JET 445

My car also had those bolts, I think there were only about 2 or 4 of them but after 7 years since I had pulled it apart I could not remember what they were for.

Buying the wheels is easy, the real hard part is finding tires for the 8 inch rims, you only have about 4 choices and they are all crap.

Your front will be fine but 4.25 backspace will not work on the rear, 4.5 will work with a 235 but if you want to fit a 245 I think 4.75 will be safer, this is for standard fenders, if you flatten the lip you might be able to use 4.25 backspace. I am looking at same size wheels in the Superlite from Transam Race Engineering, very nice wheel and cheap as-$250 per wheel.

I used two pieces of steel plate clamped together to do the corners of my tail light repair.

I would imagine you are also going to install a full welded in roll cage which will add enormously to the strength of the chassis. You may also be interested to see the 69 that the Roadster Shop built, very similar to yours, a 69 body on a custom chassis, go to their web site and look at " Jeff's 69 Mustang" .

Very interesting project you have here Footcutter, I look forward to your updates everyday but I do have a question for you- where the rear chassis rails mount to the main chassis the load is all taken by just the two welds, do you think you need any additional bracing similar to this one made by The Roadster Shop.

There should be slots in the rear seat base for the seat belts to come up through, this will make them go across your hips not around your waist.

I laid my harness out on the floor, connected the earths to a piece of steel tubing and then tested and repaired all the circuits, then wrapped it and installed it in the car.

Wow, nice car, I don't know what it's worth but if it was mine I would put on red Mach 1 stripes and get rid of the black wheels.

I debated the paint color for about 2 years but ended up changing to blue.

I live in Australia and I used a local Mustang importer to find a car and import it for me, I told him I wanted an old faded unmolested car, I did'nt care about the mechanical condition I just wanted a good body and that is what he got for me. When I first looked at it I saw some rust in one floor pan and some around the gas tank and I was a little disappointed but I soon realised how good it was and now I am so thankful that I was lucky enough to get one of the best 69 bodies you will ever find.

Ash, if you want that timing cover to look like new get it vapour blasted [ wet blasted with tiny glass beads ]. I had my front calipers done they came up fantastic, I think it would look great if you left it bare- a nice contrast against the black engine.

I find the squeak is nearly always caused by the spring saddle bushes, squirt a bit of lube into the bushes and see if the noise goes away.

Looking good, you sure do work fast, I've been doing mine for 7 years and I'm still not finished!!. By the way you will probably have to drop the rack down a couple of inches if you want to install the engine and trans in one unit, the bellhousing will catch on the rack.

If you have not welded the top of the cowl yet it is a good idea to glue a piece of stainless steel mesh over the air intake of your air conditioning, this will keep rubbish out of the fan and also keep mice out of the car, those little critters love to get in and chew up your interior.

Make sure you fit the grill surround and the moulding to the headlight bucket before you fit the bucket to the fender

Make sure you refit the kick panel air vents before you fit the dash and parking brake, otherwise it becomes very difficult- ask me how I know.....

I used a hole saw to cut the four corners so that I would have a nice smooth radius in the corners and then cut the edges with an angle grinder fitted with a 1mm thick cutting disc, worked great, give the edges a quick file and it turned out perfect.

If you have reproduction handles they could be the problem, the ones I bought were rubbish, they would not fit through the hole in the doorskin and I had to fit all the original internal linkages to the new handles, if I were to do it again I would rechrome the original handles.

Joins are done here behind plastic caps

I don't think you understand what I mean, look down at the top of the dash, look at the radius of the curves where the cluster mounts on top of the lower dash, they are completely different, this is why most people including me cut the dash behind the 4 plastic caps and swap each side in one complete piece. This will mean your air-con vents are in the center of the car but you will be sure of the clusters fitting because they will be going back in their original openings.

You may want to double check before you go cutting that dash there, the problem is the inner and outer curves are different, look at the curve above the air vent and look at the curve near the radio-see the difference?. When you swap the cluster and clock over they probably won't fit the curves.

I had the same problem with my new engine, it felt fine turning it over by hand but when it was running there was a ticking under the valve cover, turned out one of the rocker arms was just touching the baffle under the filler cap, a light tap with a hammer and the problem was gone. Yours is probably the same,undo your valve cover bolts and with the engine running lift the valve cover slightly, if the noise stops you have found your problem.

Interesting to note that the car in your first pic only has the tab on one fender, my very early build 69 has no tabs on either side.

Just look on Australian ebay or search for Australian XY GT shaker, full metal shaker top to bottom about $700 US.