wanting to relive my childhood I chased down one of my 1st cars, it went off the road in 1977 wrecking the right front. then put in a barn with cows until 2003 when it was purchased for parts. Mike who I bought it from found it to be in better shape then expected so started to restore it. at some point it got put on the back burner in life then put up for sale. thats when I enter into the picture. having a 1969 cougar back in my high school days, thrashing my small town. this car caught my eye and bought it, I kinda picked away on this car from time to time without much filming as l just wanted to get lost in the process, but will show what l did film in the next couple of vids, special thanks to mike for the car and his work on saving it,
Nice garage thanks. I see you have a favorite color mike. How long have you been sitting here uh since 2007, and i think i've bought it in 2005. and what was the story behind it? You found it.
It was uh. I was looking on craigslist and i found this 70 and i wanted it for parks. For that one did you already have that one i had. I had several okay and uh, so i i found out about this car down in new jersey.
I gave the guy a price he accepted it. I went down picked it up and he gave me this the last time this was on the road was in 1977 and the farmer was, i said why why's it been sitting in your barn for so long, and he said because my son screwed up he had This car and he he wrecked it - he wrecked it yep he interested in the fender. He says, and i took the car away from him and it's been sitting there ever since next to the cows, so from 77 to 2005 yep, it sat yep and it was in a barn out of a barn. What was it in a barn nice? So it's literally a barn find it it was, and when i looked at it it you know it was in pretty rough shape and then the farmer comes out and he says oh by the way i have all the parts he had another fender.
He had a. He had a front end. There was no damage to the frame whatsoever. It was just all body work.
Where was it hit? Would he? Where did he rest, this fender yeah and i have uh i'll in fact, is that still running yep hold on a second? You got the history of it or something pictures. Oh look at you, that's what it looked like and you can see it. He gave me a new door gave me a new fender uh. I bought a new.
I had all this already and you can see how this is from the kyle's pen and then, and so i looked at it and i thought well, i'm just gon na part it out and then, like i said, the more i went into it that it looked Really good, underneath and you're like hey well miles, will just well, let's fast forward real quick took the engine out, started cleaning it up and that's what it looked like inside. It was all surface mice had gotten into it, and then i started working on her and then we started painting it put a new in put a new engine in oh, no, actually it's the original engine rebuilt. You said it only has 27 000 on it yeah. Let's take a look: okay, oh there, it is 27 nice 537 and you can see down the bottom.
I have zero miles on it, but that's not true. I have five miles on it. You drove it for five miles. Is that after you had it painted and everything? What was that i had this all together and in the story when i bought it? I had a.
I was a mac tool salesman, so i took it to a body guy that i knew to do this on the side and i took all the pieces to him. He gave them back to me and it was such a crap job. I sanded them all down and i painted it myself, so this has got two coats of paint on it is. Is it you got? Is it just an ammo? Is it clear coat on top? This is single stage: okay, with no clear on it, so it can be wet sanded down what i was going to do before i decided to sell it was to scuff it down, uh, put a coat of color on it and then clear it just because, like The little corners and stuff that got baked in all that little things gotcha. There is one problem. No no! It's this right here, my wife dropped the ladder against them. That's the worst part of the they look nice though, but everything else is good yeah you, you said you did the original carpet in the carpeting and you can see i painted underneath. I have all.
In fact this is original padding from ford. I kept it as original as i could you put a headliner in it too, which is nice. Oh yeah, the headliner is real nice. Your challenge is finding the holes where all the seat belts belong, but i have a book for you for that.
Oh awesome and eventually we'll get to the point i'll bring you back when we get it all uncovered and we'll go from there see what you got sure. So, that's point when you were taking apart, what was in there yeah it was just. I did that. Okay, you know i ground it down just to see what was under there and make sure there wasn't any uh pinholes and is that paint or is that like uh, just tar or something it's yeah? And then this is the old uh bucket, and this is it.
We redid it yeah, i redid both with these. Just like the mice, took out the uh phone and everything yeah. They hate everything. I know i know it's part of me, that's our it's our new england uh and then i put the mascot i put the uh um, the firewall firewall, which is they did not do back then, but you can see it's all painted and that's put back together And the only thing that you had done was this section of the quarters.
Yes and the body shop did that for you, yeah yeah, try to hustle, set it yeah yeah. Now, on the back, i have fiberglass for the gravel pan, okay, but i'm gon na give you a steel one, okay and it's in os and the front is fiberglass too it's a repot. I liked it yeah and it's easy to work with. It's got the lights already in it.
It's ready to be put back on. Let's go take a peek at the other parts. Ah, okay, so these are the bits and goodies that uh yeah there's a, but i have a really nice set of uh tail lights. Tail light, so you don't need that there's, i don't think, there's any um.
There's a stock intake manifold that was on it yeah. This is mostly the 69s okay, so yeah. Now there is no there's something for you. I have some vinyl dye.
Oh cool interior lacquer did you use that, like the inner part of the doors or something already is that yep, and i also have for you if i can find it uh? Where are you? Is it paint? No, you said you had spray cans. I i have a couple spray cans that i had mixed up of the wimbledon white. That is single stage and it works wonderfully. I've used it before aerosol sand.
I'll have um find it. Oh here it is oh cool. I can even spray that into a cap and use it as a touch-up, too yup yeah, it's uh. It's a stock m code, yep, okay, here's all your interior parts, that's the the one door. The window is still in the other door. This is all the parts for it. Okay got all the speakers. We've got.
Uh everything's marked firewall bumpers. These are important. These little bumpers and stuff they're hard to find, there's also stuff that nickles and down to you to death. Oh yeah spend a thousand bucks just chasing a little, and you got all the rubber floor plugs yep.
These all work, they've uh they could use some touch up. Is this what you painted it with that paint? Yeah? Okay, yep and it works really nice. You know, but this stuff i didn't, have to do anything see that's the interior, the original and that's. I haven't cleaned that nice and that's how nice it didn't get all water punky yeah.
Well, then, again it stopped being used when it was seven years old, yeah. So yeah and there's uh i've got a rebuilt clock for you. I think that's the clock, where's that attacker the clock is in here: yeah, there's a new clock set all rebuilt nice and then behind you is the doors the this is yours uh. I was going to put speakers in the rear.
There is a place for them, so you're going to get new speakers too. The odd size too, like a six by nine. Are they six by nines? Some of them had like a weird deck like it was like a 10 by they were like skinny and long. I don't think so.
I got the right ones, one way or the other. That's the original radio, the original stereo and it wouldn't work and the squirrels got in there and there was little you can still see. There's one little piece. I see it yeah got to get that out of there, but it wouldn't work.
It wouldn't slide got all the pieces shook it, you get it everywhere. Uh. I was telling you about here's the nose piece that i redid that's awesome and i did it eliminator style. So that's what that is, and why do you see these? I mean they came out really nice.
This is a vacuum rebuilt vacuum. You wanted to put a vacuum in there yeah nice. You know i went you can see. Oh yeah, cool they're, i mean they're in great shape.
Now, if you and there's the side pieces they're all redone uh, this is the other side. There's two of them. You know left and right of course, and then this is a uh rim blow and just leftover stuff from all the cars that - and i rebuilt it - it needs sanded and cleaned up, but this uh, this one, i believe, is a 70. that's extra set of gauges.
Windshield, you know you need these uh you're, not you may or may not use some of these you're going to have a choice. Whether you want to put padded or plastic on the windshield padded uh it may or may not fit. You might have to uh put change the screw holes um all this goes with it, because you're marking all the hardware look at you market, all the sizes of all the hardware where everything was yeah. That's good and here's your underneath with the and you can see. I redid those they're all nice there's some little stuff, you don't have to do, and this is the one that does not have anything in it, and this one has this one wasn't too bad on the orange peel yeah. You can see in the lower section here. Yeah yeah and then this guy, just that's the other door, of course, there's the seats and they have not been cleaned. That's how you take them out of the car.
Yep put them away now and there's uh. You can look look at the uh, the tag, the tags, how nice they are. I suppose the mice didn't thrash that so bad. No, it took a little bit of the ends, but that's about it.
That's it yeah. I was lucky yeah and that's the back in the front. So and then this is your nos gravel pan. If you choose to use it, you've got a part number on it: huh even got the part number sprayed on it.
Oh yeah may 19 inspected 18th of may, and then i don't know what their code is. So you can have you'll have one of those that's the old seat covers down below in the in the crate. Exactly i i kept them in case there's a little piece on this right. Yeah you rip something later on.
You can kind of pick away yeah and you got all oh. You got good seat belts too. I got three sets of seat belts, and so when i find my convertible, i have all the parts that go put that one together too, i mean there's there are shift pieces. I mean this is all actually it's all parts and pieces there's an extra set of uh vacuum hoses, which are hard to find, but there's a set of seat belts that are all wrapped up nice and tight.
These are the just. The return springs for the yeah, but i have a set. That's already done, painted cleaned detailed yeah getting ready to go. You know, there's uh, some hockey sticks.
I have. I had the hockey sticks redone, but you're going to have some extras. You don't see yourself putting another car together, so um. No, in fact the 69 is going to go up for sale.
Is it yup 40 grand package deal package deal so i haven't seen the engine yet guys. We're gon na go. Take a peek right now get all this stuff in boxes. Let's do a little reveal we're getting closer ready that doesn't look like your uh average 50-year-old engine.
All dirty and crappy looks pretty nice and clean to me yeah. It needs a little dusty dusty's, much better than rusty. Oh yeah! Well, that's! What's nice! You know this. This is not a rust bucket, yeah, usually just big boogered holes up in the side here with a by the shock towers and and it's an ac car which is nice just you have all kinds of knobs all the covers for the you have new handles new Door handles new uh, winders they're, all new.
Let's go see what the roof looks like. This is the original top. Yes, nice, i don't even see any little rust bubbles popping up anywhere. That's nice! Oh! No! It's always a plus the roof. The roof was an excellent shape. When i you know when i painted it, it was good yeah, it's those roof pillar emblems. Aren't they cool? Well, you don't have killer first time out of the garage. Okay thought all right, i'm sorry! But there are a couple other things in there that yeah, i see i'm discovering sir, as you take stuff off you catch it doing this.
It's the best place to try to hook it on too far down roll on us i'll, actually, uh um. What would you like me to do eyeball things to see how it's doing yeah way off on this ramp? You guys didn't tell me, well, i made it back in one piece: it's the next day i just kind of dropped the truck off and called it a night. Everything looked stay intact and stay put. I just have to do a ton of unloading.
I think the feature of this car is probably going to hang the pieces on and get the door on it, the doors on it align the fenders line, the hood end caps, that kind of thing and do a bunch of wet sanding and see what we have For paint that is already on the car, it's got some nicks and dings in it from sitting in the garage and just kind of moving around it, but it did come with the correct paint that it was painted with. So you may be able to. You know touch up some areas and then wet sand over the top of them and have that stuff disappear. Well, that is for another day right now, i'm going to go through the trouble of unloading, everything there's a a piece or two or 20.
or 2000 that need to be undone. The cab of the truck is full too, so i'm going to get all this stuff off the truck, and i other projects that i want to move forward on and finish econoline orange econoline behind me. It's still doing the metal work on that before i uh start going crazy on this one, but at least this one does not need paint. Hopefully - and we can get this one up and running - we have to do a cold start and see what we have for drivetrain.
I took his word for it that everything's good. I have a feeling that everything is uh judging by his character, and i want again thanks mike for hooking me up with this car. It's uh, i'm really glad to have it. I got some stories to tell of my childhood with a car involving uh the same as this at some point, but we'll leave that for another day with that guys, i'm gon na go sign off.
I want to thank you all for hanging out and uh doing a little uh treasure hunting with me until the next one i'll see you bye. All right, i got ta see how much of the paint damage will come out just because i should get the dirt off of it. First time for a rag, i have 800 grit. What's the other one, thousands go to 800.
That looks like it's got some decentness to us you're supposed to let the paper soak there. It's soaked, i think uh. It's got a bunch of that around there's a bunch of nicks and dings all over it. Let's see how thick the paint is.
You know that we had to work with nice. That was the 800 that took very little effort. This pain again is, i think, it's like 10 years old or so 12 years old. It may all look much better than what i thought it would. Okay, then nope. That's just dirt in the rag it's supposed to be bike week this week, but we have no bike week, so everybody's just kind of tooling around it might turn out just nice, i'm going to do the whole rear, i'm going to wash it first and i can Do the whole thing with a thousand grit, you can see there's a color difference right there right there. Those are chips right down through the paint, so they're not to come out. But let's see what happens, i'm just going to do the deck lid promise yeah sure.
Let's see how that comes out and five minutes later and the two nicks that we were down through the paint did not come out, but everything else did and you can see the color difference. I think it's overspray. He said it was from something else that got on it. He was going to wet sand the car anyway, so he wasn't that concerned about it, but i think that'll clean up and buff up really good and we're going to try touching up those areas.
Let that dry up and then wet sand and try to level them in with the rest of it as we dab in here and there. I still want to continue. I'm stopping promise, maybe, and anybody who's ever owned. An old ford knows crossing the solenoid trick, which is going to be right there.
So you want to jump that to that. This is the signal coming from the key latches that relay, and this is power going down to the starter. So if we cross them, we should get a there. We go.
Let's listen to. It actually sounds like the key is off, but it sounds like it's got a little bit of spark. You hear ticking going on, let's uh address whatever is going on with this. Actually, let's go throw a spark plug in it.
Real quick, i thought i heard spark clicking. That's not a good sign, though, is it you.
My dad has the exact car just red it’s been in the family since my grand father bought it brand new in 1970
This guy has a lot of knowledge on this car Mustie 👍 hope you show him it after your finished ! 🤗🤗🤗
If the price is right I'd bring that car home too. nice find Mustie nice find….seems like he's got everything that you need. no bull crap, no wonder your taken that one home. I'd jump on it too. appears like everything just about ready to assemble the baby together…you must be drooling at the bit. The more I see the more I'm falling in love with this find. Your scored…by the sounds of it. bro. of course it all depends on the price though right. The hood looks fantastic! Some nicks and orange peel, a bit of sanding and couple touch ups and buffing her up some and she should be ready to go. should be able to take care of most all the nicks and dings without painting since he repainted the car their should be lots of paint to be able to sand out those nicks and scratches and all like I said, you scored.
Mercurys are another Fallen Flag car make, getting rarer every day.
Amazing that the car wasn't repaired by the original owner but was left to sit all those years, the damage done to it wasn't anything really serious.
I love this guy, he reminds me of my dad except he's a ford guy. My dad is the exact same except replace the Ford's with Chevys. Attitude and love for the cars and the way he speaks and has his parts stashed. So similar to my pops. Loved this video! He loved that car, I can tell he was comfortable selling it to you. Almost like he was passing it down.
What does the "Vacuum" mean? I am assuming as it is a car part, they not referring to a normal vacuum.
Oddly enough, I had a 1969 Cougar XR7 with a 428 Cobra Jet and a 4 speed Trans! I blew up the 428 and put in a HO 390. But life changes and so did the chapter of my 69 Cougar and myself! Enjoy grasping the glory days and memories! 🙂
Lol . Package deal ??? All ya hear is crickets !!!! 😃😃. Beautiful car. I like how he labeled things and bet there's not many things you'll need to get for it if any.
If in your travels you see a blue 1970 'Cuda with a blue gut & a white convertible top, let me know!
Back in the early 80's I had a 69 XR7 coupe. Loved that car. Got totaled when someone rear-ended me at a stop sign. Ended up with the rear bumper about where the back seat was.
Looks like this fellow was is an expert at procurement.
He has left the assembly to you 🙂
So America and England say “needs sanded” or “needs rebuilt” instead of “needs to be sanded” or “needs to be rebuilt” or even “needs sanding” or “needs rebuilding” I’m starting to feel less and less like the way we say it in Canada is the normal way
Great when the owner wants to sell it to the right guy..🇬🇧
Any Meg's 105/205 or Meg's #7 for single stage, MF Lake Country Pad.
wHY DON"T KIDS HAVE PROJECT CAR NO MORE??
Boomer asking 10k for roller
That's one fine old Cougar. Can't wait to see it get the Mustie treatment. Congrats on such a great score.