Morgan's 67 Project Trans Am Coupe

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Well I picked up my next project this afternoon. It's a 67 Mustang hard top that I found on Craig?s List. The car was located in Mariposa, a small town in the Sierra?s near Yosemite. The Mustang is a roller that needs total restoration. It has no motor, transmission, hood, right front fender, grill or interior.
On the plus side it's an A code car with standard transmission. The factory red is still there and has not been painted over. It's a nice solid car with no rust and all of the body parts fit real nice.
I plan to go with the Jerry Titus Trans Am Mustang theme and replace out the front and rear suspension with 9" leafs and coil overs up front. For the motor I am thinking a stroked 331 small block and a TKO for the transmission.

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I decided to go with a 9" rear end that my friend Pork beefed up for me along with some Moser axles and a N case 31 spline setup. I took the rear end over to Fearless Gear where they welded on torino bearing ends. Then dropped the rear housing at the powder coater.

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The underneath is basically rust free. So I decided to clean it and repaint it the original color. I had some spray paint mixed up years ago that matches the original under coating.

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Next I installed five leaf reverse eye springs and heavy duty shackles.







Then in goes the rear end assembly

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Next I installed the Fays2 Watts Link setup.

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Brakes for the rear are Ford explorer Disc set up. Moser 31 Spline axles are bullet proof.

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I also welded in a panel of stainless between the trunk and interior for safety and added stiffness. The stainless came from a damaged wine tank. Recycle right!

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Here is a little more information on the Watts link set up. The Fays2 system is well designed however falls short in one area; mounting of the frame to the car. The shoulder bolts need to be change to have less shoulder and more threads. The bolt shoulder causes the bolt to stick out and he states to fill that gap with washers. The prices is very reasonable and he is a very nice guy.





Original Trans Am car watts link set up.

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I am going with Ron Morris front coil over set up. Super nice guy who is based right up 99 in Modesto CA. This should work real well.

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Cleaned up the backing plates on the Explorer disc brakes.
Drilled and tapped the rear end housing for line clamps for the brake line.
Installed Moser axles along with new brake rotors and brakes with new brake pads







The wheels are just used to move the car around. I will be going with 17" wheels.

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More often than not I have a list of to do items that I hope to get done in a given time. Well it did not happen over Thanksgiving. Seamed like that is two steps forward and one step back every day.

On Wed. I did get by my friends Marks shop "The Mustang Ranch of Fresno" and picked up a few items.

Here pinion snubber that came on the Shelby's and Mustang GT's that I picked up.

Before


After

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I also managed to get the sub frame connectors installed. It was one of those job where it would been cool to have some extra hands but then again I found a way to get it done on my own.

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My friend who is a welder came over to help. After buying some steel, we went work further reinforcing the body's floor pan and underneath. Welded up the subframes and added some 1.5"X1" retangular tubing and attached it to the sub frame connectors using steel plate.

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Removed the front suspension.

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Well I pulled the steering assembly out, removed wiring and everything else that was under the dash.



Need to figure out which holes to weld up on the fire wall. Plan to run vintage air.



I have the roll bar positioned where it needs to be and plan to get it bolted in tomorrow.

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It was a fun filled day and a lot of work on the body of the 1967 Mustang. My good friend Dave drove over from Salinas just to help me with the body work on the Mustang. We got quite a bit accomplished. I focused on the Radiator care support while dave focused on everything else.

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More progress; We finished bracing the underside of the Mustang and moved to the front to finish the radiator core support and front apron. Certainly got a little help from a few friends. Tom is a retired auto body tech and well Pork is a certified welder who has been helping since the project started.









We had the hood and fenders on numerous times. The right fender is a repop is not up to the quality i want for this build so it will be replaced. The hood will also be replaced with a poly fiber 67 Shelby style hood.

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Well about a little update on Project 67:

Still in the fabrication and fender straightening stage.

Lets go to the Boss 302 Modifications.

First I cleaned and primed the shock tower pockets then made a template out of card board.







Then trasferred the cardboard template to metal.


Then welded the plate in the pocket at a 45 degree angle.

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Moved to the inside of the engine bay and welded the shock tower seams.

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I also welded the roll bar backing plated to the inner fender wells and bottom of floor.



After the backing plates were welded I coated the rear interior fender area.