[Phinney]

FIRST OFF: I have to apologize for the picture quality on these first pictures, I took them with my blackberry. Wife is visiting her family way up north and took BOTH of our digital cameras... So the future pics will look better.

Found this car up in north Florida, and lucked out by trading it for a 99 Mustang I didn't drive anyways. A little back story: I had a 66 coupe I was going to restomod, but I had rushed into buying that car, and I knew the car I really wanted was a 1970, now I have it.



When I bought the car it had a dead original inline six (hated that engine!). That came out very quickly, sold it to the first person who showed up for 100 bucks with transmission attached.

I already knew what I wanted to do, drop a 2.3T engine into it. I bought a 87 Turbocoupe as a donor car. I rebuilt the engine, and drove it around for about a month. What a blast that car was! No wonder it was Motortrends car of the year.



Here is a shot of the engine nearing the finish of the rebuild

[Phinney]

Pulled the Thunderbird engine and transmission back out, and set them both in the corner of the garage... They wont be moving for a good long while.



My driveway has a hell of a slope, so I could think of no better way to get the Thunderbird to the bottom than letting it ride on my convertibles bumper Worked out pretty well! PS: ignore the Chevy logo on the side




The 2.3 is fuel injected, and as such, I am going to need the computer, all wiring, and the six hundred different sensors hidden around the car. It it insane how much wiring there is in here.



This is all the wiring I think I need to run the engine. Its only about half of what I will need, the rest will go for lights, power seats and windows and such. YES! My 1970 is going to have power locks and 6 way power seats with lumbar support!




Another shot of the same wiring, hanging up with some of the body parts I took of the mustang

[Phinney]

Tore the fenders and hood off the tbird to get to the suspension. Felt kind of bad about taking a sawzall to such a nice car...



Getting everything behind the dash out of the mustang. This is actually the worst rust on the whole car, going to need to weld in some new metal in the cowl.



Front end of the mustang before it came apart



Suspension on its way out... Geez these 40 year old bolts are in there good.

[Phinney]

Now here comes the fun part. After multiple beers, and lots of scratching my head I realized there is NO WAY to get the Thunderbird front suspension into the mustang. The front frame rails sit a whole 8 inches lower than the t bird. That would mean my mustang would be sitting with its front end facing the sun. Yikes!

I am not going to go out and buy a mustang II suspension that will bolt right in because that would defeat my goal of having the entire Tbird drive train in the Thunderstang.

The solution I have come up with is to remove the entire front clip (everything from firewall forward) and swap them. From what I am can see, I am going to have to drill out about 2000 spot welds to get it separated from the car.

This project has gotten a whole lot more involved, I'm contemplating dragging the cars to a professional shop and paying them a few thousand to do it for me, but Ill give it a shot for now.

Cut off some of the sheet metal to make it easier to get to the spot welds on the mustang

[zinc-vert02]

wow

[Phinney]

is that a bad wow?

[ChrisJ]

Whats the weight difference between the t-bird and the stang?

I am thinking the 70 stang will be noticeably heavier which will effect the performance with the 2.3T...

[Phinney]

The tbird comes in at 3415 lbs and the mustang is 2700lbs. The thunderstang should be able to fly!

[ChrisJ]

Originally Posted by Phinney The tbird comes in at 3415 lbs and the mustang is 2700lbs. The thunderstang should be able to fly!

NICE...I didnt know which was heavier...So going to stick with a solid in the rear of the 70? Could go all out restomod and put a IRS in it just to be different...

[Phinney]

For refrence, this is what the car will be when done, same color



I understand this is a fastback, but with the 70s slopped rear glass it looks very similar anyways. It will have the same boos stripes, rear and chin spoiler, and a non-functional hood scoop. Instead of saying BOSS 302 on the stripe however, I will come up with some custom vinyl that says something like TURBO 140 or similar.

[Phinney]

Originally Posted by ChrisJ NICE...I didnt know which was heavier...So going to stick with a solid in the rear of the 70? Could go all out restomod and put a IRS in it just to be different...

I considered IRS, but from my experience driving the Tbird, I have never enjoyed a cars handling more. It has an 8.8 rear which will be swapped into the mustang. I will have to do some fabricating as the tbird is coil over and the mustang has leaf springs. The tbird also came with Programmable air ride suspension which will be a real nice touch in my restomod.

[F8L GT]

you could have still did the mustang ii front and still have the full tbird drive train since the front suspension isnt part of the drive train, unless of course it was awd which it isnt

[Phinney]

Yeah I understand that, but it wouldnt be the same. As i said up there, a MII wouldnt support the tbirds auto ride air suspension which is pretty incredible considering how old it is. The suspension has its own computer that looks like a ECU

[Countryboy_99]

I applaud you in taking on such a huge undertaking of a project. Most wouldn't dare go to such lengths in a restoration/restomod, let alone by themselves in their garage. I hope you stick to it and get it done. This should be awesome car if you do.

[Phinney]

Thanks! Oh its gonna get done, whether I do it all myself or have to bring in a professional. There is no chance this is gonna become one of those "almost finished but couldn't afford" projects.

[Countryboy_99]

Good to hear.

[MustangOne]

Here is a swap I saw like what you are talking about.

It is a 2004 front clip on a 1968 Convertible.

Photo is a link to more photos.

[Phinney]

Very interesting MustangOne. Do you have a link to a page related to that swap? I can tell it is a newer clip based on the raised frame rails. The problem I know will arise soon is that this clip is about 4 inches shorter, and 4 inches wider than the 70s clip. That means I am going to have to get smart and find some way to mount the fenders and front bumper. Should be interesting, but I am not going to think about that till I get there.

[Phinney]

Not a whole lot of movement today. Drilled out about 100 spot welds. God this is tedious... Ended up just cutting off the lower rails to get them out of my way for good, and less weight that's going to fall when I get to the last welds.

I'm trying to decide if I will be able to leave the tbird suspension in when i pull its front clip. Would be nice to keep it on wheels!

[MustangOne]

For the fender mounts they kept the old top of the in aprons.