I hear y'all! Eleanor's been dubbed "the forever restoration". We have an unoffical club locally, The forever restoration club because there's a group of us that have been working on our classics (not all stangs) for years now. We bought her in November of 02, and she's still no where near done. We finally bought a "new" 347 stroker and C4 to fix the reliablity issue and she prompty sheered a stud off the brand new B&M torque converter (we made it about 10 houses). So, the tranny is back out to replace the converter. While it's out, we're getting new headers, because the ones we have 9that came with the car) aren't split and are a @%#$^$ to deal with (and never mind changing the rear plug). We still need to get the roll cage in, then hopefully get the fiish bodywork and paint done (luckily we know a body guy that can do this-I think the motor will mysteriously not start when we have to take her for the cage install since we don't know that guy. NO ONE is beating on that fresh motor!).
I can't even recall every part and piece we've had to replace, it's easier to say this-when we're done, the roof, frame rails, firewall & drivers side shock tower will be the only original sheet metal left. This is motor #4 and the second tranny. We will be getting a built 9" and Denny's driveshaft to make a new shaft to be sure everything can stand up to the 347 eventually too. About half the interior pieces are new too, whether from other cars or actually new (like the carpet, dash pad, seat covers).