1965 Ford Mustang

[67ChevyRedneck]

New pinch molding stuff and the driver side quarter all back on and everything locked back down, as is the DS seatbelt. The divider panel is also "locked down" as well. It really is getting there.

I still have to crawl under it and make some backing plates for the lower mounts for the rear 3 points out of the 1/8" steel I used in the trunk. Take the PS quarter window out/apart like I did on the DS, and get it all back in then the seat can go back in. I need to clear out my garage and these big pieces are taking up space, so I'm going to completely finish the back before I tear out the old A/C system.

[67ChevyRedneck]

One of the things about my car that drove me nuts... the capture nuts! They rust behind the trim piece and just look bad. Not really noticable, but I saw them everytime I washed the car and there's no need for rust on my car!

It's a pain to remove the fender splash guard so I used some tape and a really thin screwdriver and they pop right out.

...then you can see the aftermath... not pretty.

However... it wipes right off once the rusty capture nuts are removed and the trim pieces are out.

[67ChevyRedneck]

So I bought new trim pieces. They come with new capture nuts... which I will not be using. I used the thin 3M double sided tape for the trim pieces. The pony emblem was easy, but cutting out the "MUSTANG" was a bit of a pain. You need a new sharp razor blade. As you can see, I doubt anyone would be able to tell they're taped on (all the marks on the fenders are my greasy finger prints... she hasn't had a bath in a long time.)

[JRANGER]

Awesome job!!

[67ChevyRedneck]

Thanks!

I hope people don't take this board for granted. I found what I thought was one of the most active forums for classic mustangs (and seemed to have a good group of people) and I've posted just about everything I've done to the car over there as well. I really thought the seatbelt mod would get a lot of attention. I searched and searched and searched and it was difficult to find a nice thread with all the info on how to safely add 3 points, so I made one, but I got maybe 3 comments? Just about everything else I've done has gotten 1 to 3 comments. I understand if the comments are light in this forum. It's not looked at as often, it's a Mustang on a GM site... etc... so I completely understand if people here aren't as "excited" as I am, but on an actual devoted mustang site?!?!?! Maybe they're all used to barrett jackson and my backyard stuff isn't up to par (the thread I made on this over there has 165 views and no responses)?

[JRANGER]

WOW!!!! What site? Im on a few of them... They are basically the same way...Stangfix.com is a good one but not many comments but if i have a question thread for help i always get answers. vintage-mustangs.com seems to get a little more action for me.

[JRANGER]

Um...Where is that update? lol

[67ChevyRedneck]

Time to fix the nasty ass leaking mess under the hood!

Let me start off by saying that we are spoiled with the 67-72 pick ups... you don't have to take off 4 parts to get to the one you want to take off, and in a somewhat particular order (an order I forgot a few times during reassembly and made more work for myself!)

The engine was nasty. It was obviously leaking pretty bad over the years.

The timing chain wasn't too bad, but there was no way I was ever going to do all this again!

[67ChevyRedneck]

The engine cleaned up pretty nice. It also looked pretty clean from underneath. The oil pan was sludge free, but I replaced the oil pump and shaft anyway.

This was quite a pain in the ass as well. I had to remove the sway bar, steering drag link, and a cross member that goes under the pan. Everything went back together OK except when I went to reinstall the cross member the bolt hole had stripped the threads OFF from rust. They're gone. NOT GOOD on a unibody frame car with NO ACCESS to the inside. I had to order a 1/2-13 helicoil kit. Probably won't come in until after the holiday

But I did get the pan cleaned up and back on! I used the new $$ one piece felpro gasket. Worth the money!

[67ChevyRedneck]

Before I finished up under the car I installed some new motor mounts. I knew the trans and motor mounts had cracks, but didn't fully realize how bad they were. The driver side FELL APART when I took the bolts out.

I painted up the new ones and put them in. Actually one of the easier things I'd done at this point!

[67ChevyRedneck]

Timing cover, new balancer, new fuel pump, new lines and filter installed.

I did a lot of research on this and apparently 289's only have one orifice for an oil pressure gauge? I *think* there is another one at the back of the block on the top like a 350, but the only thing I found back there was some form of kick down or something for the trans (sorry, I don't know Ford's very well yet.)

So I had to "make" this little set up because I wanted my idiot light and new pressure gauge to work (more on that later.)

If you notice, there is a fuel filter installed... I looked the car over thoroughly AND rebuilt the carb... NO FILTER ANYWHERE! I guess this is where a lot of people put them. There is supposed to be one at the carb, so I ordered one, but it's so long that by the time you install it and add a hose to it, it would pushing against the dizzy cap, so I scrapped that idea.

[ERASER5]

Piece by piece, you are going to have a knew car!

[67ChevyRedneck]

Water pump and various other little parts going on, pulleys, etc.

This was also the start of the Vintage Air install.

[67ChevyRedneck]

I missed this pic earlier, and apparently there is a new 30 min time limit on editing... so...

This is how bad my mounts were...

[67ChevyRedneck]

Originally Posted by ERASER5

Piece by piece, you are going to have a knew car!

Thank you! I'll post more later... BBQ time!!!

[67ChevyRedneck]

These are just some shots of everything going back together. Pulleys, etc.

The first pic is how my engine bay used to look with the factory A/C. Ford painted them black. The Sandens are aluminum? and would stick out in an engine bay that's mostly black or gold. So I scuffed it up really good with a red scuff pad and painted it black. Hopefully it will hold up. I also drilled and tapped on of the unused mounting "ears" and installed the Ford factory A/C logo on it. I think it looks cool.

[67ChevyRedneck]

Not a big fan of rubber fuel line if you don't have to use it... so I fabbed up this line, bent and flared it. The line normally goes down by the timing cover, but the new V/A bracket almost completely covers that area so I ran it around the bracket, actually looks pretty decent on the car. (You can see it in the last pic on post #88)

[67ChevyRedneck]

All of the vintage air stuff up front all sealed and mounted. I "blacked out" everything. One thing that drives me nuts about my C10 is that I left all the lines and brackets silver on the V/A kit for that. Stands out from behind the grilled 50 feet away, so hopefully this will blend in a lot better.

[67ChevyRedneck]

I mentioned earlier I wanted to install some gauges. I wanted them to somewhat blend in, so I color matched them to the dash. I still have to mount the tach but it's pretty much done. I even fired the engine up and the oil and temp gauges appear to be working well.

[67ChevyRedneck]

And last for now... I have always loved the GT grille. I don't care if it's not correct for my car, I want it, so I bought it. Damn is all that crap expensive!!!

I couldn't help but mock it up. Grille needs to be painted still... but damn it looks good!

[JRANGER]

DAYUM BRO!! You weren't kidding about a big update!! Great work and I love that fog grille too!! Its on my list of things I cant afford to buy right now! lol GREAT Job as usual!

[ERASER5]

Making it yours one... well two steps at a time. It looks like I forgot to put the quotes around "knew" in my last post. As in "to know intimately" since you are going over every detail of this car. I like the make-it-the-way-I-like-it attitude.

[67ChevyRedneck]

Thanks guys, it means a lot. I'm slow at all this. Fords are completely new to me. This book was highly recommended by some mustang guys. It has saved my ass. Very well written and simple to follow.

[67ChevyRedneck]

But, let me tell you a story about a bolt...

This little guy stripped out (seized from rust) so I used an impact to remove it. Bolt came right out... as did the rusty threads. The PS was fine, just the DS was rusty. Only the threads were rusty... weird, after a cleaning the bolt was still 100% OK. No other rust or patch panels anywhere on the car...

On Saturday I drove to 7 different stores to find a 1/2"-13 Helicoil kit. FINALLY found one at O'reilly. But they didn't have it, their store 15 minutes away had it. Went to that store. Apparently they thought they were supposed to send it to the first store. Their parts guy left with it before I got there. Had to go BACK to first store to get it. So after 3 hours on Sat and a really upset wife who thought we were going on a short adventure... I had what I needed. The tool kit was $28 though!

Had fun sat night and a fun day Sunday with the wife, saw Hangover III and Fast 6 and didn't get to the car.

So I go to work on it today. I knew I needed a 17/32 drill bit, however the bolt hole was literally shaved smooth from the impact removal so I thought I could thread it...

Nope...

Off to Lowes. $16 for a drill bit. Took about 2 hours total to get it all done.

So overall - About 5 hours time. $44. One hell of a sore shoulder and I have the damn thing fixed!

Now, I'm not a fan of Helicoils. However, in this instance it was my only viable option. My other option was to cut a hole in the side apron/frame of the car and replace the capture nut in there and weld my hole up... after I first removed the DS suspension from the car... yeah... no... The bolt torqued down tight like the other side, so I'm good with it.

There's also a lot of thread in there, that hole was probably more than 1/2" deep.

[67ChevyRedneck]

After that fiasco was done, I went on to tackle some left over bits. Put the cross member back on, (you can see the offending tubular cross member in the 2nd pic right behind the hump in the oil pan) then it was time to fix the massive trans pan leak...

Whoever put the rubber seal on, used RTV and it was leaking like crazy. I removed it, replaced the filter, painted it black (it was blue and looked cool, but the only high temp paint I had was black), and put a new cork seal with NO RTV on and torqued it down correctly. I also put a new trans mount on. Old one was decent, not all torn up like the motor mounts, but it had "squished down" quite a bit.

*The rubber trans lines you see have plenty of clearance around the balancer pulley and sway bar, it's just the angle of the pic. That's actually factory for a 65 mustang. In 66 they ran the steel lines all the way to the radiator. The way the lines are horse shoed under the car, it would have been difficult to swap, so I just cleaned up the lines, ordered new stub outs from the radiator and put new rubber line on.