Buiding Up That '69 Beater

[JustAnOl'69 4]

Well, here's the car and here's the story:

1969 Mustang Grande, 351w, FMX, ~7 colors

After combing through Craigslist for over a year, and saving my pennies for 2 more, I was able to buy this car off a freind of my dad's back in October of 2014. It came from a storage unit where it sat after being given up on for a short while, with another storage unit of random parts, the original 351w, a ligtly built 351w in the car, a rod knock, and another 351w long block ready to swap in. It was driving as is and, after a tune up and fresh fluids, survived another 3-ish months of high school junior hot rodding with that engine knocking away until we swapped it out. The windows rattled loudly, the 1-3/4" exhaust was louder, and it was awesome.

[JustAnOl'69 4]

Winter 2014/2015:

 

After a long enough time with the motor that burned a ton of oil and had a now wicked rod knock, me and my friends gathered the tools to swap that built 1972 351w for the stock 1984 351w long block. Minus the copious amount of ATF and coolent spills, working in the dead of winter, and the lack of help on most days, it went rather well. 

 

It wasn't until about a year later that I found out the old motor was built (and toast) when I tore it appart. It has a set of Speed-Pro high(er) compression pistons and Comp Xtreme Energy cam kit. In addition to that, I ended up reusing the Edelbrock Performer RPM intake manifold, Thunder Series 650cfm carb, water pump, fuel pump, MSD 6AL ignition system, and the same FMX (which I'm assuming was built up some too, it shifted pretty hard). 

When I took the old motor appart, the massively scored cylinder walls and horribly worn main/rod bearings told me that this motor was on its last legs. The fact that I had to refill the oil twice a week should have warned me.

 

At the same time as the motor swap, I replaced the front up/low control arms with fresh repo ones.

Once that mess was done with, I now could confidently drive the car all over town.

 

[JustAnOl'69 4]

Jan 2015

Finally fixed that exhaust leak from the motor swap, turns out it was two open plug holes in the back of each cylender head. But hey, now the motor can breathe a little more.

Duel 2 1/4" pipes from the old H-pipe back, with a pair of Super 44 Flowmasters

[url=https://flic.kr/p/FiBBMS]

[RPM 1,190]

Cool story and thanks for the pics! Nice that you have a spare motor. What part of Wyoming are you located. Back in the mid 80's we were seriously considering a move to Cody. And a big welcome to our little world.

[rwcstang 201]

yes, awesome build. Luckily, you had an extra motor to work on.

 

post up some videos, if you can.  

[JustAnOl'69 4]

Thanks RPM and rwcstang! If I remember right, It was a little ways east of Cheyanne

Next chaper, almost caught up:

Through the bulk of 2015, There were many little imporvements and fixes: some gauges, making it legal at the drag strip, replacing a lot of the P/S parts (a couple were old and leaked pretty bad), and the real kicker: a new set of rims.

 

She loped down the strip and made a best pass of:

17.33

Oh yeah.

This was before I got to rebulding the carb, It just choked whenever I tried to stomp on it.

Wheels are a matching set of 17x8 American Racing Ansen Sprints with some nice 245*45*R17 all-season Pirrellis (high school graduation gift), and the gauges are Autometer Wideband A/F and trans. temp.

[JustAnOl'69 4]

October 2015:

Just rebuiding a carb here in the dorm, nothing to see

 

Ooo, artsy

 

That finally fixed the fuel starvation/flooding issue for a while.

[JustAnOl'69 4]

Here's where it gets interesting:

Winter Break 2015/2016

By this time I had finally decided to swap the AOD overdrive I had bought a while ago for the FMX that was in the car. After I had gathered all of the parts for the '69 to '80s conversion (or so I had thought), I set to work. Aaand then, the project that should have taken a week or so ended taking over a month. Issues ranging from not having all of the parts, companies sending the wrong ones, and not having the right info to start with, it was a mess. And after all that, the AOD I put in the car was broken. I was told it was rebuilt then sat for a few years, and it all looked clean and new inside.But alas, the new transmision was borken and refued to go into 4th gear/overdrive, no matter what I played with.

 

So the weekend after Spring break 2016, me and some freinds set to work. I had bought another AOD, this one rebuilt ~5k miles ago (so I knew it worked) and was "built with kevlar clutches to handle 1400hp." Whatever. Even if it's half that strong I'll be more than good. But as a deal sweetener, it came with a seperate trans. cooler and a B&M Rtchet Shifter.

IMG_20160327_145943

 

 

We actually almost got it all done on the first weekend, and is was driving by the next weekend. Now, I can cruise down the highway at 75 and 2400rpms.

 

I still get a whopping 11.2mpg average though, but I know highway milage is much better.

2016-04-03 13.59.40

[TexasEd 188]

sweet, cool that you can get so much done at school