1965 Mustang Coupe

Akurma

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Wasn't sure where to put this thread so I hope it is okay here, if not Mods feel free to move it!

Anyway, almost two years ago picked up a 1965 Mustang that has been stored in an old service garage since May of 1993! I plan to use this thread as a notebook of the car. So if you like these older mustangs keep this thread in mind!

You're probably wondering how I picked it up sooo, the town I live had and old closed down service garage that was built in the 1930s. The owner of the garage passed away a few years ago. This left his family with the garage and the contents inside of it.

There was a public auction held at the garage where they auctioned off nearly everything you could think an old garage would have. There were two classic mustangs inside, a 1968 Dark highland green coupe with a 289. And a 1965 Mustang coupe. While I love all classic mustangs and fastbacks aside, I really like the 67/68 coupes for some reason. When the 68 went up for auction it quickly went out of my budget(over $11k!) Turns out the cars original owners family was there and wanted it back for sentimental reasons and they deserved to have it.

Now the 1965 is up for auction and after few people dropped out I ending up having the winning bid of $3,600! Which I think is a pretty good price for the car in its condition. It does have rust as to be expected but i've seen far worse. However considering the options is has, it is complete and appears to be all original and numbers matching (have to check the block #'s at a later time) I am happy with my purchase and can't wait until it's roadworthy!

In the weeks that followed since I got the winning bid, i've done a few things here and there to get it closer to being roadworthy. First up was to give it a quick wash from 25+ years of garage dust and dirt building up on it. After that I rolled it into the garage so it stays out of the elements. Since the car hasn't really ran since I can only assume the early 90s I decided to play it safe and pull the spark plugs and spray oil in the cylinders to let it sit for a while before I tired to turn it over by hand. A few days passed and I got a breaker bar and tried turning it over. To my and my father surprise it turned over by hand very easily, super excited about that! My father and I disconnected the fuel lines, hooked a battery up and tried cranking it and it cranks with no problem!

I am playing it safe and ordered a new fuel tank, fuel lines from tank to pump and fuel lines from pump to carb as I don't know how much or how old whatever gas was in the tank and lines. judging by the smell id say pretty old, but I have no doubt the motor should start

Seeing as i've never owned a car this old before, hell i've never owned anything with a carburetor before lol im definitely going to have questions and i'll post them in this thread.

Anyways if you've read this far you probably want to see and know about the actual car lol so below are some photos of it, Let me know what you think!

1965 Mustang
77,794 Miles (78,3xx as of posting this)
289 C.I. V8
Auto (C4)
Power Steering
Air Conditioning*

* I think the A/C setup is an old school aftermarket unit. Reason being is the tag on the compressor says "Eaton" and the inside vents say "Sears." I would love to know more about this as people have said it is odd that the compressor is on the passenger side?

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If I can figure out how to embed video I have a video of it running for the first time

I will update this thread with more about the car and what has changed since all this happened about a year and a half ago
 
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PinkieT

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Nice find! Can't argue with a clean early Mustang with an old school 289.
 

RAU03MACH

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I had a few oldies 64 66 68 70
I kick myself in my ass everytime I get reminded of them
That is nice
Take care of that venal top
Chances are it's not painted underneath ford did that to rush them out the door
Sales like hotcacks
 

BigBore96

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That's a sweet pick up. Interior looks clean and the exterior should clean up pretty nice.

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Akurma

Akurma

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I had a few oldies 64 66 68 70
I kick myself in my ass every time I get reminded of them
That is nice
Take care of that venal top
Chances are it's not painted underneath ford did that to rush them out the door
Sales like hotcacks

The vinyl top im not sure if it was originally ordered with one or it was put on afterwords bit it has definitely seen better days, some of the corners are peeling up and at some point someone caulked the edge. I personally don't like the top at all but I am afraid to take it off because I don't know what it looks like underneath

Wow, that was a steal for the price. I really like the snow tires...

Was surprised to see snow tires on the rear of it when I first saw it! But there was a time where these cars were just older every day drivers, people drove them year round... the inner rear quarters paid the price

That's a sweet pick up. Interior looks clean and the exterior should clean up pretty nice.
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The interior is the nicest part of the car! two small rips in the back of the driver seat and two very small holes in the headliner. Im not even worried about them
 
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Akurma

Akurma

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Lengthy Update, like I said I got this car almost two years ago but just now getting around to posting a thread on here.

Now that I know it will start and run reliably I wanted to check out the brake system. With this car having manual drum brakes all around I decided to get a power brake booster and might convert the fronts to disc brakes at a later time. But for the time being I wanted to see what i'm working with. The fronts need all new hardware and drums. The rears however look like someone just serviced them! I will replace the wheel cylinders and drums for assurance but it was a pleasant surprise!

The tires on this 65 are old school bias-ply and VERY dry rotted and cracked, yet still hold air and are perfect for being rolled in and out of the garage, nothing more. However one tire, a snow tire go figure lol has a slow leak. I have a set of "starfish" wheels from my 1999 GT(245/45/17) that I figured I could throw on so I don't have to constantly add air to the tire. That idea was short lived as the wheel/tire is too wide and hits the inner wheel well. I could probably add a small spacer if I really wanted to. Was worth a shot, and I kinda like the look of 17 inch wheels on this, the size that is not the starfish wheel.

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One day I was mindlessly looking through facebook marketplace and stumbled upon an old school got a few parts for it over the past few months but I think the coolest part I was able to find was a factory Ford "Rally Pac" gauge cluster. I found it local to me for $115 which was a steal! Now this is for a 1966 mustang but for the price I couldn't pass it up.

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Finally had all the parts to redo the brake system, decided to upgrade the master cylinder to a power dual bowl master cylinder for two reasons. One every single person told me to ditch the single bowl and get a dual bowl for safety. Secondly the cost to add power brakes was not that much more than to just add a dual bowl MC. And let me tell you.. power drum brake... still stop on a damn dime! at least around town, stepping on the brakes above 45 there is definitely quick brake fade.
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Akurma

Akurma

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Started on the brake and fuel system. I wanted to replace the brake hoses and both the fuel and brake lines for the pure reason of, i have no idea how long the fluid has been sitting in there. plus new pre bent lines are fairly cheap. Last thing I want is a brake line blowing out or a fuel leak!

I opted for Stainless steel lines, this way I wont have to worry about them rusting. the old lines were pretty rust looking, but not leaking. Taking them out getting the new lines routed was a pretty easy, but would have been easier if I was using a lift. Looks odd with shiny new lines with the dirty looking underside lol. Also got new brake hoses, when I've replaced hoses on my other cars, its one hose per wheel right? Well apparently back in 65 it was normal to have one hose split off to both rear brakes. very strange to me. So the pictures below are of the old rear brake hose that splits off to the two hard lines to the drums. Oddly enough my car had a brake hose and bracket for a car that has dual exhaust, however my car has (and as far i know) was factory with a single exhaust. No idea why it has a hose setup for duals but maybe on the assembly line they messed up or just used whatever they had.

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Akurma

Akurma

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Next up was the fuel system! going to apologize that some of these pictures of blurry, i was working on the car and somehow the camera lens on my phone shattered, thus making the photos out of focus and blurry

I had to drain whatever was left in the gas tank. Luckily my tank had a drain plug on the bottom of the tank but my god did that fuel smell so bad I guess fuel that sits since 1993 will do that lol. I decided to bedline/uncoat the underside of the tank as they like to rust.

With the old tank drained of fuel and removed I did find a little bit of surface rust where the tank was sitting. I sanded it down and again spayed it with uncoating, its a temporary fix for now as I will need to replace some of the trunk floor due to a rust hole

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Akurma

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Removed the DISGUSTING fuel pump, seriously, i've never seen an engine pay this damn greasy and dirty before. its everywhere and its caked up with grease and dirt and god knows what else. just look at the fuel pump! I also found a printing on the hose for "1985" .. hard to believe that someone was in there a few years before the car was abandoned. Because I like to see what has survived and what hasn't on cars like these I cleaned up the fuel pump the best I could and to my surprise it looks to be the original pump. You can see the very faint outline of "FOMOCO"

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While I was working on the brakes and the fuel system I took the carburetor off and gave it to a neighbor of mine who is a Mustang enthusiast, he has a 73' Mach 1. He offered to rebuild the carb for me in exchange for a case of beer. Couldn't say no to that! While I was up there I put some new Autolite 45 copper plugs in.

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I also overhauled the cooling system, as the coolant that was in there has solidified over the years. New thermostat housing, thermostat and a very through flush of the block and radiator and its good as new. Never touched the water pump.. still kind of afraid to do so because of the AC compressor and power steering pump brackets need to be taken off in order to get to the pump. I did end up having a very small leak at the top of the radiator, a town not far from me still had an old school radiator repair shop. $42 and a week later and it was good as new! I was glad it was fixable as the date code suggests its the original radiator. In the ~1,000 miles I have put on it since I got it, the cooling system as been perfect!

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And that is pretty much brings this thread up to the current day! I did have to replace the factory single exit muffler as the welds to the pipe rotted away. For a cheap fix I found a cherry bomb muffler that had similar dimensions and got some exhaust clamps and bends from the local store. Added a little sound to the car, but for the ~$30 im happy with it.

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Besides the exhaust, I've been trying to get the AC unit to work, the fans work and it blows out somewhat "cool" air just not cold air. I think the refrigerant needs to be topped off but finding R12 is proving to be tough and im afraid to put the newer stuff in.

Next up on the list is to overhaul the suspension.

I did make it out to a local end of year car show before this past winter and since the weather got nice this year I have been driving it as much as I can!

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evilcw311

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If you have any friends who do hvac, they will have access to r12 and can charge it for you.


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DKblue98GT

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Nice work! I would love to have a car like that. Back in the 70's when I was a teenager I had a 67 Camaro and a 66 SS 396 Chevelle.. I grew up in Durango Colorado so we had snow tires on our cars 5 months of the year.
 
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Akurma

Akurma

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Are those 70-72 Maverick wheel covers? They look good on the car, BTW.

No idea what wheel covers they are originally from, I found them in the trunk when I bought the car. They say "Ford Motor Company" on them, I havent seen then elsewhere. I honestly don't hate them, I would like to put a set of 99-04 Bullitt wheels on it though

Scratch that, just did a quick google search and it looks like you might be correct! there is a set on Ebay going for over $200... that seems a bit ridiculous to me lol

If you have any friends who do hvac, they will have access to r12 and can charge it for you.
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Ill have to ask around!

Nice work! I would love to have a car like that. Back in the 70's when I was a teenager I had a 67 Camaro and a 66 SS 396 Chevelle.. I grew up in Durango Colorado so we had snow tires on our cars 5 months of the year.

Yup here in Pennsylvania its like that as well. A 396 Chevelle.. damn jealous hahah

I say resto mod... Nooice find.

Im torn between what to do with this, part of me wants to keep it as is and just fix stuff that pops up because it is so original.. and they are only original once. Part of me wants to have fun with it and build a 302 and swap in a T5 trans. For now i am just enjoying it!
 

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Regarding the r12 ac system. Isnt the conversion to r134a a change to different fittings and a proper capture of old r12 and replace with r134a?

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Akurma

Akurma

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Regarding the r12 ac system. Isnt the conversion to r134a a change to different fittings and a proper capture of old r12 and replace with r134a?

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Honestly have no idea! I've heard that you have to replace the hoses, condenser and all that in addition to proper capture of the R12. It's something I will look into for sure

Over hear we have freeze 12
R12 equivalent no cfcs

I do remember reading something about FR-12.. might have to look into that
 

RAU03MACH

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I have the license to buy r 12 but from what I understand there running it out completely
Freeze 12 is supposed to takes its place
134 I heard is going to be behind counter
There are to many people that don't know a/c don't have the proper equipment
 

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