Project 66 Rustang

[ScottsGT]

I may be late saying this, but did you install the trunk lid and check gaps before welding up? I caught hell with my '66 Fastback by not doing this.

 

[MP&C]

The jigsaw puzzle is coming together nicely! Good job

 

[ambenz]

Just amazing to see how far you can disassemble a unibody when you have it mounted to a jig roteressie. Looking real good and I am delighted to see your getting into the hidden frame parts to treat with POR. This pony will be around for another 50+ years easy if it's kept off the salt on the streets in winter.
Love the dedication your showing, nothing rushed and doing it right. Thanks for sharing your progress, very cool build!

 

[bigguns69]

Thanks for the kind words from all. Out of town for a week then got sick so progress has been slow.

Passenger side quarter removal. With experience comes speed. Tear down happens faster now especially with the air chisel. Surprise, lots of rust.

The rotisserie makes this work so much easier.

 

[bigguns69]

More POR 15 on the cleaned up metal on the internal structures and inner frame rails. Put the old fuel tank into place the rear trunk pan placement. Lots of holes and spot welds.

Showing the procedure for spot welds, holes drilled or punched into panel, present to mating component, use a 3/16" end mill cutter in a drill to scratch the surface of the mating part for good weld contact, clamp down really tight with vise grips and weld away, moving from spot to spot in a deliberate manor.

When I set the driver side quarter I did present the deck lid and set it on the car to verify fit up and bodies lines before welding in position. It's amazing how some light sheet metal making connections in a couple of different stress plane areas can really make things solid. The new sheet metal really weld nice.

 

[ScottsGT]

moving from spot to spot in a deliberate manor.

Many years ago I learned to do this the hard way. Oops!

 

[SteveH-CO]

Looks great!

 

[RickP]

Wow, the transformation from rust to new sheet metal is amazing!
Brings back memories for me -- helping a friend sand his 66 down to bare metal, but it was only 16 years old at the time and still rust free.
Thanks for sharing all the photos and your learning along the way.

 

[TimeWarpF100]

Rear quarter panel removal. The pictures show the connection points that needed to be broken apart. Tools of the trade, strong putty knife, hammer, drill and sharp drill bits. I removed the panel complete to see how difficult it was and to have something to reference when it comes time to go back together.

This car was a vinyl top car originally so the seam with the roof pillar was not leaded in. There is a chrome molding strip that bolts into place. I am contemplating reusing this molding as a conversation point for the mustang purists. Plenty of dolly work will be necessary to reshape the joints as some of the spot welds are impossible to get to with a drill or grinder. MC hammer time on those.

The lip over the rear window inner structure flange was a little bit of a challenge. Long pry bar did the trick with the hammer.

Coming along nicely!

 

[TimeWarpF100]

Looks like your coming along nicely on that car, back in the day I had a 1969 fastback with a 428 SCJ, fun car to drive. Although it didn't help my driving record! lol We ended up putting a Built 427 side oiler with medium riser heads and a twin 4 barrel setup in it, wish I still had it

Pete

Do you have a photo page? Owned quite a few CJ/SCJ's FE & 385. After 40yrs my dream truck coming together. '66 with a 427 8v M.R.

 

[bigguns69]

Moving on to the passenger side for quarter panel install. Pictures show general fit up of inner/outer wheel wells and quarter panel. Hint: Trying to jockey the parts around so that I don't have to section the outer wheel well like I did on the driver side. Position, clamp, check, unclamp, move, clamp, check......... When all is good, put a few sheet-metal screws in position to the under structure to lock placement. This is key to minimizing need to due panel surgery.

Did notice on some inter-web searches that a few other people had to section their outer fender well to get it to match to the fender on driver side so maybe their are some fitment issues on the aftermarket stamped parts.

 

[bigguns69]

Pictures show the inner wheel well going in place just like the driver side. The one thing I had to do was add a small strip to the rear trunk pan extension panel on both sides of the car for the outer wheel well to connect to in the back. Just seemed like those panels were not made with enough material there. Plenty of spot welds and then grinding them down most of the way. The bed liner coating that I am planning on using will cover them up later.

 

[ambenz]

Must be so rewarding to see new metal where rusted and pitted panels once were.
Not to mention the money your are saving doing it yourself and knowing it was done to your standards.
Looks like progress!

 

[bigguns69]

Outer wheel house installed with a fresh coat of POR 15 over it.

 

[bigguns69]

I am ahead of the picture game here but need some advice. Getting ready to put new skins on the doors of the car. Salvaged the old door inner structure and POR 15 on all clean surfaces. The old outer door skins had an undercoating on them on the inside.

What should a person use on the new door skins on the inside? I've looked at the Lizard Skin product but it states that it is more for sound or thermal related issues. Is it a good choice for this and then also for undercoating the car? What would you recommend, what have you used with success?

Thanx.

 

[bigguns69]

Pictures showing the final spot welding of the passenger rear quarter to the car. Start at the back and work towards the front. Check the rear trunk lid and a few side to side dimensions before starting. Work across the top and bottom of fender moving forward, around the wheel well lip drawing it tight to the outer fender wheel well, then work the top and bottom of the fender right in front of the wheel leaving the last few welds, then fit the door edge with the door in place as you will need to fit it to the door edge, push it in or pulling it out as you move from bottom to top of the edge.

 

[bigguns69]

Pictures show the door edge and how I fit it to the original door for reference. Grind the welds down and ready for paint. The car now has new rear quarters, wheel wells, floor pans, fire wall, upper and lower cowl, engine bay sheet metal and a 2x3 rectangular tube frame grafted to the car. Doors are next.

 

[Hammer1963]

Looking great!

 

[bigguns69]

Pictures show the driver side door torn down. The doors on this car are in decent shape, no rust through. Driver side door had some kinks in it and both sides have accumulation of rust over the years and the under coating is giving up the ghost. In the quest to remove as much rust from the car as possible I decided to go for a re-skin of both doors. For Mustangs the skins are about $60 each so seemed like the best way to go.

 

[bigguns69]

Removing door skin. Go around the perimeter with a grinder and lightly sand through the hem joint till you see layers of metal. Follow up with hammer and putty knife to break everything apart. On the interior side there is spot welds every 6 inches or so either drill out, grind off to get the bent over strips off.

Once everything is apart, found more rust. The inner shell is in decent shape, no rust through, pretty solid so will save.

 

[TommyK]

I am ahead of the picture game here but need some advice. Getting ready to put new skins on the doors of the car. Salvaged the old door inner structure and POR 15 on all clean surfaces. The old outer door skins had an undercoating on them on the inside.

What should a person use on the new door skins on the inside? I've looked at the Lizard Skin product but it states that it is more for sound or thermal related issues. Is it a good choice for this and then also for undercoating the car? What would you recommend, what have you used with success?

Thanx.

Epoxy primer and then the sound deadener of your choice whether it be spray on or a sheet product. I don't think you have to worry about thermal protection on a door skin.

Love your build. Keep up the good work.

 

[bigguns69]

The driver side door latch mounting points, counter sink screw head, were broken out so fixed with a repair panel from CJ Pony parts. For the new door skins on mustangs you need to transfer a bracket from the old skin that is part of the mounting structure for the vent window framework.

Cleaned up the inner panel with wire brush on a grinder and applied POR 15 with a brush on all surfaces including the edges that are in the hem joint with the skin.

 

[bigguns69]

Time for door skin. Lay the door skin on a nice cushioned surface. Put several dollops of seem sealer on the beam of the inner door panel over it's length so that it will come into contact with the door skin. Present the inner panel to the outer skin. Fit the perimeter of the two parts together and clamp into position using paint stirring sticks to support and protect the outer skin edge.

After that lightly tap the outer skin edge over the inner to create the hem joint, use the clamps and sticks to support the edge as you move around the perimeter. Work the full length to get it folded over and finish with hammer and dolly. I changed from a dolly and went to a wood block. Less opportunity to put a small dinger in the outer skin.

Depending on skill, takes about an hour to do.

 

[p_mori7]

Nice work BG !

My Falcon will be going thru much the same process this winter...I am hoping it comes out as nice as yours.

~Phil.

 

[don long]

Is that an epoxy adhesive I see between the skin lip and the door edge?

We didn't have things like that back when I was putting door skins on mustangs lol

 

[bigguns69]

Door skins are in place. Did not use any epoxy adhesive for the seems, just good old hem joints, spot welds and a final dab of POR 15 into the crevices and joints after welding. Used a brush on a stick to dab a liberal amount of paint into the hem joint around the perimeter.

Time to move forward on some finishing details for the rear quarters to roof panels, the B pillar connection points. A little paper layout to transfer lines to create some filler pieces to fill the gap. From the factory, the quarter panel has a flange that is tucked under the roof skin which is spot welded to inner structure pieces. Since I am going to reuse all that, I had cut the flange off the new quarters and then needed to do this to reconnect everything.

This transition area is about 1/4 shallow to the bodyline surface. For a vinyl top car, a couple holes allowed for a chrome strip to be bolted in place and is where the vinyl top tucked under, shown in the one picture. For a true hard top car, this area would have been leaded in. I decided to go the filler piece route and then a skin coat of bondo to finish off later.

 

[bigguns69]

Did Passenger side first, driver side second, pictures shown, and then added a picture of my extended paint brush trick that I have used on a few occasions for dabbing POR 15 into deep crevices.

Next step will be the installation of a Mustang II front suspension to the new frame.

 

[MP&C]

FYI, these areas circled in red are most likely a result of condensation inside the roof over the years draining to the low point of the sail panel when the car cools off at night. Note they are rusting from the inside-out. While you have headliner out, do yourself a favor and inspect the inside VERY WELL to insure there is no more lurking rust scale. Much cheaper to fix now before paint goes on..


Nice work you're doing!

 

[bigguns69]

Time for front suspension install. I purchased a generic Mustang II kit off e-bay for cheap. Went with a traditional coil spring/hat arrangement since its was the cheaper way to go. I think if I were to do it again I would probably go with the coil overs and pay the extra money. Seems like the install would be a little easier. The kit did not come with any instructions so went to the inter-web and looked at bunch of videos and instructions from other vendors to get an idea for placement of cross member and upper hat mount. Realized that this was going to become a big layout project.

Since I had cut the complete front end off the car off but kept it intact, I built a quick cart for it. I mounted the old suspension to it to get a reference for spindle placement in reference to the front rail. The front rail and the tops of the frame rails were what I used to create my new home built frame placement for this car. Most all kits with instructions use holes in the factory frame rails to guide placement of parts. Since I had non of that, I wanted to have the old components together for compare and contrast for layout.

24 1/4" is the distance that I need for the spindle centerline in the middle of the operating range of the suspension to the front rail. Started laying out the cross member then put the driver side hat and suspension together and did a visual. I did not like the geometry of how the coil spring sat in relation with the hat and the bottom "A" arm. The spring looked like it could possibly roll out through it's operation range Had extreme positive camber at the spindle so need to do some jockeying of parts to get a neutral to slight negative camber.

Caster was also lacking with the spring hat centered to the cross member. The kit is designed that way so need to modify the parts to get more caster too.

Goal is to get the suspension to have a range of 0-1 degree of negative camber, (bottom of tire tilted to outside of car) and 0-5 degrees of positive caster, (bottom of spindle pivot line pointed forward. Parts will get modified to make this happen.

Having a good layout method, digital levels, strings and some good ole high school trigonometry is important to get this right. Fortunately I have built several suspensions for combines and construction equipment, so this activity is comparable.

 

[1949 caddyman]

Nice build. I replaced the a arms on my 67 Malibu with tubular arms that have 5* caster built in. Stock they had 0* for easy manual steering. The car is much nicer to drive with the 5* caster, it wants to go straight, not wander like it did before. You will love having more caster.

 

[bigguns69]

Pictures show further mock up of the suspension. The rack and the 3/4" long spacers that came with the kit had the rack siting to close to the front joint of the lower "A" arm and boot of the steering shaft coming out of the rack. Created some temporary bushing from some pipe, went with 1 1/4" long giving just enough clearance to clear the boot.

Drilled the cross member out to 1 3/8 diameter with a hole saw so the bottom A arm pivot tubes that were supplied could be place through and welded in place. The front of the tube sticks out by 3/8" and the back side is gusseted. I also cut off 1/2" of length and will uses spacers to position the bottom A arm. This will give the ability to further adjuster caster with the bottom A arm by position forward or backward.

Modified the spring perches, "hat" to get the spring centered with the bottom A arm mount. Shifted the hats 9/16" of an inch rear ward and then shifted them outward so the spring had a nice line of from the hat to the bottom A arm, looking at it from the front.

All that being said, I've got the spindle set at 24 1/4" from the front rail of the frame at mid travel of the suspension. The spring perches are in good alignment both directions. With the top and bottom A arms in position, I've got 3 degrees of positive caster, which is the natural pitch of the spring perch, and .5 degrees of negative camber. I've got a range of 0 to 6 degrees of caster.

I apologize for the long post, I kind of nerded out on this, but having fun seeing results. Laying out your parts is key to success. Don't just blindly go with the instructions first, verify.

 

[bigguns69]

More pictures showing layout and wheel in place with the old fender to verify placement.

 

[Stuart in MN]

With the MII suspension installed, are the original shock towers going away?

 

[ScottsGT]

With the MII suspension installed, are the original shock towers going away?

That's one of the reasons for doing this, but I have seen conversions where the owner just cut the bottom of the tower out to try to keep it original looking. I used the Rod & Customs Motorsports MII in mine. And I did eliminate the towers.

 

[Slednut]

With the MII suspension installed, are the original shock towers going away?

I don't want to de-rail bigguns69's thread. I'm in the middle of installing front and rear R&C suspensions, here's some pics of the front. Yes, no more shock towers.

 

[bigguns69]

Saw your post in the welding section. Nice shock tower fill in panels. Those are on my upcoming list of things to do. Probably make mine bolt in though.

 

[ScottsGT]

I don't want to de-rail bigguns69's thread. I'm in the middle of installing front and rear R&C suspensions, here's some pics of the front. Yes, no more shock towers.

I used their rear set up in my '66. Not happy with the Heim joint upper since it provides no isolation from the axle. Transmits all gear noise into the body of the car. I'm planning on pulling it out and modifying the front cross bar and I'm going with rubber ended fittings instead.
Of course it might be a big nothing burger if my center section is bad causing all kinds of extra noise. Going to swap that out first and then decide which direction to take.

 

[bigguns69]

Pictures of finalizing the front cross member and spring hats in place. Notched the frame to get more clearance with the coil spring. Used plates that came with the kit and cut off what I needed.

The sheet metal frame rails for a traditional mustang frame is approximately 2.5" x 2.5". My new frame rails are 2" x 3" but still needed just a little more clearance for the spring diameter growth under compression.

Added some 1/4" x 2.5" plate on the inside of each side to space the spring hats inward 1/2" total. This gives me the ability to get up to 2 degrees of negative camber for each wheel. Center to center on my spring hats ended up being 35.25". I have seen in a few instructions for other kits dimensions of 35.5", and 36" so I know I'm close to being right. Shifted the cross member centerline to be 24" to the front rail, hats are shifted 9/16" of an inch offset rearward to the cross member. Seemed to be the best over all fit up for all the parts I have.

Switched out to my Miller 251 with .035 wire and went at it. Really nice to be able to lay beads without worrying about blow through the base material like you do with sheet metal. A nice change of welding pace. Some multi pass because of some gaps between the parts. Nothings perfect seems like.

My Harbor Freight electric die grinder is giving up the ghost. I need another one. Not the best tool but great for notching and grinding **** weld beads down.

Now the next thing I need to do is layout motor mounts, then primer.

 

[bigguns69]

Few more pics of finished results. The time I spent building the rotisserie has been well worth it. Makes welding on the car a lot easier.

 

[ScottsGT]

Looking good!