Starting point for resto

tim95gt · Dec 19, 2008

Hi guys first post in this section.

Just looking to get some ideas about where to start with a resto. I woul dlike to keep it drivable if possible or have it down for short periods i fpossible. The car is my 66 cpe. It is in decent shape but the lower cowl is gone and needs patches put in. I plan to pick up a new motor and build it then drop it in so I am really questioning whether i should do body work, replace wiring, or start with suspension and steering first. Any Suggestion or questions. I will try to get some picks up when possible

PAzYearazzUP · Dec 19, 2008

You start with the steering and Moog parts is NAPA some ball joints, wheel bearings make new too. You have to steer it first is that is more safety than restore. Once you square away the suspension, steering and drive train, you can start with the wiring, the engine, the body, paint, interior and now, is that rust bucket worth restoring or do you chase another one and another one is make one perfect car with all the other parts is a junkyard of parts you are not stuck stopping the project is you have plenty of parts and wire harnesses is the best of the 3 is make one perfect restore.

zookeeper · Dec 20, 2008

First you need to determine what you want out of your car once it's finished. What's it going to be used for? Car shows, everyday driver, a bit of both? If you want the car to look new and perfect, you need to do things so that one part will not affect the others. For example, I did paint and bodywork first, otherwise you'll get overspray alll over everything else. My method is paint, mechanicals, wiring, interior. But then again, my car was down for and extended time and I didn't need to get it back together in time to drive it to work on Monday. If your Mustang is your primary car, then make it safe first, and try to seperate the jobs into smaller parts to avoid longer downtime. Mine was down for 6 long years, here's the progression:

View attachment 283653

Doing it this way takes lots of time and money, and the car never made it outside before it was done, which makes it hard to stay excited about a 6 year project, so be warned going in: save twice as much money as you think you'll need and set aside three times as much time. Be prepared for the worst, because there will be times you just want to part out the whole thing and forget about it, but in the end it's all worth it.

tim95gt · Dec 20, 2008

the plans are really to just make it a good looking street car. I would really like to start doing something to fix it up, but not sure were to start with what I owuld like to do. I would like to add R&P steering and do somework with the front supsension, not sure about sometype of coilovers or just replace with mostly stock style stuff, or start with a rearend rebuild or what. I think the body is in fairly good shape, but would probably have to strip or blast it to know for certain, but the only spots that show severe rust are the cowl and doors in the front corners. Still welcoming all suggestions

StangDreamin' · Dec 21, 2008

tim95gt said:
It is in decent shape but the lower cowl is gone and needs patches put in. I plan to pick up a new motor and build it then drop it in so I am really questioning whether i should do body work, replace wiring, or start with suspension and steering first.

Maybe I'm being alarmist; but the part I highlighted sounds like something you might want to address first.

With the new (probaly stronger) engine, you'll definitely need some good control; and that means brakes and steering. Disk brake upgrades are becoming so commonplace that, unless you're going for a concours show-car, there's absolutely no reason to not upgrade the brakes! Since you're there, you might as well address the steering (again, thinking control of the car). That also means rebuilding the suspension so it's not making the car wander all over the place no matter where you steer it.

Oh, but now you have all-new suspension parts hanging off of 42-year-old shocktowers! And, after 42 years on the road, those shocktowers probably have a little side-to-side "give" in them. Luckily, Ford designed an export brace to minimize the "give" (read: FLEX) in the shocktowers. But where does the export brace attach besides the shocktowers? Well, that would be the cowl..... again I refer you to the part of your original post that I highlighted above.

Luckily, at least one aftermarket supplier (Dynacorn) makes complete re-pop cowls. As long as you're drilling out 100+ cowl cover spot-welds (to install patches); you might as well drill out the lower cowl spotwelds and put a complete new cowl in there. Then you have all-new sheetmetal in that area, not a lot of patches on old, thin sheetmetal. Your steering and front suspension will reward you greatly.

I'm just sayin'.............

jlangholzj · Dec 21, 2008

good point stdr..

I don't know if you know this or not, a lot of guys are replacing their front suspension with a Mustang II front suspension. You can get rid of the shock towers and not only then do you 1) have more room in the bay but 2) fix your suspension problems and I don't know for sure, but it would seem that 3) it would be much easier to convert to R&P and disk brakes.

Like our local zookeeper just stated, it all depends on how fast you want / need your car to be done. To replace the stock suspension components and get it safe again would probably take no more than a weekend. but your looking at ~ a months worth of weekends to get the M II suspension in there.

but if your not doing anything really serious, I'd say go ahead and just rebuild the stock stuff. I did with mine, and I'm quite happy...although...I'll be the first to attest to getting some disk breaks on there!!!! it takes some serious foot power and early downshifting to get mine stopped in a short distance...ie....I"m SCREWED if i need to stop short for any reason.

PAzYearazzUP · Dec 21, 2008

I see those 2-4bl and all that rear wheel break loose is to have something tight and precise that can steer out of it. That is a beautiful restore. zookeep. That is one reason I would start with the chassis first.

You are correct, holzj. My neighbor welded on a Mustang II on his Nova. It has a Chev 350 FI wth a 4L-60 automatic. Much better (upgrade) for a front end too is even on that Nova.

zookeeper · Dec 21, 2008

My freind jlangholzj noticed there was no "after" shot of my son in my photos. I realize it actually would help illustrate just how long it took to do the restoration. So here it is:

View attachment 283491

Mind you, the first pic was taken about three weeks before I took the car apart on Nov 24, 2002 and my son , Chase was about 15 months old. This last pic was taken right before the car's first test drive, the first week of July, 2008 on the same day as the picture in my driveway. Notice no turn signals yet and no rocker stripes, which were put on that weekend. I like how in the first pic, my son isn't quite as tall as the door handle, while in the last pic, he's taller even though he's kneeling down. My how time flies...

payupsucka · Dec 21, 2008

PAzYearazzUP said:
You start with the steering and Moog parts is NAPA some ball joints, wheel bearings make new too. You have to steer it first is that is more safety than restore. Once you square away the suspension, steering and drive train, you can start with the wiring, the engine, the body, paint, interior and now, is that rust bucket worth restoring or do you chase another one and another one is make one perfect car with all the other parts is a junkyard of parts you are not stuck stopping the project is you have plenty of parts and wire harnesses is the best of the 3 is make one perfect restore.

English please

tim95gt · Jan 1, 2009

I uploaded some pics to the albu, here on stangnet, take a look and let me know what ya think

Can anyone tell if that is a 9" rear from the pictures or maybe an 8?

http://forums.stangnet.com/members/tim95gt/albums/66-coupe/

zookeeper · Jan 1, 2009

That's a nice coupe. Looks like it's lead a pretty easy life. As far as the rear, tough to tell, but one sure way to tell is if you can get a socket (any socket) on the bottom two bolts that hold the gearset in the housing, it's an 8". If you need to use a wrench, it's a 9".

downpiped · Jan 11, 2009

Judging from the brakes, that looks like a versailles 9" rear end...

krash kendall · Jan 11, 2009

Nice pictures of you and the boy 'zoo. I have quite a collection of my own.

tim95gt · Jan 15, 2009

it has 4 wheel disc, and pretty sure they are all from a versailles swap, also had to put an 84 svo master cylinder on it as the brakes were just mush when I got it, but now I wonder if a versaille master would have been better. I think I may go ahead and see about getting the cowls and other rust spots fixed first then move on from there. not sure if I need to buy just the patches or the whole new cowl, which would take less time to put in?

zookeeper · Jan 15, 2009

I suppose it all depends on the extent of the rust. Also, there's more than one way to acheive the goal of a water-tite cowl. I've seen a few early Mustangs that have the cowl vent removed from the outside. Juts cut out the fins, weld in a new patch, and call it done. When I first heard about it, I was skeptical, but having seen a couple done, it looks good and it's far easier than removing the fenders, hood, and windshield, then drilling out a million spot-welds. If mine leaked, I'd seriously consider filling the cowl grilles.

tim95gt · Jan 15, 2009

wouldn't the rust still need to be removed from the car at some point to keep it from spreading?

zookeeper · Jan 16, 2009

Not really. I don't know what your climate is, where you store the car or how often you drive it, but generally, if water can't get to the existing rust, it's not going to get worse. Think of what would happen if you had a small rust pocket in the lower front corner of your door. It's very common to older Mustangs, but if you park it in the garage and just let is sit, it doesn't get worse. Once the water mud and debris causing the rust dries up, the rust just sits there. Same with the cowl vent, close it off and the rusty areas dry out, and while it may not get any better, as long as it's water-tight, it won't get worse. The exception is that in high humidity areas of the country, there's water in the air, which is common. But then any bare steel would rust anyway, so the existing rust is a non-issue.

RUSTYNUT · Jan 18, 2009

tim95gt said:
it has 4 wheel disc, and pretty sure they are all from a versailles swap, also had to put an 84 svo master cylinder on it as the brakes were just mush when I got it, but now I wonder if a versaille master would have been better. I think I may go ahead and see about getting the cowls and other rust spots fixed first then move on from there. not sure if I need to buy just the patches or the whole new cowl, which would take less time to put in?

I just did cowls on my '68 a couple of months ago. If I had a chance to work non stop on it, probably a week of long days. Not including paint. I'm not a pro and was my first time tearing one down. I also had patching to do on about every part that touched the cowl. Took advantage and drilled about 8 more holes, removed and media blasted the back of the dash, and por 15 it to keep it in good shape. One thing you can count on is more wrong than you think. Also a good time to check firewall and floors. Much easier to repair with the dash out of the car. Really easy to replace wiring or any of those under dash goodies.
I went the patch panel way for three reasons.

1. I'm cheeeeep.

2. I used the style weld cutter that cuts a ring, so I would be able to use them as guides to get the car back the same as it was.

3. I have not found any replacement parts that fit as good as the original parts.

I still found the need for jacking and creative ratchet straps to get all the holes to line up. It is a big job but can be accomplished by anyone that has patience and desire.
IMHO a rusty car is only going to get worse, ruining more parts, and taking more work and more money to fix. I would get the foundation done before anything else. Once you start looking you might find the car is to far gone for your wallet or talent to fix. Better to find out before you sink a few grand into a car that you may want to get rid of. I would be happy to pass on a few tips if you try this.

Sparky1492 · Jul 1, 2010

Any updates on the car? I just recently purchased a 66' and trying to create a plan of attack.

Red5oh · Jul 3, 2010

That is not a bad looking car at all. I know there are underlying problems, but you must fix the cowl damage first. That is an extensive teardown (that might lead you to other things, "while you are there")

So, have a look at my cardomain and there is a very specific section on the cowl work (the place i started as well)

Good luck and keep us informed.

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