Hi There! New to the group with my 1973 Mach 1

[Steve McMahan]

Welcome from So Cal. Where are you in Ca? You’ll get lots of help and advise from this great group of 71-73 owners. Will be following your build thread.

 

[Rick@NPD]

I love the 64 Bonneville's! My first car was a white 64 Bonneville that my parents bought new. A drunk driver hit me head-on on a country road. The Bonneville protected me very well. No injuries, but my watch band broke. My parents bought the Bonneville back from the insurance company and gave it to me. I found a 1964 Grand Prix with a frozen engine. We transplanted the Grand Prix front end onto the Bonneville. This was before the Pontiac Grand Ville was introduced in 1971. I probable had the first Grand Ville before they were introduced. If I recall correctly, it had a 4-speed automatic. It was fast off the line with the 389 engine! I ended up selling to a friend in the 70's and he got a lot of use out of it.

Neat story!!! Coincidentally, I also have a Nocturne Blue 1964 Grand Prix, fully-restored (AACA Senior National 1st-place). Pontiac was ON FIRE in the mid-60's!! Great cars, stupendously cool interiors.

 

[Rick@NPD]

Wow what a beautiful car! I really love the color on it! Thanks for the tip, I would 100% prefer to keep the original fender on it, as it would be the only non stock body part on the car if I replaced it. I have some PDR buddies so ill ask around and see if we can find a guy around here that can get it close enough. It just sucks it got dinged up right on the body line like that.. I appreciate the help and advice!

I was hoping you'd stick with the original colors (which I really dig), but if you decide to go different, I'll toss out there that 1973 Mach 1's could be ordered from the factory in a color called "Light Pewter Metallic" (color code 5A), which is very similar to the Eleanor gray you mentioned in another post, only better looking in my opinion. Better looking, and factory-correct, you can't go wrong with that.

I used to have a 1973 Mach 1 that was all original, Light Pewter Metallic with Ginger deluxe interior (which is what your car has), and it looked absolutely DYNAMITE. I can highly recommend that combination. My car was a Q-code with power windows, a/c, pretty much every option possible including rear window defroster, and I even had the power driver's seat and power deck lid release (all cribbed from a junkyard Cougar LOL). Sold it years ago unfortunately.

I failed to keep any photos of that '73, but I've attached a photo of my 1971 Cougar XR7 that's the same color, Light Pewter Metallic, just so you can see it...

 

[rybo]

I was hoping you'd stick with the original colors (which I really dig), but if you decide to go different, I'll toss out there that 1973 Mach 1's could be ordered from the factory in a color called "Light Pewter Metallic" (color code 5A), which is very similar to the Eleanor gray you mentioned in another post, only better looking in my opinion. Better looking, and factory-correct, you can't go wrong with that.

I used to have a 1973 Mach 1 that was all original, Light Pewter Metallic with Ginger deluxe interior (which is what your car has), and it looked absolutely DYNAMITE. I can highly recommend that combination. My car was a Q-code with power windows, a/c, pretty much every option possible including rear window defroster, and I even had the power driver's seat and power deck lid release (all cribbed from a junkyard Cougar LOL). Sold it years ago unfortunately.

I failed to keep any photos of that '73, but I've attached a photo of my 1971 Cougar XR7 that's the same color, Light Pewter Metallic, just so you can see it...

View attachment 94501

Wow yeah that's a great looking color! I'm just not a fan of the original yellow color at all otherwise I'd love to keep it original. I've been looking at the pewter with that green tint to it I really like, something like this. Not sure what color this is though.

 

[jctodd66]

Howdy from Texas! Great back story. Your grandpa will be happy you're working on it.

This forum is a wealth of knowledge on these cars. If you can't find the answer to a question, just ask, it's almost guaranteed that someone has done it before.

Good luck and have fun with the restomod.

--Chuck, Caddo Mills, TX.

 

[Steed73]

Hi All! Im new here so wanted to say hello.

I have 1973 Mach 1 Deluxe with the 351 Cleveland, The odometer says 5k miles but I don't believe that to be true, or im reading it wrong. My dad thinks closer to 40k but not sure exactly whats going on. My grandpa bought this new and drove it for a bit then parked it in the barn where its been collecting dust for a few decades, along with a few dents from the tractor. This was always my favorite of all the mustangs he had and we always planned to fix it up but he ended up passing away before we got the chance. So now I brought it home and am starting on the rebuild process. I plan to rebuild the engine, redo the paint / body and interior as well as some resto-mods but not exactly sure what all I want to do yet.

Im glad to join you all here!

Welcome to the group (from Toronto, Canada). I have a 73 Mach 1 also which I bought brand new in 1973. In 2009 I started a nut and bolt restoration so I'm quite familiar with the work that has to be done. The comments below regarding your damaged front fender are true. It would be better to try and fix it rather than getting a new aftermarket one. My experience with repops is that most of them are not made accurately and require a lot of work to make them fit properly. Your mileage is probably 105,000 miles as the odometer only goes to 99,999 and then starts over. That's pretty low mileage so the car is a good one to restore. There are many outlets with parts for Mustangs so you should have no trouble finding them. It's better to get parts from parts cars if possible and restor them. I have not had good success with aftermarket parts.

 

[rybo]

Welcome to the group (from Toronto, Canada). I have a 73 Mach 1 also which I bought brand new in 1973. In 2009 I started a nut and bolt restoration so I'm quite familiar with the work that has to be done. The comments below regarding your damaged front fender are true. It would be better to try and fix it rather than getting a new aftermarket one. My experience with repops is that most of them are not made accurately and require a lot of work to make them fit properly. Your mileage is probably 105,000 miles as the odometer only goes to 99,999 and then starts over. That's pretty low mileage so the car is a good one to restore. There are many outlets with parts for Mustangs so you should have no trouble finding them. It's better to get parts from parts cars if possible and restor them. I have not had good success with aftermarket parts.

Awesome to meet you and thanks for the advice. I'm working on fixing the fender myself as I really don't want aftermarket. I've done a little body work in the past, my grandpa was actually a body guy so has all the tools and taught me a few things along the way.

 

[Steed73]

Good luck. I had a lot of rust in my car and it took 1,000 hrs. of labour to repair it properly (not like the body shops). Now the car is rust free and I took photos before paint. In Canada, they use a lot of salt on the roads in winter and Ford did not make these cars to last. When I removed the interior carpeting, I found bare metal on the floor with no paint and that's how it came from the factory.

 

[rybo]

Good luck. I had a lot of rust in my car and it took 1,000 hrs. of labour to repair it properly (not like the body shops). Now the car is rust free and I took photos before paint. In Canada, they use a lot of salt on the roads in winter and Ford did not make these cars to last. When I removed the interior carpeting, I found bare metal on the floor with no paint and that's how it came from the factory.

Yep I'm finding the same, although I'm in California we don't have salt but still pretty rusty from just the elements over the last 40 years. It was last registered in 83. I took out the rotted headliner and the roof is all rusted, haven't ripped the carpet out yet but I expect more of the same. How did you go about removing all the rust? Any tips would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Steed73]

I was lucky and was able to find OEM rear quarter panels. They were expensive, but worth it. We cut out the rusted panels in the floor and I used aftermarket panels, but had to cut and fit them. Same with the rear wheel housings. The firewall had a few large rust holes and the rust was cut out and replaced with new metal in the hole. Same with shock towers. This took a lot of labour but I had a good sheet metal man working on it that had patience. My front fenders, roof and trunk lid were all rust free. I got a pair of doors from a California parts car that were rust free but needed bodywork.

 

[James Bond]

Welcome from NW Oregon, looks like a good project with great history!

 

[rybo]

Welcome from NW Oregon, looks like a good project with great history!

Thank you, Yeah it should be a blast to work on!

 

[Bill Perkins]

Welcome abroad from Opelika, Alabama, Nice Ride

 

[rybo]

Welcome abroad from Opelika, Alabama, Nice Ride

Thank you!

 

[tpj71mach]

Welcome from Chicago! Looks like a great condition car and it is awesome that it was your grandfather's and you are going to get it back on the road. I especially love the fact that you plan to use your grandfather's body tools and the knowledge he taught you to fix up his car. I am sure your grandfather is looking down and smiling from ear to ear with pride.

My car was a Palm Springs/Las Vegas transplant so it spent it's whole life in the desert. It still had rust to repair because the rear window seal was dry rotted and cracked and water had been leaking in there for some time. The car had been sitting outside without an engine for almost thirty years before I bought it. Over all that time, the water leak caused the trunk floor, lower rear quarters and tail lamp panel to rust from the inside out. I sectioned in the lower quarter panels and replaced the trunk floor and the tail lamp panel. The rest of the car was very solid, so I had a nice solid platform to build on from there.

I agree that saving the original fender would be best and the damage on that fender appears to be repairable. I repaired my passenger fender for the same reason I had a rust free fender that needed to be straightened. I had a lot of small damage to my fender and a little larger damage. It was worth it to have a real Ford fender rather than Taiwan sheet metal. I documented it fairly well well in my build thread "71 Mach 1 Resto Project" if you care to see what I did on my fender or any of the other repairs.

Just an FYI, when I started out on my resto, I ordered all of my parts from CJPP, because I had no experience with Mustang parts and that is what the previous owner recommended. After a few poor quality parts and some really poor customer service, I was referred to NPD and have very good experiences with them so far, and I have needed a lot of parts to get my car back together. Now that the car is almost done, I think they will notice the drop off in their sales, haha.

 

[tpj71mach]

One piece of advise that I would offer as far as color. I have restored and helped many friends restore a lot of cars over the years. For my own cars, if I choose to do a color change, I always stick with factory option colors. It has been my experience that Ford, or any manufacturer, did a lot of market research to find out what colors look best on what cars. After all they wanted to sell as many cars as they could, so they wanted colors that complimented the size, style and shape of the car. My car was dark green originally and the previous owner painted it Grabber Blue, I stripped it down to bare metal inside and out and ended up painting it Wimbledon White. All colors that compliment the body style of our cars. The Pewter metallic is stunning on our cars there are a few memebrsa here that exceptional examples of that color and how well it looks on out cars.
A great color can look awesome on one car and completely wrong on another. Not to pick on him, but the example I always use is a good friend of mine restored his '72 Dodge Demon (think Duster body style) I was doing the body work and was going to paint it for him until he made his color choice. He decided to paint the car Prowler purple. That is a great looking color, on the Prowler, but I didn't think it would work on a much larger car with a lot more square footage of sheet metal. I told him I didn't want to spray the car that color because I didn't think he would like it. He ended up having someone else paint it and to this day still owns the car but regrets the color choice. There were a lot of cool colors that came on that body style originally that would have worked better. Although it was a 72 the 71 models (same body style) were offered in Plum Crazy which is still purple but the right purple for that car.

 

[The Heff]

Hello from the UK. Your Mustang looks sound, so good luck with the restoration work. The colour scheme is the same as my 73 Mach1 before the previous owners painted it Red.

 

[1973 Mach-1]

Hello and welcome from Phoenix! Yea, try to keep the original body metal. Pretty sure that could be massaged back into shape..