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1992 Mustang LX Coupe , A parts box resurrection ... ( Or... Frankenstang!)


Abell82

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I Started this build last year.. There are/where pics of it in the Fox body CBP. But I never gave it it's own thread, so I thought why not?

CBP threads by nature tend to bury things, get off topic, whatever, and so...

Any who... while I was correcting a resin AF/X body, I decided to make my own "correct" LX coupe body. After all if I had spent that much time correcting one, it should take about half the time to make it "right" in the first place right? Well, not really but it came out all right. I did lots of research, I scourred the net for information I picked some brains I turned over rocks, and I built a "correct" (as correct as I could) prototype Mustang LX coupe. Actually it turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself.

But in my journey, I discovered some parts. Parts that it was recommended not to use. Since the one was finished, I decided that I would try make one out of all the incorrect parts. The parts that people have said are the least accurate and should not be used. How good would one built out of those parts turn out? So I decided to find out...

With a twist, I would use only what I had on hand, and had no other use for... And that is the history behind this Frankenstang...

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More in a little while....

Edited by Abell82
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Well, to start this I decided I needed a body. The only body available was a convertible Mustang GT minus the engine bay, or under hood area.

1 of these bodies had a rear bumper,the other one did not. Since I would be replacing the rear bumper anyway I chose to go with the body that had no rear bumper.

To prepare I cut off all the useable pieces from the 79 Pace car, such as the hatch, and sail panels. (Might need those later!)

I used the top of the rear bumper from the 83 GLX carcass and grafted that to the GT body.

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After I had the top of the bumper in place, I trimmed the GT side panel from the rear of the convertible.

I then made the lower portion of the body and rear bumper from styrene strip.

To complete the look, I sanded down the older molding from the 83 bumper and then I made the Gt bumper molding from styrene strips, as well.

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The body needs an engine compartment, unfortunately all of the one's I had were the wrong year. how to fix that? Move the battery to the trunk!

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By carefully trimming out the battery and overflow tanks I can "up-date" the engine compartment to ambiguity (sp?) LOL

This is actually a fairly common modification to these year Mustangs, so I don't feel this is at all out of line.

And in any event, I can always get a resin battery for under the hood if needed.

Next we attach the new engine compartment...

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While I didn't NEED to use the whole front clip, I thought I would be better off using the whole front clip, for ease of attachment without loosing detail.

I was wrong. The 83 GLX body had a BAD warp, which was why it was all cut up, and I knew about it, but I thought it was from the door back. WRONG!

Oh well life goes on.

Better shot of the engine compartment...

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Next we prepare the new roof....

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Well anyway so I had previously prepared the Pace car roof by scribing off the hatch, and carefully removing the sail panels,

in case I wished to use them later.

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Now I filled in the holes left by the sailpanels, with card stock (an old gift card!) .

Then I made some cursory measurements...

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It was at this point, that I also replaced the lower door panels and attached the new roof...

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Sorry I didn't take pics in between attaching the new roof, and making the windows etc...

Once the roof was on, I decided it needed a hood. So I took three goobered resin hoods, cut them up and made this one...

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With the hood and body made I needed an interior tub for it.

Since I had used the older front clip, the newer interior tubs would not work, due to different mounting locations.

So I had to make a new interior tub that used the old mounting points...

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What are you going to do for the rear window?

Clear package plastic. The way that the molding around the window was made, it forms a "channel" for the window to set in.

So making a rear window should be easy. Painting the black border, that will be the hard part.

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That's it I'm hooked. I keep hearing rumors of Revell releasing an LX notch back but I'll be damned if I can figure out when. This has got me salivating, I'm now on the hunt for the two body's so I can make my self an Special Service Package (SSP) Mustang

Edited by Dirkpitt289
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Here is a pic to help show what I meant about the rear window trim making a channel for the window (yes, I do need to clean up the roof a little)....

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I even got a little work done to it the other day. I added some much needed hinges to the hood. I added them to help hold the hood in place when the car is finished.

The hinges were cut from goobered resin hoods, so they probably won't last. (Being that they are resin they will be brittle.)

However, I did re-enforce them with some bent pins, and CA to help aid in thier longevity.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Got a little more work done on the body, recently. I tried to fix the area around the rear window.

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Not sure if I succeeded or not but it looks a little better, to me anyway.

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And one night while I happened to be searching Ebay for some wheels for this build, I stumbled on an auction.

The auction was for a set of my favorite Mustang wheels, with a buy it now option. So I think I just might have found the wheels for this build.

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They may not be very imaginative, but they are one of my favorite Mustang wheels.

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As always thoughts comments and critiques are welcomed.

Edited by Abell82
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