Benjamin speedy in Wednesday work

Benjamin made great progress in a short amount of time on Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2011, as he removed the speedometer cluster, the trim around the rear windshield and also the rear windshield. His Uncle Dan was present but provided little to no measurable assistance.

Remaining disassembly includes removal of remaining seat belts from the interior, all wiring harnesses behind the dash, removal of the engine, removal of the transmission and driveshaft, and removal of the rear left and right rollup windows. The car should be ready for body work by this point.

Ben and Ben Ben have been busy.....

Video of Benjamin and Ben gettin' it done

Ben and Benjamin were busy Sunday working on the 'Stang, removing a front brace that supports the hood latch system when it closes, removing two windshield wiper arms, which was not as easy as it sounds, and removing all the trim that surrounds the front windshield.

Benjamin also did a great job of tagging and ID'ing all the pieces.

Almost done with disassembly

Video of the work in progress

Tuesday and Wednesday, August 2-3, 2011, were two of the hottest days since the creation of earth. I was able to bend wrenches and various other large pieces of steel with my bare hands but that served no useful purpose, so I stopped.
I was able to remove a great deal of the interior and exterior parts, and continued to photograph and tag and bag everything I could.
If I had to say what remains of deconstruction, it would include:

Removal of front and rear windshields and all left and right door glass.
Removal of engine, transmission, gas tank and related items.
Removal of speedometer cluster and minimal knobs on the front dash.

I'm sure there is more, but that is 99.99 percent of the major stuff.

At that point, it will then be:
Removal of all paint
Repair of body rust by welding in new plates
Prime car and prepare for paint

There will be no work on the car on Thursday and Friday. We are having a cookout on Thursday night in honor of our good friend Brandon Stephens, who is moving, and on Friday I am going to hit a golf ball.

Coats of many colors

As mentioned earlier, we have found many colors on this 46 year old car, depending on what part of the car you look at. We know the original color was Wimbledon White, and including in no particular order, Yellow, Orange, Red, Green and Blue.
In conversations some people have advised the project will go much quicker if we just paint over everything, but we want to know that we have done it right, in taking it down to the bare metal, having all proper body work done, and having a professional apply the primer and paint.

How many hours does it take to remove five bolts?

With the proper equipment and skill, it should take less than a minute to remove one bolt. Unfortunately this afternoon, I had neither :)
The left front fender has a number of 1/2 inch bolts holding it in from top to bottom, front to back, and there were five in particular that have not moved in the 46 years since this car was built, and they reminded me of that every time I tried to turn one. Two of the bolts had a rounded head, but thanks to a rounded-bolt head-remover, I got two of them off.
The main problem was it would have been easier if I could have flipped the car over on its back but unfortunately that was not going to happen. Imagine lying on your back with a socket wrench in one hand, a box-end wrench in the other hand, and Hulk Hogan executing a textbook Figure 4 Leg Lock or the Boston Crab submission hold on you, as you try to remove the bolt. That would have been more conformable without a doubt.
I did successfully remove the right front fender and only one bolt now holds the left front fender, which hopefully I will remove tomorrow night if I can find a deep well socket and all goes well.
In an effort to make putting it back together easier, I began a new technique today that I wish I had done when the project began. On the very first day Benjamin and I put every nut and bolt in a zip-lock bag and Benjamin wrote on the outside where they went, but today, in addition to the zip-lock bag technique, I also took a picture with my camera phone and on the outside of the bag numbered today's projects, 1-11. I plan to print out each picture and put it in the plastic bag so it will show exactly where the bolts go. That way if I am eaten by a pack of wild dingos, which is not really how I want to go, everyone will know where each bolt goes exactly.
So far so good........

More about the car.......

We want to know more about the history about this car, and the tag above does tell us a lot. It is a 1965, the original color was Wimbledon White, it had a red and white interior, and that is about all I am certain of at this point. There are websites that explain what the codes mean, but I am not 100-percent certain on all of it now.

We do know it has been painted multiple times, including, but not limited to, Wimbledon White, Red, Yellow, Black, Green and Blue. We will definitely get all of these old coats of paint off and after all body work is done, apply a shiny new coat of red.

My brother, Dr. Ben Smith of Troy, Alabama, purchased a slightly used (for some reason you can't buy a new 1965 model) Mustang coupe, that we will restore over the next three years before his son Benjamin turns 16. I am Ben's older brother Dan.
Yes, it has some rust damage, but we believe it was a great buy and has great potential.

This is our plan:
We want to completely strip the car down, removing every nut, bolt, wire and all paint and build a great car that will also be a daily driver.
On Monday, July 25, 2011, my brother Ben, his brother-in-law Steve Stokes, Benjamin and I began the project. Steve and Ben got the car to actually crank and we drove the car down the Shellhorn Road and was amazed at a number of things.
First of all, it has no power steering and no disc brakes, so that got our attention in a hurry. Next, the 302 automatic had some good power.

Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Benjamin and I began the deconstruction project. we removed the rear bumper, the front bumper, the front headlights and related housings, we removed the front hood and the rear trunk lid. We both broke a very good sweat and called it a day.

Thursday, July 28, 2011
I removed both doors and began removing bolts to the front left and right fenders, and assorted trim.

Saturday, July 30, 2011
On this date I removed more trim including a plate below the rear bumper that includes the two backup taillights, what remained of a melted-beyond-recognition plastic dash, and worked hard to remove the final bolts on the right front fender.