about the project

I purchased a 1969 Ford Mustang in October of 2005 for $500.00. The car had already been stripped out, it had no interior, no engine, and no transmission. There was some rust on the floor pans, the trunk was clean, . The hood was rotted, the doors were in great condition, as was the exterior. There had been some bondo applied to the quarter panel on both the driver and passenger side. The fenders were good except for a little bit of rust behind the front wheels.

The car is a two door hardtop and was orginally painted Winter Blue Metallic with a light blue standard interior. I decoded the VIN number and discovered that it came with a V8 302 cubic inch with an automatic C4 transmission and a 2.79:1 rear differential.

Right after I bought the car I got it towed to my storage unit in Cumming, GA. While in the storage unit I sanded the car by hand and primed the exterior so that it would not rust. The car was in the storage unit from November 2005 to May 2007. The car has now been moved to my garage and I have began working on it.

starting fresh - 06/09/07

After the Mustang has been transfered from my storage unit to my garage, I began on the body work. I began to sand off the primer that I had applied when I put it in the storage unit. This time however, I had an electric sander so the time went by much faster. I was able to get down to the original paint color, and even down to the metal in some areas of the quarter panel on the passenger side. I worked on it for a whole day and got the entire passenger side sanded down so that I could tell where bondo had been applied. I also took this opportunity to check for any rust that I might not of caught earlier.

After looking for a couple of years, I've found somebody that works no more than two miles from where I live, and he is fairly inexpensive. I've known since the beginning that I'm not going to be doing the body work by myself, so I went in search for somebody affordable that I can trust. Ken, my body guy, came by the house to look at my mustang, we went over the body top to bottom and he told me that we would probably want to replace the fenders and quarter panels since they had some bondo and rust.

shaping the exterior - 06/17/07

I took off the passenger side fender as well as the passenger side door and dropped them off at Ken's shop today. We'll be trashing the fender but atleast he can begin working on the door. I've been price checking different online sources for fenders, and the cheapest that I have found so far is $199.95 through Mustangs Unlimited (ITEM #69006 01, #69005 01)

I've also managed to sand the entire trunk almost down to the metal. From what I can tell, the trunk is in great condition, I found some minor surface rust but I sanded right through it and got it all off. I'm still not able to open it; I'll more than likely end up crawling underneath the car and popping it open from inside. From what I could tell sitting inside the car, the underside of the trunk was still the original color and there was no rust on it. I began to scrape off all of the sealant from when the glass had been installed on the car, man is that some tacky stuff.

I'm going to end up replacing the back panel that holds the brake lights because it is damaged on the passenger side from where somebody had done a poor install job on the replacement quarter panel.