1969 Coupe Restoration

[FluffyWuffums]

Hello all,

I am new to everything mustang. Long story short... I purchased a 1969 Coupe Project Car a few years ago with the intentions to restore it. It turns out that it needed a lot more work (and the money to fund that work).

This brings us to the present. I decided that now that I'm 20 with a decent job bringing in some money, that now is the perfect time to begin planning for this project. I am not too familiar with any kind of restoration, but I have plenty of time to read.... and read some more.

One of the first things I did when I purchased the car was having a mechanic take a look underneath the car to determine what needed to be done. Apparently, both floor pans need to be replaced and there are a few holes in the frame. The estimate I was given was around $3000 for him to repair it.

Here I am going through forum post after forum post trying to decide if this is a job I can accomplish (having never welded before in my life).

I figure that I can either mess it up, and learn a lot from it. Or I may actually do it right and gain some experience. I have lots of time for this.

Basically my question to you mustang guru's is whether or not this is a reasonable idea. Also, is the cost of "doing it yourself" in this instance beneficial... or do I run the risk of paying a lot more than 3000 dollars trying to fix a mistake. I only mention the body work because I figured that this was a good place to start, as you'll see in the pics... this is going to be a looong project.

Attached are a few pics of my dream car

[drdanr]

I'm in the process of restoring my own 1969 Mustang. It took me over a year to get the body ready for painting because I could only work on it a few hours on Saturdays. It needed lots of sanding and bondo, but now the paint's on and I'm ready to do the color sanding. As for floor pans, wouldn't it be easier to just replace them if they're rusted? Your car looks in better shape than mine when I started, but rust was minimal for me because I picked mine up in Santa Cruz, CA and I live in Las Vegas.

[FluffyWuffums]

(EDIT: it's actually a 1970, it has a 69 hood... which i will have to replace eventually didn't realize I put the wrong date down) The body has minimal rust that is visible... it's really only the underside that has issues. I was planning on replacing the floorpans. I took a door off this weekend in preparation for removing the seats (and replacing the door pins ... if anyone has any suggestions for removing rusted pins from hinges... i'm all ears. I can't get the bushings out.). When I removed some of the rug this weekend to get a better look at the floorpan I noticed the previous owner had rivoted a patch... not a very good job either. The floorpan itself is in poor condition.

When you worked on yours.. did you do any welding? do you know anybody who tried to do it themselves without any previous experience? I'm just curious. Of course replacing parts of the frame I'll leave to the professionals... I don't want to severely damage my car.

[wayne tovell]

3000 thats a lot of money i would get a second estimate i had the floors in my 69 replaced and it was about 20 hours to cut out replace and seem seal plus paint got a welder to do it in at his garage at home for $20 bucks an hour now as for the rear rails different story
Basically get a second opinion .. good luck !!