New Project Cougar

Traded my last project 68 Cougar for a 4x4 truck. Hated to see it go but have one in much better shape without all that power crap like steering and brakes. lol. Should be able to fit the 390 in much easier. The suspension and sheet metal are much better on this second car as well. Second resto should go much faster than the first one. The hardest part is gonna be the rear quarters which are hard to find. Got the whole front clip i.e. bumper, lights etc. dismantled cleaned and painted. Gonna reinstall this weekend and move on to the engine compartment. Just needs a good cleaning and some minor wiring. Have lots of spare parts for 67-68 cougars if anyone is interested. Later. Steve

Had some nice weather yesterday so pirated a whole butt load of parts from my parts cougar that I needed for my project cougar. Its coming along slowly as all projects do. It gets so cold in my garage my air tools freeze up cause of moisture and I cant spray any paint so that kinda sucks. All the front end stuff i.e. bumper, lights etc should, i repeat "should" be set to go back on sometime this week. Barring any set backs. I'd like to spray some underbody sealer/sound deadener in the front fender wells this week but will see how the weather is. Okay. Thats all for now. Later all. Steve

Ya gotta love how these old cars are put together. Ive been pirating parts off one cougar to put on my project car and nothing wants to line up. Its like there was no continuity in manufacturing. Guys just drilled holes or mounted brackets where ever they thought they should go. The front valances on both cars are different. Not significantly so but still slightly different tooling. The bumper mounting points on the new bumper are different than the brackets. One car has the stick on side trim and the other is riveted so I guess its just gotta go. Probably look better anyway. And of course everything is rusty and needs grinding and painting with POR15. Which by the way stays on hands for weeks. So wear gloves when using it. Although in the past I have heard that Mercury changed some things mid-year on the 68's. Oh. And those darn vacuum motors for the headlights.....dont even get me started. They put really tight fitting bolts in to keep them from moving around which was good 35 years ago but now they are so rusted and corroded I cant even pound them out with a hammer. Ive got 4 motors and have only managed to remove 1 from the mounting so far. Cant use heat cause the motors are aluminum and worth a mint. Guess I just gotta start cutting. Yippee. Oh how I love the joys of working on old cars. The front end is shaping up pretty nice all things considered. Just have to order some odds and ends, put new springs on and voila, only some body items(fenders, valance, center piece) to paint. Which I cant do in the winter anyway. Hope ya all got a good laugh. Later. Steve

Hello! Sounds like your having a swell time. lol. I just bought a 68 cougar and can't seem to find any body parts online. Where do you get all your parts? The one I picked up is in great shape for siting in a field for the past 7 years. The interior is in great shape. Just a little moldy. Florr pan is pretty rusty and some holes around the windows and such but a great deal for 500 bucks. Let me know if ya can. Thanks

You wont find any aftermarket body parts for Cougars. I have some for sale on ebay right now. I bought a parts Cougar that I am done with so I am selling all the parts I dont need. I know of one place in Michigan where you can buy used Cougar parts: Johns Classic Cougars(www.johnsclassiccougars.com) and you can get new parts from AutoKrafters (www.autokrafters.com) and Mustangs Unlimited (www.mustangsunlimited.com). Some of the pieces are mustang pieces but they work fine for Cougars. All body panels are interchangeble between 67 and 68 Cougars. Make sure you check the torque boxes and frame rails on Cougars. They are notorious for rusting out. If those go bad the body integrity goes way down. Good luck and let me know if you have anymore questions. Steve

Rust, rust everywhere. Gotta love it when you think you are grinding away surface rust and little pin holes start to appear. I know I love it. NOT!! Looks like passenger rear window leaked terribly in my new project car. The rear floor pan is full of pin holes and had to spray WD40 all over window mechanism to get it to work. When I removed quarter window trim it was just about rusted through underneath. Yippee. Should be able to salvage floor pan with a POR 15 kit as there are no huge holes. The front is mostly done now on the car. Im reassembling the driver side suspension with all new parts. IT should ride like a dream now. Keeping the old drum brakes as I dont have the money to upgrade to discs and dont plan on doing any road racing with my baby. Mebbe in the future. Just thought I would post an update in case anyone is reading these. Sure wish more Cougar people used this message board. I know they are out there. Later all. Steve