Black Gold 380R's 65 Mustang Build Thread

Bullitt1448 said:

Looks like you're making good progress, wish I could say the same.
My past experience with those zip tie hold downs is they don't last long in an automotive environment, I have had success by adding a small dab of epoxy adhesive when installing them.

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Thank you Bullitt! I'm hoping they hold up well. I used acetone to clean the area. They are under the console in a cooler environment and really are not holding a lot of weight. They are made by 3M, so I'm hoping they are of good quality.

If they end up failing eventually I will use your epoxy method and get it fixed up. Since they are under the console I probably will not notice any failures unless I remove it for something. So, even if they fail hopefully it will be out of sight, out of mind LOL.

I appreciate the heads up though. You're the second person who told me they have not had good luck with them .

My only experience with them has beem in over the road vehicles, generally HD stuff like trucks where vibration was always an issuse. In a custom car like yours that is likely not going to see a lot of hard miles they may hold considerably better.

I did some math this weekend....


Been working on the car 10 months (May 20 to Feb 21) x an average of 8 days a month = 80 days

An average of 80 days a month x an average of working on the car 6 hours a day = 480 hours

480 hours x an average of paying someone else $75 an hour on labor = $36,000.00

So, by doing most of this myself (I've paid my fabricator to do things like my valve covers and I've paid my powder coater to have stuff powder coated) I have saved an average of $36,000.00 up to this point.

Even if you subtracted all the tools and materials I had to buy to do this build (i.e. welder, 80 gal air compressor, pneumatic tools, sand paper, grinding wheels, body filler, welding wire, various body and welding tools, electrical connectors, shrink tubing, grommets, hardware, etc.) I still think I've saved around $33,000.00. My brother has a lot of tools he let me borrow, which has helped me greatly in the saving money department.

Let me tell you, seeing that number is one hell of a motivator for me LOL.

Nice, glad to hear that you got the ebrake all sorted out and adjusted.

Grabber70Mach said:

Nice, glad to hear that you got the ebrake all sorted out and adjusted.

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Thank you Grabber. It wasn't fun trying to get the calipers off, but with the leaf springs, lowering blocks and caltrac bars in the way I could not access the adjustment window on the rear of the brake set up. Oh well, it's done now and the emergency brake works great. When I decided to go with a manual transmission the emergency brake was one of my concerns.

Since the car was always an automatic I never had an emergency brake on it LOL. I knew I didn't want the original pull style or add the foot pedal style. Thought about the lift style like on the Fox Bodies/New Edge Mustangs, but once I found the electric style I knew that was the one I wanted.

Although I have a ways to go, I'm really happy with how this build is progressing/turning out .

Wife’s Mercedes has an electric park brake, it works really slick. It would be really difficult for her to go back to a manual one st this point.
That is a fair chunk of change you saved! Congrats! Besides, having done the work yourself, you get the satisfaction of saying you built it, you didn’t havd to buy it. To me that is worth a lot, I have never really understood those that claim to be hotrodders and can barely turn a wrench but have deep pockets. To me doing your own work on your own car is the essence of hotrodding. Sure, farm out some of the parts of the project that require expensive special tools but a true hotrodder should be able to change an engine and do the basics.

Bullitt1448 said:

Wife’s Mercedes has an electric park brake, it works really slick. It would be really difficult for her to go back to a manual one st this point. That is a fair chunk of change you saved! Congrats! Besides, having done the work yourself, you get the satisfaction of saying you built it, you didn’t havd to buy it. To me that is worth a lot, I have never really understood those that claim to be hotrodders and can barely turn a wrench but have deep pockets. To me doing your own work on your own car is the essence of hotrodding. Sure, farm out some of the parts of the project that require expensive special tools but a true hotrodder should be able to change an engine and do the basics.

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Thank you Bullitt! I was telling my Dad about my E-brake set up. He said "That's how it is on my Cadillac." That made me feel good knowing this type of E-brake is being utilized on higher end cars.

I agree with you on all points concerning being a true hotrodder. I know you cannot be an expert in everything and you may need help on things, but if you do the majority of the work that's what counts.

My brother is the one who really got me started and he's younger than me. I used to watch him work on his car in the driveway. I remember once he was installing headers, but they did not fit because he had studs on his heads so they would not bolt up and he had to notch the flanges to get them to fit. I remember telling him if I buy parts I expect them to fit. He said you have to modify things to make them work with other modifications you made sometimes. He said that's the definition of hotrodding.

I used to be one of those guys that just wanted to buy something and run with it. So, I always bought Mustangs that I could just get in and drive. Then I started to modify those Mustangs and realized what my brother was talking about. Look at me now LOL. Who would have guessed I would come full circle from that time with my bro in the driveway LOL.

You are doing a fantastic job with your car, no one was born with the skills necessary, we all had to learn somewhere along the line. I have been doing this sort of stuff for years, pretty good at the mechanical end of it and I have most of the tools for that, my body work skills are lacking so I am going to give a few body mods a try this time, going to shave my door handles and antenna. I have also considered moving the antenna to the rear fender and frenching in a power one like those seen on older hotrods like ‘49 Mercs. At this point I will still need to farm out the paint, that’s just too far beyond my skill level. I am going to attemp to paint the engine bay, most of that is unseen with the 4v cobra engine, so that should hide most of the mistakes while giving me an opportunity to get my feet wet with painting. Also going to spray Rhino liner under the car when I get it all stripped and the weld in subfame connectors in.

Bullitt1448 said:

You are doing a fantastic job with your car, no one was born with the skills necessary, we all had to learn somewhere along the line. I have been doing this sort of stuff for years, pretty good at the mechanical end of it and I have most of the tools for that, my body work skills are lacking so I am going to give a few body mods a try this time, going to shave my door handles and antenna. I have also considered moving the antenna to the rear fender and frenching in a power one like those seen on older hotrods like ‘49 Mercs. At this point I will still need to farm out the paint, that’s just too far beyond my skill level. I am going to attemp to paint the engine bay, most of that is unseen with the 4v cobra engine, so that should hide most of the mistakes while giving me an opportunity to get my feet wet with painting. Also going to spray Rhino liner under the car when I get it all stripped and the weld in subfame connectors in.

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I appreciate the feedback Bullitt! This is exactly why I kept this build thread here. Way more comments here than on the vintage site and this is what I enjoy. Conversation about the build. So, thank you sir!

This is my second go round on this build. I have to admit that during the first go round my brother did a lot of work on this car. He shaved the drip rails, the door handles, the trunk key hole, the antenna hole and the bumper bolts (He took automotive and body shop in high school and learned the basics of body work). During the first go round it was like my brother was the builder and I was the helper/financier. We were able to build a very nice Mustang, but it wasn't really where I wanted it.

I took the things I learned from my brother and the fact I'm in a better financial place now and this current build is the result. I give a lot of credit to my brother because he has taught me a lot when it comes to cars and he helped me get over my fear of screwing my car up. He always said "It's not broke until you cannot fix it anymore." LOL.....

So, I took a plasma cutter and went to town on the front end. Bought a welder and tried to fix what I cut off by adding something different. I feel it is coming out great and with comments like yours, and from others on the site, it reassures me that I'm doing this right or at least I'm heading in the right direction .

You are headed in the right direction! It’s looking good and doing the work in your garage is always a big plus in my book. I laugh at the folks that farm out things like adding headers or Catback exhausts, those are pretty basic tasks that most should be able to accomplish. I know headers can be a pain but thats where a little, ingenuity, perseverance and YouTube come in handy. It really isn’t rocket science. Projects like this help keep me sane in times when the world seems a little crazy.

Bullitt1448 said:

Projects like this help keep me sane in times when the world seems a little crazy.

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Amen to that brother!

Hello All!

Well, I believe I hit 2 milestones this weekend. One was a coordinated milestone and the other was a physical one.

I'll start off with the coordinated milestone. Some of you may remember I mentioned, in another thread, that my brother was a service advisor here in town at one time. He used to coordinate with a body shop that would fix damaged vehicles on the lot. He got to know the general manager of the body shop very well and they became friends outside of work because they both had interests in building older cars.

Well, my brother put me in contact with him and he came out to look at my car this weekend. Turns out he's a Ford guy and loved my build. I asked him if he would be interested in helping me complete the engine bay and he said yes.

I know I've been doing most of the work, but after spending al this time and money I don't want the paint to lift, crack or fade because I did something wrong. So, I wanted to ensure the paint was done correctly. Just as I wanted to ensure my front suspensions was welded in correctly.

So, the body shop guy said that once I pull everything back out to call him and he will come over and help me finish off the engine bay. Basically at that point he will take over the body and paint and I will become his apprentice for lack of a better term.

We scheduled this for April. He said he could only work on Saturday and said based on where I got the car to this point it should take us 3 Saturdays to get the engine bay completely painted.

SWEET! I cannot wait to get that milestone actually completed .

BTW: I received my McLeod billet aluminum flywheel over the weekend. I'm only missing the clutch disc and pressure plate and my drivetrain will be complete.

The second milestone is...….. I finally was able to get power to the car again !

I have been working on the wiring lately and I have moved things from the engine bay to under the dash. I used the factory wiring diagram, but added things like power and ground distribution blocks, relay's to power my headlights, fuel pump and electric fans. I modified the factory wiring harnesses to work with my new additions. So, I did a lot of cutting, splicing and rerouting.

Again, I'm no expert, but took my time, made a plan and then executed the plan one wire/system at a time.

I'm proud to say that everything I have connected up to this point is working exactly as it should.

I removed my Speedhut gauges so I could wire up the power, lighting and ground. All I need to do now is connect the specific sensor (i.e. Tach signal, O2 Sensor and fuel pressure sensor).



Here everything is zip tied and cleaned up to make connecting the sensors a little easier.



I got my switches wired up. @01yellercobra asked me about a schematic. I do not have one, but I'm trying to make this VERY easy to figure out. For example you will notice the top switch ends with a Female connector and the bottom switch ends in a male connector. The middle switch is the E-Brake and it has it's own connector. So, there's only one way to connect these if it's every taken apart.



Here you can see how I routed the wires and the additional 3M wire holders I have mounted here to keep everything neat and tidy.


Okay, here I had to label the wires so I know where they go. I want the switches to the left and right of the E-brake switch to control specific things. So, here they need to be labeled. Once they are hooked up they will only go one way .


Okay, going back to the schematic question. I am trying to color code everything as well. So if you see a colored wire you will know exactly what it is. Here is what I'm trying to do. Red=Constant Hot, Black=Ground, Yellow=Switched 12v and Blue=trigger wire (i.e. wire that will turn on my cut outs or line lock or anything else I need "switched" on).


Oh, the new switches I ordered ended up being the same size as the E-Brake switch. So, I installed them. They are not exactly the same design, but I do like the same size look.

Nice as usual. I'm understand your color code system. If you desire to draw any schematics up you may want to look into a program called Visio.

Okay, after I got everything wired up it was time to reinstall my electrical panel under the dash. What a pain in the _ _ _! Trying to hold it with one hand and then use my drill to screw it in place with the other hand was not fun, but I got it done. Sorry no pictures of this as I have shown pictures on the panel in place earlier.

After I got the electrical panel in place I added the 2AWG cable from the battery to the power distribution block and I added a 4AWG ground wire from the ground distribution block to the chassis. There is a 2AWG cable from the negative side of the battery to the chassis as well. So, in my set up disconnecting the negative side of the battery will not disconnect power from the car, but only unground the battery it self. Only disconnecting the positive cable from the battery will disconnect the power to the car.

(NOTE: Everything is temporarily wired for testing purposes only)

Here I got my gauges reinstalled.



I wired my gauge lighting to my light switch. So, when I pull my light switch to the on position my gauges light up as intended. Man that G.T. 427 looks sweet.


Here you can see when my switches are activated they light up.



My door and under dash courtesy lights work. Not pictured, but even my glovebox light works .




It's hard to see, but those of you with a sharp eye will notice the door panel on the drivers door is removed. The door popper in this door was fried. It was fried before I blew the motor (No.... my wiring did not fry it as the passenger door works as it should LOL). So, I removed the door panel and ordered a new door popper, so it will work as it should.



When I pull my light switch to light up my gauges my tail lights and license plate light comes on as they should. Got to love it when things start coming to life .

Grabber70Mach said:

Nice as usual. I'm understand your color code system. If you desire to draw any schematics up you may want to look into a program called Visio.

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Thank you for the heads up on the Visio system Grabber! Not sure if I will go that far, but I do understand having a schematic can be and is VERY helpful in figuring wiring out. I know I could "not" have done this wiring project without the original schematic to the car.

Great job with the wiring! Wiring, or extensive re-wiring, can be a daunting task. But you had a plan and stuck to it. The results speak for themselves.

CobraBob said:

View attachment 1693663 Great job with the wiring! Wiring, or extensive re-wiring, can be a daunting task. But you had a plan and stuck to it. The results speak for themselves.

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Thank you Bob! I was wondering if you were still checking in on my build from time to time.

I'm going to be doing more wiring this weekend. Hopefully, since my fabricator is not able to get to the car now this wiring work will put me ahead of the game this summer.

We will see if it works out lol.

Sent from my SM-G950U using the svtperformance.com mobile app

Okay all,

As mentioned earlier this weekend was more wiring. Yeah.... LOL....

After installing my electrical panel I have a couple plugs hanging that the other ends need to be connected to the car and I had to cut into the engine bay wiring harness to get other wires installed. Oh, and my new door popper came in. So, I installed that as well. Driver's door pops open perfectly now.

Here is the comparison to the new door popper solenoid to the old one. Besides the color they are exactly the same.



New door popper in place. This was a little bit of a challenge, but I welded the nuts to the mounting plate. So, this made it easier to install with the window channel in place. Getting the wire through the door popper and through the door latch was not fun, but got it done after a few tries.




Here you can see the engine bay wiring harness is zip tied together to ensure it doesn't separate. Then I wired everything up according to my new design. Here is the layout:

• Red w/white stripe = Water temp sensor (Gauge cluster); Note: a separate wire and sensor will be used for the ECU water temp sensor.
• Red w/green stripe = 12V switched power for ECU (Note: this specific wire stays hot while the key is in the "start" position. This way my ECU stays on while cranking the car. I know I said yellow was for 12V switched power, but those turn off while cranking the car and red w/green stripe is the factory colored wire for this operation. Lastly when the key is in the accessory position this wire does not have power. This way the fuel pump is not running if I want to listen to the stereo while cleaning the car or something.)
• White w/red stripe = Oil pressure sensor (Gauge cluster)
• Brown = Ignition power to starter solenoid under dash
• Red w/blue strip = Neutral safety switch wire to starter solenoid under dash
• Green = Power to mini high torque starter solenoid on starter on engine block
• Yellow = Fuel pump 12V switched on from ECU wiring harness
• Red plug = Back up light harness connected from transmission
• Blue plug = Neutral safety switch harness connected from transmission

NOTE: for those of you who notice the folded over wires on the ends of the engine bay wiring harness that are zip tied out of the way, these are not used in my set up. The yellow and brown wires are for the blower motor and the red and yellow wires on the opposite side were for my factory voltage regulator. There is no blower motor on this car and I upgraded to a 3G alternator and its voltage is internally regulated.


For those of you who read my wiring list above and noticed that starter solenoid was listed twice, you are correct. My set up has 2 starter solenoids on it. The original Ford starter solenoid has several functions wired into it, such as a power distribution block to power the fuse box in the car. It also runs my neutral safety switch wiring and it sends the signal to the starter to turn on. So, in my set up I kept the wiring as it came from the factory to make it easier for me to figure out.

So, all I did was send the power wire off the original Ford starter solenoid (green wire) to the starter solenoid on my mini high torque starter on the engine block. I did have it wired this way on my first build of this car. So, all I did in this set up was relocate everything.

Sorry for the long post, but felt it might help someone else out who may come over from the vintage site and want to know how I wired my set up.

Okay on Sunday I decided to take a break from wiring. Well, sort of. You'll see what I'm talking about LOL.

I decided to relocate my overflow tank/bottle. Now some of you may thing this is inconvenient, but I'm only using this as an overflow to catch any coolant and to keep it out of the engine bay and off my new paint. I also checked to make sure it would not interfere with my suspension or tire. When it gets full there is a drain plug on the bottom. Just need to go under the fender and drain it into a plastic jug or something. This way no antifreeze gets on the pain in my engine bay.


Assessing the situation to see where to mount the overflow tank/bottle.


Found a suitable location. I was going to try and just weld this extension on, but it was too flimsy by itself.


So, I mounted a supporting plate. I rounded it off to take off the sharp corner. It's nice and strong now.



Got my overflow tank/bottle mounted up. I used my jack to compress the suspension to the point I was lifting the car off the jack stands. Plenty of clearance.



Close up so you can really see how much clearance there is. The wheel was actually turned in when I took this picture.



Routing of the overflow hose.



This doesn't look great, but remember I'm going to have a radiator cover made. So, this will be covered up.