65 Mustang Restoration
I think I finally got all of the welds ground down on the passenger floor pan(on the top side). There were a lot of welds up there,,, the bottom side should be much simpler,,, if I can keep the filings out of my eyes.
I think we pretty much completed all of the metal work on the front end of the car. I started by fitting the battery box,,, surprise,,, it actually fit pretty well. We had saved the old battery apron(RF fender section) & were able to save & re-use the battery box reinforcement plate that goes under the new panel we just installed. It's a little tricky making sure that the holes in the plate & battery box will line up together once you drill the new holes through the apron,,, not too tough though if you make a dimple with an awl & make the small adjustments you might need.
Once the hole locations were marked, drilled, the plate test fitted, and then bolted on,,, I welded it in place with 2 small welds,, just like the factory did. Once all that was squared away,, it was time to fit the new RF fender bracket, that also welds to the outside of the new apron. (Maybe it's just me,,, but it seems that every time I get a new metal part that isn't coated,,, it takes a lot more time to get it to fit properly). Once I did finally get it to fit properly,, it too was welded into place.
The pic shows both of the brackets that we installed on the RF corner of the car. It's these little items that need installing, that makes me glad I kept the old apron that we cut off, just so I knew where to locate the new parts.
The next area that we did was the shock/spring towers. Two things were done to them,, a bit of strengthening & a bit of Shelby modifying. First, on the outside of the towers, at the bottom, where it hooks to the frame,,, the metal was showing signs of getting thin. This area is prone to rusting a lot, due to the little built-in catch-all that the factory was nice enough to build into the car. Since the metal wasn't too bad(all rotted out), we decided to just add a nice piece of 1/8" steel strap to the area,,, weld it into place,,, therefore creating a much stronger area.
The area was already clean, so I made a nice little pattern out of card stock, transferred it to the metal, cut the metal to size, and Bam, she was ready for welding. I sprayed the two areas of the metal that would be touching each other with weldable primer before I welded the plates in.
The second modification to the towers was to relocate the upper control arm holes for better handling. I was recently in Green Bay, and the "Shelby Expert" that Clint & I went to see, gave me this plate that that helps to properly relocate the mounting holes. This is one of the big improvements that Shelby did to his cars for better handling,, and is an easy fix to any Mustang, that costs Nothing! If you enlarge the pic and look carefully below the two bolts, you'll see the two 3/16" holes that are already drilled through the plate. We just drilled the holes, removed the plate, enlarged the holes to 9/16", and then went to the other side and repeated the process.
Though it's hard to tell by the pic,, the holes are directly under the original holes. We then prepped the inside of the towers, (where we just drilled the holes.) There's a lip by the new holes that needs some attention. I just cut a slit in the lip & pounded the lips flat so they wouldn't interfere with the nuts & washers,,,, a very simple part of the mod.
Now that the front is done,, we moved to the driver's side floor pan. We borrowed the plasma cutter and cut it right out. Brent got started with the lovely task of removing the top edges of the previously replaced pan,,, he got a good start on it, but it'll take some grinding. I guess that'll be this weeks project.
Till next time,,,,
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