Project thread:1972 street/strip restomod

I've been hanging out here since 2005 when a was first deciding if I really wanted to build a Maverick vs. an early '63-65 falcon/fairlane, 67-68 cougar, or less so a mustang. The decision became obvious partly do to the camaraderie I noted on the site and the wealth of resources and knowledge at hand. Thanks to all for participating. So here is the story of another Maverick brought back to life. This thread is overdue as the car will be on the road soon. I will start writing updates with a brisk pace to get caught up as actual work began last fall.


INTRO: Need some requirements!!! Hmm let me see:
1) This car will first and for most be driven to Maryland International Raceway on Friday nights for street car bracket racing. Maybe 5-15 times a year. We'll see. (Strip car)
2) Budget! Money is an object so, budget solutions where I can but no shortcuts when it comes to reliability, safety, and basic function.
3) Car must be able to do road trips. I don't know how much cruisin' I will actually do with this car, but this car will be capable of 1000+ roundtrips, reliably and safely. (Working street car shooting for minimum of 15 MPG)
4) Style will be Mild restmoding. I don't want an old school raked Prostreet look and and not a total stock looking car. I'm looking for a bit of a road race capable stance and look.


NEED A CAR: So I need a car. I bought a 1974 factory V-8 car locally in 2007 but it was just too rusted up (part car!!!) so the search continued until I scored a 1972 on Ebay that was listed as an Arizona car (EDIT: car was located in New Jersey). What ... I took a chance on it and bought it sight unseen for $845. I figured if the car was close to what it was described it was a steal and if it wasn't as represented I would not buy it and eat the deposit (If the seller was a &*&%*&^). If you live in the south you might be thinking SUCKER, but when you are in the northeast, a pretty rust free maverick body is worth every penny. Car came with a 250 but that didn't matter as I already had my drive train purchased (details later ). Well as it turned out there was some rust in the quarters but not at all total cancer and the rest of the car was VERY clean except for rust in the rear floor pans (weird?) and a repair job on the driver side rocker in the back that will need to be redone. I closed the deal. SCORE!

Here are recent pictures but pretty much represent what it looked like when I bought it (2010). The only real upgrades are the front and rear valances were bent up and have been replaced with good parts also bought on ebay. Also you can see that there are CALTRACs installed which were not on the car originally. One more thing, it was a 4 lug car and these pictures were taken after those mods.

to be continued ...

 

Special Thanks: Before I go any further, I must give special thanks to my wife and kids for supporting me in this and also to Bruce (Mavrock72). He is the primary do'er on this project. He loves working on cars and does great work. And as a matter of fact, he couldn't stand to see the '74 donor/parts car go to the crusher and is turning it into a full on drag car (AWESOME!!!) See post 6 for a preview. http://mmb.maverick.to/showthread.php?p=974761#post974761

Back to the project.

5 Lug 8" Rear swap (Sept. 2012):

Got the 5 lug rear out of the '74 and everything got cleaned up. And then ...

4.11 Richmond ring and pinion and Lok-Right were installed and the pumpkin was painted up stock like.






Rear drum brakes totally refreshed. Safety first.



Cleaned up and painted the housing and the springs and then installed with Caltracs and Rancho adjustable shocks.





That should work for the strip.

 

That's really cool. Best of luck with the project.

 

It's looking good....

 

Looking forward to your updates

You might think about contacting someone in administration and they could move this thread into the project section for you

 

Wire wheel, meet wheel well, Oh well(Sept. 2012): With the rear end done, it was time to move up to the front. The front suspension was begging for attention but first, time to restore the wheel wells. Not much to talk about here ... standard grunt work.

Not so shiny, but not bad. Time to get busy.



Lots of grinding, but well worth it when it was done.



Sealed things up.



All painted up.



One small battle won.

 

Nicely done - it looked so good all clean & shiny it's almost a shame to paint it

 

About that Front suspension (Oct 2012): I got a front suspension kit from Martinsville Auto Parts. They have a whole line of kits for older fords. Good looking stuff and reasonable I thought. And as always, I Googled up some reviews and all was good. I also scored a Granada disc brake setup.

Out with the old.


Martinsville kit.


Much better than those drum brakes

 

What kind of paint/covering/coating is the dark color on under the fenderwell? I need to do the same to my car.

 

Leftovers LOL. Actually, it was whatever paint Mavrock72 had on the shelf in his shop. I'll ask.

 

Gas tank swap (Nov 2012): Since I want this thing to be reliable, I figured crappy gas from an old gas tank won't help the cause. Got a '65 mustang tank to make sure there would be plenty of room for dual exhaust. I don't have anything special to add to what has been discussed before about this mod.

 

Shock Tower Shave (Nov 2012): I felt a shock tower shave was a must ... you know, for the 351W. So Bruce and I discussed it and of course I read 10 or 20 threads (mmb rules). Pretty much measured and marked and measured and marked and then cut away. Also, I am going with the Crites headers so there was that to consider. So here is how it went.

Here was the final cut line taped off and painted.




Here is the interesting part about the Crites header deal. The headers come with a couple of fiber glass "jigs" that you slide over the center post on the base of the shock tower. Your supposed to mark out the part that the jig covers and cut it out to clearance for the header pipe. Before doing any cutting we placed them over the middle post?? and painted it white then cut what wasn't painted.



Here is a good shot of the height of the horizontal cut in relation to the UCA.



Crites provides the pre-bent patch pieces for the part they want cut out. So we just used a portion of those to tie in the middle post part.
Here are both sides with all the metal welded in. This is getting good

 

Looks good, you are making good progress.....

 

Very Nice!

 

Battery acid bites (Nov 2012): Actually, this car was not too bad in the battery area but it did need some attention.

Here is a shot where Bruce has patched some metal in. Not done yet.



And here is with all the metal work done.