It all began with a phone call from a close friend. He told me he knew someone who was giving his old 65 mustang coupe project away. Like many of you, it had always been a dream of mine to restore an old first generation mustang fastback!
Unfortunately this car was a sad looking coupe with only a newly rebuild transmission to boast about. Still, I could not pass it up. I figured it would be a good learning car that I could make all my mistakes on so when I eventually got my hands on a fastback I would be seasoned and ready.
While looking around in the classifieds for parts I came across an ad on craigslist, it was simply put "fastback roof". So I open the ad, it had a simple picture of the roof and below it said, "Have you ever wanted to convert a coupe to a fastback?" Naturally, I thought yes! But this add was for a roof in Portland, OR some 800 miles away. I decided to sleep on it. I have an old friend that I went to high school with that lives in Portland, maybe I could make the trip by convincing the wife that we could visit them too. It was like icing on the cake, I could visit with some old friends and pick up the fastback roof. So I called the man who was selling the roof, and managed to talk my wife into going on a road trip up to Portland. I bought some 2X4's and a sheet of plywood so I could make a platform that would fit over the rails of my Tacoma. This provided enough room for the roof to be screwed into the back of my truck without the need of any trailer. It was simple, cheap, yet effective.
Now I got a 1965 Mustang coupe and a fastback roof. Believe it or not the hard part is over. I want to take a second and just explain a few things. I am a college student and this is my first project car. I have very little money for supplies tools, etc. however, I am fortunate enough to know someone who has done work like this before who was generous enough to offer his tools and time.
Neither of us had done something like this to the extent of replacing an entire roof of a car. If you are reading this then I assume you have a car or at least want to restore a car because you know you have what it takes. I say this because I think a lot of people might be intimidated by this type of project, when in reality the roof was made for the car so it will fit like it was made with little to no manipulation. So relax, if you can replaced a quarter panel or the thought of replacing a quarter panel does not scare you then you can do this conversion.
Here are some pictures of my cowling repair done after I converted the mustang from a coupe to a fastback. I went to my local harbor freight store and purchased a spot weld remover drill bit $6. I would recommend buying a spot weld remover drill bit if you plane to remove the cowling cover. There are about 100 plus spot welds that need to be removed. 
It took me the better part of a week (putting in a few hours every other day) just to remove all of the spot welds. once I was able to remove the cowling cover. I was pleasantly surprised to find only minor surface rust in an area that is typically rusted through. I cleaned up all the leaves and wire pushed the entire surface. Then I completed the 3 step POR 15 process of washing with degreaser, then using the metal ready, and finally putting a coat of POR 15 on and covering it with primer. 
I really like using POR 15 because it dries rock hard and locks out all moisture. This repair should ensure that the cowling won't rust out for many more years. Make sure to cover over the shot welds with painters tape so you can realign and weld the cowling cover back in the right place. I will use weld through primer over the spot welds to prevent any rust from forming in the seam when I weld the cowling cover back on.
