AMT '67 Mustang Fastback-Completed 05/16

[mustang1989]

On 4/19/2022 at 11:19 PM, vppelt68 said:

Many continue building on their group build threads, as the it doesn't get lost in time like on the "open" forum.

 

I'll do that then. Thanks bud.

 

Well......I knew I was gonna need to have more room topside the engine bay so that the air cleaner wouldn't contact the hood so I got to thinkin..... I've got the AMT GT-350 kit in the stash with a good factory scoop on it but the hood wouldn't interchange with the regular Mustang because the nose piece on the GT-350 is longer. So why not just use the scoop? So I went to work and scribed the cut out area that I needed to start removing the scoop from the GT-350 hood.

 

 

All cut out and ready for trimming the sides and edges of the scoop up.

 

 

A slight bit of clean up remains but I just sanded up to the sides and the sanded the front from the bottom till I was able to remove the areas right in front of the air intake
 

 

A little more clean up and I'll start working this into the hood after I cut out the opening in the Fastback hood for the air cleaner to sit up into.

 

[Stef N.]

Really sorry for your loss mate and good luck in the rest of your build.👍

[mustang1989]

On 4/23/2022 at 10:40 AM, Stef N. said:

Really sorry for your loss mate and good luck in the rest of your build.👍

Thanks Stef.

 

Hood scoop install complete to include the cutout on the bottom side of the hood for that AM air cleaner to sit up into.

 

 

 

Body with color, cals and clear applied. This was with no wet sanding or polishing yet..........

 

 

[vppelt68]

Is that a ´69 Charger 500 or a Daytona body looming in the background...?

[mustang1989]

4 hours ago, vppelt68 said:

Is that a ´69 Charger 500 or a Daytona body looming in the background...?

 

Yessirree it sure is. 

[vppelt68]

56 minutes ago, mustang1989 said:

 

Yessirree it sure is. 

I'm not suggesting anything, but...

 

[mustang1989]

4 hours ago, vppelt68 said:

I'm not suggesting anything, but...

 

 

Oh wow!!! Lemme see......

[mustang1989]

 Here's with the PE grill in place and the fog light system added. At this point I still had to touch the fog light chrome up.

 

[vppelt68]

That looks amazing!

[mustang1989]

10 hours ago, vppelt68 said:

That looks amazing!

 

Thanks bud! 

 

In taking on the rear panel I looked at the fuel cap fit on the panel and it was just waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too thick. Probably a scale 4-5 inches thick which is not the way it should be.
I mean look…here it is on mine:

 

 

the one one the right is how far it WOULD have stuck out. So I broke out the sandpaper and went to work. The one on the left is about how it SHOULD be…

 

 

 

here's with the PE tail light chrome bezels all cut out & formed and the rear panel painted up:

 

 

and with everything installed to include the license plate and frame that I carried over from the real car. I got rid of those stupid bumper extensions that go down from the bumper to either side of the license plates. I could NEVER stand those things. To me they just detract from the looks of the car. Bumper was stripped, bumper extensions removed, bumper then cleaned up and given the Alclad II chrome treatment.

 

[mustang1989]

Almost there fellas.....

 

Here’s the final mock up before I go any further and will be the last pictures I’ll post in this thread until I’m either done or have a major catastrophe with the build.

I’ve still got a couple of things to do like:

 

1. Scrub the tire tread on tires and touch up the rim edges and then install permanently onto the vehicle. Also the rear wheel isn’t “sucked” all the way down on the tire which      makes the tire look like it’s not properly seated on the wheel so I’ll have to make that happen as well.

 

2. Install all door handles and outside rear view mirrors (mirrors still need the Alclad II treatment)

 

3. Add the metal coating to the windshield wiper arms

 

4. Apply the PE M U S T A N G lettering to the trunk lid (although I am contemplating a complete repaint and clearing of the trunk lid because it doesn’t seem to be as dark a      shade of blue as the rest of the car).

 

5. Install the exhaust tips that I just got applying the Alclad Chrome treatment to

 

6. Install radiator hoses and final details in the engine bay

 

7. Paint the bottom side of the hood

 

Anyhow…here’s where we are right now. (Couldn’t resist throwing my “REMOVE BEFORE FLIGHT” tag from the mirror. I’ve had this tag on all my 1:1 scale rides for the last 32 years now. It was in Mustang #2 of mine, my blue #3 Mustang, my 89 LX Coupe and now in my Silverado truck.

 

 

 

 

 

[mustang1989]

Ok gang. This build is finally coming to a close after right at 10 months. I want to thank everyone who ran or participated in this Group Build for their kindness and patience along the way. I'm a slow builder already but then you throw in the passing of a loved one and it really takes the gas out of any motivation for hobbies for a while. I kind of hate seeing this one end as mom was following me on this one pretty closely before she passed a little over 3 months ago. With that being said....this one's for you momma. 

 

This whole build started last July after I saw the kit re-released by Round 2. I've had visions in my mind for years of building a 1967 Mustang Fastback model as it would have been if I had one. I've had the pleasure of owning three 67 coupes and always wanted a fastback in real life. My last Mustang was the best of the three because it was built from the first two cars and I had managed to score a 351W from a 69 Mach 1. She also had a 4spd manual transmission and 3.55 gears. 

The first car I had I managed to purchase from my home town. It had a 289 2bbl with an automatic tranny and 2.79 gears. It wasn't fast but it was a good lookin' car. On one of my many trips back to Ft. Hood from my home town in North Texas I hit a deer and destroyed the front end of the car. (going off into the ditch is the WRONG thing to do when dodging animals I found out). The deer was only the beginning of the damage....while dodging the deer I didn't look on the OTHER side of it and dove into a concrete drainage system. This car....was done.

 

Car #1: Acquired 1989-Decommissioned-1990

 

 

I found Car #2 in a wrecking yard and rescued it. Man.....that car was rough looking BUT.....it was a GT and had all the options to include tilt away steering which was a very weird option but definitly good on the cool factor. This car also had a standard transmission from the factory. No engine or tranny was in the car when I bought her for $100 but I quickly took care of that. The 289 was carried over from Car #1 and I got a close ratio 4 speed tranny for this one. Later on I bought the 351W I was talking about earlier and freshened it up and dropped it into this car and drove it for a few more years before somebody pulled out in front of me at Ft Hood. I dodged but not before I hit him with my drivers side door in a side skid. Jeez....

 

Car #2 before the wreck: Acquired 1990--Decommissioned 1991

 

 

and after the wreck:

 

 

The tilt way column that I was talking about. This was supposed to help with driver ingress and egress. Definitely different:

 

 

I did get the opportunity to lay my hands on Car #1 and Car #2 after 30+ years. They are both in the same wrecking yard in my home town within 15 feet of one another. Car #2 is in the foreground and #1 is just behind it. For what it's worth they are still together and still not crushed out.

 

 

This is where Car #3 comes in. Acquired 1991--Sold 2002

 

I bought her for $600 at Fort Hood and towed her back home. I had two other parts cars now to draw parts from to make this one the best car out of the three and one that I would have for 11 years. Me and my best friend built this car over a course of 5 days from this at day one:

 

 

to this at Day 3 of 5 moving under her own power.

 

 

The next two days involved finish up...bumpers, trim, interior and all the cool stuff to make this car driveable.

The end result:

 

 

 

 

 

Now....all of this is where the inspiration for my build here came from. I wanted to build a fastback with all of the things that I had in this last car with the only difference being that I wanted factory style wheels on this one. And so, I set out on my venture.

I purchased this kit....and went for broke.

 

 

Color is Acapulco Blue from MCW Finishes, Wet Look covers the clear coat. The pad printed tires in this kit are a God send and thanks to Eric Oberhaufer at AMT the change out from the Firestone Super Stock tires that this kit came with got changed out to the Wide O Oval tires you see in the following pictures. Model Car Garage covered most of the PE items that you'll see on this car with PE kit # MCG-2032. Joel at Iceman Collections provided the Cobra air cleaner, HGW Models provided this 1/48 scale REMOVE BEFORE FLIGHT tag hanging from the rearview mirror and the CPC 64F (the same tag that was on Car #3) license plate and plate frame were provided by Thomas at Speedway decals. Throttle linkage, air cleaner wingnut & washer, fuel lines and brake lines were all either fabricated or drawn from PE parts bin. Throttle return spring is an element from an automotive turn signal bulb. Plug wires are from Lex's Scale Modeling and the 650 cfm Holley Double Pumper carburetor was from Shapeways.

The hood scoop is from the AMT GT-350 kit and was graphed onto the stock hood. I also cut out the area of the hood where the scoop was to allow the air cleaner to sit up inside of the scoop from proper hood closure/ seating.

Outside door handles are from Fireball Modelworks, Alclad applied to both and pinned in place.

  A good amount of work had to be done to get the front suspension lowered achieve the stance that I wanted and the front wheels had to be moved in ......significantly... to go inside of the wheel wells where they belonged. The rear suspension had to be raised so a light re-aching of the leaf springs is all that took. 

 This kit is a good kit overall but there are some notable areas that need mentioning. Firts off ...the good. The base engine was well represented with only a carburetor change out needed to spice things up a bit. The interior is also well represented with good detail. The aluminum plating on the dash face is a BEAR to replicate on this one as is the door panels. If anyone's interested in how I pulled that off let me know and I'll be happy to tell you how I managed to get through it. 

80% of this build was pretty straight forward BUT....the fit between the nose piece and the drivers front fender on these kits is very hard to get flush. I spent all KINDS of time trying to fix the issue and STILL ended up with a slight gap. Test fit--sand-test fit--file--test fit and MORE TEST FIT is required to get this part right. The fuel cap sticks out way too far because it's thicker than it needs to be. I took sandpaper and stuck it into the contours of the tail light panel and sanded it down to what I felt like was the proper thickness. The front and rear bumpers had little braces going down on either side of the license plate area and I don't care for those so I cut those off of both bumpers, stripped the chrome from them, cleaned 'em up and worked the Alclad magic on both.

 I'm pretty happy with the turnout overall as it's just the look I wanted to get from the build. Thank you guys for following along, encouraging me and helping me get through this one.

Finishing shots:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Stef N.]

Wonderful. A brilliant finish and very well done for sticking with it. Well worth it.👏👍

[mustang1989]

On 5/17/2022 at 12:34 AM, Stef N. said:

Wonderful. A brilliant finish and very well done for sticking with it. Well worth it.👏👍

Stef I really appreciate you guys being patient with me and for the comments. I'm actually glad I took the extra time because this build meant so much to me and I didn't want to fall short of my own expectations for this build by rushing through it to meet a deadline. Hopefully I can get in on another Group Build at some point with you guys again and this go round actually finish on time. lol

[Stef N.]

No worries. If you get some spare time maybe put it in the car sections RFI too. 👍

 

Anyway, all the best and I look forward to your next project.

[mustang1989]

2 hours ago, Stef N. said:

No worries. If you get some spare time maybe put it in the car sections RFI too. 👍

 

Anyway, all the best and I look forward to your next project.

 

Thanks and I'll do that. I've already got the next ones up on the bench.

 

Dual build:

 

[vppelt68]

Absolutely beautiful Mustang, and now seeing that final result must make all the effort feel it was worth it

 

I'll be glad to follow the pair of Camaros too, keep us posted! V-P

[HoolioPaulio]

Stunning build my friend, with an amazing backstory.  Glad you got it finished, it was well worth the wait.

[mustang1989]

On 5/19/2022 at 2:32 AM, vppelt68 said:

Absolutely beautiful Mustang, and now seeing that final result must make all the effort feel it was worth it

 

I'll be glad to follow the pair of Camaros too, keep us posted! V-P

 

On 5/19/2022 at 5:07 AM, HoolioPaulio said:

Stunning build my friend, with an amazing backstory.  Glad you got it finished, it was well worth the wait.

 

Thanks goes out to both of you for hanging in there with me. Had alot happen over the last half year and it slowed and at one point just stopped all progress on this one. I am looking forward to that dual project though.