YouTuber Strips Fox Body Mustang Down to the Metal
From removing the engine and transmission, to finding more rust, one YouTuber presses on with his Fox Body Mustang build.
No matter what Mustang you’re building, sooner or later, you might find your skill, budget or time butting up against whatever mountains need scaling. You can choose to either come back to it when everything comes back together, give up and sell the project (may we suggest doing so through our marketplace, by the way?), or press forward. After all, you just might gain a ton of experience out of it.
YouTuber Do It With Dan took the third option with his Fox Body Mustang build. Originally, he planned to do a few things with it. Now, though, he’s getting ready to tube-frame the pony. And then some.
Big Trouble
“I found out this thing is in a lot of trouble,” Dan said. “The whole front end has been chopped off. It needs to be completely replaced. I got everything unbolted from the engine, getting ready to pull the engine out.”
As he notes, the frame rails were severed at some point in the Mustang’s life. While he planned to cut the old rails off, then swap in a new set. Instead, viewers suggested he tube-frame the front end. Thus, he’s going to do exactly that, fabricating his own setup. As he says, the project is a test bed for him to learn to do the things he needs for a successful project.
“I did have some people say, ‘Just start over,’ or ‘Get a different car. Scrap it. Swap the body on to it,'” said Dan. “I’m not gonna do that, and I’ll tell you why. If I don’t, no one will on this car. No one will on any of these cars. If people like me don’t do this, these cars are gone forever. I think I’d rather spend the time and money and fix this car and have this car still on the road, rather than scrap it and start over.”
That’s not to say he won’t make mistakes with this project, though. While pulling the engine and transmission out, he forgot to drain the fluid from the transmission. Thus, more than a few drops of the stuff end up on his shop floor. Not to mention the ratchet straps connecting the engine to the hoist; at least they didn’t snap at the worst possible moment.
After ripping out the wiring from the engine bay, Dan continues the stripping process with the interior, then the exhaust, driveshaft and fuel tank. He returns to the interior to remove all of the glass — breaking both the front and rear windows. Of course, that’s not the worst of it. Not for this Mustang.
“Before I go over the last bit of everything in my major idea changes about this car, what I’d like to do is kind of dick around with some of the body work here,” said Dan.
Though he intended to weld a replacement section from Late Model Restoration near the rear bumper, he soon finds more rust than first thought. Thus, the replacement will have to wait.
“[I] said it wasn’t gonna be a build car,” said Dan. “It’s a build car. This is a learning car. When I first got this car, I wasn’t planning on taking it all apart and doing a bunch of stuff. I was planning on using it as a test bed to learn how to do small things […] I wasn’t planning on doing what I’m about to do.”
We can’t wait to see what he learns from this Mustang build. We also hope he still has his hearing by the end of it, seeing as he forgets to wear protection while cutting metal.
Join the Mustang Source Forums now!
