Post #6, 4/20/10 Stripped down to the body

65 Mustang Restoration

Well, she's stripped to the bone now! We dove into removing the rest of the parts,, RF suspension, rear end, leaf springs, brake & fuel lines, and all of those little clips and grommets. 

The bushings in the leaf springs were toast. Once we slid the rear end out of the car, you could move the leafs side to side a long ways,,, I couldn't believe the shackle bolts actually came loose. The rear end looks pretty good,,, like some work has been done to it. New PB cables, it's been cleaned up & painted,,, and the brakes look decent,, but they'll still get replaced. 

You can see it looks relatively good in the frame area,,, just a couple of small rust holes in the wheel houses,, which will also be getting replaced. 

I had a bit of time left, so I figured I'd get started on removing the cowl panel. OMG,,, I hope I didn't bite off more than I can chew. Removing the cowl section is not a tiny project,, hard to believe how much strength there is in this area. I got about half way done &called it a day.

This is a handy little tool I picked up from Mac Tools. It's a spot weld cutter, with an adjustable depth setting,, which comes in handy. The C clamp portion slips right off for those areas that you can't get to the back side of. The bits cut really nice,, the sad thing is,, is that the spot welds Ford used on this car, are huge,,, slightly bigger that the largest bit I have,,, so some chiseling is still involved.