My 72 Mach 1 build & paint

[ylwhrse]

                                                    Well I finally got all my pictures organized and I think even figured out how to resize them so here we go. 1st if anyone has any questsions about what I did-techniques, products ect feel free to ask I will be more than happy to share. 2nd don't be afraid of doing anything on your car as there is a wealth of knowledge & experience here.
To start off with my car was fairly sound albeit some rust in the tail light panel, trunk floor was junk and a little in the cowl and behind drivers rear wheel on lower quarter. I decided that I would get her mechanically sound 1st then jump into body & paint. I did all the work myself with help from my two daughters and wife. I work a 2 week on 2 week off schedule and the whole job took just over 3 years ( however real time was 1-1/2 years) and as any of you who have done one know the satisfaction of doing it yourself and the time commitment it requires. The hardest part was when I couldn't drive it while doing the body and paint short of a trip or two with no doors,deck lid, hood or glass or fenders on the car to blow the dust off. A couple stories go with those trips and our local police LOL. I will start off with a few pictures of the car as I got it so you can see what I started with and then I will post pictures of the progress through the project. If you look at the tail light pic close up you can see the rust around the light, and the trunk was pure junk and had one previous repair with fiberglass. I hope everyone likes the journey. it was / is a blast!!!
YLWHRSE

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                                            So right off the bat I wanted to clean up the car and get graphics on and start the mechanical. I have several clevelands on hand at all times so off 1 block & heads went to the machine shop I started ordering parts. I stroked the engine to 408CID upped the compression , went with a solid roller cam and lots of other goodies. While waiting on the machine work I dove into the rest. I rebuilt all brakes, front suspension & bushings, steering components, all new wheel bearings, pulled & rebuilt the 4 speed trans, replaced the open 3rd member with one I had rebuilt with a posi and only 750 miles on with 3.73 gears and finally had the mach 1 graphics in hand and installed them. Then the engine parts came back and I spent countless hours porting the heads as I intended to shift the motor up between 7200-7800 RPM's. then the work of putting it all together and installed in the car with a new flywheel, and dual friction centerforce clutch set up. Sorry I didn't take pictures of much of this process except for engine and the car after graphics and doing a burnout.
YLWHRSE

[JTS71 Mach1]

All looks good man. I had almost forgot how big the ports are on the 4 barrel heads. About double anything the sbc ever had. And they wondered why it ran so hard. More in more out the faster it's got to go! JTS 71 Mach1

[ylwhrse]

JTS71 Mach1 yes they are indeed huge and flow very well. They are as big as the 429-460 BBC fords. Only downside to these really is the exhaust side. It makes such a down turn and creates turbulance. But with time spent porting on them they come alive!! They had a similar problem with BBC in the fact the intake valve is very heavy so if you are turning serious higher RPM's you need a fair amount of valve spring PSI. I help mine out with titanium retainers and keepers which take some weight off the valve. I also run stud girdles for added rigidity and have not had any trouble to 8000 RPM'S. I also bush the lifter bores with bronze bushings. And I tell you I am not nice to her. I drive her like I stole it. YLWHRSE

[Mustangmike]

Nice work...love the car and the smoke show, too! And, uh yeah, those be big ports....

[ylwhrse]

OK so I'm new to this posting with pictures thing and it seems to me my text with pictures is hard to read. Plus I assume you hit reply and keep going with your post so that's how I'm doing it until I learn different. I can work on cars but I am not real shiny with computers. So I will talk about what I was doing then the next addition will be the pictures, hope that makes sense. In these I was just sanding the paint getting ready for bodywork and to see what was underneath and disassembly of all the pieces. Hood, trunk, doors, fender extensions, glass, etc. I totally took the car apart to paint it and do the body work. I feel like you get a better job of painting especially when changing colors if you take the car apart. You get much better coverage and get the hard to get parts easier-IE jambs & edges that would otherwise be difficult to do. Just my opinion on that. I do though feel your paint job will be more durable because you do get better even coverage over those areas. I cant stress enough though the value of taking lots of pictures during the tear down especially if the car will be apart for awhile. Amazing how many things a guy can forget over time even if he has done several of these. For instance in my build when it was time to put the car back together I couldn't remember how the trunk springs went and hooked up. Good thing I took pictures of both sides and from a couple different angles. Just stuff like that will make you scratch your head a bit.
YLWHRSE

[ylwhrse]