1965 Mustang Coupe - Father and Son Build

[turbocobra]

Thanks Ryan.

So far the project has been going well. I learned not to push him too hard early on and found the best way to get him going is to just go out and start working, once he hears me out there he will normally come join.

He did pick the car and loves all older cars. So far the work we have been doing, sanding, griding, rust repair, not very fun for a 14 year old.

Once we start on the motor, wiring, interior, etc, the excitement level should pick up.

I don't know about everyone else on here, but the part of this my son and I have both enjoyed the least is drilling out hundreds of spot welds!

I told him when we got the car going we would get him a personalized tag and the nickname of the car would be "SPOT-WELD"

[Roch_Greg]

Ya'll two put most to shame. I wanna say you've gotten more done in just this little while than many (including myself) get done in a year.

I'm so sick of drilling spot welds if I never see another that would suit me fine.

Great work so far and keep posting the pics.

GregY

[turbocobra]

Thanks Greg!

Here is the update from this weekend.

Engine Bay finished up. We are now on the home stretch of the rust repair and fabrication, moving onto the trunk pan, lower quarter panel patches, and tail light panel replacement.



Here is a caster we added to be able to move the car around until we put the new suspension in.

[turbocobra]

Well, after not moving the car off jackstands while working on the roof, floor pan and front part of the car, we finally back it out and turned it around so we can start working on the rear part of the car.

Tripod Mustang.

[Rustbelttrucker]

BTW, this is my first time doing any kind of restoration like this, so any constructive criticism or things you see I could do better I certainly welcome!

If you don't mind my asking, what do you do for a living? You have a lot of skills for a 1st time hobbyist taking on a complicated project. Very nice job so far.

Not a criticism, but I wouldn't have covered up the beading in the forward apron. Personally, I like the look of the beading and it compliments the shock tower delete panel, which is also beaded. I would smooth the welds and seams and leave the beading details to be seen. On the practical side the beading adds needed strength and stiffness.

By the way, that's a nice looking lawn too. Do you make your son do the mowing?

[turbocobra]

If you don't mind my asking, what do you do for a living? You have a lot of skills for a 1st time hobbyist taking on a complicated project. Very nice job so far.

Not a criticism, but I wouldn't have covered up the beading in the forward apron. Personally, I like the look of the beading and it compliments the shock tower delete panel, which is also beaded. I would smooth the welds and seams and leave the beading details to be seen. On the practical side the beading adds needed strength and stiffness.

By the way, that's a nice looking lawn too. Do you make your son do the mowing?

I am the Director of Information Technology for a healthcare company. First 6-8 years of my career I was a Network Technician/Engineer, and for the last 10-12 years have been in Management.

I hear you on covering up the beading. I plan to fill in the beading on the shock tower panels, and use some fiberglass filler on the edges of all of it, so it will be completedly smoothed out.

Oh yes, my son does the yardwork. Most of the time we tag team it. I do the trimming, blowing, while he does the mowing. If we tag team it we can knock it out in 45 minutes.

[turbocobra]

OK, a little update from the weekend.

Since we bought this car a year ago, I have dreaded fining out what was hiding under the fiber glass mat in the rear. You could see traces of the matting that was covered up with filler, paint, etc.

As suspectect, major rust/rott.

The trunk pans of course are rotted out junk. Thank goodness the frame rails were galvanized. The rust had just started to eat through the galvanizing on the last 6" of the rails. I am going to blast, picklex and zero rust them, should be good to go.

[turbocobra]

Going to put full quarter skins on both sides and already have the inner wheel houses out in preparation for mini tubs, and goign to have to replace the outter housings and didn't feel comfortable doing that without some bracing.






The tail light panel mocked up. This is a dynacorn piece (original ford tooling), and fits absolutley perfect. Could not beleive it. Every other piece of repro sheetmetal I have put on the car has required cutting, modifying, etc.

[Grayle]

I see you are going to use skins. I am in the process of replacing my right side quarter with a skin. Where do you plan on welding on the top of the quarter, above or below the body line? The c scoop lines on the skin were too high and I had to move the bend on the tab that meets the rocker panel. Other than that, the skin fits pretty good.

[Rustbelttrucker]

Dynacorn is reproducing a '67 Mustang fastback body, firewall back, from original tooling. Washtenaw Community College is doing a complete build of the same, (they do absolutely awesome work) to raffle off for the benefit of the Salvation Army Staples Center and the National Kidney Foundation of MI.

[turbocobra]

I see you are going to use skins. I am in the process of replacing my right side quarter with a skin. Where do you plan on welding on the top of the quarter, above or below the body line? The c scoop lines on the skin were too high and I had to move the bend on the tab that meets the rocker panel. Other than that, the skin fits pretty good.

I actually did a full quarter and cut out what I needed. I ended up cutting above the top body line peak because the peak was creased in a couple of areas.

Pics shortly.

[turbocobra]

I orignally planned to put a lower rear patch on both quarters as they were rusted.

Upon removing all the paint and filler form the quarter, it was just too much to patch, so got to replace both of them.

[turbocobra]

As you can see from above, the outer wheel housings are in bad shape. They didn't need to be fully replaced, and thought it would be easier to patch then replace the whole thing.





Here you can see the cut line and gap. Because it's so narrow up there, the original piece nor the patch had enough left on it to use as a backing strip. So I have a pretty tight gap I can butt weld.

[Gibs07GTcpe]

Great work, in october I will be starting on my wheel wells too. That is the way I was thinking of doing them. Thanks for the impromptu lesson....


What did you use to clean up the metal on the Wheelwell to get rid of the rust and stuff?


Gib

[turbocobra]

Great work, in october I will be starting on my wheel wells too. That is the way I was thinking of doing them. Thanks for the impromptu lesson....


What did you use to clean up the metal on the Wheelwell to get rid of the rust and stuff?


Gib

Gib, the underside of the wheel well was a mess. About 1/2" thick of undercoat, dirt, mud, paint. I first used a torch and scraper to get out as much as I could, then used a 4.5" wirewheel on a slow speed buffer/grinder to get the remainder. Aside from the outer edge that I replaced, I was suprised to see the rest of it was in decent shape under all the mess, just a little bit of surface rust which I treated with Picklex20.

Be ready for a mess, I had a huge pile of dirt and crap on the floor after doing the clean up.