to get part of the passenger side suspension cleaned. Another hour or so of that and I can do my final prep for painting. Nothing fancy here...just a couple of cans of spraybomb, but I would like it to stick for a while.

After the paint is on, I can do the assembly in any temperature, as long as its dry!

1. Fuel and brake lines.
2. Rear suspension.
3. Rear axle.
4. Front suspension and brakes.
5. Fuel tank.
6. Drive shaft and shifter.
7. Exhaust system.
8. Engine tune.
9. Interior.
10. DRIVE!

Not much done the past two weekends which is a shame because we had great clear 70 degree weather...and we're running out of 70 degree weather pretty quickly.

I did manage to get the new gas tank clear coated (indoor/outdoor polyurethane spraybomb) and the under coating sprayed in the rear wheel wells.

I really hated to put the under coating back in as I've been scraping and cleaning under coating now for years. But I had removed so much of the factory Ford abrasion resistant coating to get the rust cleaned up that I had big patches of wheel well sheetmetal with nothing but paint to protect it. And paint would not hold long against road debris coming off of the tires.

I cleaned on the front suspension a bit more. This bit is like the rest of the bottom of the car. Where the under coating stuck well, the metal underneath is clean and shiney. Every where else is 30 year old rust. I just want to get enough under coating and rust off to get paint to stick for a while. Eventually the engine and trans will come out and I'll blow the front suspension apart and have everything sandblasted.

Great body work and great color! I can't wait to see the interior and engine. What do you have planned for it?

I had great weather this past weekend, so I finished my "rattlecan restoration"! I repainted the engine, touched up the inner fenders, painted the rusty suspension bits. It's about as good as I could do without blowing the whole car apart (which I wished I was doing everytime I cut myself on a sharp edge while sanding).

Now all I have to do is find my missing fuel and brake line bolts, paint them, and start reinstalling parts!

Here is a pic of the redrilled leaf spring mounts:
Picasa Web Albums - bmclean - Project Car 1...

And the cut coil springs:
Picasa Web Albums - bmclean - Project Car 1...

And before and after pics of the painted engine compartment:
Picasa Web Albums - bmclean - Project Car 1...
Picasa Web Albums - bmclean - Project Car 1...

And the cleaned and painted front suspension:
Picasa Web Albums - bmclean - Project Car 1...

More work done on my Ghia over the last weekend. I installed my shortened and painted springs and new KYB GR-2 shocks. I can't wait to get this thing back on the ground to see how the front and rear sits.

I also painted a couple of underhood parts. The coil got a fresh coat of black, the voltage regulator a coat of chrome silver, and the starter a little of both in different places. After a hour of sanding on the Duraspark controller trying to get the corrosion off, it received a coat of chrome silver also.

I still have a bucket of screws that need to be degreased, rust removed and painted before I can do much more installation. At least that can be done on cold days in the garage.