[XectriK]

Some of you may remember that I posted some pictures a few months back of my dad's 71 mach 1. The pictures showed a lot of rust in places we didn't even know about. My uncle has worked hard on the car these past few weeks and has got most of the body back into a presentable condition body wise.

That has led him to the first obsticle in the long road to restoration. He pulled the engine out and dismantled it to see if there were any serious problems. Oh boy were there, most of the expansion plugs were rusted out and leaking, so the motor had to be pulled. My uncle proceeded to tear the engine down and low and behold... more problems. Four... count 'em four cracked pistons. The local machine shop said the block is still in excellent condition but it'll have to be bored .30 over. Yay! new pistons, which should arrive next week, will be going in.

We're throwing around the idea of putting a T-5 Transmission in there so it can have overdrive anyone got any experience with this. I know it's a pretty strong transmission and we aren't going to be racing the car or anything so thats not important. Just an overdrive gear will be nice.

I'll be keeping this thread updated as the rebuild goes on.

[XectriK]

Anyway enough rambling... pictures.

Hiding in unrestored, unmodified condition!


OMGZZZZ RUST

Whew!!! Rust gone.


What the devil!!! More Rust!!!

Rust is outta here!

[XectriK]

Most of the body has been cleaned up and painted in some places to better withstand the elements and wear and rust.

The Cowl part I was looking for a while back

Before with rust

After without rust

More Clean Floorpan pictures

Engine Bay all purrdy

[460brevill]

i have a t-5 conversion setup for sale if you are interested.

[Serlin]

Nice work there. Good luck with the build.
Not my favorite body style, but I'm sure it will be gorgeous when its done.

[NorCalWhtHrse]

im in the same boat with mine bud... I'll haev to keep you on my list of people to pm

[jfritts]

looks like your doin a great job on yours. keep the updates coming

[XectriK]

Update!

Today I went out to my Uncles house and we started to piece the engine back together. I've never done one so I'm really excited. I got there at about 11:30 a.m. and didn't leave until about 6. This afternoon we got a pretty good ways into the rebuild of the engine. We installed the crankshaft, the camshaft, and 6 of the 8 pistons. Anyway, it was a lot of fun and yada yada yada blah blah blah and top it off with a nice tall glass of Ohhhh Jayyyyy.

Pictures:




No! It's not a Boss 351! My dad couldn't afford one back in the day and the Boss stripes and decals were cheaper.




Okay so they're not the best of quality but I can dig it. Taken with my Blackberry so its eh.

I'll update some more as time goes on. My uncle wants to have the engine running before the 1st of the year.

[XectriK]

UPDATE: 9-29-10

So its been a while since the mustang has had any work done to it. My uncle has done a lot of the body work since I was last out there. That and some side projects has inhibited progress, however, progress has been made.

The Holdup Project:

It was all up in the way. It helped pull the 71 vert parts car out of the way too.

First he fired up the torch and cut the trunk floor out. Then he spent many happy hours drilling out spot welds and cutting the new floor to fit before welding it in . Welding upside down was a challenge but the floor looks better. After replacing the trunk floor he removed the tail light panel.



Then the quarter panel and outer wheel box was cut off. Here the right trunk drop off and new wheel box are tacked in place.



After much grinding the quarter panel almost fits.



The tricky part is to get the trunk floor, wheel well, quarter panel, and rear panel to line up. Then the deck lid has to fit and the door gaps have to look good. The trunk corners are rusted out and are not available so he'll be patching them.




The trunk floor was replaced before the tail light panel was removed to keep the frame rails in position. The frame measured within specs so he didn't have to deal with a bent frame.

There is a lot of filler on the left quarter panel and the rear corner is rusted through so he am thinking of replacing it with a repair panel. What's a few dozen more spot welds to cut out.

We're looking forward to nuts ,bolts, and wrenches instead of grinding and welding.



More updates soon!

[mach1racer]

Your floor pans look way better then mine....

[Gregski]

keep on keeping on, and thanks for the pictures, good stuff