Well I thought I should get my finger out and post one of my other cars, so here it is.
I bought this car in 2002 as a 30th birthday present for myself as I had always wanted an American car, the car is a1971 mustang mach1 fastback with a Cleveland 351 2v engine and FMX auto gearbox. The car should be medium bright yellow but had been resprayed a mustard yellow and had been fitted with a vinyl roof covering and a lorry sun roof ( badly fitted ) and an aftermarket rear spoiler at sometime in the past, the car also still had its original ginger interior.
001b by karl stroud, on Flickr
004a by karl stroud, on Flickr
003b by karl stroud, on Flickr
005a by karl stroud, on Flickr
I ran the car until around 2009 and took it off the road for a little work when it decided to eat its gearbox clutch pack, I rebuilt the gearbox with new brake bands, new bearings, new seals, new clutch packs and also fitted an B&M shift kit to make it hold in gear a little longer and give more positive shifts.
DSC00100a by karl stroud, on Flickr
When I had finished the auto box I made the fatal mistake of poking around the rust on the car and found that the rust was a damn sight worse than I thought and the car needed a lot of work. So I decided to totally strip the car and do a total restoration on it, after stripping the car to a shell I found that the rear toque box's needed rebuilding as well as the passengers side front toque box, these where soon done as they where the only structural area's that needed replacement ( no photos ). Next job to be done was the back of the car including the boot floor, rear light panel, outer wings and boot lid, the roof also needed a lot of work as when the sunroof had been fitted a major support had been cut and the roof had lost its tension and got rippled as I was doing away with the sunroof this also need to be sorted out. On top of all this the area where the windscreen fitted had totally rotted out and this had to be replaced as well as the windscreen is bonded on this car and there was no metal to bond to.
DSC00111a by karl stroud, on Flickr
DSC00107a by karl stroud, on Flickr
DSC00119a by karl stroud, on Flickr
DSC00118a by karl stroud, on Flickr
DSC00122a by karl stroud, on Flickr
DSC00354a by karl stroud, on Flickr
DSC00353a by karl stroud, on Flickr
DSC00352a by karl stroud, on Flickr
DSC00357a by karl stroud, on Flickr
After the back, roof and floor area's had been sorted the next area to be sorted was the heater ducts under the cowl, anyone who works on mustangs can tell you that this is a prime area for rot and is a pig to fix properly as you have to dismantle the upper cowl area which is normally rust free to get to the lower cowl area which is normally rotten as anything and then reassemble all back together after fixing it. After that was done both shock towers needed repairing as did the chassis rails, when this was done the next thing that needed to be replaced was both of the inner wings and there reinforcement and the radiator mounting panel.
DSC00364a by karl stroud, on Flickr
DSC00368a by karl stroud, on Flickr
DSC00372a by karl stroud, on Flickr
DSC00375a by karl stroud, on Flickr
DSC00377a by karl stroud, on Flickr
DSC00382a by karl stroud, on Flickr
DSC00383a by karl stroud, on Flickr
DSC00384a by karl stroud, on Flickr
Next to be done was the doors, front wings and bonnet, these were also stripped back to bare metal and repaired like the rest of the car. The wings did not require to much work but the doors needed repairs to both the top and bottom of them.
DSC00398a by karl stroud, on Flickr
DSC00404a by karl stroud, on Flickr
DSC00406a by karl stroud, on Flickr
After much trial fitting, body filling and sanding of the body and panels the time had come to put some paint on them.
First the primer on top of the primer filler, followed by the black paint on the engine bay and underneath the car ( the underside had also been taken back to bare metal ).
P1000875a by karl stroud, on Flickr
P1000876a by karl stroud, on Flickr
Next came the top coat of ford signal yellow ( nice and bright ) and the black paint on the bonnet.
P1000880a by karl stroud, on Flickr
P1000881a by karl stroud, on Flickr
P1000900a by karl stroud, on Flickr
This work takes us up till the end of last year, this year I have restored and modified ( for EFI ) the fuel tank and fitted it, the rear axle has been fitted and modified with traction bars, and chassis link bars have also been fitted. Also fitted is the brake pedal assembly but this will be coming out again when I have fitted the glass as I have got to fit sound deadening material.
P1000902a by karl stroud, on Flickr
P1000905a by karl stroud, on Flickr
P1000924a by karl stroud, on Flickr
At the moment I am in between reinforcing the front suspension components and fitting the glass, exterior trim and doors.
Well that is where I am up to at the moment, as I do more jobs on the car I will try to remember to take photo's and post updates.
