Saturday, May 5, 2007

Johns 1965 Mustang 2+2 Fastback Project







Old cars are my thing. Working on them, hunting for parts, tearing them down and finally getting them back together. And of course driving them.It's a challenge to actually finish what you start.
My latest project is an all original 1965 Mustang 2+2 fastback. It's Raven black with red interior and came that way from the factory. It was born with a 200 c.i. 6 cylinder and a 3 speed manual transmission. The motor is still in the car, but the transmission has been swapped out at some point for a c4 automatic.
It runs great, but hey, it's a six banger and thats not much fun. The future of this car is looking better though. So far I've completely rebuilt the entire front and rear suspension and upgraded it to 5 lug suspension(the 6 cylinder cars were 4 lug from the factory). I also replaced and rebuilt the entire brake and fuel system from front to rear. While the suspension was out of the car I also cleaned, degreased, and re-undercoated the entire undercarriage of the car.
I also have changed wheels and tires from the stock 14x5.5" rims and whitewalls to a fresh set of 17x8" 2005 Mustang Bullitt Wheels wrapped in Kuhmo 225/50/17's all the way around. While rebuilding the suspension I decided to lower the car slightly all the way around also.
I've added a Shelby gauge pod (with tach and water temp) with white face gauges and changed the instrument cluster to white face gauges to match.
I can't afford a fiberglass shelby hood so I went the bolt on route, it turned out great.
My latest upgrade is new seats. I scored a set of 1997 Mustang bucket seats and am currently modifying them to fit the 65' with no problem. I just need to get them recovered in red, they're grey at the moment.
My latest move was to pull the motor and trans. The engine compartment is pretty skanky, so it will get degreased, stripped to bare metal, primed and repainted. I'll clean and re-wrap all the wiring so it looks like new. It'll look like a million bucks when I'm through, just got to get dirty to do it, not a problem.
The goal is to put a rebuilt late model 5.0 HO roller motor in the 65'. I just love the sound of the newer Mustangs with a set of flowmasters on them, it's a very distinct sound you'd know it with your eyes closed. So I'm going for the old school look, with some modern Mustang upgrades.
It's restomod city for this old girl.
Check out the pics, I'll try to post them in sequence so you can see how the progress is going. Enjoy and see ya'll again soon!
John
Click on any picture to enlarge it!

Sept. 07
Well, it's running great, got my exhaust ( Flowmaster, 40 Series Delta Flows, they sound EXCELLENT! just like a new mustang does! :-) and I'm just driving it around to work out any bugs there might be as expected. So far so good. The whole engine swap/cleanup took about 4 1/2 months.
It's a whole different car now, and I can finally raise the hood at the cruise-ins!
Paint will be coming next, but will be a while, stay tuned and thanks for checking out my web site!





























12 Comments:

At May 10, 2007 at 7:42 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Great looking site John

 
At May 11, 2007 at 1:26 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks David. Still got a long way to go.

 
At June 4, 2007 at 8:19 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

HEA GEAR HEAD...
things are looking good! thanks for posting the pics of the Falcon...thats soooo cool.....
glad to see i'm not the only insane guy out there....LOL...
George

 
At June 28, 2007 at 5:33 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Great looking fastback. Super looking paint job on the car. Can't wait to see the engine in that fine lookin engine compartment.

 
At July 15, 2007 at 2:12 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

great job john ,can not wait see it when the motor is in. sandy

 
At August 6, 2007 at 8:56 AM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

kickin' arse and taking names I see!...We chatted on VMF for a few times..I have a 6 cyl 67 coupe for my son and have a 67 coupe that came with a 289...I'd like to talk to you about what I am thinking of doing with it..Its the Burgandy one at my cardomain site..Tareece

 
At September 23, 2007 at 6:08 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

John,
The car sounded great. Thought it was an 07 pulling up to your house. Lookings and sounding great. Thats deditication!

 
At September 24, 2007 at 7:12 AM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks David,
It was alot of work, and I'm glad to finally be finished! I'll take u for a ride when I get all the bugs out of it.
John

 
At September 29, 2007 at 5:34 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

john its looking betterall the time
hang in there it will soon be finished


DAD

 
At October 1, 2007 at 8:39 AM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks Dad, I'm hanging in there with it. It's slow but it's getting there.

 
At July 19, 2008 at 3:23 AM , Blogger Unknown said...

John -

Very nice car - did you also upgrade the brake system since you added more horses under the hood?

 
At July 27, 2008 at 1:55 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey man love the car.. Would u be interested in trading or are u looking to get cash for it? Let me know my email is jeff_speight@yahoo.com, and I would love to get this car. Just send me an email either way. Thanks

 

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