Finally got a weekend to work on The Rustang. I got the carpet, driver seat, and dash board removed. Not too bad on this side, but I’m still going to replace the floor pans anyway. The paint in the transmission hump is still a nice pristine Ford Light Pewter, which is what the rest of the car will be someday (hopefully sometime in 2011). I’d like to have the car done and running while it’s still [only] 40 years old.

This side’s not so great. We’re completely Fred Flintstone’d to the front on this side – yes, that’s the floor and front subframe you see poking through. Ain’t nothin’ but a thang!

So, sometime early in the weekend, My pal Dave and I went to Clark’s Auto Salvage and picked up the front clip from the 1972 Mustang Fastback donor vehicle.  I tried to buy the car outright since it was in much better shape than mine, but they said they couldn’t do that (probably didn’t have a title or something like that).  After we got it back to the shop, we commenced to taking some of the interior apart.  Fun time – but, the more we removed, the less enthusiastic things stayed.  After a couple of hours, we pretty much bailed on went home to watch movies and play Xbox (Forza 3 – much more fun on a long Thanksgiving Day weekend).  Also found that the donor car had a much better trunk lid than mine, so we swapped it out – it was even the right color (both inside and out, apparently – LOL!).

Been a few weeks, but with the engine and transmission out of the way, it’s easier to see how much of a mess this poor car is.  The battery tray has the usual corrosion damage – no biggie, I can get a new reproduction replacement piece.  The engine and front cross members look damaged as well, pushed up from the air time evidenced by the smashed oil pan and pick-up, and the driver side frame rails have major rust damage around the power steering gearbox area – that’s a major problem.  The cowl has some pretty heavy damage as well – someone mentioned being able to see my sneakers through the hole as they were pushing me around the compound.  Based on the damage seen here, it’s time to go looking for a donor car to attempt to swap the front clip.  Hey, I got nothin’ to lose as this point.

Something I found interesting – what’s up with all the bailing wire wrapped around the driver side spring?  Some kind of redneck-engineered lowering system, or maybe a redneck-engineered spring compressor gone bad?  I’m stumped.

The next day, I wheeled the engine outside and rinsed it all off, so I could begin taking it all apart.  Everything was going well until it was time to pull the distributor – with the engine being seized nothing would rotate, along with the retainer and cam gear not moving, so getting the dizzy out was a major PITA.  Ended up breaking the nylon timing gear and forcing the distributor out.  With the heads off, it was very easy to see why the engine was siezed – the #4 and #8 cylinders had rusted into place – #4 being the worse of the two.  After I flipped the engine over and removed the oil pan, I noticed that the previous owners had tried to out-do the Duke Boys… the oil pan had been smashed in from what I’m guessing was some ‘air time.’  It was so bad that the pick-up on the oil pump had been damaged as well – no wonder the engine had seized… with the oil pan smashed up against the oil pump pick-up, it starved for oil and that was that.  This poor car had been abused and basically thrown away and left to rot.  Once I pulled all the bearing caps off the connecting rods, I was able to slip out the rest of the pistons and conn-rods without hassle, along with the crank, which fortunately looked really good.  The #4 & #8 pistons had to be coaxed out with a half can of PB Blaster and a BFH, revealing some scarring on the cylinder walls.  Hopefully, the machine shop can still work with it, either by boring or sleeving the cylinders.

It’s a good thing I’m not planning on restoring this car to absolute stock conditions… this engine’s going to get some performance goodies put back in.

When came time to pull the engine and transmission, we moved “The Rustang” (it’s new nickname) to a stall in the ‘old side’ of the shop, to get it out of the way of the main shop activity.  This was the first time I really got to ‘drive’ the car, even though the guys were pushing me and I had to make motor noises… but at least it steered and was rolling.

Once into it’s new ‘home’ stall, I put the lift up, pulled the driveshaft and transmission, but had to leave the torque converter on the flywheel, since the engine was seized and couldn’t be rotated.  The engine came right out.

Once the engine was out, the torque converter came off with no issues – it was even still full of really old and yucky transmission fluid.  Seized engine or not, I’m still optimistic the engine’s still usable and can be rebuilt.  I am however, seeing the dollar signs for this project climbing rather drastically at this point.  Still cheaper than buying a ‘new’ 2010 Camaro 2SS, though.  People are still looking at me like I’m crazy and shaking their heads – which is just more fuel to the fires of determination.

With no keys, I first had to drill out the tumblers in the locking cylinder of the ignition switch so I could get the steering wheel unlocked, and actually steer the car around.  Once that was completed, we pushed the Mustang into a stall at the GAFB Auto Hobby Shop and started walking around it.  I asked my pal Jim what I should start with, and he said, “A tetanus shot.”  (OK – that was funny.  Props to Jim on that one)

First things first, open the hood and start working on getting the grille, bumper, and fenders off to see what’s going on.  The bumper came off by the brackets on the frame, since I had no idea how to remove them from the bumper itself.  Then I could pull out the grille.  All that stuff on the floor is rust – it was snowing rust every time I’d hit a bolt with the impact wrench.  I think I swept up the floor a half dozen time before the day was done.  Since one of the hood hinges had a broken (OK – missing) spring, I decided to take the hood off once I liberated the bumper – OK, I got tired of banging my head on it, too.

Surprisingly, there was still some anti-freeze in the radiator… or at least, I kept telling myself that’s what it was.  Once I got the fenders off, I saw a lot more ugly underneath.  This is gettin’ serious now.

I first attempted to open the trunk using some extensions on a ratchet to simply remove the trunk latch from the inside of the trunk.  With no fold-down seat, this quickly proved to be a lot harder than it sounded.  Frustrated, I simply grabbed the trunk lid and ripped it open – Holy Cow!  That was too easy.  Yeah, the inner surfaces of the trunk lid were all but rusted away.  Once the trunk was open, I found a LOT of rust – and even some daylight showing through from areas it wasn’t supposed to.  Great.

So now I’m quietly thinking, “What have I gotten myself into?”  But outwardly [to everybody looking on] I’m saying, “All of this sheet metal is replaceable – so no big deal.”  Wait – WTF is that piece of angle iron with the chains bolted to it for?

So after my pal Jim bought a 1963 1/2 Galaxie 500 XL to have a cool hot rod to work on, I was jonesin’ pretty hard for a cool hot rod of my own.  After pokin’ around on Craigslist for a few weeks, I’d decided to look at a 1971 Mach 1 being sold for way too much money… but it was locally in San Angelo.  I originally saw the first pic (below, swiped from the CL ad, as a matter of fact) and was intrigued, but not “all-in” for $2800. I kept seeing it on CL for a few weeks with the price dropping a bit each time. It had gotten down to $2200 when I called the seller and asked about it. He said he’d had lots of interest (B.S.) and it wouldn’t last long (more B.S.). I waited a few more days and called to go see the car – meanwhile, my wife had found his ebay ad for the same car (more pictures) with pretty much the same description – for $2000. I printed that out and took it with me. My pal Jim was warning me off the whole time, but I had the Mach 1 Goggles on and I was going to have this car. The seller had said something about the $2200 CL ad price, and I showed him the ebay ad… to which he reluctantly agreed to honor that price. After crawling all over the car, noting the holes in the floor, the seized engine, seized master cylinder, the fact that he had no title or even a set of keys, along with Jim “Dude-ing” me the whole time, I walked away. We both came to the conclusion that it was WAY too rough for the money and that it was probably better to pass on this one (OK – he decided it was better to pass on it, but I wasn’t done considering all options yet). 

After another week, I called the guy back and asked how things were going, and he once again came back with the ‘lots of interest’ and ‘won’t last long’ B.S., and I told him I’d like to check it out one more time. So, I met him on a Saturday morning with a trailer and looked it over one more time. He still wanted $2200, and I reminded him of the ebay ad I’d shown him last time. He sighed and agreed again. But then I threw him a healthy dose of reality. He kept claiming it was a rare and desirable car, and worth a lot more – he’d just seen one go for $40K on Barrett Jackson. To which, I threw up the B.S. Flag. During that week away, I’d joined 7173Mustangs.com and I think this forum as well, and done a ton of research. Turns out it was a Boss 351 that went for $40K (very much NOT a ratted-out H-Code Mach 1), and I explained everything in detail about the car (production numbers, DSO code, how insignificantly not-rare or collectible the car is, etc.) and told him with the seized engine, rust, no title or keys, and overall sad shape of the car that I would give him $1600 and not a penny more. He started to protest and I basically told him that I’ve been watching this car not selling for the past 2 months, and that he wasn’t going to find another sucker to give him even that much. He wanted to argue, but finally agreed after seeing the trailer outside… and a few minutes later my other friend Don and I winched the Mach 1 onto the trailer, I handed him 16 Benjamins and took his quickie Bill of Sale that he’d scribbled out. I later found out he’d only paid something like $1000 for it, and was trying to pull off a Gas Monkey kind of a deal.

It wasn’t until I got it over to the Auto Hobby Shop that I’d started being concerned about a few things… First, that I’d gone against Jim’s advice, Second that I’d paid too much, and Finally that there were no keys. I wasn’t even concerned with the lack of title, but that would sink in later and turn out to be no big deal as well, since it had ancient Texas plates, a military ID tag, and a Texas registration sticker from 1980 (it had fallen out of the system a long time ago). Jim was there just shaking his head, looking more like a disappointed father after I’d just wrecked the family car or something.  He wasn’t pissed or anything, but he was definitely not initially very supportive. I’d even asked him, “OK, Jim. What should I start with?” Without missing a beat, he replied, “A tetanus shot.” Looking back on things, that was freaken hilarious… but at the time it just irritated me.

Don said he’d ease the car off the trailer with the winch, but after I hopped in, he hit the release and the Mustang and I rolled off the trailer and picked up speed before bouncing hard onto the pavement and coasting away.  This was the first time ‘driving’ the Mustang, but I was really more of a passenger, since the steering wheel was locked (with no keys), and the brake pedal was solid from the seized master cylinder.  After it came to a stop, the guys helped push the car to an outside stall, and the comments began to roll out.  Everything from, “whatta pile,” to “I wouldn’t have bought that POS,” to “what possessed you to buy THAT,” to “you’ll never make that nice again,” came from just about everybody who laid eyes on it… which just made me more determined – whatever… it’s my car now, and I’m going to make everybody eat their words.

Here are some pics – a couple of Craigslist pics and a few from after getting the car to the shop.