New Member from FL

[droptop73]

Welcome from west Michigan!

 

[Carolina_Mountain_Mustangs]

Your car should have the honeycomb panel. Someone must have replaced the tail light panel. You should see signs of MIG welding the panel in and not spot welds. The Tu-tone hood was a separate option from the side stripes. It cost like $18.00 and included the black out and hood locks. The NASA hood came with the Q code option package.

The repo gas caps are pretty good and also the rear honeycomb panels and the trim strips that go with them.

If you need tail lights Dennis Carpenter sells his seconds on ebay. You have to mask off and paint the black out on a 72 and all they make is 73 style. So if you tell him to ship you two with the aluminum trim loose it is much easier to paint the blackout. They cost half as much and there is no defect that you can see. The trim was just not attached which is a good thing. You can get the console lid from him also it fits perfect exactly like original. Don @ Ohio mustang on the forum has lots of parts and there are a couple more also.

As far as sheet metal if the original is only needing some patches use them but do all butt welds so you can grind both sides and hide the repair.

Don't do like so many and do the drive train first and it set there for maybe two years. Do the body first and then drive train. You can tear down and see what you need of course.

You should take the car to a frame shop now as is and have it checked and pulled if needed to give you a good platform to start from. Search the Forum some great DIY info here. These bodies were weak when new and with rust can get out of shape causing door, hood and trunk fit issues. Date code matching metal is a plus.

You will be surprised how the seats will clean up. I cannot tell you how to do yours but I use lacquer thinner on my white interiors and I have two verts with white. I used tooth brush and micro fiber towels and they look like new. Yes probably tough on the material but I tried all the lesser evils before the thinner. The plastic panels in the back are really difficult to find in good shape. There are some tricks guy use to restore. I have not had to do any so far but will next year so I will be learning also. Speaker holes in the back are a big issue. They never had speakers in the back and people cut up the plastic and the metal behind that also. Hope you have your Space Saver spare that is a difficult one to find. With fold down seat you had one. Can cost big bucks like $500 for the correct one. There are a bunch of different ones. Never believe an ebay ad parts are not the same from 71 - 73 even the tail light panels are different.

 

[John J]

Welcome from Michigan.

John J

 

[Fraz2112]

Welcome from Kansas

 

[cjstaci]

Hi,welcome from Seattle. I think your car would be cool just the way it looks. This is a great project to get your son involved with. I was a car nut as a kid and have always favored Fords.

Be careful, a full restoration is very expensive and can be an overwhelming job. I think the first thing to do is to evaluate the car and determine the extent of rust repair/body work needed. Start estimating the cost of parts and labor to bring the car to your desired level. Also, some reproduction parts don't seem to fit as well as they should, you may want to ask questions before spending money. NOS parts and original tooling reproduction parts are best. Keep in mind NOS parts are more expensive and not always in perfect condition.

Staci.