1994 Mustang Budget 302 Build

[BrettNorton]

Hey everybody, my name is Brett Norton, new to the site. I am posting a build thread / progression of my 1994 Mustang. It is originally a V6 auto car, but I am embarking on the task of converting it to a V8 5-speed car... with a carburetor. I am calling this project Budget 302 Build since I am going through with this project while attending college, and I will be attempting to do as much of the work myself as possible.

I will eventually restore the exterior (new paint job, wheels, tires, etc.) and restore the interior (new carpet, seats, interior panels, etc.).

My ultimate dream for the car is still undecided. I plan to experiment with multiple power plants and setups to make the car a good cruiser, drag car, road racer, etc.

.........................

However, I am holding off on those bigger dreams until after I am finished with college. Budget 302 Build is only the first step I am taking with this Mustang's life under my ownership.


Now, on to the information about how I found my 1994 Mustang in May 2014...

Pros:

• Body is pretty straight (with the exception of the driver's side fender which is easily replaced)
• Body is rust free
• Torque boxes are in good shape
• All body openings (hood, doors, trunk) open and close perfectly
• All body gaps are just right (except for driver's side fender)
• Door handles are all tight and have no slack in them
• No evidence of animal / rodent infestation
• Cloth seats are not completely trashed (only a small rip in the fabric of the driver's side seat bolster)
• Dry rotted tires still hold air
• Mach 460 sound system (not excellent, but still nice)
• Only paid $400 for it

Cons:

• Original V6 engine has a blown a head gasket and was overheated long ago
• AODE trans supposedly has issues
• Electrical short drawing battery power even with the key off
• 230,000 miles on body and drivetrain
• Car was abandoned and sat in a bush for 4 years
• Wasp / mud dauber nest in driver's side mirror
• Driver's side fender has a noticeable dent in it
• Driver's side marker light is missing
• Fiberglass hood is cracked along the front
• Noticeable chip in the windshield
• Crappy tint bubbling up
• Slight rustiness underneath the trunk floor
• At some point in time, the tail pipe was caught on a curb and kinked
• When the tail pipe was bent, it hit the driver's side shock and slightly crushed it
• Rear bumper cover is the only body panel without clear coat peeling off of it
• Multiple dings, scuffs, and scratches all over the body

The plan for Budget 302 Build is to rebuild the drivetrain of this Mustang on a budget but with quality parts. The goal is to get the car driving on the road once again.

• Mild 302 motor with stock bottom end, E303 cam, GT40 / GT40P heads, Pertronix ignition, and Holley 600 CFM carburetor (yes, I am putting a carb on an SN95 Mustang)
• Built T5 trans with Ram HDX clutch
• Rebuilt 8.8" rear end with 3.73 gears and tubular control arms
• Suspension overhaul with Prothane bushing kit, subframe connectors, struts, shocks, ball joints, etc.
• Complete brake job from master cylinder to brake rotors
• Cleanup and painting of the engine bay along with cleanup and undercoating of the undercarriage
• Minimal body and interior work
• Any other miscellaneous crap that comes up

This will be a very long project, but I will do my best to push through it while attending college.

The first pic is where I found the car in Holton, Ks. It sat in this spot for 4 years.

The second pics are of what the car looks like as of March 2015!

 

[BrettNorton]

August 2014,

Sadly, while going to pick the car up, my phone died and I did not have a charger with me. I could not get any pics of the car being trailered home. The car made the trip home just fine however. Time for exterior inspection.

The car looks to have a few different colors, but the paint is actually black. The clear coat has been getting baked off by the sun over the years. Also notice that the rear end of the driver's side looks to be lifted up a bit. That is because of the crushed shock absorber that I previously spoke of.

 

[BrettNorton]

August 2014,

Body damage:

Damaged driver's side fender

Broken vent on driver's side

Kinked tail pipe

Deformed rear lower glass molding

230,000 miles

 

[BrettNorton]

August 2014,

Interior inspection. As you can tell, the car has gray interior with cloth seats. It also has the Mach 460 sound system.

 

[BrettNorton]

August 2014,

The first thing I did to the car was clean it up.

Power washing did not clean very much since the power washer had no soap.

Had to pull the front seats out to clean up underneath them and to give some room to work inside the car.

Vacuuming made a huge difference in the cleanliness of the interior. There are still many stains in the carpet and a musky odor still in the car.

Vacuumed up the trunk.

 

[BrettNorton]

August 2014,

Underside inspection:

Dirty engine bay

Rusty brake rotors on all 4 corners

Damaged front bumper cover

Broken headlight mounting panel

Broken headlight mounting panel

Alpine security system

Greasy / Torn driver's side sway bar end link

Newer exhaust pipe welded on at some point

Greasy passenger's side of engine

Greasy oil pan

Leaking transmission output shaft seal

Leaking rear differential cover along with the crushed shock in the background

Kinked exhaust pipe

Another good view of the bent exhaust pipe

 

[BrettNorton]

September 2014,

Car is now on jack stands ready for teardown.



First part off is the damaged driver's side fender. Damage courtesy of a fender-bender with a deer. Sadly, one of the bolts securing the fender to the rocker panel snapped, so that is going to be a pain in the ass to take care of.



Front bumper cover is a bit deformed and the headlight mounting panel is broken.

 

[BrettNorton]

September 2014,

I pulled out the original V6 auto PCM, but I am unsure with what I can replace it with.
Will I have to use a V8 5-speed T4M0 PCM since I will have a V8 engine?
Or....
Can I simply be plug in a V6 5-speed A4X3 PCM? (Remember, I will be using a Holley carb and Pertronix ignition on this build)

 

[BrettNorton]

September 2014,

Fuel tank needs to be dropped to drain out the old gas and replace the fuel pump with a pickup tube. Those fuel lines were a BITCH to pull off. It was an exercise in the usage of many cuss words.

 

[BrettNorton]

September 2014,

I tested the battery in the car, and something was drawing 4 amps with the key off. The Jensen radio (along with an Alpine alarm system) is the only modification to the car. I tested the battery after pulling the radio out and... NO MORE ELECTRICAL DRAW!!! This saves me a huge headache of tracing something that would have taken many hours for me to find.



I also had to pull the center console out.

 

[BrettNorton]

September 2014,

The engine is ready to pull out, but it will be difficult to do since I have to pull the trans out with it. Like what has happened to many other people, one of the damn starter bolts rounded off on me. There is so little clearance between the header and K-member to get the socket on the bolt exactly perfectly.

 

[BrettNorton]

September 2014,

Alright, so the engine and trans were not that difficult to pull out after all. Instead of me having to use a hoist, my grandpa helped me out with his John Deere tractor, making the pullout a breeze.







Just a few more parts to pull out of the engine bay, and it will be ready for cleanup.

 

[BrettNorton]

October 2014,

Original 7.5" rear end was a pain to pull out. Upper control arms were not a problem to pull off, but in order to pull out the lower control arms, me and my grandpa each had to use a breaker bar on the nuts and bolts to break them loose. Not even a decent impact gun could loosen things up. The struggle did not end there however, as the bolt on the driver's side was too rusty to pull out of the bushing along with not enough clearance to drive it out from the threaded side. To make clearance, I took an oxyacetylene torch to the bolt head, then finally drove it out with a punch. Underside is now ready to be cleaned and undercoated.

 

[BrettNorton]

October 2014,

Now comes up another issue with rusty hardware. The bolt holding the battery wedge to the tray snapped off, so I had to remove the battery tray. However, the head of the lower bolt holding the tray to the frame was so rusty that it was rounded off before I even had a socket on it. There was not enough clearance for pliers, so I took a pry bar to each side of the battery tray and broke it off of the bolt. With the tray out of the way, I grabbed the bolt with pliers and twisted it out. Battery tray and hardware will definitely be replaced.

 

[BrettNorton]

October 2014,

Well, it is time to put the Mustang project aside for a bit. I tell my family that it is so I can focus more on school, but really, I am just trying to wait out the cold a$$ weather since the car is outside and I hate working in cold a$$ weather.

The car is just a body shell on jack stands right now. When spring break comes around, I will start cleaning up the engine bay and underside to paint and undercoat them respectively.

 

[BrettNorton]

February 2015,

Hooray! The weather was not colder than holy hell today!

I pulled the steering rack off of the car.



I also scraped most of the crappy window tint and stickers on the car.

 

[BrettNorton]

March 2015,

Ahhhh, another day where the weather is not too cold out. I pulled out some old security system wiring and the rear seat, and OH MY GOD how did all that crap get underneath there!?!? I will definitely clean all that up, but maybe later. The weather outside now is not completely unbearable, but it is not something that I want to work in for hours.





In my absence, I have figured out my next major task. The car is just outside my grandpa's shop right now because when I brought it back, he was initially reluctant to put the car inside his shop. However, he has decided to allow me to put the car inside the shop if I can get it back on its wheels (which I was going to do anyway). After a summer of working hard, I will buy an 8.8" rear end out of a 94-95 Mustang GT and refurbish all needed suspension components in order to put the car on the ground again. With the car in the shop, I will finally be able to work on it without worrying about bad weather getting in my way.

 

[BrettNorton]

March 2015,

As I said last week, I would clean up underneath the rear seat. I have vacuumed it as well as the trunk floor. Even after vacuuming though, both areas still look like crap. Oh well, no getting around it I guess.





I also prepared the engine bay for cleaning. I got rid of the cruise control servo and horns under the driver's side fender. I got rid of the charcoal canister underneath the passenger's side fender (what the fuel evap line goes to). I also removed the main chassis harness, and I moved the secondary engine control harness (mass airflow, CCRM, cooling fan) out of the way. The green spots in the pic are pieces of tape which cover up the holes in the firewall. Do not want weather, bugs, or other gremlins getting in there. Engine bay is now ready for cleaning and painting.

 

[BrettNorton]

March 2015,

So far, this thread has just been about me tearing my 1994 Mustang down to the bare body shell. But today, I actually got a part installed on the car. A dent-free black driver’s side fender.

I got the fender, inner fender, and all necessary mounting hardware from Midwest Mustang in Lawrence. Paid $50 cash for the whole setup. I was all ready to get the fender installed, however I had to deal with something mentioned in a previous post:

“One of the bolts securing the fender to the rocker panel snapped, so that is going to be a pain in the ass to take care of.”

Was it a pain in the ass to take care of? YOU BET YOUR ASS IT WAS A PAIN IN THE ASS TO TAKE CARE OF. First, I attempted to drill a small hole through the bolt in order to slowly step up to larger sizes and drill the bolt out and save the threads. Well, I snapped two small drill bits in this process, so my grandpa stepped in to help me before I took a friggin’ torch to that tiny broken bolt. Now, my grandpa has many years of experience in the construction industry, so he knows how to solve these kinds of problems. He took the other fender-to-rocker panel bolt that did not snap, measured the very end of the threaded side of it with a caliper, and grabbed the 3/16” drill bit he needed in order to drill out the old bolt. My grandpa successfully drilled the old bolt out, I thanked him dearly for his help, and he went back inside the house to watch the basketball game on TV. Ecstatic, I put the new bolt into the hole and attempted to thread it in, but it would not go. I noticed inside the new hole that there were not any threads left after it was drilled out. Not wanting to disturb my grandpa any more about the issue, I grabbed his tap and die set in order to create new threads. A 3/16” hole was drilled, so I grabbed a tap that is one size bigger than 3/16”, which is 13/64”. I ran the tap through the hole, backed it out, put the bolt in, and it threaded in PERFECTLY. YES! A great feat has been accomplished, because like many other people, I HATE SNAPPED BOLTS!!! I HATE THEM SO MUCH NOW THAT I WISH I COULD EAT THEM AND TURN THEM INTO POO!!!

The fender itself also has its own little horror story to tell. As I said before, I got the fender from Midwest Mustang. It has no noticeable dents in it, but it has a few tiny spots of red paint on the front of it. No, the red paint is not the horror story about this fender. What IS the horror story about it is trying to get the damn thing to line up properly with the hood and the door. The passenger’s side fender is original to the car and has the little Ford logo stamped into the mounting flange underneath the hood. It lines up perfectly. However, this driver’s side fender has no Ford logo stamped into it, which tells me that I have an AFTERMARKET fender. I did research about aftermarket 94-98 Mustang fenders, and learned that aftermarket fenders never really line up perfectly since they are not manufactured to the level of specificity that an OEM fender provides. After much attention to detail and many adjustments, I got the fender to line up the best that I could, and I actually have to say that it does not look too bad. The gap is a bit tight at the windshield cowl and front roof rail, but that is just me being picky. It is not perfect by any means, but you cannot see body gap issues right away.

Anyway, here is the fender installed.

 

[BrettNorton]

March 2015,

I am now as far into the teardown as I am going to get with this car, and I think that I might as well explain a little more about the origins of this project and the expected outcome of it.

I started taking auto shop classes my junior year of high school since I had started to gain an interest in cars at the time. My instructor was named Mr. Crady and he was the best teacher that I ever had. He always cussed, creatively insulted us students, and made crude jokes. He did all of that IN CLASS. Good times. I slowly advanced from simple book work all the way to working on and actually fixing cars by the time my senior year came around. I enjoyed it.

Around my second-to-last semester of high school, another student and good buddy of mine named Connor brought an old 1979 Chevy C10 step side into the shop. It was a POS to say the least. It had all of the typical Chevy truck rust in the rocker panels, cab corners, floors, and fenders. Connor said that it was a project and that he was going to restore it. Well, Connor is somewhat of a metal fabrication prodigy. He tore the truck down to the bare frame and used patch panels to repair all of the rust holes in the body. He also rebuilt a Chevy 350 motor for the truck and put it on an engine run stand when it was finished. All necessary accessories were wired up and all students in the class took their places to watch the show. Crady operated the starter while adjusting the carb and timing, I stood by with gas in a can to pour into the carb when needed, and Connor stood back to get video on his phone. After many adjustments, errors, time, and effort, the motor roared back to life. VROOOOOOOMMMM!!!!! OPEN HEADERS!!! Crady revved the engine up multiple times, while me, Connor, and all of the other students watched on with joy and happiness. It was one of the best experiences of my life. The engine then shut down, and the other classes nearby walked into the shop to ask what the hell the loud noise was. Crady pointed to the engine and turned the key once more…

The idea of rebuilding an engine and restoring a car was all over my mind for the rest of the school year. “I want to do something just like what Connor is doing. I want to restore a vehicle.” I researched and researched and thought about it and thought about it. Restoring a car… Somehow along the way, I got interested in Mustangs. I do not know why. It just happened. What I first came across in my quest for a project car was a 1969 Mustang Mach I that was sitting in Perry, Ks. just off of a major state highway. I inspected the car more closely, and I thought to myself, “Ehhhhhhh… No.” That Mustang Mach I was even more of a POS than Connor’s Chevy truck. No engine, no transmission, no interior, passenger’s side door glass gone, and completely rusted out floorboards. And the seller wanted $5500 for it simply because of the fact that it was a 1969 Mach I. No thank you.

So, I continued my quest. My parents knew about my desire for a project Mustang, and one day, my good mother told me about one of her friends in Holton, Ks. who had a Mustang that had been sitting in her back yard for a few years. I drove out to Holton the first chance that I got to go look at this old Mustang. Well, what I came across was a black 1994 Mustang that was sitting in a bush with tall grass and weeds growing all around it. I took a look at the license plate and saw 2010 tags (this is 2014 when I found the car). “Oh God, this thing has been sitting here for 4 years,” I thought. I inspected the car even further. The clear coat was peeling all over the place, there was a huge dent in the driver’s side fender, and the interior had a bunch of junk in it. I thought, “OK. Not as collectible as a 1969 Mach I, but this car is in much better condition. The drivetrain is still there, and hmmmm… Now that get a closer look, I see no rust on the body of this car. I think this is going to be my new project car.” The 1994 Mustang that I had found stayed on my mind for the rest of the summer.

After my summer jobs were over with, I hurried back out to Holton, Ks. and paid for the car with only $400 cash. The next day, my grandpa and I pulled the car out of the bush and trailered it back home. That is where this thread begins. You have all seen what I have done with this car and what my aspirations for it are. I am attending Johnson County Community College to complete my general requirements for a degree in Mechanical Engineering (ME). Eventually, I will transfer to the University of Kansas (KU) in a few years. I hope to have Budget 302 Build (the name of this project) finished by the time I transfer to KU.

Obviously, I want to be able to show off in the Mustang when I am finished with Budget 302 Build. Who would not want to? The other thing that I hope to accomplish with Budget 302 Build is to stand out among the other aspiring ME students at KU. There are not many people my age (19) that have completely torn down and rebuilt the drivetrain of a car from scratch.

Taking and old POS Mustang and rebuilding it into something even better than it was when it rolled off the assembly line in 1994. It will tell people that I have a large amount of mechanical skill. A huge amount of mechanical skill is needed to tear down and rebuild any machine, just as it takes a huge amount of athletic skill to be a quarterback in the NFL. It will tell people that I am a hard worker. Can you imagine the amount of money I will have to make to buy the parts to rebuild this car from scratch? The V8 roar of the car will grab the attention of people on the streets of downtown Lawrence, Ks. but the hard work, uniqueness, and investment in it will grab the attention of KU professors and employers that hire ME graduates from KU. No, the car will not be extremely fast. No, the car will not be an eye catcher. No, the car will not be the most amazing engineering feat that has ever been conquered in the history of man. But, somebody my age completing a project of this magnitude will definitely show that I have a unique skill that is rare to come by.

Spring break is coming soon. No obligation to be at school, no obligation to be at work, no obligation to be anywhere. Just me, my 1994 Mustang, and new parts from Late Model Restoration just waiting to be installed. This project will be on a roll next week. Stay tuned my friends…