One of the most feared aspects of car repair, maintenance, or even a restoration is the vehicle's electrical system. Watts, volts, ohms, and other terms swirl around most people's heads like sharks circling a bleeding surfer, and at the heart of that electrical system is one of the most misunderstood parts--the battery. In our Mustangs, be it vintage or late-model, the starting and charging system is based on a 12-volt negative ground service, so we're not going to bother with six-volt or positive ground systems for this story.

There's no denying that the first generation of Mustangs had some fairly rare and/or popular options, both factory and dealer installed, that today are in high demand. Who wouldn't want an original radio reverb unit in their coupe as a conversation piece? Or perhaps the rare (but annoying) Rotunda headlight warning buzzer might be of interest (it was for me). Thankfully, due to the high build numbers and insane popularity of the vintage Mustang, we not only have a thriving hobby, but a whole industry of replacement parts with more new parts dropping every day. One visit to your favorite vendor's website and you can usually find new parts never before available for your restoration.

Thirty years ago, tracing the history of a vintage Mustang wasn't so difficult. Today, it's a different story. Many surviving Mustangs have passed through numerous owners and several different states. Selling dealerships have gone out of business. And, unfortunately, many owners, especially original owners, are no longer with us.

Many people will tell you there's no greater connection between a driver and their car than a manual transmission. Certainly, driving a "stick" can be fun during a track day, on a twisty mountain road, or even at the drag strip. We'd say daily driving a manual trans would be a chore, but with today's clutch technology you rarely have the dreaded left leg work-out of decades past. We can thank clutch technology like twin discs, enhanced friction surfaces, new clutch spring designs, and of course hydraulic clutch actuation. These all work together to make modern clutch pedal feel light and precise. We almost welcome a traffic jam in a modern manual trans Mustang—almost.

It's often easy to overlook something as simple as your vintage Mustang's headlights. If your local parts house even stocks them, your options are usually limited to a standard GE or Sylvania (just to mention some of the more common brands we've seen on the shelf) 7-inch halogen bulb. Once installed and aligned, they're not given a second thought until later when a fellow driver informs you that one of your lights are out. Then it's off to the store for a replacement. Most of us just replace the bad lamp, but for optimum night time driving you should always replace your lamps in pairs. Bet you didn't know that, huh?

Vintage Mustangs might be "old" but they still have their fair share of plastic components in the interior, from consoles, kick panels, and small trim parts to the huge quarter trim and fastback trim parts found in the rear of the interior. Okay, some of these panels were fiberglass in their original form, but they can still be a pain in the spray can when trying to refinish them. Of course, reproductions are made in newer plastics and can be difficult to get proper paint coverage and adhesion too.

Performing an AOD swap in a classic Mustang is easy today thanks to the automotive aftermarket. These companies have done the homework already. All you have to do is tell them what you have and what you need. When the parts arrive on your doorstep, they can be installed in a weekend.

Factory auto glass installation has changed a lot since the mid-1960s. On today's new cars, windshields, backlights, and side glass are glued in for two reasons—safety and ease of factory assembly and aftermarket replacement. Glued-in glass won't pop out in a crash. It is also easier to remove and replace. Classic Mustangs have rubber gasket windshields and backlights. Rubber gasket glass tends to pop out in a collision. It is also labor intensive to service. The greatest problem with rubber gasket windshields and backlights is leakage. Poor installation and deteriorated rubber both contribute to the problem.

It's been over three decades since a Ford vehicle rolled out of an assembly plant with a mechanical points ignition system and at least a decade since Ford last stuck a distributor in anything at all. So we find it surprising to discover that people with regular-use vintage Mustangs are still using a points-type ignition. You have a concours-type car and want to keep it stock for the judges? We understand that, but for the weekend cruiser or modified vintage Mustang owner, running an electronic ignition system of some sort just makes sense. Spark plugs last longer, the combustion chamber sees a hotter spark for a more complete burn and less emissions, and acceleration and overall performance is improved. So what's stopping you?

Dressing up the Mustang’s engine these days isn’t as easy as it used to be. Back in the pushrod days, it was a simple matter of a pair of chrome valve covers and matching air cleaner and maybe a braided hose covering kit (wow, that was an ’80s flashback I’m trying to get out of my head). However, with the modern modular engine under the hood of late-model Mustangs, things aren’t quite that simple. Some of the most difficult engine bays of recent memory to make look good include the ’96-’04 4.6L Two-Valve, especially the first-gen setup with coil packs and plug wires criss-crossing everywhere. Sure, there’s some billet doo-dads here and there you can install, and we’ve seen some really creative people reroute the myriad of vacuum hoses and wiring harnesses, but generally you’re in for some hair pulling with these modulars.

You probably see automatic transmissions as a convoluted maze of gears, clutches, bands, and complicated hydraulics. However, it may surprise you to know that most automatic transmissions work via a very simple principle known as hydromechanics—planetary gear sets, multi-disc clutch packs, bands and drums, and a hydraulic control system.

For some owners it’s easy to tear into a vintage Mustang with wild abandon, throwing concours ideas out the window in the name of modern amenities and creature comforts. At the other end of the spectrum are the diehard concours guys who spend countless hours looking for an NOS part and researching their Mustang’s factory build details to the tiniest degree. Yet there are others who enjoy the classic styling of the Mustang and want to drive a relatively stock appearing car but with a few hidden upgrades to make driving safer and more enjoyable. For those who fall in this middle area (or even the diehard restomod guys looking for something different/cool for their vintage Mustang), we want to introduce you to Electric-Life and their power crank switch.

Stainless Steel Brakes Corporation was the first to offer disc brake conversion kits for vintage Mustangs more than 25 years ago. This pioneer of safer classic car braking now offers a simple bolt-on four-piston front disc brake conversion kit for Mustang drum brake spindles.

SSBC’s new A120 disc brake conversion kit is a nice reproduction of the original four-piston Kelsey-Hayes front disc brake, which bolts right onto your Mustang’s drum brake spindle without any modifications and fits inside 14- or 15-inch wheels. For under $1,100, the kit comes with 43mm four-piston iron calipers, 11.25-inch unidirectional vented iron rotors on 5x4.5-inch lug pattern hubs, hoses, and plated Grade 8 hardware.

After installing new seat covers in our ’65 convertible, we discovered that we had a mismatch with the original (and dried out) vinyl covers on the rear seat armrests. The solution was new vinyl. We had already painted the metal portion of the rear quarter trim.

As much as the commercials we see on television try to tell us, we can’t always get what we want. Sometimes you just have to settle for a little less than your original idea/want/desire due to time, budget, or other reasons. Sometimes it’s just too good of a deal to pass up, even though it’s not exactly what you wanted. Sure, we all want a new Mustang GT with glass roof and the Brembo brake package, or even better, a GT500 or Boss 302. Unfortunately, reality usually steps in and slaps us in the back of the head to wake us up back in the real world where we have a mortgage, kids in college, and a sour economy. So often that dream GT or Shelby becomes a nice little V-6 Mustang. Of course, today’s V-6 Mustang is no slouch with 305hp and we’d certainly be excited to have one in our own garage.

Ask any vintage Mustang owner who has an inline six between their front fenders how aggravating it is to find any aftermarket wheel that fits their ride. Yes, there are a few, but not nearly the expansive selection as those endowed with five studs per axle.

Imagine a modern--yet cool--sound system that fits right into your classic Mustang dashboard without cutting the instrument panel or other modifications. The new RetroSound offers modern sound for vintage Mustangs with a liquid crystal display (LCD) that's easy to read, dual die-cast knobs in chrome, front and rear auxiliary inputs (for connecting iPod, satellite, and other portable devices), underdash USB/SD card reader for digital playback, and 50 watts in four corners. There's also a remote control.

I've never forgotten the time that I forgot to reinstall the hood pins on a '67 Mustang during my youth. I roared down the street like hot stuff, only to have the hood fly open at 30-40 mph. The hood hinges were badly damaged as were the inner fender nut plates. In those days, the only solution for a fix was large fender washers, bolts, plywood, and locknuts. Today, we have Dynacorn inner fender aprons that enable us to either replace the apron or repair an existing one when the nut plates pull out. Scott Robinson from Northwest Pony Shoppe is going to show us how to perform this simple and permanent repair.

Although great aftermarket hardware kits are available for those with vintage and Fox-body Mustangs, sometimes we just want to keep our original hardware. So what can you do with rusty or painted over hardware? The Northwest Pony Shoppe in Snohomish, Washington, turned us on to this method of hardware restoration and you can do it in your home garage. All you need is a hotplate, Eastwood’s After Blast Metal Prep (phosphoric acid), and WD-40 in a gallon can.

Not too many people think about their Mustang's trunk compartment. Often the first thought is to purchase the "correct" plaid or speckled mat, plop it down on top of the gas tank, and maybe add a matching tire cover and "jack bag." That's all well and good for the concours crowd (though technically the tire never had a cover from the factory), but for those of you waving the restomod flag and wanting to set your car apart from the others, it's quite easy to clean up your trunk compartment and add a little flash for the judges or cruise night patrons.

In this day and age of electronic fuel injection, we find it strangely comforting when we walk up to a vintage Mustang at a show or cruise-in and see the age-old mechanical fuel mixer sitting atop the engine's intake manifold. Unfortunately, the old hot rod adage of "bigger is always better" often rules the day when it comes to carburetion (and camshafts, and exhaust, and valve size, and so on!). We regularly see mild 289ci and 302ci small-block Fords wearing 650-750 four-barrel carburetors, all in the name of more performance. However, a carburetor of that size is usually just wasting fuel and giving you poor fuel economy.

When Ford redesigned the Mustang for '94, the car gained weight and lost horsepower. However, the aftermarket jumped on board quickly with a few tricks designed to increase power to close the performance gap. BBK Performance introduced its 65, 70, and 75mm Power Plus throttle bodies for the 5.0L V-8 for a 7-12 horsepower gain and comparable amount of torque. And with the 75mm Flanged Bullet mass air meter from PRO-M, count on even more power to complement the BBK throttle body, available from Summit Racing Equipment.

Classic Mustang leaks tend to be written off as one of the warts of old car ownership, but old cars don't have to be leakers. They leak mostly because we don't take the time to find the cause of the leak, which typically occur when seals and gaskets deteriorate. However, when new seals and gaskets leak shortly after replacement, it means we've missed something important.

It’s always the same sinking feeling when you notice that the interior lights seem dim as you climb into your Mustang. A twist of the key confirms the miserable truth with a clicking noise from the starter solenoid. The darned thing started fine just the other day! Of course, your imagination runs wild with concerns about the alternator, regulator, or a mysterious electrical gremlin. However, most of the time, it’s a simple problem you can resolve in a short amount of time with basic troubleshooting.

What is it about classic Fox-body Mustangs that makes us want to buy, build, and drive one? For one thing, these good-looking late-model rides are plentiful and cheap because Ford built so many of them from 1979-'93. Unless you have something more specific in mind, such as an '82-'85 GT, '84 20th Anniversary Edition, or the collectible '84-'86 SVO, the most popular Fox-bodies are the '86-'93 fuel-injected GTs and LX 5.0s.