12-06-09 Teardown begins

First task was to remove the doors, hood, and trunk. Not much to that. The interior carpet was peeling off in the corners. The original builder put foil-backed insulation down under it, which helps with noise and heat, but the carpet adhesive doesn't stick to the foil very well at all (had the same problem on 4760).

Also, you can see a bit of coolant from a slow drip coming from the water pump, which was probably going to fail soon. It'll get replaced. You can see in the interior shot how much hair collected from Mikey the mutt where he usually sat. He gets really offended if I don't take him with me when I go driving it. The red seat mount plates didn't have to be red, that's just the only color of paint I had handy to cover up the bare steel.

You can see Mikey supervising in this shot. He's got a bit more gray than when I built my first FFR...so do I.

A shot from the rear quarter after removed the LeMans gas cap.

Mikey poses for the camera as I unload the donor motor I bought from a guy on the trading post at work. No real need to show this shot, other than I had a similar shot with Mikey watching when I unloaded the motor for my last build (here).

The motor is a 351 Windsor, fuel injected, from a '96 E-250 van. I wanted the factory roller block, which were only done from 94-96. The guy I bought it from said it had 28,000 miles...he had it in his garage for years for a project, but finally went another route. Most of that mess of plumbing and wiring will go into the scrap heap.

All lights and trim removed, the body is ready to be lifted off. The body weights about 90-100 lbs. Fiberglass with a vinylester resin. The original builder already ground out and filled the seams, smoothed things out and threw some primer on it. The primer has been exposed to so much weather, bugs and other road debris I'm probably going to have to sand much of it off, but that will come later.

And the body sits on the wooden 'body buck' next to the Mustang, waiting patiently for some fresh new coat of paint.

And a front view of the bare-naked chassis...

These shots are more for reference later...right rear suspension. T-bird Supercoupe (3.27 gears) will get replaced with a unit a I rebuilt with fresh clutches for the traction lock and 3.55 gears for quicker acceleration. I may do some upgrades to the lines and switch to the larger brakes from a Mustang Cobra. The T-bird knuckles may get upgraded with spherical bushings designed by David Borden if funding allows, which would allow me to ditch the horzontal quad shocks.

Same thing, viewed from the left.

Trunk area. Battery will get moved into a compartment I'll put under the trunk floor from FFMetal, if there's enough room above the rear differential.

And the mess of wiring from the factory Mustang harness, and the extension wires needed to use the donor gauges. All of that will get yanked and replaced with a much cleaner Autometer setup.

A view of the engine bay with the body off. Very reliable, but very messy donor engine setup. It will look much cleaner before I'm through. The car didn't have power steering when I bought it, but the manual rack required wayyy too much effort for quick maneuvers in autocross racing. Power is the only way to go in a 90" wheelbase car this light, with this much power on tap.

A view of the right side. You can see the factory EGR (exhaust gas recirculation) system is all in place, as well as the charcoal filter). The original builder put some heat shields on the front of the footboxes...a nice touch that probaly helped keep toes from getting cooked from the header heat. The gorgeous polished stainless sidepipes from GasN Performance will stay. The headers will get swapped out with slightly shorter units for a 351.

And the left side. Starter solenoid and unused factory wiring circuits coiled up and partially hidden from view (when the body is on). Wiring will get ditched, and solenoid will be relocated. That's it for this weekend!