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Some will notice that in a couple of pictures the dark gray "plastic" brackets have detached and are missing. in #1 and #4

Here are some additional examples that hopefully will help. Just think and imagine the angles at which paint had to be applied to cover the visible planned surfaces then figure out where all the paint and overspray would travel and attach itself using a high pressure high volume guns of the time.

Mr Gaines is saying the the Boss springs are visually different and I believe him

Can confirm that also with my low mileage very early built 69 Boss and others I've seen. 

Mine are marked (lower) short leaf - C9ZA-5556-S          Dated 20 days before the car was built.

Can't find the chart I was looking for on the General Spring site but their listings do show the same industry #42-503 for the GT350/500 as the Spring Research chart. General is not showing a listing for the Boss 302.

Might have to do with the fact that the Boss 302 was only produced during the later part of the production year- sometimes referred to as a 69 1/2 so depending on when the data was collected and published that might explain it. Same thing happened with paint codes as late and mid year paint chip pages didn't include those Boss 302 exterior only colors on the sheets.

Just to support the discussion and add some addition information and documentation. These are from Ford and what they used to assemble the cars provided to AO Smith

Checked what is commonly referred to as the add/delete sheets and on the copies/forms I've got it shows

One set of sheets shows

Items to be selected  #9393368
Items to Omitted Rear Springs (2 Stage) 

Description REl. 1-22-69 -Per Trans. X9A-291

++++++++++++++++++++
Then looking at a later sheet dated 1-22-69 it shows. Likely the form referenced above.

Items to Omitted      Sportroof - C9ZA-5556-C or G(difficult to make out) Rate 135-141 & Load 670-710
                      Convertibe - C9ZX-5556-A                            Rate 128-142 & Load 715-775

Items to be selected/installed  Sportroof - C9ZX-5556-A                  Rate: 128-142 & Load 715-775
                                Convertibe - C9ZA-556-E                  Rate 135-141 & 710-750


It is interesting and a puzzle since the buildsheets used on the line to construct the cars at Ford still listed the standard (for the application as a Mustang) rear spring markings.
Hope this helps

There are documents that report that all 4 speeds prior to the Federal requirement in 68, received a VIN. At the same time its not certain or documented, that I know of, that all plants followed that. I do have examples of 67's with C and S codes with VIN's from cars built at San Jose.

As far as tailshaft housing, its late, but looked through the first in my directory, happened to be for a HEH-T and it shows examples with the C4ZR-7A040-A version (late 65 production Dearborn K code example).  Found another on a HEH-BT.

May look at the list of other 64-6 transmission pictures tomorrow there are over a couple of thousand pictures to look through.

69 Shelby spring on the left and 1968 GT500 FB spring on the right. Not sure if a 69 would have diff spring lengths than a 68

Yes the length of some of the leaves are as well as the hardware as Ed mentioned

Would be interesting to see a side by side comparison of the Mach 1 spring that the car left the factory with and the spring A.O. Smith put in.

Also, was ford making their own springs back then or using an outside vendor? ............

Ford used multiple sub contracting companies to supply leaf springs for the many different needs and al those plants around the country.

Still is. But it's quicker to fly into Oakland then take a bus to the BART station into downtown SF - at least it was 25 years ago.

Looks like they were having trouble with the decorative cement falling on passengers so they added a secondary roof. At LAX when the theme restaurant had the same problem they just stopped parking cars under it and swept up the debris regularly.

Agreed, in comparison to many others, but it doubled from what it was not too long ago.  Try never to use SFO  especially since there is Oakland and Sac. Only used SFO for a couple of international and only San Jose a few times. Plenty to choose from in the area.

That airport must have been really small at that time. Nice catch.

I would guess it was closer to mid Oct possibly into Nov 65, looking at other cars with similar Shelby VINs, but we'll not know or even be close without more data points to compare to. Of course the carbs were built in batches so some cars would have receive "recently" made carbs or much older stock depending on other factors and the luck of the draw. Sounds like your not really focused on dates and you have something that will work. As far as jets in the carb there is no way of knowing if the ones in yours have been changed so time to pull it down and check to see what the little number on the side tell you and go from there.

Got to love AI 

Just to offer a bit more help for you and others reading this thread.

...............They're the ones with the rings with the small holes, right?

Yes on the front versions. Rears had an slightly larger outer upper body shield than standard shocks made by the same company for Ford for standard, non-export models. 

At the same time tens of thousands of Gabriel aftermarket adjustable shocks were made through the 80's so many of used examples of those also with plenty of little or larger differences. So easy to confuse between originals and aftermarket in a quick glance.

Do you mean that the adjustable Gabriels were part of the "Export package" (and thus different from the ordinary Handling Package Autolite shocks) on regular (export) Mustangs?

Yes and had been since 1965

Here is a picture of a 4L (Nov 64) dated adjustable rear shock from an export 65 Mustang as an example. These were shared on the CMF years ago. Have 4H dated ones, in picture form, also. Paint color changes during 66 production