Wookie's 69 vert

[dpuwookie79 11]

I started this project a couple of years ago (bought the car in march of '09)...long before stumbling across the treasure chest that is this site. It's about time I put up a progress thread with some pics. It's a 69 stang with 302, 2bbl, manual drum brakes, and power steering. It didn't look like anything, other than the paint (there were 5-6 layers of it on the car), had been changed since stock.

 

Here's a picture of the car before I trailered her home:

 

 

Notice the thick enamel paint... plenty of things lurk in the shadows ... :wacko:

Edited January 6, 2011 by dpuwookie79

[dpuwookie79 11]

After pulling up the carpet, I discovered that the "floor pans" were actually galvanized sheet metal heald in place by rivets and roofing tar. This is a shot after I pulled up the sheet metal and pulled out the rivets. This project was going to be interesting...

[dpuwookie79 11]

The underside of the car didn't look good at all. This thing was going to need a total undercarriage replacement. Framerails, trunk floor, floor pans, torque boxes, and inner rockers. The whole 9 yards.

[dpuwookie79 11]

Looking at the exterior, there were quite a few problems. The doors both had rust holes in them, so at the very least, I knew I was going to have to replace the door skins. Both front fenders had a fair amount of filler in them and would probably need replaced. I was hoping the two quarter panels could be salvaged, but once I dug into it, I found wire mesh and a t-shirt filling this quarter panel. UGH!

[dpuwookie79 11]

The trunk lid had a fair amount of cancer on it. It would be difficult at best to repair. I later decided to get a fiberglass trunk from maier. Will post pics of that as I get to that point in the timeline. You can see from the other picture why I think the car had been in some front end collision. The cowl vent panel on the right side of the car was buckled and looked like it had been hammered out to fit back into place. In any case, it wasn't horrible work, and was functional....just wasn't terribly pretty. I guestimated it happened in the mid/late 90's, because one of the replacement parts I found had a website URL sticker on it still...and that repair was definitely not recent.

[dpuwookie79 11]

That's all I have for right now. I'll continue the saga tonight, when I get home!

[ak70stang 11]

Wow, you have got one heck of a project. But it is a vert. One of those full pans would be sweet for your car.

[rangerdoc 22]

Good luck with your trunk lid. I won't even attempt to describe the issues with mine, but you can look in my progress thread to get an overview.

[dpuwookie79 11]

In retrospect, that's exactly what I should have done ak70...but being my first car and having a knack for doing things the hard way, I got separate pieces lol. Actually, I'm pretty sure I've done just about everything the hard way. Here's a few pics of when the floor inner rockers/floor pans/torque boxes were removed and replaced.

[dpuwookie79 11]

Rear frame rails/quarter panel replacement. (That's my Dad's hand you see poking through in the pic of the rear frame rails.)

[dpuwookie79 11]

I neglected to take photos when we put the doors on...probably because both of our hands were full! Here's a few shots after that and new fenders were on. Was also working on updating drum brake components.

 

I also included a shot of the new undercoating I put on under the rear wheel well and the rear frame rail. A coat of Eastwood's rust encapsulator under their rubberized undercoating. Should be plenty well sealed up!

 

Last shot is putting the steering wheel back in...you can see the primed floors, before I put in sound deadener.

[dpuwookie79 11]

First pic is sound deadener. Picked up a box of the eastwood stuff. It's thick and works really well! Also included a pic of the motor after going over components with engine enamel....last pic is the motor happily back home!:clap:

[dpuwookie79 11]

Here are the pictures of the trunk lid and extensions I picked up from maier. I still need to fit the end caps and figure out what to do about the lid. The lid seems to fit find, except for the points of it up near the convertible top. They sit quite a bit higher than the surrounding metal...while the center top of the lid is flush. :confused1:

[dpuwookie79 11]

That nasty red and 5-6 other layers of paint + filler had to come off of the car... Mmm old crap off, fresh primer on :)

[dpuwookie79 11]

Going over the car with a gloss black, until I can find a body shop that will handle the body work & painting. I'd really like to learn how to do the bondo work, but there seem to be some conflicting ways of doing it...primer then filler...or filler then primer? Any advice would be welcome!

 

I'm also pretty intimidated by trying to get the fiberglass trunk/extensions to fit better. I need to find a good primer site that will give me some solid direction on how to best handle the process...especially the corners on the top of the hood that I mentioned earlier...

[dpuwookie79 11]

I had the hood and cowl vent cover acid dipped..there was just too much crap on them from years of abuse. I got them back and to my surprise the hood was in _excellent_ condition. Probably the best part of the whole car. After seeing it, I almost don't want to put a hoodscoop or anything on it. I've yet to decide how I want the car's finish to look like. Anyway, these are some shots I took earlier this week...so this is pretty close to where she is today! Still working on getting the hood/fenders aligned well, obviously lol

[70mstang 11]

Looking good! For the trunk lid you need an extra pair of hands. There is a little adjustment room where in the bolts. I had to drill out the holes a little to allow for more adjustment. I spent days bolting and unbolting trying to get it lined up by myself and after getting a buddy to help we were done in 10 minutes!

 

If your trunk lid & extensions are like mine, you'll need to do some custom work to close the space between the fibreglass & the body. I got a good start on it before handing it off to my body shop.

 

For bondo, I believe it needs to sit on the bare metal so it adheres to the metal. Most folks use self etching primer after sanding the car down to bare metal which seals the metal and sticks really well to the bare metal.

[dpuwookie79 11]

I found a body shop that is willing to do the paint on the car for me. The guy there (who turned out to be the owner), was nice enough to talk to me for an hour about how filler work is done...and how forgiving it is. He agreed with what you said 70mstang. I need to go down to bare metal with ~80 grit sand paper and then start putting bondo over that.

 

I'm finishing a few spots of undercoating that I had missed. It was nice to get a view of the underbody, when it was on a lift at the muffler shop (put a set of flowmaster dual chamber 40 series on it)! So, I'll start the body work, once that is finished...probably this weekend! I ordered a gallon of evercoat's rage body filler, as well as some of their glaze coating. It came highly recommended from the body shop I was talking to earlier. It shouldn't be a problem doing the filler in my ~40-50 degree garage, should it?

 

I will hopefully be able to do a majority of the body work in the next month or two, and hand it off to the body shop for paint sometime in march/april. I just need to figure out what exactly I'd like the end look to be for the car. I'm afraid of adding too many ornamental accessories, like a hood scoop/side scoops/etc. I'll post a few pics of cars that I have seen that I like. Suggestions are appreciated!

 

Pic #1 - this is closest to what I think I would like it to look like, but I have a mach 1 style scoop, instead of the shaker: http://www.1969stang.com/gallery/DJs69Stang/img_0453?full=1

 

Pic #2 - This is the paint job that has become most appealing to me...I'm not completely attached to it, though. If I did this, and went with the maier side scoops, I'd paint them red as well. http://69mustangconvertible.com/

 

I'm just afraid of making it look like "there's too much going on" with it. Save me, if i'm taking it too far! :)

Edited January 13, 2011 by dpuwookie79

[70mstang 11]

I'm doing the same build as you are =)

 

I went with the 10" Shelby stripes 2" apart down the middle of the car. Yea, I'd think the side scoops should be the same color as the car. I went without them, but they are cool.

[ATTACH]8070[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]8071[/ATTACH]

 

You may want to stick a small heater in the garage, I think most cans of the stuff say to use at 60 degrees to 80 degrees.

[Pakrat 1,043]

I'm not a fan of those odd custom style stripes on each end of the scoop and arrow point, with everything else looking period correct they just seem off scale and out of place. The more Mustang correct looking Shelby stripes are still a better option if you want a dual LeMans stripe in my opinion but I have seen this version done more than once to avoid the stripes running over the unique 69/70 arrow point nose. For stripes on this year car I still think a more 70ish/Super Snake type of center stripe works best and of course I'm most partial to the 69' black out treatment above all of them.:rolleyes:

 

I will say this though Wookie, when I see someone going thru all that hidden stuff that you are I always feel better about my choice to do accident repair on my rust free vert no matter how long it has taken me as oppossed to striping it down and buying another car and taking my chances. I had a thin layer of surface rust on my passeneger floor pan from an old heater core leak and that was it. Still breaks my heart to no longer be all original but those are the breaks.

[dpuwookie79 11]

70mStang, I've been following your progress thread closely...you've made some outstanding progress and your car is going to be a real beaut! That gold on green you have is SLICK! I think I am going to order the maier side scoops (similar to the one's on pak's rebuild) and see what they look like on there. Can't hurt to mock it out and get a better idea of how it might look. I really should get a copy of photo shop so I can mock this out better :)

 

Pak, are you talking about blacking out the hood, like I've seen on the BOSS series? Also, yeah, this for sure has been a very trying experience! I'm convinced that for every one thing that worked on the car, when I bought it...there were 10 more that didn't. I have certainly learned a lot...and when I decide it's time to pick up another project, I know what to look for!

[Pakrat 1,043]

Yeah, the boss 302 anyway and mach 1 both had the same black out treatment on the hood, the boss also added it to the headlight buckets and tail panel too though. I've never been as much of a fan of the head light buckets but the hood was always my favorite part on my previous paint job. I'm doing it again on the remodel and adding the black to the tail panel as well this time, especially since I have the Shelby rear deck now so the inset on the lid will be black as well.

[unfrozen1969 11]

I have really enjoyed this thread. Having a convertible myself, you are at the stage that I wish I was at.....thanks for posting so many great photos and keep them coming....

[dpuwookie79 11]

Just a few update photos. I opted not to get it painted this spring. Instead, we're going to get the rest of it put back together and work out any remaining bugs/alignment issues that need to be taken care of. Just put the back seat and quarter trim panels back in. New upholstery on all of it! I'm not happy with how the reproduction drivers side door fits...I may end up having to weld a small bit of metal to close the gap between the fender (also a repro part) and the door. I'll get some pics of that up soon.

 

Another oddity with this build is that the glass that came with it was different on each side. The driver's side door glass is the '69 glue in type. I have the brackets and all the parts for that. The passenger side is the '70 bolt in style glass...but I don't have the brackets, or anything for it. So...I'm hunting around for something used, rather than buying the $240 reproduction parts from NPD. If anyone has a lead on this, I'd appreciate it :)

 

Here are a few updated pics.

[dpuwookie79 11]

It's been a while since I've posted progress... may as well get one in before we enter 2012! The car is off to the body shop for paint. I opted not to go for the le mans stripes. Instead, I'm following BigSecz's design. I realize grabber blue wasn't an option in '69, but hey, it's a resto-mod :)

 

Anyway, here are some pictures taken last week!