My son has been looking for a first car, and has recently discovered the SVO-a car I owned and loved aswell. Problem is, my wife is insistent on having an airbag-equipped car. We then came up with the crazy idea of retrofitting a steering column from a later year mustang/ford into an SVO. I have a fair amount of experince working with these cars, so my questions are- is it do-able? how much work is it going to be? can it be done with OEM ford parts (salvaged or off-the-shelf)?
Yes it can be done. It can be done with salvage parts. The steering wheel will have to be changed as i'm sure you know. All the impact sensors from a newer mustang will work.
The only thing i'm not sure of on it is what controllers the air bags on that year of car. I'm 95% sure it's not in the ecu but what controllers it is beyond me.