Junk in the trunk of my 68 Mustang and cars don't roll sideways

My 1968 Mustang Coupe came with something that would usually be considered a good feature, it only rolls forward and backwards, not sideways. Unfortunately for me I needed to move it twelve feet to the left into the other garage bay so my wife's Expidition can go in the garage too.

I ended up rolling her back and forth in the garage a bunch of times, cranking the wheel back and forth to move the car a few inches to the left each trip from the front of the garage to the back, and then back to the front again. Eventually I want to get some car skates to make this kind of thing easier, but for right now this worked.

Here is a picture of her in her new spot. 

The car came with a few "spare parts" in the trunk, most of which I probably won't use. 

Here is a closer (possibly upside down) view. 

There are two different distributors and parts for at least three different carbs in the pile. The mirror is cracked, so I would need to replace the actual mirror before I could use that. About the only piece I am sure I will use is the inside door cover for my driver's side door.

I ordered a dewalt grinder, some wire wheels, a face mask, ear protection, a half mask respirator, a gallon of evapo-rust, a ten pack of 80 grit sanding disks, and some shop towels from Amazon today. This should be everything I need to start in on removing a bunch of rust from the car.

Assessing my 1968 Mustang Coupe - Lola

I took a few pictures of Lola tonight after the kids were in bed. I was getting kind of worried about what I might have gotten myself into, but now I think I may have hit the jackpot as far as cheap old rust bucket 1968 Mustang Coupe's go. (Remind me of that in a few months or years when I have really gotten into this project.) 

The worst of the rust seems to be relegated to the floor pans. The frame rails all seem solid as far as I can tell except for the very front of the passenger side one under the battery tray.

There are a few small holes in the external body panels around the wheel wells of course, but that's expected on these cars. (I say like I am some kind of expert instead of the rank amateur I really am.)

Overall I think the rust level should be manageable. (Famous last words I know.)

Pictures below: 

Front driver side frame rail. Looks solid. 

Battery tray area. This will have to be replaced. 

Drivers side looks solid though. 

Passenger side frame rail behind the shock tower looks good from above at least. 

Lola's engine. 

I need to finish putting up sheetrock on one remaining wall in the garage and build another shelf along the ceiling on that wall to move some boxes to before I can really get into taking Lola apart. I also want to put in an attic ladder so I can store stuff up there as well. Everything I've read about restoring these cars makes me think I am going to need a LOT of storage space.

Unloading the car and starting a YouTube channel

I unloaded the car from the trailer this evening after work. I then pushed her into a parking spot on my street and tried starting her a few times with a battery I bought yesterday and a can of gas sitting in the engine bay feeding the engine, she started but never ran for long. I gave up on driving her up my driveway into my garage and got some help from my neighbor to push her up the driveway into the garage. 

Here is a link to my YouTube channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJnwI3ncLFPPiu5r-0PZV4g

Here is a direct link to the best video my wife took today of the car running. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6yVRTJ3pxmU&feature=share

Here are a few pictures I took today. 

Engine Bay with the can of gas sitting in her. 

Battery sitting on what's left of the battery tray. 

Lola sitting in the parking spot on my street. I have decided to call her Lola. 

In my garage. 

Registering a non-running 1968 Mustang

I took a half day off from work to deal with registering the car today. 

First I had to have a VIN inspection done by the Kansas Highway Patrol. To do the inspection they had to have the car off the trailer. I took all my blocks and tie downs off, pushed her back to the edge of the trailer, wiggled in through the barely opening door and push her back with my arm out the window and my foot on the brakes such as they are. She rolled half way down the trailer and bottomed out. Ouch, my poor car!

I climbed back out and unhitched the trailer after blocking a wheel on the trailer. The front of the trailer went up, the rear went down, and the car stared rolling away! Oops. Fortunately the hill was a small one and the car rolled up on a curb and stopped before it could hit anything. 

I pushed the car back away from the curb, put her in gear to keep her from rolling away, and the trooper came out to do the inspection right about then.

I had a bad moment when the driver's door didn't want to open for the trooper to look at that, but I think it had accidentally gotten locked when I climbed out.

The trooper verified the VIN on the title matched the one on the door and the frame inside the engine. 

The inspection cost me $20. 

Because the car isn't running they only let me do a non-highway registration.

After that I spent the next half hour or so slowly cranking the car back onto the trailer with a come-along and a couple of chains.

Compared to the inspection the DMV was easy. The lines were almost non-existent so I waited less than 5 minutes. 

The nice lady who helped me had only ever done one other non-highway title-only registration so she had to ask someone for a bit of help with that, but otherwise it was a smooth process.

When the car is running I can get a one day tag from the DMV, use that to drive up to the highway patrol station, get her inspected again, and then get her registered and get a license plate.

The title transfer cost $10 and the sales taxes were $98.

I did have to sign a statement saying I was not sure the mileage was accurate to have it listed as exempt on this title.

The odometer reads 78,596. That could be accurate, or the real mileage could be one or two hundred thousand more miles than that. Who knows with these old odometers that turn over at a hundred thousand miles. 

Here are a few more pictures just because. :-)

Door plate. I will decode this later. 

There's beauty in this old hardware. 

This is a good anology for the state of the car in general. Beautiful, but also in rather rough shape to say the least. 

Prices and a few pictures

I had to work today so didn't get to spend much time with the Mustang. 

Some money talk:

I paid $1300 for the car. She was advertised for $1400 on Craigslist, but when I got to Pittsburg KS, about a three hour drive from where I live in Wichita, KS in the truck hauling a trailer, the car was in worse shape than the pictures revealed. The guy started the car for me and she growled in a way that is pure beauty, but there is a LOT of rust on her. 

I was overwhelmed by the rust and was going to pass on this car but he offered to come down to $1200 and seemed like he really needed the cash and might have gone lower. I split the difference and offered him the $1300. He seemed happy with that and I am glad I bought the car.

I did a bit of rough googling for prices on things I know she needs for sure before she will be drivable and came up with at least $1300 more I will have to put into her as a starting point. That's before I even think about body work or upgrading to disk brakes or a performance DUI Ignition system. 

This is going to take a while both work and money wise.

Now a few after dark pictures. Hopefully I can take some better ones tomorrow.

Engine:

Front end with the Mustang emblem. 

I Bought a 1968 Mustang Today

Long day of driving to get her but I own a classic mustang now. 

On the trailer, ready to come home. 

Modifying wire frame slatwall shelves to work with slatwall inserts

I bought these wire frame slatwall shelves from Amazon a few weeks ago. 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00Q83L71E/ref=ya_aw_od_pi?ie=UTF8&psc=1

They seem to be high quality units and are well built. However, I had a problem when I tried to install them in my slatwall, they wouldn't go in all the way. 

The wire supports are too thick to fit into my aluminum slatwall inserts. 

I proved this by comparing the size of the wire against a spare piece of slatwall insert I had. 

I considered returning them but all the other options were either much more expensive, flimsier, or both, so I decided to make them work with my slatwall inserts. 

I put a cutting wheel on my grinder and cut down the supports to fit. 

I mounted the slatwall shelve in my vice. 

Cut it the supports. 

Changed the way it was mounted put a grinding disk in my grinder and ground it down some more. 

My kid took a photo of me grinding it down. 

It now fits in the wall. 

At that point other projects got in the way and this one was put on hold, but I finally got back to it today. 

I repeated the process on the rest on the shelves and they now fit. 

I then loaded up some tools on the shelves.

I love all the storage space this gives me.