While we were in Honduras, Lauren and I discussed one day buying and restoring a classic car. After looking at pictures of different cars, we decided on the Ford Mustang since we both liked the way they looked and that parts were fairly abundant--knowing how to work on them was an added bonus. We figured that we would buy one in a few years upon owning our own home and having steady jobs. I happened to run across an ad on Craigslist.com for a complete 1966 Mustang coupe with a 3-speed manual transmission for $1350. The first thing I did was call my dad to see if he would be interested in buying it for himself, but he then offered to front the money to buy it for me and Lauren instead. I talked to Lauren about it, and she thought it would be a good idea since the car was complete and very affordable.
Upon arriving in Fontana to look at the car, we realized that it didn't have a 289 motor like the ad claimed...instead it had a straight-6 which meant that it also had a 4-lug rear and front spindels. Everything else about the car looked good though and since it was complete, I couldn't pass it up. I low-balled him by offering him $800, but he said that he wouldn't sell it for less than $1200. A few minutes later I talked him down to $1100 and had a pinkslip in my hand. We had a tow truck from AAA come out to pick up the car to take back to my parents house in Riverside for storage.
Besides the car being set up for a manual transmission, another good thing about it was that it had an original center console much like my first 1964 1/2 mustang. The console was s
till in great shape, although it needed to be cleaned up quite a bit. The rest of the interior was in-tact (or in the trunk) and would be easy to restore with a little time and money. I am going to put in the 289 that was rebuilt and dropped into my first Mustang when I was in high school. I took it out to put in a 302 that was in my dad's old 1973 1/2 ton Ford pickup truck. I'm fortunate to still have the 289 sitting in the garage with a high rise Edelbrock "Performer RPM" intake manifold on it. I'll have to convert the front spindels and rear differential to a 5-lug set-up, but I may have found a guy that will sell both of those to me for $200.
In the mean time, I will spend my extra time cleaning up the parts that I will be able to re-use so that I won't have to buy new parts. I brought the entire center console to Anaheim Hills to clean it up in my spare time after work. I think that it has turned out pretty nice so far. I'll clean up the glove box door next by also stripping off the faded-black paint that adorns it. For now I'd say that the console looks pretty darn good. My only concern is that it fits with the 5.0 Mustang T5 transmission that I'll be putting in.
Looking at the rest of the car, its not so bad...
I'm going to do my best to document the restoration process so that my kids will one day have something to look back on--maybe it will inspire them to do something great. Plus I just like to write and upload pictures, so this provides a good outlet.
Upon arriving in Fontana to look at the car, we realized that it didn't have a 289 motor like the ad claimed...instead it had a straight-6 which meant that it also had a 4-lug rear and front spindels. Everything else about the car looked good though and since it was complete, I couldn't pass it up. I low-balled him by offering him $800, but he said that he wouldn't sell it for less than $1200. A few minutes later I talked him down to $1100 and had a pinkslip in my hand. We had a tow truck from AAA come out to pick up the car to take back to my parents house in Riverside for storage.
Besides the car being set up for a manual transmission, another good thing about it was that it had an original center console much like my first 1964 1/2 mustang. The console was s
till in great shape, although it needed to be cleaned up quite a bit. The rest of the interior was in-tact (or in the trunk) and would be easy to restore with a little time and money. I am going to put in the 289 that was rebuilt and dropped into my first Mustang when I was in high school. I took it out to put in a 302 that was in my dad's old 1973 1/2 ton Ford pickup truck. I'm fortunate to still have the 289 sitting in the garage with a high rise Edelbrock "Performer RPM" intake manifold on it. I'll have to convert the front spindels and rear differential to a 5-lug set-up, but I may have found a guy that will sell both of those to me for $200.
In the mean time, I will spend my extra time cleaning up the parts that I will be able to re-use so that I won't have to buy new parts. I brought the entire center console to Anaheim Hills to clean it up in my spare time after work. I think that it has turned out pretty nice so far. I'll clean up the glove box door next by also stripping off the faded-black paint that adorns it. For now I'd say that the console looks pretty darn good. My only concern is that it fits with the 5.0 Mustang T5 transmission that I'll be putting in.Looking at the rest of the car, its not so bad...
I'm going to do my best to document the restoration process so that my kids will one day have something to look back on--maybe it will inspire them to do something great. Plus I just like to write and upload pictures, so this provides a good outlet.
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