Johns 1965 Mustang Page

Stripping and Painting the Engine Bay

It's finished! Did a lot of stripping, cleaning, scraping, sanding and cussing but it's done. Everything was stripped to bare metal, metal etch primed, and painted. It's a far cry from where it was before the engine came out.
Soon I'll be able to open my hood again at the cruise-in's, yee ha!




















Now I just need a MOTOR!!

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!