Transition pan repairs

Have only had time here and there to work on the car, been busy with all the things that summer seems to bring with it.  Yet, I have still managed to accomplish stuff, even if it takes a while.

So with the frame rail out, I have been patching up the transition pan and getting it into a condition worth welding the frame rail to.  Nothing to spectacular about this work, determine what needs to be patched, determine shape of patch, cut patch out, bend and form patch if needed, cut bad metal out based on patch (easier to get a good fitment this way), clamp patch in place, and weld it in.

The worst part of the whole thing was probably chasing down all the stupid pinholes.  I decided I would try the Harbor Freight brand of flux core wire, and while I like how it flows, I don't like how it tends to leave voids if I try to weld in short spot welds.  If I am doing a straight bead it tends to work pretty well. Looks like I may end up going back to the Lincoln brand as it seemed to be more forgiving on the smaller welds.  

After I got the patches in, I fit test the frame rail and checked all the measurements I could.  Unfortunately the frame rail must have been sagging quite a bit more than I realized since most of the height measurements seemed to be off a bit.  I am just going to have to trust that the transition pan is located properly.  It should be as the car is well supported and the pan is still attached to the wheel wells, and the wheel wells are still attached to the rest of the car.  The good news is that the width measurements are right on with my measurements, and the measurements given on my frame diagram.  Hopefully I can get it welded in soon, I don't like the idea of it sitting without the structural support for to long.

After that I started working on some of the cracks that have developed around the shock mount access holes.  I may not be able to completely repair those as I may have to take the shock mount completely off in order get access to both sides of the metal in order to reshape it.  It has caved in a bit and a couple cracks have started to overlap. 

First patch, getting ready to cut out the rotten metal.

Patched clamped into place

Welded in and ground down.

Next patch with template and old metal.  The partial circle on the template is what was left of the seat belt hole.  I will drill it out later and get the mount welded in at that time.  I may have to adjust it a little bit depending on how the frame rail fits in the area.

Second patch welded in.

The next few small patches.

Where they will be going.

Old metal removed.

New metal ready for welding.

Everything welded and ground down.

Painted it with some Zero Rust for protection.

Torque box seems to fit right where it belongs.

Looks pretty good from here.

It's actually flush at the front of the shock mount, and the back of it where there seems to be a gap, is where I had to bend that flange out of shape.  It actually fits pretty well with that in mind.

Back end looks right on.

Found me a friend to help with maneuvering the rail into place.  While he was over, I made him help with the patches,  and I showed him how to weld.  With a little practice I think he might do okay.  

Got started on the cracks.  This was the easiest one.  I drilled out the ends to stop them from spreading further, and beveled them with my dremel for good weld penetration.  My thanks go out to Sven for showing the proper way of fixing these.  Might not have drilled the ends first if I hadn't seen him do it on his blog.

After it was ground down.

Add some paint and you can't tell that it was ever there.

Another crack.  This one is laying over itself by about 1/8th of an inch.  Have to see what  I can do about that.

More cracks.  This is a huge mess, have to work it out a bit at a time sometime in the future.  Might have to take the shock mounts out first.

Rear frame rail....you're outta here!

Had fun this week.  Had to practice my welding skills up on the roof repairing some holes that were in my swamp cooler water pan.  It was "fun" hauling the welder up and down the ladder.  Previous owners didn't seem to care to much about it.  Why can't people do their regular maintenance on things like that?  A little prevention prevents a lot of problems. One of those great rules about life and cars. And swamp coolers apparently.

Anyway, I spent the last couple of weeks doing this and that.  Also I worked on the car.  After taking every conceivable measurement that I could come up with using a plumb bob, level, tape, and the good old eyeball, I removed the rear driver's side frame rail from the car.  That's the short version.  The long version involves a lot of grinding, pounding, scraping, drilling, cussing, rust showers, and some blood here and there.

You'll see in the pictures just how far gone this rail really is.  I am surprised it hadn't just fallen off the car on its own.  Next step is to remove the shock mount so that I can properly get the new rail aligned and to fix the rust issues that were caused by this deterioration on the frame rail.  I will probably end up getting a new shock mount, but I think I can save the transition pan with just patches.  We'll see what happens as I would like to avoid the cost of a new one.

Locating the spot welds.

Cutting out the welds in the trunk floor.  Rust has certainly eaten this piece of metal.  Doing my best to hunt down and destroy this monster.

Had to remove this bracket to get at some welds.  Had to use the cutting wheel on my dremel due to the shape of the welds and the lack of accessibility.

Welds are cut on the front of the rail and the weight started this part of the frame to buckle.  Didn't take much as it is practically rusted away.

Stupid, rusty devil is out.

Look at the poor condition of the thing.

Yep, that's right, it's almost rusted all the way through at the back end.

Another shot of it.  I was wondering what that bracket was and had to look it up.  Apparently it is a factory tie down bracket used to ship the car out to the dealer.  The dealer was supposed to remove them and send them back to the factory before selling it to the consumer.  Not many dealers participated as it was a bit of a pain.  At 25 cents bounty per pair, labor to remove and return shipping costs, it was not very practical for most dealers.  A lot of cars will still have these.  I have both.  I will not be reinstalling them as the new rails don't have the holes for them, and they aren't necessary for anything but trailering the car.

Another look at that front piece of the frame.

Inside the shock mount.  It doesn't seem to bad here, but where it's welded to the pan, everything is pretty rusted and flaking.  The shock mount holes are also pretty tore up from some heavy use.

Rust that was hidden and caused by the rail.

Trunk pan is pretty much destroyed.  After I get the rail locked into place, this is one of the next things on the list.

New vs old comparison.

New vs old torque box.  As far as I was able to tell and measure, everything seems to match up really well.  I do think that before I put it in, it will get some of the welds cleaned up and better reinforced. and I might add some more support plates here and there.

Just a quick test fit.  Everything seems ok.  May need some massaging here and there.

Not tight, it's difficult getting it in there with the shock mount still in place.

Just loosely in place.  Doesn't line up well due to not being flush up near the shock mount.

Torque Box Gusset and Rear End Disassembly

  Not much time this week again, but I did what I could to keep moving the project along.  I started out the week by leveling the car as best I could.  It can be a little difficult finding actual flat places on these cars sometimes.  I ended up using the frame rails underneath to level the back as they "should" be the same distance from the floor.  At the front I used the radiator support and the rockers for the sides.

  After that was done, I was downstairs pulling out the new frame rail and I saw this triangular piece of metal lying in the pile of parts.  After a "what is that" moment I realized it was the torque box to frame rail gusset.  I had forgotton that it came with the torque box as 67 and earlier cars didn't have them installed.  Since I want as much support as possible for the car, as I am hopefully going to put an engine in it that gets 430 ft/lbs of torque, I decided to install it.

  Now the problem is that these cars didn't come with them and so they aren't in the assembly manual.  So where do I go to make sure I get it installed in the right place?  I just had to look up my fellow blogger's pages and I found Mr. Pruett's installation pretty easily.  My thanks to him for doing this and posting it.  It is a pretty easy install, but it was nice to have a visual of how it fits and where the welds are.

  After beating the living....I mean gently massaging it with my metal reworking tools, I got a flush fit, drilled the holes, stripped the e-coat, welded it in, ground it down, and painted it a lovely shade of black.  Every little bit of frame support helps, I suppose.

  The rear end disassembly was pretty straight forward except for a few pop rivets, and a bunch of rust.  After pulling out all the old wiring harness and deciding none of it was worth saving, I pulled the bumper, valance, and lights.  The fuel tank was already unbolted and there was no filler neck or cap.  Took a lot of pictures this week, so you can take the rustang tour with me.

Gusset fit, stripped, and drilled for welding.

Weld through primer applied at those places that will be completely inaccessible soon.

Clamped and checking final fitment.

Looks good here.

Welded and ground smooth.

Painted (top view).

Painted (bottom view).

Old wiring, get rid of it as it is a fire hazard.

This pile of rust is the old bumper.  Not worth saving.

Back end minus bumper.

Driver's side quarter and valance.  Look, more bondo, and....rivets?!  You can see part of the really horrible attempt at repairing this area of the car.

Valance removed.

Wow, look at the rust.  Good thing these parts are inexpensive.

Rusty floor and tail light panel, right side.

Rusty floor and tail light panel, left side.

Tail lights removed.

Rear end removal

   The last couple of weeks have not been great for working on the car.  Life, the yard, and other things have managed to steal time away from the mustang.  I did manage to accomplish a couple of things so here they are.

   I managed to grind down the welds, fix a few pinholes (there weren't very many fortunately), and paint the toe board against the elements.  It was a pretty straight forward job, not really much to say.  I also managed to get out the old 8 inch rear and leaf springs.  That ended up being quite the task.

   The leaf spring bolts were extremely rusted, and after all the usual methods of bolt removal (heat, penetrating spray, breaker bar, and lots of grunting/yelling), I had only managed to loosen two of those blasted bolts.  That just means it was time to break out the old cutting wheel, and remove them the quick and destructive way.  I cut through the back bolts first as they were the easy ones.  The front ones under the floor were not so easy.  With my 4 1/2 inch grinder I was only able to cut through one side of the driver's side bolt.  The clearance was just to tight to get in there with the cutting wheel.

  As I sat and pondered the problem, I thought, how about a sawzall?  Fortunately, my father-in-law had one I could borrow.  Unfortunately, after I had started in on trying to cut through the bolts, I found out just how fast one of those blades will dull on hardened grade 8 bolts.  I made it a quarter of the way through the bolt.  After pricing out blades at the hardware store, I determined that it would probably cost me 40-50 dollars in blades just to get the 2 bolts out.  There has to be a better option.

   As I started walking out of the store, wondering how I was going to get these bolts out, I passed the grinding discs.  The 7 inch discs caught my eye and I stopped and took a look at it.  Holy crap!  It has a 7/8 inch arbor!  I can fit it on my grinder if I take the guard off!  I will have to be very careful with this as it is very dangerous to do what I was pondering.  The thing that finally sold me on trying it was the cost.  A measly 4 dollars.  Well, here goes.

  Got home, got it on the grinder, put on gloves, and face shield and proceeded to slowly and cautiously grind away.  After a few minutes of doing my best to keep the speed to a manageable level, and all my fingers where they were, the first bolt was cut to pieces and the spring dropped out of the pocket.  After a little more time on the other side, that one was free as well.  Whew!  Hopefully I won't need to do anything like that again.

   Pulled it out and examined the transition pan with close scrutiny for pretty much the first time.  It doesn't look to bad, I can probably get away with some minor patches.  Not too worried about it as I plan on upgrading to a four link sometime in the future.  Assuming I have the money for the system.  I also have a 9 inch that I plan on installing in as well, so there goes the rusted and beat on 8 inch.

Ground down, and fixed some minor stuff.

Painted a nice uniform color.  I may fill in the e-brake hole.  I am pondering using a Lokar hand brake like Mr. Pruett used in his boss.

Here is that blasted hunk of rusted metal. 

Here is my solution.  I'm very glad that it worked. 

Empty wheel wells!  Yes, yes, that quarter is on the list of repairs.  It has had at least one really bad attempted repair already.

Doesn't look too bad under here, most of the factory undercoating is still there.  The holes for the shocks were a little hammered.  I may end up filling them in if they aren't needed.  Won't know until I decide on a four link kit.  You can see the great big hole that is in the frame rail behind the torque box.  I was able to poke holes in the frame as far up as the middle of the arch.  It is the big replacement this summer.  Should be fun.

Here it is pulled from the car.  It's a mess.  I wonder if I can sell it?

All this rust and grit fell out of the rail as I was pounding and working on the springs.  Yikes!

Toe board

I started this installation about two weeks ago.  I didn't have much time to work on it last week, so I just cleaned some stuff up and fixed some welds I wasn't happy with.  This week it ended up being rainy and wet on the first day, so I didn't get anything done.  The next day wasn't to bad, just kind of cloudy and a little cold.  So I put on a couple of extra shirts and dug right into the patch.

I started by marking off where I wanted to get started and cut out the area.  Most of it was already gone, I just wanted to get rid of all the holes left from the rivets the PO used to attach his bad repair.  With that out of the way, I got looking at it and decided that I wanted to square things up a bit.  I wanted to save the area under the steering column hole and the brake cable hole as they are not reproduced very well on the panel (or not at all).

After I had it a little more square, it was just a matter of trimming and fitting the patch until I was happy with how it looked.  Prepped all the surfaces, clamped it in place, pounded a few places with the body hammer to ensure tight fit, and warmed up the welder.  After a little while, and lots of moving around the panel trying to keep it relatively cool, it was welded in.  I think it turned out rather well.  Everything lines up pretty much where it should and it looks so much better than the hole that used to be there.

You can see that it isn't welded up near the top in the left side.  I left it that way on purpose as I need to replace that upper portion of the firewall.  Before I do that though, I have to pull off the cowl and fix that damage there.  While I am in the area, I will need to take care of the side cowl panel as well.  Things for the future as I don't have the panel to repair the cowl yet.  I will leave it alone for now and come back later.  The plan is to head back and get started on the drivers side wheel well and the rear frame rail.  I am really not looking forward to this part of the repairs as it looks like it is going to be a pain in the butt.  Oh well, it has to be done sometime I suppose.

My initial cuts.  I wanted to see where I really wanted to start the actual patch.

Rivet holes and some metal gone.  To many angles for me though, don't think I want to do that much trimming of the patch panel.

Taped off a little more for removal.

That's better.  Shouldn't be as hard to duplicate on the patch now.

Fitted and located all the holes for the rosette welds.  You can see some extra holes next to each other in the middle.  I have to admit I screwed up and wasn't paying attention before drilling them.  Measure twice and drill/weld once.  I pulled out my copper heat sink and filled them in before the final prep on the panel.  Hopefully I learned my lesson.  It may not be so easy to fix in the future.

Ground off all the paint in the spots where the welds are going.

Drilled, painted the backside with weld through primer, and waiting for it to dry.  The two smaller holes are where the clecos are going.  I used them to make sure everything lined up in the same spot as I took the panel on and off.  I'll drill them out using my spot weld cutter later.  I am finding the tool to be rather versatile that way.  In fact I drilled out all the holes with it.  I started with a 1/8 bit and used the spot weld cutter to just drill out the panel.  I found it goes much faster this way than trying to step it. 

Welded in!  I ran out time this week and will have to finish grinding it down next time.  After some paint it should look pretty good.  The butt welding went very easy on this panel.  Good penetration and it doesn't look like there will be a lot of pinholes if any.  I was pleased with how it turned out.