1970 MUSTANG February 17, 2015 04:14

My uncle called and asked me to come check out his vehicle in Kailua, he had a later 1990s or early 2000s toyota supra if i remember correctly. The car had been sitting for a few years and would not start. While I was checking his car's battery trying to figure out if it would still be able to charge , in my peripheral vision i could see a black rectangular back end of a car something that looked "muscly"

I immediately ran over and removed plant growth that had enveloped it, and found that it was a 1970 Mustang with a Mach 1 emblem on the side.

I begged my uncle to go find the keys so i could unlock it and check what what the power house was. He took some time to search for the keys, this car had also been sitting for years just like the Toyota, I tried hard to keep my excited composure and didn't want to stress him out about finding the key because i really wanted him to stay calm and focus. He came back about 30 minutes later with the original ford car keys!

Underneath the hood was a 351 Cleveland V8 , duel double pump Holly Carburetor. Un-surprised the car didn't start, the battery had died. I asked him what his plans were for the car , he told me my cousin bought it off a man who lived on Maui and used it as a Race car for the track. So immediately i called my cousin and asked him if I could buy it from him, he said what he wanted $$$ , that's what he paid for it, with out hesitation I went to the bank, got his cash and just like that i now had another project i didn't need in my life hahaha. Paid a tow truck $400 and took the Mustang home.

With the car on jacks it was time to take a closer look at what I had to work with. I'm sharing this experience with you because looking back on this purchase, it wasn't a good move and I hope you can learn from my mistakes. I was in the process of building and moving in to Dust & Fumes, i wasn't honest with myself on how much free time i actually didn't have to take on more things in my life.

The photo with the mustang with its wheels off, i could now see that the car was missing a bunch of things. The previous owner had removed all the chrome trim from all windows which my wallet found out would be $250.00 for front and rear window plus $70.00 in shipping to Hawaii, the driver and passenger windows were $175 together with shipping.

He had converted the gas tank and fuel line to 3 different fuel injectors all pumping at the same time. When we did get the car running the fuel pumps sounded like an orchestra of bees.

The fuel lines were also connected to house hold pipes and ran to an off switch in the back of the rear end, under the trunk lid. The reason for the kill switch back there is just in case there's a fire on the race track , someone can turn off the fuel from outside. To fix this was going to be such a nightmare.

The shop build was almost complete and ready to begin production work , so i didn't have much time to get this car in decent condition , painted to slow down the rust until i'm ready to fully restore.

We did some light welding and body work , prime the car.

In this photo of the rear end you can see we disconnected and removed the kill switch and welded the panel flat just like it was stock.

We also found the existing wire harness stripped , cut and left like a old bag of used rubber bands; un organized , brittle and discolored. The Maui Owner didnt want any turn signals or lights to work. I'm thinking he wanted to maximize fuel and power to the motor that's why he did this. We tried going through each individual wire and hand checked to make sure the wire work and at some point we threw in the towel and gave in to buying a whole new wire harness from Painless Performance parts for $1,500 with free shipping.

Once the Harness arrived, we ran cables to the important parts of the vehicle just to get the car at least running so we could see how healthy the motor was.

Photo above: Tai Chi charging the battery.

The motor ran loud and pretty strong, the timing and idle was off and rough but it was a good start.

We purchased a rebuild kit for the carburetor , was roughly $70.00.

Here Junior is cleaning and prepping the surface for the new carb kit.

While the boys were doing their mechanic work i started fabricating a fiber glass piece to give the mustang its aggressive look.

... and with a little black paint i think it looks killer.

Now it was time to rent a U-Haul tow dolly and take it to Juniors for a quick paint job. The Tow dolly was about $100-$200 to rent for 1-2 days. Black paint with matte finish was a few hundred bucks, i cant really recall and i don't want to give the wrong number but i think it was about $400-$600. Paint is definitely not cheap.

Mustang being taken to Junior's for some color.

Masking off windows and trim.

I don't recommend painting a car this way. If i had more time id completely restore from the ground up. Remove all windows, rubers, body parts and paint them inside out, but with the deadline of the factory opening this was our only option.