OK, so some progress.

I went to Hobby Lobby yesterday and spent WAY too much money. Among the many things I brought home were a nice fine-tooth saw & miter box… which came in handy today when I noticed (and realized) that the transmission cast with the 2.3L 4-cylinder was a T-5 manual… not the AOD my Mustang had with its 2.3L. I thought I’d seen an automatic in the kit, and the floor of the car only has a brake & gas pedal… no clutch… and the 5.0L V-8 was indeed cast with the AOD automatic. Cool – so, now I get to use my new saw and miter box.

First – separate the AOD from the 5.0, and the T-5 from the 2.3:

Meanwhile, with the glue and steel paint on the AOD dry, I’ve almost got it to rolling chassis (still need some details underneath like shocks, and paint the backsides of the wheels, and whatnot – but the suspension’s on for the most part):

The floor of the interior is supposed to represent the tan carpet that was in the real car. This kit’s a little odd in that it doesn’t have a proper interior ‘tub’ like most car kits do. Oh well, it’ll look right when it’s all done.

And finally, here we are with the 2.3 mated up to the AOD, as it was in the real car:

Still lots of work to do: gotta wire & plumb the engine, finish up the underside with the rest of the driveline, get the body ready for paint, and get busy on the interior. Most of the work so far has been painting all the little bits, which has become more of a process since after having actually [re]built some cars in my time, now I’m on a quest to get it all ‘right.’