Projects 1965 Comet Caliente Convertible Project

6/17/2010 --- My daughter and I are restoring/Hot-rodding a 1965 Comet Caliente Convertible. This was her choice for her first car and my first restoration. The car is definitely a project car. At some point in the recent past someone tried to stuff a big block in it but it doesn’t’ look like they ever succeeded except to cut the crap out of the car. That along with a lot of rust I think I should invest in a welding supply company. Really the car is in good shape compared to all the other cars we looked at and could afford. The plan is for the car to be a daily driver so no perfection here just strong and safe. The car came without an engine and transmission so we will use a 1998 Mountaineer 5.0 engine, automatic transmission, differential, along with anything else we can use from the wrecked Mountaineer. Below are a few pictures.

 

Always liked the 65 Comet lines....Good Luck

 

Thanks we started the project two years ago and have made good progress. I will post more of the past work we have done to this topic in the upcoming weeks and eventually get caught up to the current progress we have made.

 

Your daughter's '65 Comet Caliente will be a cool ride when it's finished!

Here is a pic of my daughters '66 Comet Capri

 

Beautiful car! Thanks for the picture.

 

65CometRagTop;great to read of a family project!! Go to , cometcentral.com , great ALL COMET web site with a lot of helpful members.I am up the coast from you in Camarillo,have two 65 Comets,the one in my avatar and a wagon[under construction].PM me,I may have some parts if you need any! ROY.

 

Roy,
<o> </o>
It&#8217;s nice to know someone local . I have a very good friend that lives in Camarillo but I don&#8217;t&#8217; get there very often. I work with him so we have lunch every day but It&#8217;s about 75 miles from Long Beach to Camarillo so I don&#8217;t make it out there very often. I have been to the Camarillo car show with my Cobra replica and my friend has been several times this year with his 58 Tbird. I think he sent me pictures of your car. He tells me about any 65&#8217;s he sees. I have Comet Central in my favorites but have never signed up. I just looked every now and then. I will sign up and add the same post I have here on that forum. I am on TFFN under projects and FFCARS under other cars. I added the HAMB today and now I will add Comet central. <o></o>

 

Jeff;good to know,I'll keep my eyes open for his 'square bird'!! I got tired of all the in-fighting on TFFN and bad mouthing of members by other members,so I quit the site!!I used to go to the LB swap meet a lot until it turned into mostly cheap chrome junk and just plain junk and every car was priced like it was Barrett Jackson!!! ROY.

 

Roy,
<o> </o>
I know what you mean about TFFN I have run into some of that. I still like the forum so I will continue to post to it. I have been to the Long Beach swap meet once and picked up a few things but I don&#8217;t think I saved money because of the 8.00 entry fee. I need some wheel spaces and as I remember there was a guy there that had nothing but spacers so I will probably go back one of these months. I&#8217;ll tell my friend to look for you and stop by his name is Tom.<o></o>

 

7/7/2010 - We bought this car sight unseen. We did look at pictures but pictures make things look better than they are. The seller was up front about most things but did not realize the extent of the rust damage. We started in by taking the car apart. The first picture is of the mess the previous inhabitance left behind. You just can&#8217;t trust some renters. They won&#8217;t be getting their security deposit back. If you see the light rectangular below and to the right of the corn cob that is the ground you are looking at through the torque box. Picture 2 all the floors look like this so we need new floors. Picture 3 the dog is helping with the disassembly process by standing on me when I am under the car. Picture 4 more disassembly. Picture 5 caption should be &#8220;What the hell am I going to do with that?&#8221;.

 

Looks like a cool project. Good luck.

 

Looks good! GOOD LUCK!

 

Father and daughter working together.. That's great.. Good luck on the build....

 

What's up with the plywood wheels? Nice project. I like the Hot Comets.

 

Jeff;your Comet looks great compared to some convertibles!!!There is a Father-Son build thread on Comet Central on a 64,i think LUCK was all that kept it in one piece!!!!! ROY.

 

Thanks all.

Reece: I was wondering if someone would notice that. Good catch. That is something that will be obvious in one of the next posts. Keep in mind that we have been working on this for 2 years and I will slowly but surely catch up to current time in this topic. The things it is not are a wood rim, a new type of hub cap, a front end alignment tool or an optical illusion involving a mirror a solar eclipse and a lama.

Roy: I know what you mean it would not take much to have these cars rust in half. This one was about a years worth of snow away from being in two parts and becoming a parts car. There is plenty of room for the car to have a frame I don&#8217;t know why they just didn&#8217;t do that. The sub frame connectors I built are 2X3 square tubing and I lost very little floor room in the rear seats.

 

7/15/2010 &#8211; The car is now stripped and the car tilter built and installed (picture 1 and 2).

Reece: You can now see that the plywood hub caps are part of the car tilter I made. It works great and I have the car on its side many many times thru this process. I also have taken the car tilter on and off about 5 times and have switched sides with it so I am happy with how it works. It took a little time to build but only about $60.00. As I say I have more time than money and I&#8217;ve got no time.

Picture 3 &#8230; You are NOT supposed to see light thru the bottom of the car especially thru the torque boxes. Notice the custom inch and a quarter!!!! angle iron sub frame connectors.

Picture 4 and 5 &#8230; A close up of the rust damage and the previous failed attempts to repair it

 

Jeff;at least they tried to keep it in one piece!!!It looks worse than you described!!! DO NOT through that 8" rearend and brakes away,many guys looking for an 8" for a Falcon/Comet!! I like your "TILTER"!!!! ROY.

 

That is a pretty clever tilter. I believe I would get some doors on it - establish some gaps and then weld a ton of bracing in it before I started working on the floors. Looks like the crude bracing helped save it from splitting in half. Definitely worth saving though.


Reece

 

Looks as though you have some work ahead! envious of father daughter project. agree with reece get some bracing welded in or you will be in a world of cursing!!

 

I have two little girls at home, and I hope that mine will want to do this one day. Also, the home made "tilt" thing is pretty dang cool.

 

That looks pretty daunting, but I think Mustang panels are nearly the same and are readily available. Good Luck and have fun with your daughter!

 

Thanks for the complements. It was an interesting project building the tilter and a bit scary the first time I tilted it. I also made some giant 4X4 stands that sit under the frame when the car is up.

Roy: I will hold onto the 8&#8221; in fact I am holding onto everything that I got for the car even if I don&#8217;t use it. I even have a wood box filled with most of the rusted metal I cut out of the car. I think maybe I&#8217;m a hoarder. By the way it was nice talking to you last night I learned a lot. I ordered the 65 Comet/Falcon center link from Falconparts.com so the Borgeson steering box project should work out fine now.

Robert & Reece: Thanks for the heads up. You will see as time goes on in this post that the tilter configuration changes a little and I do reinforce the car before any major work is done to it.

66Newport: I hope you do get the chance to do this with your daughters. It has really improved our relationship.

Jack: As always with these project the car was in worse shape than I thought but it just meant it would take a little more time than planned to get-er-done.

Jeff

 

Jack;most Mustang panels are different than Comet/Falcon parts.Comet floor panels are available through various outlets.ROY.

 

8/31/2010 -- Donor time -- Thanks to a friend of mine who has a license to buy this kind of vehicle I was able to acquire this beautiful 1998 low mileage Mercury Mountaineer. So I can say the parts I used to restore the Comet were from another mercury.

Pictures 1 and 2: The beauty gets dropped off.

Picture 3: There are laws about having wrecked vehicles visible from the street so for the neighbors I covered the SUV. It just looks like I want to protect the paint. I started this SUV and drove it up and down my driveway. The wheels didn&#8217;t roll very well with multiple flat tires but If I closed my eyes it sounded like a new car. Even the air conditioning worked.

Picture 4: Now get to work. We have got to get the carcass out of here ASAP.

Picture 5: Sometimes wrenches just aren&#8217;t enough.

Picture 6: The engine is out!!! I love the look on my face &#8220;Wow that was way harder than it should have been&#8221;.

Picture 7: It&#8217;s time for the carcass to go. We really stripped everything off this car. There was nothing left of any use when it got towed away. I even took the light bulbs that weren&#8217;t broken and the rubber floor plugs.

 

Jeff;that sucker get run over by a bus?!!! There is not a straight body panel on that sucker!!!!!!Great PARTS car,I think I should have worked in a junk yard,I love tearing that stuff apart!!!!! ROY.

 

Black on red! I'm like'n it already....
You and your daughter are ambitious!Thats awesome 65cometragtop

Myron_

 

Myron: Thanks we are having fun with it. That&#8217;s a very cool car in your avatar. I wish we could use those wheels. May be in the future.

Roy: I agree with you I really like stripping a car. It&#8217;s a lot of work but so much fun. This is the second one I have done. The first time was for my FFR Roadster and it was a 1999 Mustang GT pictures below.

 

I always thought that the 65 Comets & 65 GTOs looked more like a hot rod than a muscle car ...and I thought that, way before the muscle car word was invented

 

F&J: I'm with you on that!