On its way!!!

We got the call! The kit is on its way and will be here on July 29th. With the garage cleaned up, we took the weekend off of serious car work.

A little payoff for our effort

We finished all four brakes and hubs, and we replaced the clutch packs in the rear differential along with the diff and axle bearings. It took a lot of brushing with a wire brush on a drill, plus some time degreasing and painting, but the payoff is worth it!

BEFORE AFTER

The kit itself was scheduled to be finished and ready for pickup by the trucking company yesterday. With any luck, it'll be here by the end of the month. We will be focusing on smaller pieces of the donor while we wait for the kit so we have room when it arrives.

Getting our hands dirty

The donor pallet arrived this week. We had fun removing the 225 lb rear axle from the top of the crate. We opened the crate and saw all of the parts and pieces we needed from the donor car in a pile.

Since we're most familiar with brakes and suspension, we grabbed the front and rear spindles. We ended up buying new rear brakes and new brake rotors all around, but a surprising amount of the original parts were usable. We scrubbed, degreased and painted a number of pieces.

While waiting for some brake parts to arrive, we cracked open the rear axle. This was new territory for us, so we took our time. We spent about 12 hours working in the garage and another 6 running errands for parts and tools.

Still, by quitting time today we had the rear differential rebuilt with new limited slip clutch packs installed. Will post pics of that achievement next time...

We've been anticipating the arrival of parts for a few weeks, and have run out of things in the garage to clean in preparation.


Our Mustang donor pallet is almost here. We should receive it in a couple of days. The donor is a 160,000-mile Mustang convertible. The salvage yard took what we need off of the car and is shipping us one or two pallets full of parts. We're ready to start cleaning, polishing, painting and refurbishing the donor parts.

Tom went tool shopping and is now ready to lend a hand!

Anticipation...

We can't wait to get started on the Type 65 coupe build. We've already cleaned up the garage and are stockpiling supplies and parts. So far the only things that have arrived are Cleco fasteners for the many aluminum panels we need to position and rivet in place, and the tires.

The kit should be ready to ship by mid-July, and we should see it by the end of July. We're using a "donor pallet", which means the parts from the donor 1993 Mustang will be pulled off of the car by a salvage yard and shipped to us. That saves us from having to strip the parts and then get rid of the donor car. The donor provides the engine, transmission, rear end, some of the suspension components, brakes, under-hood plumbing, wiring, and a few small parts.

From the manufacturer, we ordered the base kit and added 15" Halibrand wheels, powdercoating for the chassis, lower control arms, carpet and a track to allow adjustment of the driver's seat. The kit comes with everything else.

We saw a beautiful example of the coupe at a car show in Birmingham in May. Except for the polished and chrome pieces under the hood, we are going for the same look with our car.