The joy of owning a Mustang II!

Any mustang II owner will tell you the availability of getting certain parts is not fun. Let’s say headers, only 2 companies make headers for the V8 Mustang II; Hooker and Heddman. The Hookers are preferred but are much more costly than the Heddman’s. The Heddman headers are cheap but for whatever reason the design engineers in a moment of stupidity run the #1 cyl. tube under the front cross member. Any one who has these headers knows the fear of an oncoming speed bump. I had other issues I also had to deal with, as the 351W is both taller and wider than the 302 that the headers were designed for. I got creative with a hacksaw, another set of headers from a junked truck (for the tubing bends) and a welder. I had very good results and made the headers to fit with the 351W and eliminated the fear of smashing the #1 tube flat.

Really any nice piece for a Mustang II tends to be difficult to get a hold of. With the exception of a couple of dozen pieces, and parts that are carry-overs from other year mustangs or other ford cars, the reproduction market for the Mustang II is nonexistent. If you want a part it’s either deal with a used piece of find an NOS part (New Old Stock, a part that has been sitting on a dealer or warehouse shelf for years waiting to be used). During the project, both by searching on eBay or various Mustang Supply, or NOS Ford part dealers, I managed to acquire all of the marker light bezels, tail light bezels, and headlight bucket parts all NOS.

Mustang II bumpers are notorious for being ugly and with time the process used to manufacture them left room for improvement. A piece of NON-galvanized steel with a thick layer of urethane molded around it, these are a pair of rust factories just waiting for the water and salt to be added to start pushing the urethane in different directions. Again, nice, even NOS bumpers can be had, but at a premium price. I chose to go with fiberglass reproduction covers that are usually made for race applications. My buddy and I mulled over several ways to make then work and still be a “Useful” bumper. The reproductions are not 100% exactly the same as the originals as the location for the factory trim that goes on the bumper is eliminated. I think is makes for a slightly “cleaner” look, but everyone has their own opinion on that. We molded steel strap with bolts welded fast into the back to the fiberglass shells and that allowed us to bolt the new covers to the original steel bumper support structure.