Tim's 1973 Mach 1 rebuild thread - it's done in 2023 on it's 50th birthday!

[Elizabeth73]

First, I want to say this is a great thread and you seem to be coming along with your project!

Second- Can you please direct me to the exact brand of "heat resistant satin black lacquer" that you used? After the rebuild and repaint of my engine I need to refinish my fan shroud. Thanks a million!

 

[timachone]

Thank you very much!

Concerning the "heat resistant satin black lacquer" I bought one from the automotive section of a DIY market. It is nothing other than engine paint out of a rattle can as you can buy it everywhere. I think it is a "no name"-brand from Germany so it will be not useful for you but if you want I can check the rattle can.

But first I used an adhesion agent for plastic parts directly on the surface of the fan shroud. It was also one from the automotive section of the DIY market. After a short period of time for drying I applied one thin layer of the heat resistant lacquer and one wet.

It came out like you can see on the photos with a nice black satin look.

Hope that helped!

 

[luxstang]

Just wanted to add for clarification that lacquer in this case does not mean necessarily mean lacquer as a type of paint.

In German (and in lux.) we call every type of paint lacquer no matter if it is actually nitrocellulose or polyester, enamel or water based or whatever.

 

[timachone]

Just wanted to add for clarification that lacquer in this case does not mean necessarily mean lacquer as a type of paint.

In German (and in lux.) we call every type of paint lacquer no matter if it is actually nitrocellulose or polyester, enamel or water based or whatever.

+1

Thank you Mike for clarification ::thumb::

 

[timachone]

Time goes by in big steps - especially if you have to restore a car...

In the meanwhile I was not twiddling my thumbs but there were holidays with my wife and much work with my daily business so it went slower than thought but that's always the same thing as you all know, too...

Here are my updates on the built:

After rebuilding my power steering pump I did the original 70 amp generator. It was automatically built in when you orderend the rear window defroster. And the rear window defroster was a part of the T5-package, when you ordered a car for Germany - it is very cold, wet and dark in the black forest

Parts



First I cleaned the housing





Fit in the new bearing



Cleaning the coil



Drive out the back bearing





Fit in the new one



Changing the brushes and the messed up connector





Assembled and painted with a light coat VHT engine enamel



With new pulley and fan




Then it was time to reassemble the whole engine compartment - first the cooling package





Power steering pump - even restored the original cooler on top of it - every gill!



Here completed with the alternator








One day I could not resist my old passion for BMW - a very good offer resulted in a buy of a very well kept BMW 335i from 1988 with 5-speed manual and some factory M-package-supplies - a real eye candy and coming collectors piece!

Here some pics:






But back to the Mustang

I fitted the ram air setup and began to rewire all the wiring harness in the engine bay - they didn't look as good as the engine bay now so it was a no-brainer...





I used normal electric isolation tape from Tesa - looks perfect!



Then I reassembled the whole alternator harness



Finished generally speaking









The original battery tray was too bad underrusted so I decided to buy and paint a new repro one - not a bad idea, very good quality!






More progress with more tubes












It was now ready to get off, the little rascal - but! I reminded some really important for me and searched for a little box with some NOS parts - I had in mind that there was at least one broken valve rocker arm oil baffle and I bought some NOS - tadaaaaaaaaaa ::thumb::

In the end I checked all and there where two broken - each on one leg





Check ::thumb::


Now it was time to get ready for rumble and let the whole thing fired up :whistling:

This was friday two weeks before from now - I slept bad and was very nervous. Would all have been right I tightened togehter the last half year - would there have been no leaks? Oh man... :shootself:

First my best friend Oli and I pumped some oil in this big Clevo



Then turned the key, the engine turned too and... nothing! Ok, it was a long way for the gas to go to the carb and the last half year it had enough chance to dry out like the Kalahari desert... I had all triple-checked before so this engine must run!

We put some gas directly in the carb AND...

F I R E :banana:



Runs and sounds good - first stage done ::thumb::

 

[mach71351c]

Tim your doing an incredible job! Thanks for posting your project.

 

[timachone]

Mike, thank you for the kind words! Glad, you appreciate it!

At the moment I load up the video from the engine start up - takes some time...


After the succesfull start-up of the engine I followed stripping the car. At these point many thanks to 72HCODE - his tutorial made the removal of my roof line drip rails happen - without destroying anything!

A little bit of light surface rust but otherwise it is all good. Happy to see some gold again Look at the leftovers from the original vinyl roof...




















Stripping the doors I fell over the next problem: the window brackets! With them mounted it is impossible to remove the side windows! But they are mounted with some kind of rivets to the glass and I tried many HOURS to loosen them - without success So I had to the only way which was left: (abrasive) cutting with a little tool named "Dremel" - it is some kind of a multi tool with billions of different attachments. In 10 minutes they were all gone last night and the window could leave the doors - for gods sake! What a bad design, Ford-guys, really... :-/ Never thought of someone who are willing to change out a broken window?!?!?!?









Finally empty and tons lighter



The next steps will be to remove the doors, mask the car and begin with sanding - keep you up to dated ::thumb::

 

[eddyw]

:coolphotos: and ::goodjob::

please keep posting. ::thumb::

 

[luxstang]

Tim, you're killing me! I love how meticulously you address and solve one problem after the next.

Great job!! Respect!

 

[timachone]

Thank you very much for the compliments Eddy and Mike!

I will give you a little update from yesterday later...

 

[timachone]

It's the tiny things that make it happen

Yesterday evening I removed the doors anyway and hey: they aren't as heavy as I thought

Here are some pictures - the last pictures from the inside for a long time before masking the whole car and beginning with sanding - enjoy ::thumb::













Some pictures of the engine bay - it will masked totally too! Excuse me for the aftermarket oil dip stick - I have an original on already there but I must check the optimal oil level first with this one because of the 7 qts pan...















The color of my new paint matches the original Gold Glow very good - not absolutely perfect but nearly as you can see. I don't like Audi so much but this color is cool

 

[Carolina_Mountain_Mustangs]

Tim,

You are doing a fantastic job for sure. When you took the windows out you should have been able to remove them without grinding anything off. I tore down a 72 not long ago and the pic shows what came out with the glass. It was power windows is the reason for the scallop in the bottom of the window. They will only come out one way you just have to get it in the right place and no problem.

You should be able to tell if the reinforcement for the vinyl top trim is still in place without pulling the headliner down. I doubt they took it out only ground off the pins. You will be able to see where they were when you strip the roof of the old paint.

That engine looks and sounds great.

I have a Q code T-5 Mach 1 4 speed and did not know they all came with rear window defogger. It has one.

I have a couple NOS T-5 emblems like went on the center dash if you did not have gages and it had Mustang of course these say T-5. Found them at a swap meet here and they did not know what they were for they also had the 65 T-5 fender emblems.

David

 

[timachone]

David,

thank you for your words, very appreciated!

For the window glasses: yours have had a different design, 71/72 and 73 are a different design. On late '73 cars they used some kind of rivets instead of hex-head-style screws like in you picture. They are almost impossible to loosen - trust me, I tried it several hours... :-/ And when, thy break off. With the bracket I tried it too. It is too thick in every direction - I tried it diagonal, here and there, no chance. The only way it seemed to be able by bowing the inner and outer sheet away from each other so you have a chance. But alone in the dark I must have been an octopus

The rear window defogger is standard on T5's - I have an original brochure from 1973 in German from Ford which says everyone came with that plus several other special parts.

In the beginning I wondered about the T5-emblems in the center dash but I have the original center gauges so it never was there. Too bad actually - it looks good! Nice find you have one. I have the original T5 emblems on the fenders too instead of "Mustang" - they are horribly rare and expensive if you find some here. Several hundred dollars... Hope never loosing one!

 

[Manu Mach1]

Hallo Tim,

I found this thread, I will take time to read it, and I look at the pics your put in, looks like there are a lot, that's great

Sure I will learn a lot here, as I already learn so much things since I joined 7173Mustangs site )

 

[timachone]

Hallo Tim,

I found this thread, I will take time to read it, and I look at the pics your put in, looks like there are a lot, that's great

Thank you - it would be a honor if you read it and if you could learn a little out of it... ::thumb::

Sure I will learn a lot here, as I already learn so much things since I joined 7173Mustangs site )

This is THE best forum ever - I have learned so much. And the people here are so much nicer than in the European forums. It makes the biggest fun to share your knowledge if you gained some one day - it and it's fellows became part of my life, really!


Here are some pics for the interested people in T5's - a very rare find, this brochure!

 

[Carolina_Mountain_Mustangs]

Hallo Tim,

I found this thread, I will take time to read it, and I look at the pics your put in, looks like there are a lot, that's great

Thank you - it would be a honor if you read it and if you could learn a little out of it... ::thumb::

Sure I will learn a lot here, as I already learn so much things since I joined 7173Mustangs site )

This is THE best forum ever - I have learned so much. And the people here are so much nicer than in the European forums. It makes the biggest fun to share your knowledge if you gained some one day - it and it's fellows became part of my life, really!


Here are some pics for the interested people in T5's - a very rare find, this brochure!

I cannot get the T-5 brochure to expand. Can you scan it and attach. It is all in German I expect.

You said there were other options unique to T-5 what were some of them?

 

[timachone]

David,

I loaded them again - now it will do, I hope...

Yes, it is all in German, unfortunately... It is the original sales brochure of 1973 for american Fords in Germany.

For the german market the following was not an option but standard:

- 302 Engine

- Automatic transmission

- Power front disc brakes

- Power steering

- Belted tires

- Rear window electric defrost (not Convertible)

- Mach 1 interior (only Mach 1)

- Passenger side mirror

- Sports wheel covers

- NACA hood (only Mach 1)

- Metric speedometer

- Orange turn signal lamp glasses front

- Chrome molding on the wheel wells (not Mach 1)

- Backup light

- 3-row-HD-radiator

- T5-emblems instead of "Mustang"

- German made headlights with integrated parking lights

to tell the most important and which I know for sure.

 

[timachone]

Slowly but surely it went forward - always slower than I want but I am very busy at the moment - my other cars and the wife's bike are paying also tribute to my time and my health...

By disassembling I was curios about my built sheet and began to disassemble the whole interior and... tadaaaa - there it was - under the drivers seat, mounted through a seat bolt You cannot imagine how happy I was... oh, wait, you guys, you can

















It is in quite good shape except the seat mounting bolt hole and the missing paper at the bottom which was from the beginning. All that was lettered is perfectly readable... ::thumb::

Does anybody know if that tape over the cable channel is original to that cars?





I discovered that the floors are in a quite good condition - in the footwells there is some surface rust here and there but nothing to worry about - the consoles and the back are perfect. In the next winter season I will disassemble the whole interior and have the floor pans reworked with some brushes, rust converter, a primer and some light coats of gold...

After reassembling the interior I started to mask the whole car - except the back it's finished and I can start to sanding...















CU soon

 

[Carolina_Mountain_Mustangs]

Tim,

Yes the tap over the wiring is original at least to several of mine it was. There is also a cardboard piece that goes over it also to help protect the carpet. The "Duct" tape can be bought in the U.S. about any color and width you want. They also put the plastic cover over the lower crush part of the steering column with the same black duct tape.

You are really moving along great with your project and you car is in such great shape. The gold color will make it look just like the brochure centerfold if you get the vinyl top back on.

That was a great score on the build sheet. It tells everything on your car and in the bottom section they print out any special instructions or parts. Mine in the Black 73 convertible I bought was in bad shape and was also under the drivers seat but no bolt through it. Your car has been kept dry and no cowl leaks looks like.

Keep the wife happy or nobody will be happy.

David

 

[timachone]

David!

I laughed half an hour about your comment:

"Keep the wife happy or nobody will be happy" rofl

You are so right - that's it - at every end of story

Wow, that's cool with the duct tape over the wiring channel that it is original to the rocker panel! I have the original cardboards too there on the right and left side! That was a good find - thank you for the tip with the US-duct-tape - I will buy some with exact measurements to keep it original by reassembling.

Thank you for you words, David, about the shape of my car. I am happy about the overall condition of the floors. It seems that the PO kept it well. The cowl vents only had a light rust film which I fought forever by restoring my engine bay. At the end a little bit of wax in there and they will hold up forever!

Yes, with the vinyl it will look loke the brochure's title - I think that was what the original owner thought, too ::thumb::