Cavero

You guys probably saw my other threads asking questions about bumpers and a hood in the last couple weeks. Next week I'll be hitting 60,000 miles and it will be the first big milestone since I've paid off my car. And looking at the car 60k later, it's showing some wear. Bumpers are chipped and dented, the hood has the dreaded cancer everyone knows about...on both the front and rear lips. As I take the car in to the dealership for the big service, I decided I wanted to get the exterior redone as well. I'm committed to keeping this car for as long as it lasts, hopefully 20+ years.

And since I'm getting married next year, now is the time while I still have some money left. I've been saving for the last year and a half (my last big purchase on the car was the chin spoiler, $300 and that was almost 2 years ago), and doing LOTS of overtime. Now's the time to make this car the way I've always wanted it to be.

It was the hood that originally got me on this path. I don't want to worry about the aluminum corrosion coming back like some people have had, so I'm going fiberglass. So I decided on my favorite fiberglass hood, the Shelby CS6. From there it was a natural progression of ideas. The CS6 hood looks best with Shelby stripes on it. I wanted stripes painted on the car since I first ordered it, but could never swing the cash. If I'm going to do stripes on this hood, which will have fresh paint, they really should be painted instead of vinyl. If I'm going to paint stripes, then I can't have them done on the beat up bumpers. If I'm replacing the rear bumper, might as well make it the one I want.

OK, enough background. For those of you with short attention spans and skipped to this part, this is what I'm doing:

Front:
'New' stock GT bumper from Newtakeoff.com
Stack racing black billet upper and lower grill (from American Muscle)
Keep CDC Aggressive Chin Spoiler
Craig's No-drill license plate bracket

Hood:
Shelby CS6 Hood (from Latemodelrestoration.com)
Shelby CS6 hood grille
CDC washer nozzle relo kit (Latemodelresto)

Rear:
GT500 Bumper (bought off of 07stangme)

Interior:
4 channel amp to drive the speakers (still on the fence for this one, leaning towards Rockford Fosgate model)

Many many pictures to follow.

mustangmike06

Sounds awesome! Keep us updated with pictures!

Cavero

Crap. Bit of a speedbump here. I got off the phone with Late Model Restoration after I mis-interpreted their website thinking they had the hood in stock. As it turns out, the hood ships directly from the vendor...Shelby American. And the vendor/manufacturer is technically...out of stock. LMR doesn't keep any on the shelf in their warehouse. It's an economy thing, most of the 3rd party retailers go this route because it's cheaper for everyone. Shelby doesn't have to ship to LMR's warehouse, so LMR doesn't have to pay the shipping for it, and doesn't have to tie up their space with rather large inventory. So because it ships from the vendor directly, the consumer doesn't have to recoup the cost of shipping to the warehouse first, and since it's a direct route, it'll get to the consumer faster (in cases like this where they just get them in stock). Shelby told them they just pulled a batch out of the molds recently and they're curing. They'll make another couple batches of various hoods, then prep them all as a group, and finally will be ready for shipping. So I'm looking at 3-4 weeks before it ships. At least. I was hoping to get the car in to the shop in 2 weeks, not 4-5. Depressing to think it might be august before my car gets done.

So until then, I can't do much on the project. I have the new front bumper, but I'm not going to install it and put miles and rock chips in it a month early. I'm not driving around with a white rear bumper either until its ready to get painted. For now I'll focus on the grilles and the amp.

I kinda got a head start on the grilles. I have the upper grille installed, the lower one has been cut to fit in the CDC aggressive spoiler opening; I just need to figure out a good mounting system for the lower grille.

Now, as I promised, pics. I'll do pics of the lower grille install as I get to it.

Here's the upper grille:

UMich97

That's frustrating, but workable. Your car is going to look sick when you get everything installed. Looking forward to seeing the pics.

Cavero

I know, I can't wait.

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So I had an unplanned upgrade today. To keep a long story short, over the last couple weeks I noticed my battery didn't have quite the same juice as normal, but over this last weekend it took a nose dive. Yesterday it seemed kinda low energy, and this morning it barely started. Well this afternoon at work, it wouldn't start. I had to get a jump. The parts store tested the battery, 360 cold cranking amps out of a rated 590. The battery's 6 years old, so I got my use out of it. I just dropped $200 on this Optima. My brother had one in his BMW and told me it'd last me 10 years. This sucker is 800CCA. I'm not f'n around with needing jumpstarts. I deal with that enough on my 29 year old bike.

Cavero

A couple weeks come and go. I finally installed the CDC washer nozzle relocation kit. The sun was a too strong to get good pictures. The verdict: It kinda sucks. Well the nozzles at least. They work well enough I'm going to leave them hooked up for the meantime, but I'm going to order the ANCO nozzles I read about in another thread. I'm going to post a writeup on the installation since the CDC directions kind of suck. Anyway pics:

Cavero

Finally! Got the hood in today, and had a buddy come over and help install it within 4 hours of it getting here! As soon as I saw it by my door I was like a little kid on Christmas. I was going to start jumping up and down, I swear, but people were watching... Now that the thing's installed, I can get going on this thing again.



Tomorrow I'm calling the body shop to let them know it's on again.

So I'm having some fittment issues, but I guess its to be expected with fiberglass. I'll take some pics tomorrow when it's light again and post. Stay tuned, this is where it gets fun

Cavero

As I promised, more pics. You can see the fitment issues. Hopefully it settles out over the next week

Cavero

Next step:





Hit something kinda funny here. I got the GT500 used with the wiring harness already attached, so I just mounted the bumper up. Then I found out the hard way when I tried plug in the lights:



So I swapped the GT harness onto the bumper and she's lookin really trashy now:

Cavero

Progress keeps comin'. I have the appointment with the body shop to have the stripes painted and cleared over. So before I do that, need to install the newtakeoff front bumper. Gotta say, I like the new look. Funny how it still looks like a Mustang, even with its face off:







And all done.



Clean and dent free:

Cavero

Stripe color picked! I know everyone does Satin Silver on Tungsten, but for me I think Satin Silver is too...satin. I want a silver paint that matches Tungsten's level of metallic quality. CW_06_GT has Vapor stripes on his, it looks killer, but is too subtle for what I'm going for. So I headed down to Sherwin-Williams today, only to find out they're closed on Sunday. I'm dropping the car off on Tuesday at the body shop, so no time to wait until I find a time I can get back to that store after work. I thought I was doomed, but then I got home and parked next to my fiance's car and thought...hmmmm... I think I have a winner:



What car is this, you wonder?


Because I've seen it in all sorts of conditions I know that it'll reflect light pretty close to Tungsten. Here's my car from the same parking spot. Keep in mind this was a couple years later, not the same time of year, my car was clean, hers was dirty, etc etc. But you can see how both cars are reflecting the sky and trees similarly

Cavero

Anyone reading this thing? I see the views are over 600, but I've only had a couple replies. I feel like I'm talkin to myself here.

Well, I hit Milestone 5 today. 1 was get bumpers and accessories. 2 was get the hood (no small task). 3 was to fit and install everything. 4 was to pick the lucky shop that was the privilege...yes...that's what I'll call it...of taking my car apart and painstakingly painting. Milestone 5....is to FINALLY take the car into the shop to do the work! Now in 2 to 3 weeks they'll have it done. I can't begin to convey what it feels like. But I fave a feeling a lot of you guys know what I'm talkin about. Even better: the shop volunteered to call and send pics during the process! So even when the car is in a different State, I can still post new pics!

RMB427R

Wow, your car looks great! I'll bet your neighbors loved seeing all of those parts on the ground!! Well done.

Cavero

Thanks! I have a feeling one of the main reasons my neighbors haven't complained yet is (a) I always have the job done or at least cleaned up at the end of the day and (b) it's an endless source of entertainment/bewilderment. I doubt half of them know what a spark plug looks like, let alone the innards of a Ford Mustang. It probably reminds them of one of those teardown/rebuild shows

Pinoy361

Very nice! An yea i love workin on things in the garage. Mom might hate it (im 17 still) but my dad sits there and watches while asking questions. He's thouroughly entertained and so are the people who walk/run/drive by. I had the car on jeck stands while i was simply changing the oil and i jad 3 ppl standing around watchin. I just let em stare as i put the new intake in while the oil was drainin. Its a good feeling(:

white08gt

look at ford's brilliant silver, it really pops. lots of metallic in it, my wife's flex has this color. satin silver looks very dull compared to this.

Cavero

Enjoy it while you can! I miss my parent's garage. How I could start a project and not have to have it done in the same day. I could work in the shade, no worries about rain. My neighbors are mystified every time I do the dumbest little thing. I think my favorite one was I was going on a road trip. I didn't want to put the 1000 miles on my summer tires, so I swapped to my worn down all-seasons. They thought it was the most awesome thing ever. They think I'm a mechanic now

I can't find any good pics of brilliant silver online. Right now I'm sticking with Mercedes Brilliant silver. When the car's clean, it really pops like you say. I want to find a Ford to compare it to though. The body shop called me today, said they should be marking off the stripes on Tuesday

GPStang06

Cavero, nice upgrades!

As far as the hood, after it has settled, if it still sits about the fender line, that is normal for these hoods as they are a bot thicker then the factory hood. Mine was the same when I installed it. What I did was shim the fenders by adding washers to the fender bolts where needed and in one area, I used some aluminum strips that I cut up and placed them under the fender lip until I got them all even. It won't be factory perfect but with a little work, you can get it very close. I was very relived after I did mine.

Cavero

Shimming the fenders....AWESOME. I'm going to give that a try when I get the car back. I found that my intake manifold was rubbing on the underside of the hood so I cut out the underside area (think of the well you would cut out to put in a Shaker scoop) and it sat a lot better. I'm going to shim and tuck the fenders, definitely.

...Speaking of the shop, I'm headed up to there tomorrow. They've got the stripes masked off and want my approval on the stripe layout before they shoot the base color. They said it's tough to explain but with the optical illusion from the domed roof, they wanted me to be sure I was OK with how they're laid out. It's an hour ride in traffic which sucks. For anyone reading this tomorrow, or a year from now, or five, remember this: find a shop nearby. It's a demanding process to begin with but having the commute really makes it that much more of a hassle.

Sorry haven't posted in a while. The shop keeps saying they'll send pics of their progress but I haven't gotten any yet. I'll bring my camera with me tomorrow.

Cavero

Turns out someone in my neighborhood has it. It really does pop. by the time I saw it they shop had already laid the stripe color, so I'm set on Mercedes brilliant silver. but the two are really close.

Just to clear things up, theyre painting the stripe color first, masking off the stripes, then painting the base color (tungsten). From there they'll peel it off, blocksand, and finally clearcoat. I might pay them the extra $200 to buff out the car too.