Defiling a 85.5 SVO, or Please, not another Fox Mustang Thread

So as to satiate the collective masses who surely have been holding their breaths in anxious anticipation of an update to this exciting build, here are some pictures of the semi-finished paint on the SVO. Actually, it turned out pretty well considering the severe lack of skill of the applicator. I shot the yellow first and learned a whole lot about what not to do, the punishment being a great deal of unplanned arm exercise and expenditures on sandpaper which will surely cause a bump in 3M's stock for the next quarter. It is amazing at how low the viscosity is for mixed automotive paint and how strong gravity seems to be in my shop. In any case, here are some pictures of the semi-finished project with only the 1/4" stripes (vinyl tape) to be applied above and below the red to add coolness. I also have to add the requisite numbers and period race product stickers which should put the car into ridiculous speed, at least visually.

BTW, the upper part of the car is the original 30 year old Oxford white paint. I only added the red and yellow areas and repainted the front and rear urethane bumpers which were in pretty sad shape. The rest of the car desperately needs painting, but it will have to wait for another day. It does compound/buff out OK so it won't be a total embarrassment.

I really need to get the interior back in and make it comfortable enough to participate in the Grassroots Motorsports Coker Tire Tour from Chattanooga to Road Atlanta next month. The car runs and drives just fine, so most of the needed work is cosmetic, but I gotta make it look presentable to keep intact any semblance of self esteem.

Looks great but I always associated the MAC livery with the Merkur and the Motorcraft scheme with the Capri and Mustang. Keep up the great work!

It is amazing at how low the viscosity is for mixed automotive paint and how strong gravity seems to be in my shop.

Hah! I need to hurry up and start myself up that steep learning curve so i can lay down some sub-$3k paint jobs on.. at least 5 of my cars.

Vigo wrote:

It is amazing at how low the viscosity is for mixed automotive paint and how strong gravity seems to be in my shop.

Hah! I need to hurry up and start myself up that steep learning curve so i can lay down some sub-$3k paint jobs on.. at least 5 of my cars.

Yeah, I found out that you really need to do trial sprays on scrap in order to get the gun adjusted right. I was using a cheap as dirt gun from Northern Supply and it worked OK but the pattern adjustment was very touchy. I had to mess with the pressure, pattern and volume settings to get it to go on thick enough to dry shiny but not too much where it would run. Tricky stuff. A high $$ gun might make it easier, DKFS. You have to dismantle the whole spray gun and clean it so it is spotless after every use.

Some further updates. I worked on getting the interior back in, but the biggest effort was to install the fuel cell enclosure that is required to isolate the tank from the driver compartment which is necessary since this is a hatchback, no trunk to serve that purpose. I had the fab shop that did the roll bar weld up a basic aluminum box with an access hatch for filling the cell. I needed to make the box easily removable so I used Dzus fasteners to attach the box to rails that I fabricated from aluminum square tubing. The rails are screwed to the car deck and the box sits on top secured with the Dzus fasteners. At first I thought of putting the Dzus springs right onto the car's deck, but that would entail more hacking of the car than I liked. The screw holes for mounting the rails to the deck are minor and could easily be welded up if need be. I am going to paint the box the same color as the rest of the interior so it blends in better. I have to carpet the back seat area to maintain that fine corinthian leather look.

The OEM carpet was re-installed along with the interior panels. I also added a cutoff switch which can be accessed from the passenger side.

I hope to get the seats back soon and finish up the exterior with the vinyl stripes above and below the red by the end of the weekend.

Continuing to reassemble and finish the exterior details. Got the interior back in after applying my limited carpet installation skills to the back seat area.

I also applied the tape stripes on the body. Not a pleasant task as it takes a steady hand, sharp eyes and patience, none of which are strong attributes in my portfolio. It did come out pretty well but I think if I had it to do over again I would have spent the time masking so that the stripes would be painted on at the same time as the big red stripe. Going around tight turns like the upper rear bumper corners without totally berkeling it up is difficult even when applying a little heat, and I mean a little. This stuff will soften excessively and stretch into a skinny mess in a second. Live and learn.

I am going to try to make it to a track day with the Tennessee Valley SCCA group at "Little Talledega" road course next weekend. I ran PDX at their event last year and I need some practice, badly. I have changed a ton of stuff on this car since then.

I have collected a bunch of period correct decals along with some car numbers (53) that I will apply next week keeping with the basic pattern of the Mac Tools cars but not exactly the same.

I gotta get me some Grassroots Motorsports sticker too!!

Looks good from 10 feet, good enough, because race car.

Harvey wrote: Looks good from 10 feet, good enough, because race car.

'XACTLY !!!! If I wanted a trailer queen I would of put the effort into restoring the '71 Mach I as it could be worth some $$ if put back to original. It is a pretty rare example of the breed.

I got some work done on the car today but didn't take any pix. I'll try to update tomorrow.

OK, so I skipped a couple of steps. I did get it ready to head out to Little Talledega early in the morning for a PDX. The car fought me every step of the way today, but I won and it's gonna get a thrashing tomorrow come hell or high water.

I made it, it made it, and together we endured four 20 minute sessions without incident and with massive driver education. I had not run the car on a road course since I did the suspension work, only auto-x, so I wasn't sure what to expect. It was a totally different vehicle and felt really good, enough for me to have some confidence in what it would do with a given input. It was PDX, so no timing, but I was able to stay up with some pretty stout cars so it was a berkleying BLAST.

I like the paint job, but please tell me you removed the driveshaft before you towed the car on that awful dolly...

In reply to Sky_Render:

It'll be fine with a manual transmission, no worries.

What an amazing build, I can’t believe I’ve only just seen it.

I was reading some of the earlier entries and saying ‘No, no’ to myself reading about your rear suspension. I’m glad ApexCarver helped you out. The only thing I disagree with him about is Corner Carvers. It was a great site about 15 years ago, but these days unless you think the entire Bush family are limp wristed liberals and have the ability and patience to adsorbed every single thread ever written and find some obscure piece of knowledge hidden on page 599 of a 2,500 page thread 6 years ago you will soon be hounded out for being a pinko commie and not reading the rules about asking questions that have already been answered. There are threads on there with so many pages that none of my browsers (IE, Chrome and Safari) can actually read the last page, it keeps bumping back to previous ones.

Love the car.

One quick Q about the series you are going for in SVRA, what series is it? Is it a road racing series or is it some kind of time trial? I wasn’t aware of any road racing series that allows roll bars not full cages or anyone that allows main roll hoops that bend beyond 180degrees. Can you point me at the series and regs please?

Actually this is the second time I have pulled the car with a dolly and the first time I did take the driveshaft out, but after investigating it more I came to the same conclusion as tuna55 and left it in this time. It didn't seem to have any problem with the tow and the trans worked great on the track.

I have a 26' enclosed trailer that I used to haul the drag car all over the east coast, but I opted for the dolly for the day trip this time. It's a lot easier and cheaper to haul the dolly than the trailer, but I did miss the advantages like all the tools, generator, compressor, A/C, etc provided by the trailer. I'm sure it will be employed in the near future though.

In reply to Adrian_Thompson:

Thanks for the comments Adrian. Corner Carvers is quite a site (sight??) isn't it? I think it and YellowBullet are prime examples of how some folks lose all sense of propriety when banging on the keyboard.

The SVRA series are all road racing events. Since they are focused mainly on older stuff that they want to maintain in more-or-less vintage condition their rules for roll bars and cages are looser than for modern series. Their roll bar and cage recommendations are based on the 1972(!!) SCCA GCR but of course they allow more modern designs too. If I did it over again I would have made sure that my fabricator didn't do more than a 180 bend on that main hoop. Too late now....

It is a little weird that their roll bar/cage rules are relatively loose while other safety rules are very strict like having to have a FIA FT3 fuel cell, head and neck restraint, fire suppression, three layer suit, and so on, but it is understandable that they don't want owners of vintage cars to have to hack them up to participate.

I have yet to have my car fully approved by SVRA yet but I am progressing toward that goal and my communication with them has been all positive.

Their website has a ton of information including their GCR, groupings and car specs.

Oh, and by the way, I ran the car with the poor man's three link and it seemed to be pretty happy. I did not hear any creaking, moaning or groaning from the rear end and it was getting a pretty serious workout. There was only one time going into turn 1 where I detected any inkling of it wanting to do the infamous snap-oversteer routine but it was not overly snappy and I could correct before taking an unplanned excursion.

I would really like to get someone who know what the heck they are doing to make a couple of laps in this thing and give me some feedback, since I have no idea of where the weaknesses are. I'm pretty sure that the car's ability exceeds the drivers at this point, which is a pretty sad statement considering the car we are talking about...

I just looked at the SVRA site, it says the cut off for Group 6 is vehicles that were in production prior to 1972. Is there some kind of waiver they've given you?

In reply to Adrian_Thompson:

Yes. They will allow cars in 6/MP that have a history in many of the "showroom stock" series over the years even if they are newer than 1972. I had originally petitioned to be included in Group 8 which actually looked to me to be a better fit for the SVO than to be grouped with some of the "big bore" cars that run in group 6, but that is what they offered me so that's what I am pursuing at this point.

One way to get an idea of what cars are actually running in the various groups is to look at the previous event results. For example in last year's SVRA National Championship event there were cars as new as 2001 in Group 6/MP (a Panoz GT2). There was also a 1995 Mustang Cobra-R in that class. You just have to make your case for a particular car. I think I would still rather be in Group 8, but I'm going to take what I can get.

Made it to the Grassroots/Classic Motorsports Coker Tire Tour to Road Atlanta for the Mitty. Great time at a well planned event. Kudos to the Studdards and Cokey Coker for sponsoring, planning and executing great event. It was a hell of a ride down Georgia 60 into Dahlonega trying to keep up with that little white BMW. The "parade" laps at the track were way better than expected too with plenty of rope being handed to the group which took advantage at every opportunity. Glad that I have done many laps there in the past!

The car performed great the whole time.