Money? What money? Motivation? lol

 

Dug in a little farther today and the car does need a taillight panel the pair of bumper reinforcement brackets behind it and both outer wheelhouses! The list just keeps getting bigger!

Pretty much the only parts that look salvageable in the trunk (right now) are the inner wheelhouses and the front trunk pan section.

I picked up my rear frame rail repair sections today from a guy off Kijiji.... they're MUCH heavier than the original ones!

 

Got a little more work done this afternoon after work...

Passenger side trunk floor is pretty much out, just need to finish removing the part attached to the rear crossmember.



Once that is finished I have to decide where to cut the frame rail. I think I'll do it just ahead of where the rusted inside part stops in the picture, everything forward of that seems good and solid.



The driver's side floor isn't as bad, but I need to do the frame rail there too so I may as well do the whole panel there too.



After I got sick of drilling out spot welds, I decided to strip the interior except for the dash. I also left the package tray in to protect the rear glass from sparks.

The driver's side floor is screwed, but the passenger side is solid. I think I can get away working on the torque box on the passenger side by just removing the front section of the floor, but the whole driver's side will be replaced along with the seat bracket panel.

The flash makes it look far worse than what it actually is!







That's all for today... I think tomorrow I may weld the spring perches on my 8.8 so I can get it out of the way.

 

I didn't see if you had any endgame plans for the floor.

But you should hit that stuff with a wire wheel first. You said you were gonna replace it anyways?
Should get some roll on bed-liner or undercoating when its all said and done. I've seen it done in a couple cars and it works great.

 

Driver's side is getting a full length pan and hopefully I'll get away with just the front section on the passenger side. Roll-on bedliner is definitely the plan for the interior and trunk and POR15 for the whole underside... I don't want to have to do this again to this car!

 

Spring perches are on!

I started by leveling the old axle to get the proper pinion angle reading and distance between the stock perches.



This is the first time I've had both axles together... I was originally worried that grinding off the upper control arm tabs from the casting on the 8.8 would make the axle too weak, but after seeing this one that came out of the car I think I'm fine! The 8.8 is much beefier.





Next my axle adapter that I made for my engine stand came in handy again... it was very easy to level it up and set the 5 degree angle.



I set the jig I made on top of the axle, centered it, double and triple checked everything and tacked the perches in place. After checking once more to verify that everything was exactly where it was supposed to be then the perches were fully welded.

 

Good looking welds man. You working on all this really makes me want to go out and do something to my car. Your so much more motivated than i am.

 

Nice work!

 

Thanks man, I've got motivation now but we'll see what happens... lol. Got a long way to go!

Thanks Kris!

 

Looking good Adam!

 

nice work, i never got that beep in my 68, but its been gone for 15 years, and back then we never had the stuff to work with then, but now the sky is the limit, also one thing that would tie that front end together really nice would be a 1 piece export brace

1964 1970 Mustang and Cougar Export Brace | eBay

had one on my 68, between that, the monte carlo bar, the 720 LB front springs, and a 1 1/8" front sway bar, it handled like it was on rails

 

Are the stock export braces two piece? I never really paid much attention to it as I've never had it off before. A larger front sway bar is definitely in the plans as well!

 

yeah, the stockers are 2 piece

 

I love these cars man, and this looks to be in great shape! Those wheels are really going to look good on there!

 

I'll definitely have to look into a new one then... I bet they're a heavier gauge too.

Thanks! It needs a bit of work but it's solid overall.

 

i'm not sure about material thickness they are out of, been almost 20 years ago i said bye to my mustang, but it worked wonders

 

I've found most replacement parts are heavier than the originals so I would imagine they are. My new rear frame rails are heavier than the originals.

I got the rear trunk/fuel tank crossmember mostly out last night. Once it's out I can screw the new one into place for now to use to line up my new frame rails. Finally almost to the point that I can add some new metal to this thing!

 

Didn't get as much done this weekend as I planned... but figured I'd post up some pics.

I took these before I finished taking out the rest of the rear crossmember. It shows that it's easy to overlook problem areas. I don't really care because it was getting replace anyways, but at a quick glance (this part is hidden behind the rear bumper) you wouldn't really be able to tell this was "patched". It was just a new piece of metal welded at the top just to cover the bad spot. It wasn't there to reinforce, just to cover up!





Passenger side frame rail section is ready to be cut off and the new section welded on.

 

Got the old taillight panel out today and the new one is clamped in place along with the new rear fuel tank support.

 

I haven't decided what tomorrow's task will be yet... patch the right inner wheelhouse, replace the piece in front of the fuel tank or weld in my new rear frame section.

 

cars coming along great Adam! What the hell are the dimensions for your garage? looks like a pretty decent size

 

Thanks!

That's half of it in the last pics... inside dimensions are 14x38'. Not huge but a decent size for my first garage!

 

thats not bad at all, wide enough to have space to work on all sides of the car and deep enough for a fab area or more workspace at the front. i like it. we are looking for a house right now and it is so frustrating trying to find anything with a decent sized garage. the ones we find with good garages are not nice houses lol

 

That's exactly the problem we had. This one is long enough to fit two cars in... the Mazda hasn't been in all winter though as there's Mustang parts everywhere. lol

I never really looked at any houses unless they had a decent garage. When we were ready to give up I talked to the bank and they said it is possible to work some extra cash into your mortgage to build a garage/shop if it doesn't have one already there. The lady I talked to just said that you had to have some sort of plans that they could approve. I never looked into it any farther because we found this house shortly after but it may be an option for you!

 

we went and looked at seven houses tonight. my real estate agent said the exact same thing. i think she is going to look for some houses with more property to build a small shop in the back. i want to be able to have all my fab tools and park my truck to build it.