Horseplay: 1965 Fastback Restomod

I looked at the calendar last month and realized it had been three years since I brought my project car home. What had started in earnest as a one year father/son "refresh" project quickly veered off course. My son almost immediately lost interest (as is the way at his age) and life tossed me a couple curves and the next thing you know progress slowed to a halt. Today, things are different and it looks like I can get back in the saddle and move things forward.

The car is no longer destined to be my son's (although now that he is driving he is hinting he may have renewed interest!). It will be my play car and as such the plans have changed. It will be a cruiser and weekend drag car. Every component and system will be upgraded with performance in mind.

All that said, let's take a look back at where it started...

I bought the car in a completely disassembled state. Sight unseen. Picked it up with a U-Haul truck and trailer and 1100 miles later, it was home. All -in-all, it was in very good shape. Little to no rust with a good cowl, frame rails and sheet metal. Drivers side lower quarter was cut-out due to rust from a crease acquired in a parking lot type accident.

 

After getting it home, it was quickly sent off to be completely media blasted inside and out. I didn't expect to find any hidden issues and was actually surprised by just how "perfect" it really turned out to be. I cannot tell you how much of a no-brainer it is to have a car taken to metal in this manner. The time saved alone is worth the expense. Just be sure to get someone who knows what they are doing and uses the right materials.
I also had the entire car sprayed in an epoxy by the same guy, prior to picking it up.

 

Once it was back from being blasted and coated in epoxy, I set to work re-doing all the seam sealing, etc. I used SEM brand stuff for all the various uses. It costs a bit more than others but the performance during application alone was worth it. The drip rails, for instance, turned out great...with no mess! Be sure to use the right "flow" for each task.

If you look closely at the top of the frame rail inside the shock tower you will see I put a thick layer of the same sealer used on the drip rails. It flows very smoothly and leveled out great. Any water that tries to collect there now will not be a problem.

 

I got very lucky and found a guy to weld in a quarter patch for me thanks to my media blaster. This guy was older (as in retired) but still took on the odd job doing metal work on older hot rods. To say he was good doesn't do him justice. When he was done, you couldn't tell there was anything done...on either side. When it came time to smooth out the body, this area was nearly perfect.

The media blasting and quarter repair were/are the only tasks on the car that were/will not be done by me. Blasting is too messy (not too mention expensive to buy the right equipment) to do at home and the price the "old pro" charged made it too easy not to go his way.

 

I next set about getting it ready for paint. Not only was this car pretty much rust free, it was also extremely straight. Only a couple door dings here and there kind of thing. I test fit everything and lined all the panels up and got the gaps looking good. Took it apart and got it ready for spraying.

 

Next thing on the agenda was to build a spray booth in my garage. I took over the two stall side and erected a booth made of a EMT conduit skeleton with a wood frame section for a door. After a lot of research and thought I decided to build a pressurized style booth. That is, I had air blow into the booth and exit the other side. I drew fresh air in that passed through a series of filters at a good volume but very low force. It worked excellent. When running, the plastic walls would slowly expand until I was in a bubble, yet there was virtually no air flow to be felt. Doing it this way made it possible to work as long as I needed to in the booth and not have ANY over-spray "cloud" build-up. This booth would remain in place for a few weeks. Yeah, the wife loved me.

I sprayed it in primer, blocked it. And blocked it. And blocked it. You know the drill.

Then hit it with black (PPG). Then lots of clear.

 

Yep. Nothing too special about it except it is a rare color combo of Silver Smoke with a red interior.

 

Our resident Rat Rod builder is to credit for me deciding to start this post. Seems he didn't realize I had a car... :nut

I always knew I wanted to paint the car myself. I have this thing about paying anyone to do something I think I can do myself. Couple that with this other thing I have that makes me think I can do anything and you can see how things usually go. This is one of the many reasons I lost time on this project as my wife wanted our basement finished and I was not willing to pay to have it done so...

Previously in my life, I had rebuilt/reconditioned dozens of industrial pieces of equipment so working a spray gun was fairly familiar ground. Of course, the quality of paint job on a manufacturing machine is not exactly subject to the scrutiny one gets on their hot rod. I will say, however, deciding to go with black did make me a bit more nervous. Still, I saved a fortune over what it would have cost to have a pro do the work. The result, honestly, was terrific. I had a couple areas where I got a little too confident with the gun on the clear and ended up with a bit more orange peel than I would have liked but that is nothing a bit of sanding and buffing couldn't fix.

 

Yeah, I really liked it as well. I got the opportunity to see the color firsthand and that kind of changed my mind. There was a weird greenish hint to it in the right light that I just didn't car for at all. It was strange because up until that point i had never noticed it in all the pictures I had seen.

 

So as things slowed down on the car due to life's other commitments I never stopped thinking about working on it and what it was to become. I would steal an hour or two here and there to do minor things like rebuild the heater box or clean up hardware that would be one day re-used. I would read the mustang boards looking for ideas and inspiration. And buy parts. Lots of parts. If I came across a post somewhere about some cool new mod or such and it fit my plan, I bought it. My logic being by staying invested this way I was insuring I would one day get back to finishing up the project.

One of the great things about a community like here on the Fix is a little thing called a group buy. Those and special price deals from guys like Shaun have helped me to fill my parts shelves.

So let's have a look at some of what I have acquired so far. First up, I decided to go all LED for both exterior and interior lighting. That means turn signals, brakes, back-up lamps the works all from Mustang Project.

 

Absolutely. I'll shoot you a PM with my cell number. Just give me a call.

 

My goal on this, as I said earlier, was to have a 100% "new" car with all modern features and performance. I was fortunate to come across a group buy over on VMF on Nu Relic power windows that I could not pass up. I also bought a kit to add power locks and keyless entry. I went ahead and put the drivers door together to fit the parts and test operation of the Nu Relic unit. I can't say enough about it. Bolted right up and the performance is nothing short of awesome. The torque makes the motion very smooth and it's quiet.

I also fab'd a bracket to install the lock solenoid. Here's a pic of it installed. You'll also see I cleaned up all the internal parts and replaced the material on the window track. I'll do a bit more detail on everything and include more pics when I do the other door.

 

Having had other classic mustangs in my past one thing I knew I would be doing this time around was completely re-wiring the car. Not only would it make adding all the new modern power features easier, it would also eliminate all the issues one encounters with the old wiring. To this end, I decided I would buy all new factory style harnesses (except the under dash) and modify as necessary to couple them into my modified main harness. I am using a generic Painless fuse block with modern type fuses.

All the front end wiring will be hidden from sight with no wiring visible in the engine compartment except for on the engine itself.

 

Yeah, Nu Relics has the type of switch you are describing, as do others. It's actually a pretty simple design that uses a very inexpensive micro-switch...of course the finished part is not inexpensive! As far as which brand of power window to go with there is no doubt it's Nu Relics. Worth every penny compared to the others like A1 Electric.