65 Mustang Restoration
Laural Mountain Mustang came to the rescue this week with their "Restorers Choice" rear crossmember.(I found out that these parts are made by Dynacorn). Super Nice Part,, and it fit GREAT! So it was time for measure, measure, measure,, and when we had it lightly tacked in place,, we measured it some more! We stuck in the LR wheelhouse & clamped it into place,,, then added both of the rear trunk floor panels,,, squared everything with the old gas tank we cut up,,, and then started measuring some more. Once I was satisfied,, I welded in the LR wheelhouse.
Both of the wheelhouses that we got fit into place pretty well,, but both had almost a 3/4" gap towards their inside front area, where they attach to the floor pan(along the tight curve),, but this gap is easily closed with about 10 needle-nose vise grips,, starting at the front & working your way backwards,,, once you make it around the curve,, life is good.
It was now the big moment,,, Finally,,, time to see how well the quarter panel we bought last year from CJ Pony,,, would fit.
Terribly! Not worth a hoot! How can such a nice piece of metal,, fit this poorly? Talk about depressing! Weeks of work all to prep the rear for the new quarters & now they don't fit,,, Bummer!
Here are a couple of pics of the new quarter,, and how well it fits,, Starting with the front upper door jam area:
Not good,,, next is the rear of the quarter, where it's suppose to line up with the rear frame crossmember:
The quarter is an inch too long,, as seen by the humungo gap.
And then there's the trunk drip rail:
Those 2 ledges are suppose to line up with each other,,, but the quarter's lip is approx. 3/4" too low,, and there's no way to tweek those bends.
And then there's the Wheelhouse/Fender Flare Lip:
The lips of the 2 panels actually fit pretty well,,, at the front & rear Bottom edges,,, but get farther apart as you go upward,,, so far,, that I'm able to easily slide my finger between the 2 lips(approx. 1"),, and you can't squeeze the 2 ledges together,,, ain't happen'in!
So what does one do in this situation,,,, we decided it was that time. Time to put the car into hibernation for the winter,,, we'll get back hard & heavy into it in the Spring,,, that should also give me enough time to hopefully get a pair of decent fitting quarters.
I may do a few small projects here & there over the winter,,, like,, I just received a very nice heater box I bought off of Ebay, since ours was broken,,, so now that we also got the rebuild kit,, maybe we'll do a section on it's restoration.
Stay tuned,,, we will be back!
