Plan out your Mustang Restoration with Planning, Procedures and Tip
I’ve come up with a step process from the idea in your head to complete project.
- Choose your car carefully. You want it to be a car you have always wanted. The rarer the car the more valuable and then it also will double as an investment. Mustang’s have gone up 30-40 percent in 10 years. Once you decide on the which car you want to find and purchase move on to step two * See end of page for List of cars that are becoming valuable and rare
- It can take anywhere from weeks to years to find the right car, color, motor, options, conditions and price
- Decide on if you want a project car, a semi project car or spend the money for a completely restored Mustang **See below for prices of each of these choices
- Decide if you want to make this car a show car to be judged or a weekend warrior cruiser or a full-time driver.
- Go and look at the car in person and check the vin numbers and make sure they match the buck tag and the engine Vin number. If the motor is not original and does not match, then the value goes down substantially. I personally would never buy a car without matching numbers ***See due diligence below by paying for a Marti Report.
- If it checks off your boxes of the first step, then negotiate a price. Every Mustang I have bought I have negotiated it down. The worst they can say is “No this is the price I want and will not budge
- Get a nice large notebook and a large white board for your shop. You will use this to write down every part you will need from top to bottom and from front to back
- Inspect and buy parts from your list by using the next step as a guide to save money
- Start buying parts. I like to wait check eBay, FB Market place (only pay with PayPal so if you get scammed you can get your money back). I also like to wait for sales on more known Mustang only parts websites.
- Buy supplies and tools. You will want good shop rages, cleaners, good tools sets, lots of zip locks back to put bolts and nuts in and sharpies to mark them and the important tools such a torque wrench etc.
- Keep the shop as clean as possible as you will work better, and a dirty shop will just depress you and you will not get much finished.
- Buy at least 2 six-foot rectangle tables with 4 legs. Keep your new parts separate on one and the other use it for working on such as fixing the interior like the seats or the sport deck that the Mustangs had the options for as you will need to take each of these out and glue the new carpet material to it.
- Start on the motor by removing it and putting it on an engine stand and use the use a book from a professional ****See below on what I use
- While the motor and interior are out, paint the engine bay and what I use to know the factory specs and step (If you want your car to be worth more). Ill put the judge book they judge the Mustangs on my website.
- Repair the trunk to factor using a special acid base cleaner and a wire brush, you will not get it perfect though. Then spray it with primer, 2 cans of primer from the AutoStore work great and its cheap with no cleanup. Next buy the Trunk spatter paint and I bought a $60 reusable paint sprayer for my 71 Mustang the factor as a grey/aqua. (Check your year for what the factor trunk spatter uses, some newer Mustang II’s does not use trunk spatter. Do your research on this because its not easy and if you do not tape everything off right your whole inside of your Mustang will have a heavy paint on it. Remember you can mix up 10-20 percent water with the trunk spatter as its water soluble and will help it from clogging up your sprayer.
- Replace the trunk weather strips while you are at it.
This is a photo of my before I did anything to my trunk.
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Completed look of my 1971 Mustang Mach 1 M-Code 351C
Back to factory look
- Finish the dash work such as the gauges, brackets, speakers, dash pad and the head liner.
- Check out the suspension and I will bet after 50 plus years you’re going to need to replace the struts, shocks, get a full bushing kit.
- Check the rearend to make sure it is good
- Check the drivetrain and buy a full bushing kit and most likely a leaf spring if the back is staffing.
- Add your carpet, seats, doors, and the reset of the interior. This can be done while the motor is being rebuilt.
- It’s task based so it stays organized
The interior group will be the first to be restored and posted to this section followed by the rest of the groups in some sensible order that I have not determined yet. Groupe these items together labeled.
Plan out your Mustang Restoration with Planning, Procedures and Tips
I’ve come up with a ten step process to sum it up.
- Pick your favorite Mustang and decide if it’s going to be show car, weekend cruiser or collectable.
- Decide on the condition you want to start to restore it at.
- Look all over the US for your Mustang as it will be rare to find it local
- Do a thorough check including making sure the motor VIN matches the car VIN. I recommend paying $25 to buy the cheapest but quick Marti Report that will tell you if the car is the real deal or a fake.
- Negotiate with the seller. Worst case you may have to pay what he wants but all 4 of my Mustangs I was able to get the price down.
- Inspect and make a list of everything that you will need to replace
- Start working on it in the steps above using a clean shop
- Properly Tune the motor
- Break the motor in the way it is suggested by professionals
- Enjoy your Mustang