’71 Mach 1 Resto Project

[tpj71mach]

I ran over to the body shop first thing this morning to get my parts out of the paint booth and clean up the booth so I took a couple quick pics of my newly re-painted decklid. I put a good sized run in the paint on the decklid and the mirror heads both had transparent spots in the base coat on the side of the mirror heads was facing down when I first sprayed the complete car.
At least I try to learn from my mistakes, both issues were a result of my setting myself up for failure. The mirror heads were too close to the ground (duh) to get proper coverage (see pic 1), the transparent spots were on the side facing the floor. As far as the decklid, there is no wonder why the paint was prone to run on the back of the decklid with the way I set it up (see pic 2) . I also have a bad habit that a lot of friends that are painters say they also have. It is when
I know I am done and everything got a nice even coat, but... there is just a little paint left in the gun and I hate to waste it, and then bam, runner, haha.



I block sanded out the run on the deck lid and repainted the decklid and the mirror heads on Saturday morning.
They all turned out much better this time.
It's like glass now, LOL.

 

[tpj71mach]

It took me a while, but I thought of my excuse. Both of the problem parts I sprayed in the prep station. I repainted them on Saturday in the booth which has much better lighting and they turned out much better. That's it, the poor lighting in the prep station is going to be my excuse for the fails on the first try, haha.

 

[dtmasoGT5]

I, too, have a new Marti tag just waiting for paint and body to complete to apply, and have "upgraded" to a 3.25 with eaton posi and T5 instead of the C6 it came with. Other upgrades to announce later.

 

[tpj71mach]

Swung by the body shop after work today to drop off the rear seat parts and window parts to install on Saturday. My freshly painted decklid was just sitting there next to the car so I took a few minutes and installed the decklid. Once I did that, I couldn't resist bolting on the spoiler as well, so it looks cool, haha.

I will need to do some fine adjustments to the fit of the decklid yet and remove the spoiler when I get around to wet sanding and buffing the decklid, but it's not a big a deal to remove and reinstall it.

I can't wait until the bottom is black and the stripes are on her! Oh, and maybe some glass and a rear bumper would be nice too, LOL.

 

[Sheriff41]

That's looking really good! Just think what it'll look like with the bumper and rear valance on.

 

[Joeaus08]

I really like your car!

Great photo diary!

Joe

 

[tpj71mach]

I really like your car!

Great photo diary!

Joe

Thanks, My 73 from high school looked just like yours. Of course I couldn't afford Magnums back then, haha.

 

[tpj71mach]

I got to the body shop bright and early with a plan. I had a list of all of the 8 things I wanted to accomplish and I wanted to leave by 1:00. At 2:45 I had completed 5 of them and decided it was well past time to go home. I did get a bunch done but did not complete my whole list.
I installed the driver's mirror, I noticed as I was reassembling the mirrors that the passenger base also had a dark spot where the base coat was a little thin. Of course I notice this after I repainted both of the mirror heads already for the same reason. Oh well, so I got the drivers mirror installed and sanded down the passenger mirror base so it will be ready to repaint when I have the chance. I also installed the roof rail weather strip so I could install the rear quarter windows.



I installed the rear quarter glass and added the coupe roll down regulators and tracks so the rear quarter windows will now roll down.



Then I installed the quarter interior trim panels.



I also installed the fold down seat assembly, I plan to reupholster all of the seats over the winter. Until then I just put some duct tape over the holes and dyed the silver metallic vinyl to black.



I know the seat is pretty rough but you can't even see it when the seat is folded down. I just want to drive and enjoy the car some this summer yet, then my batteries will be recharged to tear out the seats and reupholster them. See you can't see the seat covers at all when the seat is folded down which is how I prefer it to be, so that will be fine until I get to that, haha.

 

[tpj71mach]

My glass guy was able to get over to the body shop yesterday afternoon and get my windshield and rear glass installed in the Mustang. Finally, it can legally be driven on the street!
Also, my friend Mike, who is the manager of the body shop it is at, is available this weekend to help (baby sit) me, which means we can paint. I am hoping to get some, or maybe all, of the rat-rod black sprayed this Saturday.
Once the black is done, I can get her home and cut and buff and apply all of the decals and stripes and then I can drive it for a few months at least, before she gets tucked away for a Chicago winter, and hopefully some more finishing touches,



The rear window moldings are not great, a couple little dingers, but not awful. I have heard from multiple sources that the re-pops do not fit well, and having them reconditioned was really expensive so they are good enough for now. I need to get this old girl on the road and start burning some fuel, haha.

 

[Sheriff41]

You and your paint guy laid that color/clear on so smooth your cut-and-buff should take hardly any time. It's coming together very nicely!

 

[tpj71mach]

You and your paint guy laid that color/clear on so smooth your cut-and-buff should take hardly any time. It's coming together very nicely!

Thank you, I am over all very pleased with how it is coming together so far.

 

[tpj71mach]

My friend Mike just sent me these pics. It seems that he is a man on a mission this afternoon to help me get all of the rat-rod black painted tomorrow if possible. He drove the car from the body shop building over to the paint shop building. He had a couple of his guys remove the hood and place it on the prep station. This way we can mask the center blackout on the top of the hood and the rear blackout on the underside rear edge of the hood and spray both out all at once. He also had his prep-guy scuff down the lower body for paint.

He wasn't shy about letting me know that the prep guy had to block out two runs on the bottom of each door, haha. I got a little happy with the clear it seems.

I really appreciate the head start he has given me, we will still need to get an early start if we are going to get it all done tomorrow morning. We both have places we have to be in the afternoon, and I am sure that neither of our wives will be happy if we are delayed, haha.

I am printing out all of the pics tonight that members have been kind enough to share, showing measurements to guide me laying out the stencil correctly on the hood. I have also drawn up a diagram with all of the measurements down both sides and across the front of the hood. I am planning to measure repeatedly to try to insure that it is done right the first time.

Wish me luck, I think I may just need some, LOL.

 

[tpj71mach]

I got to the body shop early this morning and started with the layout of the hood stencil. That took me longer than I thought it would and truthfully longer than it should have. I remeasured and remeasured until I was sure that it was as correct as I could make it.



I masked off the rest of it and we sprayed the Hot Rod black and it turned out really well, IMO. I was able to remove most of the masking before we left for the day and I think it looks damn good, I can't take credit my friend Mike laid the paint out, he felt being a professional painter it would be quicker if he just did it. He was right and I am sure it turned out better than if I painted it. It's is impressive seeing a professional, over a hobbyist like me, just do it like it is so simple. In the booth spraying, he made it look effortless, while when I paint I am kind of doing the same process, I just make it look harder, haha.

Here are some pics right after I removed most of the masking. Once it cures it will dull down, I hope.



At least I didn't end up with it looking like the hood blackout my original paint '73 I had in high school. Ford clearly did not remeasure and step back to take a glance to make sure it looked right, LOL.

The passenger side looks like a roller coaster. Here is a pic of me and a friend washing it back in the day. You can see how the side stripe goes in and then out and then in again. My '71 definitely turned out better than that at least, haha.



We also got the car in the spray booth and masked off the bottom so we could paint the hot rod black at the bottom of the car. I forgot to take pics of it afterwards because we were in such a hurry to wrap it up and get going. We are going back early tomorrow morning to remove all of the masking and get the car out of the spray booth so I can clean out the booth for the painter to get back to his work on Monday. I will take some pictures tomorrow morning before and after we remove the masking materials.



We did somewhat meet our goals of getting all of the black painted in one Saturday morning. We ran out of time to remove masking and clean up, so the job is not totally done, but it is all painted.

Hopefully, the lower body will look as good as the hood once I remove the masking tomorrow morning.

 

[tpj71mach]

I went back to the body shop and cleaned up my mess from yesterday. I got the Mustang out of the spray booth and swept it down really well so the painter can get back to work right away tomorrow morning. Before I did that, I took some pics of the car before and after I removed all of the masking from the body. I also took some new pics of the hood. Now that the hot rod black has cured and dulled down nicely, it looks much better. I prefer to err on the side of too much gloss, if the paint dries shinier than you wanted that's okay, because all paints will dull out. It is only a problem if it does not have enough gloss, because it probably ain't gonna get any shinier, haha. Fortunately, I think it came out just right.

Here are a couple pics of it in the spray booth before we removed the masking.



Here are some pics of it after we brought it down off of jack stands and unmasked it.



The hood dried up nicely it has just the right amount of gloss, IMO. I love the hood on our cars, it has been my favorite style of hood and air inlets since I bought my '73 when I was 16. I own and have owned many cars with cool hood scoops or air inlets but IMO, none can compare with the 71-73 Mach 1 hoods.



We also repainted the hood scoops that I painted a couple weeks back just to insure they would have the same amount of shine as the hood blackout.



My friend Mike told me to leave the Mustang there outside the booth and he would have a couple of his body men install the hood on the car tomorrow morning. After they are done, he will move the car over to the building across the street where it is stored, I didn't argue one bit. As we all know too well, that hood is six feet long and weighs a ton, I was happy to leave it to the young bucks to reinstall it for me, haha.

I am very happy with the way all of the black out paint turned out. Next Saturday I am going to focus on installing the front and rear valences, the rear bumper, and a couple other little details that will make the car able to drive home, I plan to do the cut and buff at home and apply the stripes and decals there. Momma is getting a little tired of me disappearing every Saturday morning for 5-6 hours. I think it took the black out especially the hood to make it look like I was wanting it to, I'm definitely in love now, LOL. I can't wait to wait to apply the stripes and decals and take in the finished product!

 

[Fabrice]

Superb!

 

[mach71351c]

Looks fantastic !
The sheen on the hood came out perfect! Most of the time the under side gets over looked nice job.

 

[tpj71mach]

Looks fantastic !
The sheen on the hood came out perfect! Most of the time the under side gets over looked nice job.

Thanks, I am happy with the sheen of the black. We did spray the underside at the back and wanted it to look like it was just blown in like the factory hoods. Unfortunately it has too good of coverage to look like the originals do. We have found it very hard to spray something that you are focusing on and care so much about making it look like you don't care so it has the original look. I had the same issue with the seam sealer I took pictures of the factory seam sealer gobbed up in some places and barely there in others so I could duplicate the factory job. I tried to do it like the factory did it, but I just couldn't force myself to be that sloppy with it, haha.

 

[dtmasoGT5]

Amazing progress...

 

[mach71351c]

Thanks, I am happy with the sheen of the black. We did spray the underside at the back and wanted it to look like it was just blown in like the factory hoods. Unfortunately it has too good of coverage to look like the originals do. We have found it very hard to spray something that you are focusing on and care so much about making it look like you don't care so it has the original look. I had the same issue with the seam sealer I took pictures of the factory seam sealer gobbed up in some places and barely there in others so I could duplicate the factory job. I tried to do it like the factory did it, but I just couldn't force myself to be that sloppy with it, haha.

Lol I tired as well with no avail.

 

[tpj71mach]

Lol I tired as well with no avail.

It is a hard balance to carefully make it look like you didn't care, haha.