1967 GT500 Eleanor Project Eleanor Mustang Project by Dave S. Dave is a long time CJ Pony Parts customer and this 1967 Mustang is his current project. We thought that he was doing such a great job, that we should show off his work here! Below, you will find pictures of his progress and his own description of the project so far. I grew up around muscle cars. I’ve always loved classic fastback Mustangs. When the remake of ‘Gone in 60 Seconds’ came out in 2000 and I watched Nicolas Cage run from the cops in a modified 67 GT500, I was hooked. I loved everything about the car: the look, the colors, the sound … everything. I said to myself, one day I will own that car. 10 years later, here I am. I've been watching the prices of 67/68 fastbacks for a few years now and they have doubled in price. I began looking around for a good clean car. I looked at a couple, but they were either complete heaps or way over priced. I finally found a guy on another Mustang forum with a 1967. I looked at it and bought it right then and there. The previous owner bought the car in Tennessee. He completely stripped the car, sandblasted it and put it on a rotisserie to do the rust repair. He replaced the floors, quarters and some other misc metal that had been eaten away. He installed all new suspension disc brakes, fuel lines and just about everything else under the car. He swapped in a fuel injected 5.0 out of a low mileage 94 GT. He also purchased a brand new world class T-5 5 speed and a 9 inch rear end. My goal for the car is to make it as movie correct as possible. There are a few clones out there, but I have yet to see one that captures the correct movie look. Including PIAA lighting, correct body kit, handmade PS engineering wheels, moto lita steering wheel and brushed aluminum interior. I spent a couple hours fitting the Shelby trunk and endcaps. Being fiberglass, they don’t just bolt right on. I got the front gap nice, but I have to adjust the hinges to bring down the driver’s side rear a bit. Next, I worked on the front and rear glass channels. They had 40 years worth of paint and window glue in them, but in the end they had no rust and look great. The next step was to strip the rest of the roof and sail panels then put that in epoxy primer to seal the metal. I stripped the paint off the roof and found some surface rust underneath. So, I hit it with the sander and some 60 grit to get most of it off. Then I sprayed some rust neutralizer from Eastwood on, followed by epoxy primer. There are a few dents at the rear of the roof that ill hammer/dolly out tomorrow, but so far no bondo! Next, I stripped the passenger side door and fender. I found some good news and some bad. I found a bit of cheese on the pass front fender, nothing too bad but it’s got to be fixed. The good news is the door is perfect, no rust or bondo. I also stripped the inside of the pass door that is exposed once the door panel is on. It has a texture to it, so I couldn't sand it like I could all of the outside. I got most of the front fender stripped then I brought the fenders to the body shop and did a bit of work on them. The driver’s fender was fine with no bondo or damage. I just needed to weld the emblem holes. The passenger side was a different story however. It weighed about twice as much as the other fender, never good. I ground out all of the old bondo and found a ton of wormholes (holes created when using a slide hammer). Rather than welding up the holes and doing it right, they just caked the bondo on. So, I ground all of the old stuff off, hammered and dollied the dents and welded up the holes. I spent more time on the trunk and finally got it fitting as good as it’s going to get. I had to install rubber bumpers and take 1/4 inch out of the trunk latch. The driver side endcap is 1/2 inch shorter than the passenger which explains the gap. I trimmed the endcaps the best I could and added fiberglass to build up the gap. After more fiberglassing I got the back of the trunk/endcap sitting flush. The bottom edge of the trunk is still unsquare and uneven, so I put more fiberglass down to create a new edge. I spent the another 10 or so hours fiberglassing and blocking the trunk/endcaps and finally got them fitting nice. I had to raise the front of the driver’s side up a bit to sit flush. I used icing on the endcaps to go over everything and hide the 40 grit scratches from blocking. I blocked everything with 150 so it was ready for primer. I also got the driver’s side end cap fitting the way I wanted while still being removable. Next, I scraped off all of the old watershield glue and old caulking from the inside of the door. After that, I had to get the rest of the paint off of the inside of the door. This was extremely time consuming and tedious because the metal has a texture to it. This meant I couldn't sand it or wire wheel it like I could with any other part of the car. So, I used chemical stripper and a little brass wire brush by hand so I could get all of the paint off the nooks and crannies without destroying the texture. Once again, the doors were completely rust free. Next up, I wire wheeled/sanded all of the surface rust off the rocker/door jamb. I used a little icing on the spot welds where the quarter was welded to hide any imperfections. While talking to a body shop owner, he told me that the surface rust on the roof could come back to bite me later and advised me that I should get rid of it completely and not just seal it up. I tried pretty much everything: Sanding it, wire wheeling it, etc. I finally tried some muriatic acid and it did the trick. It is slow working and might take a few days for the rust to be completely gone. Next, I spent about 6 hours on the rear quarter. Besides the front fender, this was the hardest part of the car yet. It was very warped from the new quarter being put on, but I am pleased with the final result. The next step was to put both quarters in rattle can primer, so I can start going over everything with 180 to get all of the pinholes and deeper scratches out. Once I put primer on it at the bodyshop, all I will have to do is wetsand that to get it ready for paint. Since the doors only had very minor imperfections, I blocked those with 80 grit, went over everything with icing to fill in any pin holes and then hit everything with 180 and primer. Next, I put the rear lower valance on. I figured it would take 20 minutes, wrong. I ended up having to move the brackets and re-weld them so the valance would sit flush on the body. I drilled out and re-welded the bracket, then installed the valance along with the end caps. Before I could do the final bodywork on the fenders, I had to scrape off the original 40 year old Ford undercoating that was flaking off. With a little help from the heat gun and a putty knife, I made easy work of this. Next, I wire wheeled all of the surface rust off and sprayed it with truck bed coating. I didn’t want to use undercoating because it stays sticky. I am pretty happy with the result. For the next step, I decided to work on the headlight openings in the upper nose. I started by making a template the size of the light, in this case a Tupperware container that happened to be a perfect match. I then traced out the template on the upper nose and cut it out with my Dremel. Next, I held up the light and smoothed everything out nicely. While sanding, I found a couple of bubbles in the fiberglass, so that will have to be fixed. It didn't quite look right to me, as the lip around the headlight on the movie car was smaller than the lip on my car. So, I made a call to Cinema Vehicle Services (makers of the original 11 movie cars) and asked him to measure the fog lights on one of the cars used in the movie. The guy at CVS told me the headlights on the movie car were actually bigger than the fogs. Sure enough, the fogs on the car measured 6 ¼. This means the fog lights were the 4062 light, not the headlight as I was originally told. After some more calls, I found that the original cars used light number 5862 which measure 6 11/16th. If you look close, you can see the headlights are slightly bigger than the fogs. So, I called PIAA and ordered the correct light. After I figured out the headlights, I got and installed my hood and lower valance. Notice the correct arch on the front edge of the hood. Also, the correct hood bulge/dome.

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