Adam's 67 Cougar

[Adam Smith]

I’m starting to make progress on my ’67 Cougar so it’s time to start a build thread. I bought the car as a roller in okay shape last fall. It had some rust around the rear wheel wells, around the rear window and a bit in the floor boards. Other than that, the car was fairly solid and mostly complete.
I come from a background in off road racing, but in December of 2014, I graduated and moved to Nebraska for work (Design Engineer at Speedway Motors). The off road scene around here is pretty minimal to say the least, and I’ve always loved 67/68 Cougars. So when I found one for sale just a few blocks up the road, I just had to buy it. This will be my first street car build, also my first real attempt at serious bodywork. With that said, I plan on doing all of the work myself with the possible exception of paint.
The goal for the car is to be a comfortable driver with the ability to take it to the track/autocross a few times a year and have some fun. It will have A/C, a decent stereo, comfortable seats, a mild ride height, and a modern drivetrain.
The front suspension will be very similar to the Speedway G-Comp Camaro front end (which should be available soon). The geometry and components will be the exact same, with changes being only to the framework and packaging. Out back it’s getting an adjustable 3 link with a Watt’s link on a 9” floater. Coil-overs on each corner of course. Oh, and a full frame :jump:

The car right after I picked it up.
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Stripping and Pressure washing.
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Front end cut off.
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Some of the floor cut out.
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Beginning of a frame.
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Chromoly, fresh off the laser!
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Front crossmember tacked in place.
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Rear link brackets tacked in place.
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[Adam Smith]

Iv'e started some of the patch work. The rear quarter patches are roughed in. They turned out pretty good for a desk jockey:twothumbs

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The previous owner attempted to start patching the rear window area. I have a replacement panel ordered.
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[RMMiller]

Nice! My brother has a 68 XR7, I'll have to give him the link so he can check this out.

[andrewb70]

Nice to see Cougars getting some love!

Andrew

[wfo guy]

Does Speedway have a laser cutter? I like where this is going. :)

[hardwork1]

I'm also building a 67 cougar. what are you planning on for motor? your frame setup is interesting I'd like to see more of it. Keep up the good work

[Dave B]

Sweet! Nice work!

[Adam Smith]

Does Speedway have a laser cutter? I like where this is going. :)

Two actually:twothumbs

[Adam Smith]

I'm also building a 67 cougar. what are you planning on for motor? your frame setup is interesting I'd like to see more of it. Keep up the good work

Motor will be a Coyote with plans for a supercharger down the road. I'm not sure if it will be the F150 version or a Mustang motor. If I can get a good deal on a wrecked mustang I'll use the motor and 6 Speed from the mustang. If I go the F150 route the money saved on the motor can go towards a T56 Magnum. The motor will also be set back quite a bit!

I got the rest of the front crossmember tacked in place today.
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I also got some bracing welded in to keep this thing square. I still need a little more bracing before I cut the rest of the floor and rear frame rails out.
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[egoman]

This is my formula. Will be following.

[Adam Smith]

I made a little progress over the weekend. I started by cutting out enough sheet metal to be able to roughly test fit the new frame in it's future home. With the width of the frame I was able to leave the factory rear frame rails in place. They will get cut out later but for now it should help keep everything nice and square :fingersx:
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With the frame squared up and setting in place I built some jacking rails and got them tacked to the frame. Then the frame came back out for some more welding. These 1x2 jacking rails will eventually be welded to the rocker panel and run right along the pinch weld. The new floor will be roughly 1" higher that the stock floor pan.
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I added a few gussets here and there and got the front and rear crossmembers fully welded.
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Every now and then you lay down a bead that you just have to take a picture of! :jump:
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These weren't my first choice of wheel and I'll probably get a little flack for them but they'll get me by for a while. I just couldn't pass up the deal when I found 18" x 10" wheels with the proper backspacing for $59.99 a piece and free shipping!!!!!!!
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They won't look too bad!
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Also picked up a bit of sheet metal.... lots of sheet metal work in my future!
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[xsboost90]

nice -i have some American Muscle rims going on my mustang "for fitment" purposes but they will rock until i find some sweet forgelines or something. Cant beat them for the price!

[Adam Smith]

nice -i have some American Muscle rims going on my mustang "for fitment" purposes but they will rock until i find some sweet forgelines or something. Cant beat them for the price!

Exactly what my thoughts were. For the price they're almost worth it just for mock up.

[Bonehead]

Holy crap! Love the build! Keep those pictures coming.....wow.

[MichaelUser]

Holy crap! Love the build! Keep those pictures coming.....wow.

Yeah what ^^^^^ he said.

Great job.

[Peter Mc Mahon]

Awesome work so far.

[Adam Smith]

Thanks For the compliments guys!:twothumbs

I've got a buyer lined up for my off road truck who hopes to have money for me in the next few weeks.:fingersx: If I can get it sold I'll be ordering parts like a crazy for while! It should be enough to cover most of the drivetrain and suspension. It's a bit nerve-racking right now doing all of this fab work without having the drivetrain yet. Luckily I've got pretty accurate cad models of the motor and suspension.

[Adam Smith]

The wife and I spent a week in Mexico and I am still waiting for payment for my truck so I haven't started ordering drivetrain parts yet. But I did manage to spend some time working on my inner wheel tubs. I contemplated buying some but in the end I decided to buy the tools and build my own. I've got a bead roller already, so I picked up a Woodward Fab Shrinker/Stretcher from work (part #4192500 if anybody is curious). I had never used one before, but I must say I was actually quite impressed at how well it worked.

If anybody is looking to get away, I highly recommend The Royal in Playa Del Carmen The service is top notch, the resort is amazing and the prices are pretty reasonable. They had a last minute cancellation and we were upgraded to a beach front room, no charge!
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Here's a shot showing what 30 minutes on the shrinker can do to a flat piece of 18 Ga.
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I built a 90 flange and spot welded it to the factory outer wheel tub.
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Test fitting
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Complete except for welding. I'll weld them in after I get the cage and rear suspension brackets welded in.
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[68Formula]

This is going to be a great build! Love the early Cougars.

[xsboost90]

looks like i need a shrinker, stretcher, bead roller

[68Formula]

looks like i need a shrinker, stretcher, bead roller

... laser cutter...:)

[Jetfixr320]

Awesome work! Very impressive!

[langleylad]

looks like i need a shrinker, stretcher, bead roller

I picked up a shrinker/stretcher from Eastwood years ago , you'll be amazed at how much you use it .

[Adam Smith]

I got a nice little package from Moser the other day! My nine inch floater housing and hubs showed up. I wanted a full floater and I wanted to keep my 5 on 4 1/2" bolt pattern so unfortunately that ruled out anything we sell at Speedway since it's all grand national stuff which isn't available in a 4 1/2" bolt pattern. I will say though, so far I am quite pleased with the Moser stuff. They were great to deal with on the phone and my housing was here less than a week after placing an order.

I got my 3 link/watts link brackets tacked in place.
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Test fit went great. Everything fits as expected. The frame side watt's link brackets are tacked in place.
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I also got a couple more pieces of sheet metal welded in for the truck floor. I built a battery box into the truck floor to keep the battery fully enclosed and as low as possible. I haven't decided if I'll built a hinged lid for the battery box or make a large carpeted trunk floor panel that covers the entire trunk floor.
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I had to bore out the wheels a bit to fit over the drive flanges. I expected to have to do this so I am not sure what I was thinking when I already got my tires mounted and balanced. Anyway, for now I bored them out with a hole saw and chamfered the back with a die grinder. Next time I am changings tires, I'll put the wheels on a lathe or mill and clean the bores up a bit.
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Using a 2 3/4" hole saw, the wheels fit over the drive flange now, but the axle cap will need to be turned down just a bit. Luckily it will will sit almost flush with the front of the wheel and look just like a center cap.
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[Chev Korbin]

great build,.. you do some fantastic work. i really look forward to seeing more progress!

[Adam Smith]

I brought home the powerplant for the cougar today. It's a 5.0L Coyote from a 2014 F150 with 12K miles. Came with A/C pump and Alternator to! I'll definitely have to ditch the oil filter housing and use a remote filter. I've been slowly working on the cage as well. I'll get some pics up when it's done.
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[injcted]

Very Cool build, you have great fab skills!

[Adam Smith]

The cage is nearly complete, still need to add seat belt bars and door bars, but I'm going to get my seats mounted first to make sure everything fits nicely. I ended up getting a pair of Corbeau GTS II seats - http://corbeau.com/gts-ii.html They are a tad bit taller than I expected but I'm sure they will settle a bit as they wear in. Other than that, my first impressions are very good. I went with double locking sliders for both seats. I also got my transmission ordered. I should be able to have the motor and trans setting in the car in a week or two.
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[Adam Smith]

Motor mounts are tacked together and the motor is setting in place. One thing I didn't realize was that the f150 timing cover places the alternator about 2" lower than the Mustang timing cover. This puts the alternator right in the way of the steering rack. Looks like I'll be looking for a mustang timing cover. While I have it apart I might go ahead and swap in some mustang intake cams as well. Things are never as simple in this game:screwy:
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[langleylad]

" simple " what does that mean ?

[Adam Smith]

" simple " what does that mean ?

Simple = Buy Motor, then bolt it right in... Haha:rotfl:

[Adam Smith]

I got a little delivery from CJ Pony Parts today. A nice little T56 Magnum XL!:drive:
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[rustomatic]

It looks awesome so far! Are you going to add firewall tubing, since you're there? Were you able to measure the quantity of engine setback you've applied, relative to your front axle centerline and the horrible stock position of the engine in these things (includes Cougars, Mustangs, Falcons, Fairlanes, ect.). The engine in my Falcon is similarly located (just about under the dash) . . .

[Godbolt]

Very nice indeed! I love this model of Cougars. Almost bought one. They still seem pretty good value to me as a start point and I feel they are a much overlooked car from their era.

[Adam Smith]

It looks awesome so far! Are you going to add firewall tubing, since you're there? Were you able to measure the quantity of engine setback you've applied, relative to your front axle centerline and the horrible stock position of the engine in these things (includes Cougars, Mustangs, Falcons, Fairlanes, ect.). The engine in my Falcon is similarly located (just about under the dash) . . .

Thanks! The firewall will be set back roughly 5" or so from the stock location. And I will add a couple of tubes coming forward through the firewall from the dash bar to brace the front end as well as serve as shock mounts, fender mounts etc... As for the engine set back I'm not exactly sure where the original motor sat, but the front of the crank pulley now sits 3.5"-4" in front of the axle center line. The driver position/steering/pedals will all be moved back a few inches as well to help with the weight bias.

[blade]

WOW! Great build so far, can't wait to see how this goes as you get further along.

[Josh@Ridetech]

Sweet! Nice build.

[Adam Smith]

I really need to invest in a new phone with a better camera!:pat: Anyway, I got my Corbeau GTS II seats mounted. I ended up notching the frame a bit to get the seat height where I wanted. You can buy these seats with 1 Inch of foam shaved off of the base, but I want this thing to be as comfortable as possible so I opted not to go that route. The seats have some decent bolsters but aren't super racey looking. I may end up getting a hard shell race seat and just swap it out for track days. But for now, I like the GTS II's
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I brought home a bunch of exhaust parts from Speedway and got the exhaust ran back to the mufflers. I'm not a huge fan of the Flowmaster sound, but I'm going to give it a try. It's all 3" with Super 40 Mufflers. Once I get my fuel cell and rear sway bar in place, I'll finish off the exhaust.

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I also found out that the f150 timing cover lowers the alternator about 2 inches vs. the mustang set up. Unfortunately that puts it right where my steering rack goes. Sooo it looks like I'll be purchasing a mustang timing cover and alternator... that should do the trick :fingersx:

[restomodcougar]

Any new updates on this build?

[Adam Smith]

Any new updates on this build?

Haven't been on here for a while. Life has gotten busy! I have relocated to North Carolina for my new job with a nascar team. I am on the traveling crew and also bought a house here, so unfortunately the Cougar has been put on the back burner for a while. I was able to finish the floor pans, pedals, and a few more small things before i moved. But sadly i have really made no progress for the past year and a half.153653153652153654153655

[Michaels 69]

This is a very cool build, you do great work too!