Eleanor Coupe project history

[tarafied1]

I thought it would be cool if we all do a project history page. There are a lot of cool rides here now and many have been built or modified over time. It would be cool if we have a page for the history to see what all has been done.

My car has been in it’s current state (not finished but mostly done) for two years now.

I started on it in 1990. It was rusty but I didn’t think it was as bad as it turned out to be.

I put new quarters, floor boards, wheel wells, fenders, etc. on it in the early 90's and primed it. My 1st wife left when my oldest son was about 7 months old, I was a single dad for about 3 years. I remarried in 94. My wife even got into the project

I stuffed a 460 in it in 92 or 93.

Crites motor mounts

It sat around a lot as I had two more boys and relocated twice for work.

I finally got busy working on it again and yanked the 460 to rebuild it. The block had been bored before and there was some core shift so a couple cylinders needed to be sleeved. I decided to look for a new block. I called around and found a guy who said he had a 429 with a 4 bolt main for $500. I bought it, built it up and put it in the Stang. I had a C6 in there but it leaked real bad so I had it rebuilt and had a shift kit put in. I was using Crites motor mounts and Tubular Automotive headers, 3" exhaust and 40 series Flowmasters, Granada Spindles and a Versailes 9" rear.

my wife got tired of the multi-color look so we decided to prime it all one color.

It remained this way for a while...
More to come

 

[Johnny M]

Interesting tread....Keep them pics coming...

 

[lethal289]

Very cool, way to represent for the coupes!

 

[tarafied1]

Very cool, way to represent for the coupes!

THANKS! coupes ARE cool!!!

 

[tarafied1]

To continue with the history, I started on the interior next. The instrument cluster was a standard 67 cluster with no tach. This car has been a budget operation so rather than spend $1000+ on Phantom gauges (which are really cool BTW) I decided to try and put a factory tach in. I bought a 67 Cougar tach cluster on ebay for $45. I put the tach in but it took a little fabricating. The Cougar cluster depth was different than the Stang. I had to make the "cup" deeper. I also put a 68 oil pressure gauge in the where the clock was. The 67 had the oil pressure in the large cluster and in 68 they switched it with the fuel gauge. Since I gave up the oil pressure gauge for the tach I thought it would be good to add the 68 gauge. I don't have an amp gauge yet.

I also changed the bulb covers from blue/green to red/orange and to make the faces all match I bought a white face kit.

My wife put in the headliner...

she also re-aposltered the seats

I added a "humphugger" console and ran without a radio for a while

I have since, added a stereo and kick panel speakers

still more to come!

 

[lethal289]

Thats awesome, do you ever let her drive? :yikes

 

[Midlife]

Man, she did a very nice job on the headliner!

You willing to job-shop her out?

 

[tarafied1]

Thanks, yes she did a great job! I do let her drive but she doesn't like the manual steering and non-power brakes.
She says that she will never do another car interior but I think I could twist her arm, well bribe her at Kay jewelers!

 

[tarafied1]

My plan was to build a "Little Red" or "Green Hornet" style car. I have always wanted a Shelby but could never afford one. It was also difficult to find a fastback I could afford even back then.

I like the coupe bodystyle and I have always had one since I was 15 so I decided I would build my own "Super Coupe"
When the remake of Gone in 60 Seconds came out I just flipped over the "Eleanor" car and decided right then I would use that style on my car.
I had already done the rear trunk and tail lights so the next step was the nose.

 

[lethal289]

How hard was it to fit the nose. I hear there can be a ton of issues with them and ive always wondered!

 

[tarafied1]

all the fiberglass was a real challenge. I also had repop fenders and quarters which I'm sure added to the pain!
In fact the fenders were the worst fitting of all the parts...
here are some before and after of the door area.

 

[Fast68back]

nice work, you can see how "well" it fit initially.

 

[lethal289]

thats what spiked the question, but can you go into a little more detail on the fitment issues. Thanks!

 

[tarafied1]

Yeah, I sure can. The trunk/quarter end caps were the first thing I delt with. The end caps fit terrible. I had to cut and build-up the parts to get them close. Eventually building them into the body and cutting them back off.

The trunk lid didn't fit too bad.
The upper nose was the worst and took the most work, the hood had a bow in it but we tweaked the fenders to match. The lower nose, flares and scoops weren't too bad.

I actually had to do the most work on the fenders to get hem to fit at the doors and cowl. If I had known they would be that bad I would have patched the original fenders!

 

[tarafied1]

as you may have noticed, I also had to replace the trunk floor, wheel wells and partial rear frame rails and lower tail panel area...

but that's not all!!! More to come.

 

[lethal289]

wow, you've got some serious talent!

 

[GT350]

Nice build i too have a 67 coupe and a 67 shelby bodykit sitting in riverside at my pals place waiting to get started one day.

 

[tarafied1]

wow, you've got some serious talent!

thanks, I don't know about that. I have always been good with the mechanical stuff. A lot of the bodywork was my first time at stuff this major.

Nice build i too have a 67 coupe and a 67 shelby bodykit sitting in riverside at my pals place waiting to get started one day.

Cool, you guys need to start threads on your projects too. Maybe Sluggo will link them into a sticky for members projects or something like that.

 

[lethal289]

Cool, you guys need to start threads on your projects too. Maybe Sluggo will link them into a stick for members projects or something like that.

I think thats a great idea. A members build page. Maybe even link it to the member profile!

 

[tarafied1]

I think thats a great idea. A members build page. Maybe even link it to the member profile!

that would be perfect!

Well, as the rear of the car was coming together I thought I was close to paint, so I searched and found a Rod and Custom shop I liked and he said I could work on the car in his shop. We hauled to the shop and began to strip it down to the bare shell.

After pulling off the front suspension and pulling out the engine and trans, we chisled the crud out from the shock towers and found the Titanic, well it looked as rusty and full of holes as the Titanic anyway!

so we cut off the front end one side at a time...

you'll probably notice there is no torque box on the passenger side, weird. Anyway, I planned to add one and sub-frame connectors anyway...
Starting to go back together

so now I can cut off the other side

epoxy primed and painted the front clip, and started reassembly, including the 1" Shelby Drop.

also added Competition Engineering sub-frame connectors

I even painted my steering column, not concores with the black on the end but I didn't want red sticking in the engine compartment.