Fantastic

Saw this locally posted: http://www.kijiji.ca/v-classic-cars/bridgewater/2-boss-mustangs/1110722872 I am not in the market, but it sure looks interesting.

and for those of you who like crazy photos...

Thank you all for the support. I think a clone would be a fastback made up and badged as a mach, a GT, or even a Shelby. My car is a Mach badged as a Mach. When I started this adventure, I started with a different shell that was a plain fastback. I often wonder what would have happened if I had stayed with that shell. If not tied to what the car "wanted to be", I would have ended up with a significantly different ride. There is not a single part on my car that is original to the original car. That is, even if factory correct, every part of the car is a replacement part or came from another car. When I bought the car I started with a bare shell, just like you would get from Dynacorn. It was a body in white (literally) with a VIN that determined the body color and the engine block that I decided on. What I started with.. How far I took the first shell Shell swap Finish line

I had yet another disheartening conversation with a snapperhead who called my car a clone. This individual was trying to explain to me why an original but beat to shit R Code '69 Mach I, is worth double what my fully restored to like new condition H Code '69 Mach I is worth. He pointed out the fact that the interior of my car was changed from black (3A) to white (3W), and the transmission was changed from an RAT-AM 3 speed (code 1) to an RUG-E3 4 speed (code 5), and also the non original (edelbrock) heads, intake, carb etc. for justification to say this car is a "clone" and thus not really worth anything. Seriously? An R Code is a nice option, but it is only an option. People continuously debate the value of these cars without breaking down the costs of the major components.

I should have been more clear. He offered the whole rear end, drum brakes and all, for $50. I will grab it and go from there. Thanks guys.

Recommend you upload the pic here for those that follow... I use photobucket for these photos.

I know the trim on my rear interior panels is wrong. The area at the back of the door jam looks totally off. So I went to a car show and looked at other '69s. Funny, they were all different, and all looked wrong. Does someone have a good how to on this area?

I have a 9 inch 28 spline axle. It is not posi, but it is in like new condition. My friend has a 31 spline posi for sale for about $50. I figure getting that and redoing everything would put me into if for a few hundred. Alternately, I can pay about $450 and drop in a Youkon Gear pot and have the posi. Or, I can just leave it and be happy with what I have... Decisions decisions...

Also did my first ever show yesterday. Although the crowd liked my car, the "judges" did not. I was not out for a competition but I noted all the winners were "in the club". I enjoyed the day and was very proud to be there. I worked hard to build that car. I approached another '69 owner ( who eventually won) and asked some technical questions and tried to take some reference photos, but he said his car was exactly as he bought it a few years ago and he didn't know anything about it.

Hey all. I have not posted much about this car for a while now. I have another thread running where we are talking about steering issues. I like those tech talks. Being an engineer I enjoy technology and how things work, so the steering issues are kinda fun to work through. To bring you up to speed, after yet another disaster story from a shop, I was sent to someone for help. There is a local guy who was recommended to help me sort out some of the major issues with the car. This guy wins best of show at all the local events and I've seen what he can do. I went to talk to him and was very impressed. He took the car while I went on vacation for a week. while I was gone, he took off the doors, fenders, hood, valence, bumpers, and a few other pieces. He had the car rewired to clean up some of that mess, and reassembled things so that the doors shut properly, the lines looked right, and the windows open and close properly. He did all this in six days and the bill was very reasonable. I still have a long way to go, but at least the car looks right and I can close the doors. Today there was not much traffic and my local auto club shop was quiet, so I limped the car down so I could put it up on the hoist and have a look. Again, the work that was done previously makes me gag. We could see right away that the car was not safe to be on the road. We found the front suspension has been installed wrong. The passenger side lower control arm was barely attached. The steering column has some issues and the rag joint is falling apart. Oil is leaking in several spots and there are assembly issues to be sorted out all over. The good news is that we can find these issues and get things fixed right. The parts list will not be as crazy at it has been in the past. As frustrated as I am, I was actually happy to be under the car with a buddy going over things and learning about how to do some of these repairs. I still have skin like rice paper and bleed like a stuck pig, but I actually had a smile on my face for a while as I fixed a few things. Fantastic!

that rear bumper deserves an article all on it's own. I remember when magazines actually had useful articles on stuff like that. Now the mags are just repetitive advertising. Love the bumper and everything you are doing.

This is a nice summary of the upgrade options: http://www.nzmustang.com/newintoold/newintoold.htm

but why would Dynacorn develop this with a GM part rather than the Ford part? 69Gmachine, please contact me to discuss your developments in steering.

I've been mulling the steering upgrade issue for quite some time. I'd like to spend a day in a junkyard getting the feel of some of the parts. I know there are aftermarket kits to do this, but they all seem.... Off...to me. Why? I'm not sure. I put 2004 brake rotors on the car using the Vintage Venom kit. I liked the idea of bolting on Ford Mustang parts on my Ford Mustang. Now, if any kit used 2004 (or other year) mustang power rack to upgrade the '69, that would be something! So, I'm looking at the photos online and right off I see that newer mustangs have a power rack at the front of the engine rather than the rear. This means the steering direction would actually be reversed since the tie rod is attached to the front of the spindle rather than the back. The solution for that is a simple gear, which also introduces the potential of changing the wheel LTL ratio. Has anyone ever played with this? I am wondering if I could develop a kit and have it modeled such that anyone could have one fabbed locally. The result would be a kit that upgrades the steering with new off the shelf mustang parts. 3D printing is rapidly changing how we look at these things.

what is the status of the TCP rack you had? I never got a response to any PMs or emails.

Got new mid-eye springs yesterday. Drove the car (slowly) to a shop to talk about some other issues. I can't believe almost every detail of the work done at the last place I went has to be redone. I am debating taking the matter to court. All the work they did was low quality and has to be redone. To add to that, they took the car on a joyride and destroyed the transmission. A court will certainly rule in my favor, but collecting the money would be near impossible.

Sitting too low in the back. The driver side is lower and the wheel got marked by the wheel well going over a large bump. I'm going to assume the rear leafs need replacing. A local shop has a set of new springs in stock (shipping here is a PITA) but they are the reverse eye one inch lowering from Scott Drake. So, I am hoping they do the job anyways. I can't help but think there should be a way to bolt on a mod to make this somewhat adjustable. I've read other posts about putting an adjustable coil over in place of the shock, the concensus of those posts was that this was a very bad idea. I'm wondering if these is more info out there about what didn't work for others. I believe the only thing better than learning from your mistakes is learning from the mistakes of others. Fantastic!

I have finally gotten to the point where I am concerned and addressing stance issues. To refresh, this car is running Vintage Venom adaptors for the '04 Cobra brakes. Anthracite torque thrust deep dish Wheels are 8 inch front and 10.5 rear. I have just completed the wheel alignment. During that it was noted that the driver side rim has bumped the factory upper control arm and the '04 caliper. The rub mark was notiable, but very faint. Too close for comfort, so I will be dropping in a 3mm spacer to gain the clearance. I like the look so far The rear rims do not extend past the wheel well But I did note that the rear driver tire touched the chrome trim in the wheel well when going over a large bump. It was on the driver side, which sits slightly lower than the passenger side for some reason. I now have to figure out how I am going to address that issue. Perhaps just an old school shackle kit. I note that the stance is not right yet. But I'm working on it.. Fantastic!

Guillaume, Do you have photos of the tail shaft, and the shifter installed with the rods?

My transmission definitely is an RUG-E3. I talked to the tech at Hurst and he was insistent that this is a big block transmission. I think the issue may be with the tail shaft. I tried having this conversation with him, but he started to tell me that Ford would grab any transmission for use on the assembly line and parts were mixed and matched. I was not in the mood, so I thanked him and hung up.

I am posting this here rather than project progress because I am interested in this particular topic. I struggled to get correct parts due to the difficulty in finding good information about the parts online. That is part of the fun of this hobby, but it sure hurts when you have it wrong.. I chose my transmission based on the information on Dave Kee's web site: http://www.davidkeetoploaders.com/idchart2.htm By this chart, I went looking for either RUG-AG 1969 Mustang 302, 351 close 28-spline RUG-E3 1969 Mustang, Cougar 302, 351 wide 28-spline (ok, spacing on the cut and paste is wonky) So I found a nice RUG-E3 and had it rebuilt. For some reason I missed the fact that the bellhousing on the transmission was wrong. I was sure I had the right one, but I guess not. The bellhousing apparently was out of a Ford Truck, and thus is one inch longer than the correct part. Because of that, the transmission was rebuilt with the longer shaft, and then the clutch pedal needed to be changed and the mount was wrong and the drive shaft had to be cut and on and on and on.... It is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle and one piece is incorrect, so you change all the other pieces to match the one that was incorrect in the first place. ID all the correct parts, or pay the price! So now I am on to the shifter. The car has a Hurst Competition Plus shifter. It is truely sad to hear that Hurst does not know any of their own part numbers and can not identify their own products. The hurst shifter was not working properly and Hurst was unable to say if the shifter was correct because they do not know the old part numbers. They recommend buying a new one of course. The reverse rod seemed to be wrong, so they recommended buying a new installation kit. They could not identify the part numbers on the existing Hurst suppied rods because they don't know any of the product numbers for the things that they sell. The new kit arrived, and all the parts have different numbers, but are identical to the parts I already had. The shop called them back and they said that it was not their fault because the transmission was wrong. They now insist that an RUG-E3 is for a 390 engine and that somehow makes the rods on the transmission not fit correctly. Folks, I thinks this is all BS. I would really appreciate if someone could point me a good source of parts identification with cross references and photos. I can find lots of photos online, but it is always hard to tell if the photo is accurately reflected in the description. A few years from now I will have saved up enough scratch to change the bellhousing to the correct part and then change all the parts that are now incorrect because of that oversight. FML. Fantastic

Don't want to talk work too much. Sorry about that. Do you guys agree that a reasonable shop would know that a car with no drive shaft would require transmission oil? I don't claim to be a mechanic, but I knew that. To me, going over every inch of a car, checking all the fluids, includes checking the transmission, even a standard that does not have a dipstick and requires a few extra seconds to unscrew the plug. Am I being unreasonable? I asked a few shops at first, and they said they would not check if they had not installed the tranny. But then when I said the drive shaft was not installed, they all agreed the fluid would have drained out.

Hi everybody. I have more to talk about on this thread. So, first I want to let you all know that back in high school I was voted most likely to be struck by lightning. The saga continues... I had the engine and transmission for my Mustang rebuilt by very experienced high end specialty shops. The two items were stored separate from the car while I was away working. While I was gone, the company that was storing the car asked if they could put the engine and tranny together and put them in the engine bay. This made sense so I did it. Bad idea, but anyway... it was done. Years go by and the car is not getting done, so I hire a "hot rod" shop to assemble everything. I tell them that much of the car is held together for transport, and that everything has to be checked over. The 4 speed engine and four speed toploader are bolted, but not wired or connected and... important note..... THERE IS NOT DRIVE SHAFT. Remember this point. It becomes important. The shop reviews the job and quotes a price and schedule. I accept and the adventure continues. Within a few DAYS of starting the job, the shop owner calls and says that he has a situation that I might be able to help him with, and that it would benefit me. He has an employee that needs to borrow money, and he will knock $500 off the agreed price if I will pay my bill up front. I.... being a trusting idiot... do it. Months go by with little progress, but then things start happening. They call me looking for money for parts. I say no, I will obtain the parts myself. (Trust is gone) Parts are obtained and are being put on the car. Shop owner makes a big deal out of telling me that he is likely going to loose money on building my car, but he loves the car and is going to stick to the deal he made. Progress is being made, I am happy for a while. As we get closser and closser to the end, I am dumping money like crazy into parts to finish. It is killing me and I am drained... totally... but it is time to take the car home. The shop is stalling. On two separate occasions I am told the car is ready and I get to the shop and find out they are not ready. Then I arrive on Friday last week and the owner of the shop says the car is not ready, there is something wrong with the shifter. I tell him I am going to flatbed the car to a transmission shop and get it looked at. He then tells me that he has spent too much time and money on the car to let it go, and that there is still $2200 owing on the car. I avoided the confrontation and told him we would work it out later. I asked what the extra charges were for, and he says they spent 12 hours working on the steering. I asked what the problem was and he said the steering was eratic and going crazy and they had taken the control valve apart to rebuild it, but that it did not fix the problem. I responded that the power steering lines were reversed, but he insisted that was not the problem. I looked under the car and could see that the power steering lines were reversed. I avoided the confrontation and asked what else had led to the extra charges. He told me they had spend days working on the shifter, but could not get it shifting correctly. He then told me that.... ok .... hold on... He had taken the car out for a drive, and that first and second pulled really hard, but that he could not get it to shift into third or fourth. I bit my tounge.... This car had not been registered or insured, and he had gone out on a joy ride without my permission. I waited for a truck, and towed the car (flatbed) to a good transmission shop. Within hours the shop owner calls me and asks if the hot rod shop had installed the drive shaft. I responded that they had. He then says, "then they should have realised that there was zero tranismission fluid in that car, since you have to put the tranny fluid in AFTER you put the drive shaft in, or it will all leak out." I was floored! So the shop had not filled the tranny with oil, and then took it on an unauthorized joy ride and killed the tranny! The tranny had been bone dry. I called the shop and asked the employee who did the work if he had checked the tranny. He said "no, why would I?" and I was .... like ... WTF! So I talked to the shop owner and told him he was responsible. But then he says that he never put the tranny in the car so it is not his fault, not his problem, and that I still have to pay his extra expenses for the repairs he spent time on, despite the fact that he did not repair anything. ARGGGGGG!!!! At that point I realised that I still had (have) a significant bunch of parts still at his shop. I played nice rather than show my hand, but now it is looking like the fight is unavoidable. I will not be able to get the parts out prior to this coming to a head. He has been texting me all day asking for money, offering to take a lower payment if I pay right away. If I do not continue this tread later, you all know that I am in prison. Please take car of my car while I am away. Fantastic!

Apparently power steering doesn't work as well with the hoses cross connected.

The high intensity shopping to get this car on the road for the summer is almost complete. The engine is running and she is moving under her own power. The shake down is taking a bit of effort because the build took 8 years and ... well.... stuff happens. For example, on Friday the power steering control valve failed and ripped the steering wheel out of my friends hands as the wheels locked hard over. I am happy this did not happen at any speed! There will be lots of tinkering and projects to come, but this project is about to leave the restoration phase and drive away. Thanks all.