My Granddad's Maverick Sat for 20+ Years. This Is What We Found.

Added: 2026-05-26

[00:00:00]3 years ago, we tracked down my granddad's 1971 Ford Maverick that he owned and drag race in the 1980s to restore it to its former glory. Our goal has been simple. Get this thing back on the road so he can ride it in again.

[00:00:13]Today, we are dealing with the interior.

[00:00:15]There's a huge rat's nest in there that we got to take care of. And then two, we are going to replace the floor pans. Got to get that fixed so we can keep moving on with this project. We actually got some 1965 Mustang floor pans to put in that. It doesn't fit exactly perfect, so we're going to have to make a little bit of modifications to make it work, but saw a couple people on YouTube doing the same thing, so I have confidence that we can do it.

[00:00:57]Nice little air freshener.

[00:01:00]Probably from the late 90s.

[00:01:05]Doesn't smell good anymore either. I lied. I actually opened it. Dude, it's still got scent in it. I cannot I can't believe that. Little update for you here. I got a lot of this wiring cut out of the car. rat's nest, one might say.

[00:01:25]So, trying to work on this. It's giving me a a fight, that's for sure. Going to go ahead and try to get some more of this wire cut and I'll be in the car.

[00:01:36]>> Are you having a good time?

[00:01:37]>> Yeah, I'm having a great time.

[00:01:59]Well, you remember that plate that we welded for the subframe connectors? I got a little too excited with the torch and uh I kind of melted through it.

[00:02:07]>> So, we're going to do a little touchup on it.

[00:02:10]>> And you're going to weld it up.

[00:02:12]>> Yeah, we're going to have to weld it.

[00:02:13]Touch it up and weld it. So, and fix the problem. At least we know that for the side.

[00:02:18]>> I was getting a little too excited. I'm like, dang, this is fun. And then I did a little bit too much. But hey, whatever. You know, we're learning here.

[00:02:24]So, let's keep it moving.

[00:02:28]All righty. So, we got it welded up, fixed up. Don't look as bad as it did.

[00:02:33]Got the job done, so that's all that matters. We are back this time with a plasma cutter. After the mishaps we had with the torch and just watching my dad use that grinder, I'm like, dude, let's stop all this noise. I made the executive decision to buy a plasma cutter. I've seen so many people use those things. We want to make our life simple and work smarter, not harder, especially with all the little problems that we're running into with this car.

[00:03:00]So, let's go ahead and get these floorboards finally out of this so we can keep moving. Let's go.

[00:03:08]Yeah, he keeps on going out.

[00:03:12]Nope.

[00:03:16]Out.

[00:03:19]>> One eternity later.

[00:03:24]>> Let's go, baby.

[00:03:51]Oh my god.

[00:03:54]Crank it up.

[00:03:55]>> So, working on these floor pans. It's a little difficult. Super custom because these aren't for the Mavericks. They're for the Mustangs. So, just cut off a little piece here to plug in here. So, I'm going to go on the belt sander. Dad >> messed up.

[00:04:12]>> He got a little too eager and uh cut too much off. So, I'm going to go over to the belt sander and knock this out. Make it smooth.

[00:04:27]We made some progress today.

[00:04:30]Got this rear floor pan screwed in. Kind of uh get an idea of what this is going to look like. We got a little bit of stuff we got to do. Add a piece here before we weld it in. Got that front floor pan out of here. Looks a little rough, but we got it done. What do you think about it?

[00:04:51]>> Is what it is.

[00:04:54]>> Dad's tired.

[00:04:55]>> Taking way too long to do this. turning up a little bit.

[00:04:58]>> We should have both sides done by now.

[00:05:01]>> Yeah, it's taking a little bit longer than expected, but it's all good. Just one step at a time. Like you were saying before, >> progress is progress. So, >> we'll get it uh we'll get it next next weekend.

[00:05:13]>> Another day back on the OG. We got the rear floor pans pretty much figured out.

[00:05:20]We just need to spot weld it and, you know, kind of get it tightened down in there. Now we're kind of working on the front and we're having some issues with the fitment obviously because it's not made for this car. So >> for Mustang, which means it probably must have had a smaller transmission tunnel than this car does. So this right here doesn't fit up there. So I'm thinking we're going to have to split it here and kind of work it bead on it.

[00:05:45]Work it into that corner. And I think we're going to have to probably cut this side too cuz it's a little wild. But I'd like to see what it does there before we mess with that side. I think this is definitely going to be easier to get fitted in than this was. This was a pain. So, >> we had to do a lot of beading on that little rear floor pan. So, hopefully this front one's not too much. This has definitely been a job. It's only going to be more rewarding once it's all said and done. So, we're going to go ahead try to maggyver this front floor pan and see if we can get this thing to fit in there.

[00:06:23]All righty. After a long day of cutting and grinding and then welding pieces back on and fixing and fitting. Yeah, it was uh >> it's been a great day.

[00:06:34]>> Yeah, it's been a lot of work. Dad and I agreed. I think this is the last time we want to do floor pans ever again in our entire life. So, anytime I see a project on Facebook Market, if it doesn't have good floor pans, sorry, but it's not a part of our program. So, we will see you in a few days. And we are back on another day of working on the OG Mav. We got the driver's side somewhat done.

[00:07:00]Everything is in there, welded in. So, I'm going in there with the grinder, grinding all the welds down. Dad is actually plasma cutting passenger side so we can kind of get this going. It's taking way longer than we wanted to, but you know what? We're getting after it.

[00:07:15]We're making progress. I'm hoping that today can be the final day and we can get this knocked out. So stay tuned.

[00:07:36]All righty. So, we've made a lot of progress so far. We got the welds ground down over there. And then we got these patches cut out. So, we learned a lot definitely on that driver's side. And man, this has been a lot better. What do you think, Dad? It's been >> Oh, yeah. This side went a lot smoother.

[00:07:56]>> We say that right now. We still have to shape the floor pans to all of this. But at least cutting the old ones out, that was like a breeze.

[00:08:05]>> And then we still had to deal with the extra metal that was welded in.

[00:08:08]>> Yeah, it was like even easier.

[00:08:11]>> Yeah, for real. So maybe floor pans aren't as bad as we thought. I mean, I'm not I don't want to say too much right now cuz we still got a lot to do, but yeah, that was way better. So, we didn't get a whole lot of footage of it, but we're just getting after it. So, that was awesome.

[00:08:25]>> Glad to get that done.

[00:08:26]>> Yeah, cuz I'm tired of freaking doing this. So, let's go ahead and get back to work.

[00:08:31]>> 10 and 12.

[00:08:39]And that's what it looks like making a custom floor pan. Got to push down on it so we can get the fitment right and get this thing all adjusted.

[00:08:47]>> Good thing you can uh fit in the car on it.

[00:08:49]>> I know. For real.

[00:08:56]>> I love this plasma cutter, dude. I'm so glad that we freaking bought this thing.

[00:09:01]>> You're getting pretty good at it.

[00:09:02]>> Let's go. That wraps up today. Got the fronts pretty much completely done and painted so no rust hits it. Next time we work on this thing, get the rears on the passenger side fitted in there perfectly and then the fronts of it done up.

[00:09:18]>> Hopefully we'll get them all welded next.

[00:09:20]>> Yeah, it we made a lot of progress honestly by us both working on one side and him working on the other side and switching. man, it it made it a lot quicker and also just having the experience from the driver's side compared to this side now. It's uh it's made it a lot easier. The plasma cutter is actually, you know, working for us this time. We were having so much trouble for some reason in the beginning. So now that's working for us.

[00:09:45]And >> plus, we didn't run out of welding wire.

[00:09:47]We didn't run out of gas. This is actually the first time that we have worked on this without having to run to the store.

[00:09:54]>> We didn't leave the shop. So that was awesome. every other time we've had to leave to do something.

[00:09:58]>> Goodness gracious. So, yeah, making progress, feeling positive. We feel accomplished today. So, I think the next time we work on this thing, we might have the floor pans all done, dude.

[00:10:07]>> I think we'll get them welded in.

[00:10:09]>> So, no promises, but we're hoping for it. So, we'll see you in about a week.

[00:10:40]We got the back floor pans all welded up. Now we have the front floor pans set in there. I got to weld them up now. Do a little spot welding and then yeah, should be good to keep moving forward.

[00:10:52]We are so close to the end of the finish line with this thing, man. Andoo, these floor pans have been kicking our butts, but you can see you're tired, huh?

[00:11:00]>> Yeah, I'm beat. Had to get it welded.

[00:11:02]We'll fix that one corner. I'm going to cut a piece where the shifter was. We can weld that up. We got a little bit to do once we even once we get the floor pans in, but once we do that, the rest of it is kind of cake.

[00:11:12]>> We're getting there. We are so close.

[00:11:14]So, I'm going to go ahead and get these things welded in.

[00:11:30]Heat up here.

[00:11:49]Wow, what a journey that was. It is such a relief to finally get over this hump with the floor pans. Oh my goodness. It was a lot more than I think that we were expecting, but seeing it done, that's like a weight lifted off our shoulders.

[00:12:10]Dad, what do you what do Look at his face.

[00:12:14]Oh man. Yeah, that was tough, huh?

[00:12:16]>> Yeah, it was gnarly.

[00:12:19]>> Hey, but we're done with that. That was your first time doing floor pans.

[00:12:23]>> Yep.

[00:12:23]>> My first time doing floor pans. I felt pretty confident towards the end there with my welding. So, that was >> You did really good. I think you welded better than I did.

[00:12:32]What's cool about this whole process is like we are truly and especially me like learning new things every time we work on this and honestly just being able to spend time with you and work on this thing and get granddaddy's car back on the road is freaking awesome dudes.

[00:12:49]>> And we made it a little harder on ourselves than we had to making Mustang floor pans fit and plus we split them to keep the Maverick comp so we could still run grabber seats in it.

[00:12:59]>> Yeah. who towards the end there was like light at the end of the tunnel, but >> there was a lot of struggle in there.

[00:13:05]>> We weren't going to quit today.

[00:13:06]>> Yeah. Yeah. We were getting >> 12 hours I think we got in today.

[00:13:09]>> Yeah, it was a lot. But you know what?

[00:13:11]We're in. We're out. It's over with. And now we can move on to the next part. So, man, I'm excited to finally get that off our that monkey off our back and keep going. For you guys, it was just one video. For us, it was days on days on days. and um many of trips to Harbor Freight. I felt like that was our second home. We should have just moved the shop there, dude. So, yeah, I'm I'm super excited to keep continuing on this thing. We got a lot of exciting news coming up. So, be sure to keep up, subscribe, like this video, leave a comment, and we'll see you next time.

[00:14:05]Heat.