Bought a 66 Mustang. Repair/Restoration guidance

We picked up a 66 Mustang last year, and now that we are finally thinning the herd, we are going to start on the "restoration"

The car.

66 Mustang I6 auto car with A/C. Runs and drives like a an almost 60 year old car but it does run and drive. Rust isnt bad for these cars. Im sure the terrible to repair cowl is real bad, and the drip rails above the windows are real bad. It is all one color but barely. Body has a few dings and dents. Floor pans look okay from under car, gas tank area looks okay.

The goals.

Late Model 302 from explorer carbureted, backed by a T5. Driver quality paint and rust repair, with a real nice pony interior. Front Disc, rear drums. Things that would be nice: hydraulic clutch, Power steering and power brakes for SWMBO since its for her.

I have a line on a super inexpensive V8 parts car that is supposedly complete but dissassembed. I looked at it and it looks solid besides floors.

The problems:

I have a rule that when you have a drivable project you should always do you repairs in pieces if possible to keep it drivable. Otherwise if I havent drove the car in 2 years and seen any progress I abandon the project and it never gets finished, but when I do stuff slowly and can still enjoy it and see incremental change, I keep my motivation.

The i6s and V8s had completely different everything, including spindles, brakes, steering linkage, power steering components, radiators, rear end, and trans. The power brake conversions are all different for manual and auto trans, the p/s is different from 6 to 8s etc.

The original plan was to get p/s on it and brakes upgraded with the 6, and essentially get the car done, drivable and reliable then swap to the 8 and manual then do body work. The problem is many of these kits to mutually exclusive to the engine. So now Ive been considering cobbling this thing together with the new engine and trans and as few other upgrades as possible then buy once and buy right, but I dont know how well that would work.

I cant see a good way to not blow this thing completely apart.

Any ideas or recommendations?

Open tracker suspension. Did an ebay disc brake swap to an unknown origin 66 last year. Factory style stuff, reusing the drum spindles. However, car was five lug already. He went with a streetrod style booster and master, which was a motherberkeleyer to fit and make work. Buy something more restoration ish.

Id so say explorer 8.8 vs mustang rear, just for the simplicity and availability. 

As far as the restoration goes, bodywork takes the longest, but has the potential to damage other restored bits. So start with it, honestly. Then restore the mechanicals and make it drive the way you want.

With my '67 I gradually swapped everything over to V8 specs.  I'm keeping the I6, but the brakes and handling bits were better that way.  Other than the power steering pump mount, there's not a huge reason to wait to swap everything over until you have the V8.  

I'm working on a 66 convertible right now. Doing a complete rebuild of the front suspension, Shelby Drop to the upper control arms, Borgeson PS conversion, Holley Sniper 2300 EFI. I already added a 5 speed behind the mainly stock 289.

I'm looking for a front disc conversion kit too. 

In many ways, doing an LS(x) swap will not really cost more, and it will be a million times better.  The logic here is that the small block Ferd is now so old that you will have a really hard time finding a good one (with less than 300k) for reasonable money.  The LS will fit between the towers, too.  The 4.8 is still possibly cheap--I paid $2500.00-ish for a complete 2014 unit with a transmission and all accessories.

Most stock-ish aftermarket parts are absolute junk.  The completely worn-out driving experience is not much different from the all-new stuff experience.  Stock power steering was just assist, not actual power steering.  It sucked.  If you do go the 302/T5 route, avoid the hydraulic clutch ripoff.  Just do a cable setup (Mustang Steve?); it works and feels just as good, plus it's more reliable.

The best bet is to do a weld-in (Mustang II-like) setup like that which is offered by many companies, including TCI (there are many lower priced options).  You can order them to fit an LS, plus get rid of those awful shock towers.  Aim for an 8.8 in the rear with a 4-link.  A welder (and requisite skill/practice) will be your biggest money saver.

I say this from the perspective of someone who has spent a lot of time messing with '60s Ferds.  It's why my Falcon is a Corvette underneath.

rustomatic said:

In many ways, doing an LS(x) swap will not really cost more, and it will be a million times better.  The logic here is that the small block Ferd is now so old that you will have a really hard time finding a good one (with less than 300k) for reasonable money.  The LS will fit between the towers, too.  The 4.8 is still possibly cheap--I paid $2500.00-ish for a complete 2014 unit with a transmission and all accessories.

Most stock-ish aftermarket parts are absolute junk.  The completely worn-out driving experience is not much different from the all-new stuff experience.  Stock power steering was just assist, not actual power steering.  It sucked.  If you do go the 302/T5 route, avoid the hydraulic clutch ripoff.  Just do a cable setup (Mustang Steve?); it works and feels just as good, plus it's more reliable.

The best bet is to do a weld-in (Mustang II-like) setup like that which is offered by many companies, including TCI (there are many lower priced options).  You can order them to fit an LS, plus get rid of those awful shock towers.  Aim for an 8.8 in the rear with a 4-link.  A welder (and requisite skill/practice) will be your biggest money saver.

I say this from the perspective of someone who has spent a lot of time messing with '60s Ferds.  It's why my Falcon is a Corvette underneath.

Pretty much exactly what he said is what I have learned the hard way. Pretty much every single aftermarket part I have bought for the last two projects has gone

I put a 65 basket case back on the road. It was originally a 289 2 barrel automatic car. I put a 351 and top loader four speed in, as well as replacing the floor pans, trunk floor, and rear frame rails. 

The manual steering and brakes weren't bad at all, I never even considered upgrading them once I started driving it, so maybe try it before you decide. 

I did wish it had had an overdrive trans, so that's a good idea.

Sheetmetal is cheap and easily available so that's good. I bought almost everything for mine from CJ Pony Parts. I dont know if it's still true, but back then they had free shipping, which can make a big difference when they are shipping boxes as big as a screen door. A lot of people shave their door drip channels, so that's something to consider.

A few years ago vintage mustang forum was the place to go to learn the best cost effective upgrades. The front suspension is actually a pretty decent design. A shelby drop, export brace, monte carlo bar, and and roller spring mounts really make the front work like it should. A set of $20 slapper bars from the swap meet made my rear a lot happier by fixing the axle wrap. 

Here is mine before I sold it. I miss it when the weather is nice.

I considered an LSx, since I'm more of a GM guy.

The plan isn't to have a fast or complicated car. It's supposed to be simple and cool for SWMBO to learn on.

Im not worried about finding a 5.0. I just gave one away right before I bought the car and I can get a complete  warrantied one with 120k for 500 bucks.

The T5 seems to be the problem, they are thin on the ground all the sudden.

No desire to cut the shock towers or do massive mods. It should steer and stop well enough for a driver with just small upgrades and refurb

Sure, put an LS in it. And if you want to sell it watch your market be nearly non-existent. LS swaps kind of get a wink and a nod on Fox bodies but anything from the 60s should stick with it's own brand (at least something as common as a Ford small block).

No need to make a 8.8 fit. The standard V8 8" rear is plenty strong enough for any mild build.

Fords ram style steering assist sucks. A lot of guys have been using electric steering adapted from things like Nissans with great success.

In reply to ddavidv :

Id like to see a DIY build on this. Im having trouble actually finding good build threads. It seems all of them are look at this 5K kit I bought, and very little, Look what i scored from the junkyard and this is how im making it work.

Ive seen the kits and they are very interesting but the cheapest ive seen is like 2500

Is there a kit to convert to a hydraulic clutch actuator master cylinder that will engauge witht the old Mustang clutch linkage?   

Those old mustangs have a mechanical pivot/lever arm set up that mate to pivot points on the chassis and bell  housing.   The bushings are some kind of plastic.  I had a Zoom clutch with about an 80 lb force needed to disengage so after wearing out a few sets of the plastic bushing I went to my friendly machine shop and  had him make some bushings out of brass stock.  Added a Zerk also, never had another problem.  

In reply to jharry3 :

There are kits to make T5s hydraulic clutches, either using a push slave or an internal slave. Most guys are using stock fox body cables, which I will absolutely not do. Ive driven them and I hate the fox pedal feel. I done the upgraded quadrant, still garbage. Some of the mustang guys say the old Zbar is actually better than the cable. So it will probably have a z bar at first then a hydraulic conversion

The AutoRestoMod guys have a lot of good videos on first gen Mustang repairs and upgrades.  Worth taking a look as they have covered a wide variety of topics.  CJ's Pony Parts has a bunch of videos as well.  

You could also check the build threads here as there a few early Ford threads.  I've got a '69 Cougar thread here.

In reply to jharry3 :

The Miata guys who do 302 T5 swaps use the Miata slave mounted on the side of the T5. It is a simple angle iron mount with the slave pushrod actuating the stock release lever. 

The Miata clutch pedal assembly is a good self contained and compact donor  for any manual transmission swap, So far we have mounted it on two Volvos and used a Wilwood 7/8 master. 

In reply to NOHOME :

I like that slave idea. I think if I want a hydraulic clutch ill probably have to move the master inside the cab. I know a few people make generic ones. The problem is the booster pretty much takes up all firewall space when doing power brakes.