’71 Mach 1 Resto Project

bishoppeak said:

Put the Mach 1 decals on the side first and take a long look before applying the hockey stick decals. Really a clean look that I prefer, your opinion may vary

Click to expand...

351c1971 said:

I deleted the hockey puck but kept the pinstripe for a clean look.

Click to expand...

tpj71mach said:

I got out to the garage and applied the passenger hockey stick stripe last night after work, the car looks awesome! Getting the stripes on makes the car look complete, except of course it still has no bumper or RH mirror, but you hardly notice, haha, right?

I intend to take it to a cruise night on Thursday with some friends and again to the last of this season of a monthly car show near me next Tuesday. Not to be judged of course, it doesn't have a bumper lol, but just to hang with friends and enjoy my latest creation. I still have a punch list to check off before Thursday of little things that need to be done. The usual fluid checks, suspension fastener torque checks, and a couple adjustments.

View attachment 92912View attachment 92913

I love those body style lines! Once in a while manufacturers get it right, Ford got it right with the 71-73s!

View attachment 92914


Now, as my traditional finishing touch, I just need to decide on the placement of my "built not bought" decal. I like to place them on all of my cars, haha,

The rear quarter windows would be perfect but I only have one decal and can't remember where I got it so I could get a second matching one.

View attachment 92915

Click to expand...

tpj71mach said:

I got out to the garage and applied the passenger hockey stick stripe last night after work, the car looks awesome! Getting the stripes on makes the car look complete, except of course it still has no bumper or RH mirror, but you hardly notice, haha, right?

I intend to take it to a cruise night on Thursday with some friends and again to the last of this season of a monthly car show near me next Tuesday. Not to be judged of course, it doesn't have a bumper lol, but just to hang with friends and enjoy my latest creation. I still have a punch list to check off before Thursday of little things that need to be done. The usual fluid checks, suspension fastener torque checks, and a couple adjustments.

View attachment 92912View attachment 92913

I love those body style lines! Once in a while manufacturers get it right, Ford got it right with the 71-73s!

View attachment 92914


Now, as my traditional finishing touch, I just need to decide on the placement of my "built not bought" decal. I like to place them on all of my cars, haha,

The rear quarter windows would be perfect but I only have one decal and can't remember where I got it so I could get a second matching one.

View attachment 92915

Click to expand...

Sheriff41 said:

Looks great! What's the story on the bumper? I must've missed that post.

Click to expand...

tpj71mach said:

Sorry, I thought I mentioned this situation.

My indecision struck again, I kept procrastinating on repairing the bumper, trying to decide what was the best course of action. The original bumper, as you can see in the first pic, was dented and slightly twisted. It doesn't look that bad in the pic, but it was twisted and there were worse dents on the bottom of the bumper. My body men friends were suggesting all types of repair processes, so many I wasn't sure which to follow. By the time I straightened (pic 2) and repaired the bumper the car was painted and partially assembled.

As it sits right now, (pics 3 and 4) the bumper has been body worked, repaired, primered and blocked and I sprayed the final coat of primer on it, Although not perfect, it is pretty straight and is ready for paint. My friend Mike and I just need to find time in both of our schedules when I can get back in the spray booth and paint it. I also need to repaint the passenger mirror base at the same time. I put a run in it when I painted it the first time. I tried to sand out the run, but I sanded through, so I just blocked it down and it is ready to be resprayed. I am hoping now that most of the summer extra curriculars are winding down, we will be able to get a time that works for both of us to let me spray those parts in the near future and get them installed on the car.

View attachment 92943View attachment 92944View attachment 92945View attachment 92946

Click to expand...

tpj71mach said:

I had no idea how I was going to do it, so I reached out to some body men friends for suggestions, I got a bunch of different ideas that ranged from seemingly ineffective to drastic. One guy told me that back in the day they skinned the urethane off of the metal bumper. After that was done, they straightened the bumper with heat and metal finishing like you would on any steel bumper and then re-adhered the urethane to the straightened steel bumper. I didn't want to beat on the urethane, but I definitely didn't want to skin the bumper.

I ended up trying to press it straight. I started with heavy gauge angle iron and big fricking clamps, I sandwiched the bent part of the bumper between two short pieces of heavy gauge angle iron and used a few large clamps (pre-apply grease to the threads and run the thread through to spread it out) to compress the angle iron together with the bumper in between. I had to use pipe wrenches to tighten the clamps at the end. After doing this a few times, the bumper was almost perfect and then I hammered and dollied the remaining dents. Of course because of the gauge of steel my body hammers did nothing, so I used my four pound sledge and adjusted my force keeping in mind the mass of the hammer. Fortunately, it was mostly low spots that needed to be worked out so the majority of hammer hits were to the inside of the bumper. The bumper still was twisted slightly so I clamped it down again with the angle iron and used a big breaker bar and twisted the one end back in inline with the other end. Some times brute force is the correct answer, haha.

I followed that up with grooving out all of the cracks and filling them with a urethane and rubber fascia filler product I got through my friends body shop supplier. After that sanding, primer, sanding again and primer again and now it is ready for final blocking and painting.

View attachment 92958

Click to expand...

tpj71mach said:

I got out to the garage and applied the passenger hockey stick stripe last night after work, the car looks awesome! Getting the stripes on makes the car look complete, except of course it still has no bumper or RH mirror, but you hardly notice, haha, right?

I intend to take it to a cruise night on Thursday with some friends and again to the last of this season of a monthly car show near me next Tuesday. Not to be judged of course, it doesn't have a bumper lol, but just to hang with friends and enjoy my latest creation. I still have a punch list to check off before Thursday of little things that need to be done. The usual fluid checks, suspension fastener torque checks, and a couple adjustments.

View attachment 92912View attachment 92913

I love those body style lines! Once in a while manufacturers get it right, Ford got it right with the 71-73s!

View attachment 92914


Now, as my traditional finishing touch, I just need to decide on the placement of my "built not bought" decal. I like to place them on all of my cars, haha,

The rear quarter windows would be perfect but I only have one decal and can't remember where I got it so I could get a second matching one.

View attachment 92915

Click to expand...

tpj71mach said:

I had no idea how I was going to do it, so I reached out to some body men friends for suggestions, I got a bunch of different ideas that ranged from seemingly ineffective to drastic. One guy told me that back in the day they skinned the urethane off of the metal bumper. After that was done, they straightened the bumper with heat and metal finishing like you would on any steel bumper and then re-adhered the urethane to the straightened steel bumper. I didn't want to beat on the urethane, but I definitely didn't want to skin the bumper.

I ended up trying to press it straight. I started with heavy gauge angle iron and big fricking clamps, I sandwiched the bent part of the bumper between two short pieces of heavy gauge angle iron and used a few large clamps (pre-apply grease to the threads and run the thread through to spread it out) to compress the angle iron together with the bumper in between. I had to use pipe wrenches to tighten the clamps at the end. After doing this a few times, the bumper was almost perfect and then I hammered and dollied the remaining dents. Of course because of the gauge of steel my body hammers did nothing, so I used my four pound sledge and adjusted my force keeping in mind the mass of the hammer. Fortunately, it was mostly low spots that needed to be worked out so the majority of hammer hits were to the inside of the bumper. The bumper still was twisted slightly so I clamped it down again with the angle iron and used a big breaker bar and twisted the one end back in inline with the other end. Some times brute force is the correct answer, haha.

I followed that up with grooving out all of the cracks and filling them with a urethane and rubber fascia filler product I got through my friends body shop supplier. After that sanding, primer, sanding again and primer again and now it is ready for final blocking and painting.

View attachment 92958

Click to expand...

tpj71mach said:

I got out to the garage and applied the passenger hockey stick stripe last night after work, the car looks awesome! Getting the stripes on makes the car look complete, except of course it still has no bumper or RH mirror, but you hardly notice, haha, right?

I intend to take it to a cruise night on Thursday with some friends and again to the last of this season of a monthly car show near me next Tuesday. Not to be judged of course, it doesn't have a bumper lol, but just to hang with friends and enjoy my latest creation. I still have a punch list to check off before Thursday of little things that need to be done. The usual fluid checks, suspension fastener torque checks, and a couple adjustments.

View attachment 92912View attachment 92913

I love those body style lines! Once in a while manufacturers get it right, Ford got it right with the 71-73s!

View attachment 92914


Now, as my traditional finishing touch, I just need to decide on the placement of my "built not bought" decal. I like to place them on all of my cars, haha,

The rear quarter windows would be perfect but I only have one decal and can't remember where I got it so I could get a second matching one.

View attachment 92915

Click to expand...

mach71351c said:

Nice job! The hockey stick stripes look awesome especially on the white. IMO the stripes give a more muscle car look. I as well agree that no stripes with lower moldings give the car a more classy look. I decided not to go with the stripes with lower moldings because that's over done and incorrect. If my car originally had stripes for sure I would gone that way.

Click to expand...

revsitup said:

Looking so good!! I really like the clean look of the white with black accents!

Click to expand...

tpj71mach said:

I had no idea how I was going to do it, so I reached out to some body men friends for suggestions, I got a bunch of different ideas that ranged from seemingly ineffective to drastic. One guy told me that back in the day they skinned the urethane off of the metal bumper. After that was done, they straightened the bumper with heat and metal finishing like you would on any steel bumper and then re-adhered the urethane to the straightened steel bumper. I didn't want to beat on the urethane, but I definitely didn't want to skin the bumper.

I ended up trying to press it straight. I started with heavy gauge angle iron and big fricking clamps, I sandwiched the bent part of the bumper between two short pieces of heavy gauge angle iron and used a few large clamps (pre-apply grease to the threads and run the thread through to spread it out) to compress the angle iron together with the bumper in between. I had to use pipe wrenches to tighten the clamps at the end. After doing this a few times, the bumper was almost perfect and then I hammered and dollied the remaining dents. Of course because of the gauge of steel my body hammers did nothing, so I used my four pound sledge and adjusted my force keeping in mind the mass of the hammer. Fortunately, it was mostly low spots that needed to be worked out so the majority of hammer hits were to the inside of the bumper. The bumper still was twisted slightly so I clamped it down again with the angle iron and used a big breaker bar and twisted the one end back in inline with the other end. Some times brute force is the correct answer, haha.

I followed that up with grooving out all of the cracks and filling them with a urethane and rubber fascia filler product I got through my friends body shop supplier. After that sanding, primer, sanding again and primer again and now it is ready for final blocking and painting.

View attachment 92958

Click to expand...

tpj71mach said:

I took the car for an alignment yesterday, WOW what a difference it made. After tearing down to an empty shell and installing all new front suspension and steering, I knew it was going to be a little off when I reassembled it. The only thing that was off though was the caster, and the camber and the toe, but only on the right side and the left, haha.

Yeah, it was all off, I could tell when I first drove it that everything was fighting itself. When I dropped it off the steering wheel was a little off center and the toe was visibly out on both sides. The car wandered and pulled and followed the road crown badly.

I picked it up and drove it home from the alignment shop and it felt like a completely different car from the one I drove over there. The steering wheel was centered and it drove straight effortlessly, I let go of the wheel and it goes straight down the road.

My son picked me up and took me back to get the car and when we got home he had that "can I drive it" look in his eye. So now that I knew mechanically it was right, I told him to take it for a spin and see how he likes it. He came back and declared that this is his favorite of my cars now, LOL.

Here are two videos of him driving away and returning, sorry about the finger over the corner of the frame in the second video.

I have to say, I do love the sound of the exhaust, it has such a nice rumble to it, but isn't too loud. You feel it as much as hear it, like a Harley with a nice set of pipes.

Click to expand...