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Project Phantom, Part IV: Our 1969 Mustang Goes Under The Knife


Project Phantom, Part IV: Our 1969 Mustang Goes Under The Knife

(Words and Photos: Joe Grippo) It’s been a few months since the last installment of Project Phantom, my wife Stacey’s 1969 Mustang GT. The Mustang, which had been parked near the New Jersey shore since the early 1980’s, had made its way to our Chester County, Pennsylvania garage for a rebirth. Previous installments of the project can be found in the BangShift archives, so a quick search can get you caught up. The last update ended with us dropping Phantom off at Rides Restored, our chosen resto shop for some sheet metal surgery. 

We knew going into this adventure we had to be prepared for the worst and it was a good thing we were ready. When we saw the pallets of Dynacorn boxes sitting on the shop floor, we figured we were in deep. Yup, real deep. And as a reminder, this car has sentimental value, Stacey grew up in this car as kid. We are very much aware we would be better off starting with a different car but that was never gonna happen. This is the only one for her.

 Once in the shop Bob and Shawn, the father and son owners of Rides Restored, got right to work, and busted out the spot weld cutter, torches and cut-off wheels and started extracting the rusty panels and there were plenty to remove. Starting at the front end, everything forward of the shock towers needed to be gone. The radiator support had some damage and rust, and the right-side engine compartment battery tray was non-existent. The left side apron was also pretty nervous, so these pieces were cast out to the scrap pile. The shock towers themselves were in surprisingly nice shape save for a few torch holes some butcher blew into the sides to get easy access to the upper control arm grease fittings. That hack job was repaired and as stated the towers were saved. On either side of the towers the aprons overlap the tower edges, this creates a notorious rust spot on Mustangs and this car lived up to the legend. The rear apron is also the mounting point of the hood hinges, the holes for which on ours were stretched out of shape along with the aforementioned rust. So, after drilling out more spot welds and a few surgical cuts the bad stuff was removed to make way for more new replacement panels. One of the original pieces of the car we were able to save, and reuse were the rear apron extensions that help secure the aprons to the cowl. After careful removal and some media blasting, they were ready to be put back into service. We’ll take a victory where we can.

The next area of concern and another common rot spot on early Mustangs is the cowl. Structurally the cowl is made up of two pieces, upper and lower, the latter being ostensibly a trough for drainage to the sides and the former having two large openings directly over those basins. Add in that the external cowl sheet metal has a grill allowing water to gather right into those areas and that’s a perfect invitation for a rust party. Phantom was the poster child of this scenario. Hence once again, out came the cutting wheels and removal commenced. The fit and finish of the new Dynacorn sheet metal was very good and just required some minor trimming and a bunch of on and off to get the fit just right. This was not Rides Restored first Mustang rodeo and the process went smoothly and quickly. So far so good. 

The firewall of Phantom was in relatively decent shape so welding in a few unnecessary holes and straightening out some wrinkles was all that was required there, so we were able to save another original piece. As we move on the next section of the car it’s going to get intense. Neil Young was right, “Rust Never Sleeps”. Take a few minutes and look over the gallery for more of what we got ourselves into and watch the transformation as our 1969 Mustang GT comes back to life…eventually.


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