Project OCD (I bought a car to build tools???) - '67 Mustang Coupe

[modmotor46]

Well, a little more progress on the old (really new) girl.

Got the wiring mostly done. Mounted all the electronics (FPPDB, Ron Francis Express panel and Simplex ground block, Restomod Air Controller, Autometer Tach signal box, etc.) in the glove box - who needs a glove box anyway? my pistol stays on my hip ;-) Back to the ground block, every single ground wire for everything terminates back to a ground block, my OCD wouldn't allow me to terminate any grounds to the body! All the body panels are back on and aligned. Focused on finishing the cooling system, cold air intake and various other pieces. The main bodies of work left at this point are mount the gas tank, fluids, test run/tuning/tweaking, all of the interior and then the glass - not necessarily in that order!



Got the Restomod Air Vapir II installed. This thing is a work of art by the way - Marc at Restomod was super helpful in determining which unit/parts were needed. Had to modify the heater fittings by shorting them so I could mount them in the lower portion of the firewall through a bulkhead - the intent is to conceal the heater hoses under the coyote engine cover and down the back of the engine. Hard to see it in the pics but there's also a H-Pipe mounted between the heater hoses required for Coyote's.
The heater control valve was tucked neatly behind the welded in brackets for the evaporator inside the car as was the rest of the wiring harnesses.
Most of the A/C hoses were routed inside the fender and route through a bulkhead in the fender apron. The only visible hoses are the two short ones from the compressor.





















The drier was mounted low enough to be concealed by the wide grill molding panels.



Had (wanted) to machine my own compressor brackets as the previously purchased variable speed Ford compressor (and bracket) will not work with the Restomod Air unit so had to purchase a Sanden compressor. Guess I could have purchased some brackets from PBH for $200…nah…I’ll machine my own!!!









After I got the EPAS and the steering column back in I quickly realized the wiper motor was now hitting the EPAS motor ☹ Could have swore I checked that while mounting that unit and the column??? Apparently not! Had to reclock the motor and the mounting arm 90 degrees (picture shows a stock arm and the modified one below it) so the wiper resting spot was still in synch with the neutral spot in the wiper transmission. Also had to cut a notch in the bracket to clear the EPAS support bracket I built.







Finally mounted the radiator by building some brackets out of 1” square tube aluminum and welded them to the previously fab’d mount. The radiator simply rests in lower brackets cupped in ¼” urethane sheet (from a previous post). The front side of those square tubes have nutserts in them and the radiator is then drawn into the radiator support with screws. Weatherstipping is sandwiched between the radiator and core support to aid airflow.
The radiator hoses became a little tricky as the stock Ford ones that come with the Coyote were not routing very well based on my setup (engine position, radiator and fan size, etc.) They were either hitting the fan and/or the engine pulleys. I ended up cutting and using various portions of the factory upper and lower hoses and simply re-clamped them with t-bolt clamps.
For the lower radiator hose I cut the factory plastic clamps/bands off the oil cooler section and reattached cut portions of the factory hose to make a cleaner, straighter run. For the upper radiator hose I used a 1 ½” 90 degree aluminum tube in conjunction with portions of the factory upper hose. I cut the ends off the original aluminum tube to shorten it and re-beaded each end.










Took a similar approach for the actual oil cooler hoses (purchased separately as they do not come with the crate engine). I cut all the factory aluminum compression clamps off first and removed the quick-connect fittings. I reused one of the factory Ford oil cooler hoses and swapped its original connection location and reclocked the fittings to route it as I needed it. I then purchased another hose, a Dayco 88416, for the second hose (had to cut it a little again to route it the way I needed it).



For the cold-air intake it is a simple straight flow into the fender apron where the filter sits inside the fender. Used my hydraulic hole punch kit to punch a clean 4 1/2" hole in the apron and then trimmed it with a semi-truck LED light grommet - fit great! Built a splash shield for the filter out of some aluminum sheet, bead rolled it, placed some weatherstipping around the edge and used nutserts on the right angle bend that rests against the fender apron to mount (not visible in the pic). Of course everything was powder coated. Also, I'm using a factory PCV hose on the driver side and heated it with a heat gun to reform some of the bends to route it on the bottom of the 90 degree elbow (you can see half of it in the 2nd pic).











Added some gas struts to the trunk lid vs. the tortion bars. I used two 70lb. struts, one on each side, note – with a standard lid it will pop up somewhat quickly. I still have to mount the aluminum spoiler which by adding weight will slow the opening for my car.



Since the Ford PCM for the Coyote will be controlling the cooling fan by providing up to 50amps of 12v power (via the blunt cut fan wire provided in the Ford harness), I was trying to figure out a way to trigger the fan to come on when the A/C was turned on (via the trinary switch). Problem solved; I found the wire from the FPPDB that triggers a ground to the Fan Relay. It’s a white wire with a blue stripe (be careful as there are two of these color wires in the harness). It is the wire circled in yellow with the test probe hanging on it. I tied the fan control wire from the trinary switch, which provides a ground, into this wire.


Found some cool 8mm LED dash indicator lights on Amazon from Alpinetech. One is for a check engine light (the one provided in the Ford Controls Pack kit is too big) and the other is for the fog lights in the front valance. I straddled the original high beam indicator and may end up replacing it with one of the LED lights too???



And…finally got the front end put together to see how well the newer (2012) lower valance fits in the overall design.
Here’s the corner pieces that were fabricated to make this thing really fit. They were cut from an original lower valence, the turn signal holes welded up and then a perpendicular strip of metal added to fill the void/gap between this piece and the 2012 valence.