New Motivation

[Danoh1]

I recently discovered Fabrice’s epic thread on his 429 car.  Wow.  What a great attitude.  I’m on about page 10, taking it all in small doses.

My 72 Q Code project has been long stalled.  I didn’t touch it from March to November.  Some of that was busy with my work plus they sent me to Africa for the summer.  Hardly a reasonable excuse.

So, I turned off all my FB notifications.  Renewed my pledge to give zero time to the news of the day and ridiculous political diatribe.  And I got myself un-arsed and out to the shop.

First order was a massive cleaning and finally getting the warehouse racks up.  This allowed all the non car junk (wife’s and adult daughters boxes of crap) out of the way.  Yesterday a friend came over to help me with the hood (thanks Ed....and he owns a Boss 351....BTW).

Today I pulled the fenders, grill and headlight buckets.  Should have taken less than 2 hours, but many a stubborn fastener and 4 hours later...it’s all off. Engine and trans come out this weekend.  The fasteners are all cooking overnight in Evaporust.  The drivers headlight bucket is in a vat of molasses.  PB blaster is soaking the alternator bolt, which would not budge with a 3 foot cheater bar....so I stopped for now.  

You can see the front sway bar.  I soaked it in the molasses tube for a week on each end.  It looks amazing. It’s ready for light prep and paint.  Original grill has a break in the top drivers side, but I think I can repair with fiberglass or plastic weld.  

Engine bay panels all need some work or replacement. 

 

[Don C]

Fabrice is definitely an inspiration, very innovative, as are many of the other threads in the Individual Project Builds section of the forum. What some of the forum members have done to bring their car back to life is amazing.

 

[Carolina_Mountain_Mustangs]

Great to hear that you are on your project again. It is amazing what you can do you just need the desire to do it. When I brought my Mach 1 in and had 10 weeks to take the entire car apart, clean detail, rebuild heater box AC box, remove and clean and put back drive train. More or less take the whole car apart and detail and put back. Many said not possible for a 71 year old guy to do. On the last day I had it was driven into the Mustang Owner's Museum done complete. Could have been better and that is always the end result. There is no such thing as perfect. 

Set goals and do not get hung up. Tackle the tough jobs first and then it is all down hill from there. Nothing on the car should be difficult if it is you maybe need to ask a few questions. Remember on the assembly line about 2 min. in a work station. 

On the sway bar is should stay raw forging so either satin clear or the fake gray raw steel paint. I am not up on the paint dabs on the sway bar either.

Keep up the work and post some info as you go and be someone else inspiration.

BTW what do you do in Africa? I was there a lot for automotive tooling in Port Elizabeth and Uitenhage. I continue to go back for hunting.

 

[Danoh1]

.LLooks like the sway bar should be black.  There was definitely black paint on it.  Build sheet shows yellow and green.  429 website says 2 yellow and 1 green daub.  Initially, this car will get the spare suspension off my racecar.  It’s all good stuff, just not Concourse for our cars.  4 bolt UCAs, boxed LCAs, Bump steer corrector, stiffer front springs.  I’ll work on restoring the original parts.

I’ll start a thread to document what I’m doing.  This will be a driver, stock engine.  Non original color.  It was brown.  I might paint it Calypso Coral.  And must get AC working so I can drive it May-October.  This car is also dress rehearsal for my new to me 72 R code project....arriving next week.  I haven’t welded in panels since I restored my first 72 R code in 92-93. Been a while since my mad welding skills were put to good use.  I built a car trailer in 2005ish, but that was mostly stick welded.

I fly as an instructor/evaluator pilot for a DoD contract in North West Africa.  We supply 24/7 on demand air medivac and casualty evac (CASEVAC).  I have to go over several times a year.  But nothing on the books now.  Retired Air Force Pilot.  Special skill set.....

 

[Fabrice]

oh wow, thx guys!

I do enjoy what I do, that is prolly wat matters the most. Just like Don said, there are many more highly motivated people on this forum!

We just love these old ladies and its nice to know its contagious

[ I’m on about page 10 taking it all in small doses.]

The next pages are pretty much showing the same horror picts

Good luck on your project!