Bill's Story

Bill is the original owner of the car.  I mentioned in an earlier post that I would be providing more details about how Bill acquired the car.   His story is very interesting and provides some unique insite on how excited the public, and particularly "car people" were about the Mustang.  There was a tremendous about of excitement about the Mustang, but even more about the rumored High Performance version that was promised on Jun 1st, 1964.  The pictures below were taken in Jan1974 by Jay, shortly after he acquired the car.  As you can see in the transcript of my first conversation with Bill, and signed by Bill, he stated that he couldn't find any pictures of the car when he had it - I figured I post these instead.  Bill stated that the car originally had a black top, and Bobby the second owner, said that he was the one that put the white top on.

In out first conversation on June 16th 2012, Bill talked about how much fun the car was to drive and how he got the car.  He said that he had been reading about the new High Performance Mustang and had gone to his local dealer and friend to buy one, but was told they wouldn't be available until June.  He told his friend that when they got one he wanted it.  Bill's signed affidavit is below with more detail (this a copy, the original is in a safe deposit box along with the rest of the questionnaire.)

Finally the Engine

So much effort has gone into this engine.  It's finally time to do the final cleaning and get it assembled.  Here's the back of the engine with the original markings

Here the markings have been enhanced.

Here it is without the white "X", (which I am told is an inspection mark) to better show the yellow text.

Here's what it looks like just before final cleaning.

The intake had a couple of interesting markings, barely visible, but there is an orange check mark over the thermostat recess, and another to the right by the front corner bolt.

More Parts...

While I'm waiting on fasteners to get back from the plater I went through all the rest of the parts to determine what still needs to be plated in other finishes.  I've had door latches plated before but in this case these originals look really good after cleanup, so I'm going to reinstall them as is.  Sometimes you look at stuff on a car and you can just tell it's over-restored.  Again, my goal here is tor restore this car as it was from the factory, and these things would not have had perfect plating.  Plus, most of the experts on this stuff agree that the rivets where zinc plated while the latch covers were gold cad.

So the brake drums, wheel cylinders, and shoes are being rebuild and sleeved, but before sending them off, I removed the original small bleeders from the original wheel cylinders.  You can see that they were gold zinc, particularly in the one 3rd from the left.

After cleanup and plating these things look great!  These came out with a nice variation in the different refractive coloring from the zinc dichromate.

So I took a break from the suspension and brake parts, to finish restoring the heater box.  This was a combination of leaving original finishes and stamps and restoring plated and painted finishes.  Here's what the pieces look like after  restoration.  Paint on the fan housing is original.

Still has the original date stamped heater core.  It's been cleaned up and is ready to be reinstalled.

So I was able to same the original paint and stamping on the heater motor...so cool!

The heater fan is such a PITA to restore, but I think this turned out great and very true to the original finish.

 These two brackets are right nest to each other but the black on on the left was just cleaned up and left (its got a black oxide finish, not painted) and the one on the right is natural steel with a rust preventative.  Note how the rivets are lighter, super happy with the way all of these parts came out.