Here we go again....

With the completion of the seat riser, I was calling the floor on the driver's side done.  There are more things to be accomplished, but the hard part is finished.  With that being said, I proceeded to rip out the nasty mess that was the passenger side floor.  Why someone would want to rivet in untreated metal, sandwich what seems like roofing tar between the pieces, patch the corners with bondo, give it the lightest coat of paint (I think there might be some paint, it's hard to tell it from the rust as they seem to have been the same color), and call it a repair is beyond me.

So after drilling out what seems to be about a hundred rusted rivets, and three separate pieces of metal, I was able to peel out the rusted floor.  It's a good thing I wasn't under the car trying to do this as I think I left as much rust in dusty little piles, as metal that actually came out.  Ugh.

Now came the moment of truth, what is going to be the fate of the passenger side frame rail.  It was not good.  I had originally assumed that I would have to replace the whole thing based on how it looked from the outside.  After closer inspection, and much prodding it with a screwdriver, I had hopes that I would be able to patch it and save most of the rail.  This does not appear to be the case.  Now I will say that there is a good portion of the rail that could be saved if I really wanted to do that much work cutting and patching and fabbing and welding and ......well you get the idea.

I would have to patch most of the outer rail starting at the bumper bolts (they are about to fall out of the rail), the underside, and the back end of it.  In the long run, and I think most people would agree with me, it will actually take me less time and effort to cut the spot welds and install a brand new, shiny rail that is already welded and solid.    With the frame under the car, it's a simple matter to install a couple extra pieces to help align the new rail once I get the old one out.  This one should be much easier than the driver's side was.  While I am down here, I will need to pull the rocker apart and see if it is salvageable, replace the inner portion if it is, replace the front rocker piece and fit a torque box onto this side of the car.  Essentially it will be the same process as the driver's side was.  Looks like I need to get an order for parts placed soon.  Oh, the excitement!

Anyway, here is what I was looking at.

Back side of floor.

Front of floor.  I had cut out a piece in order to get access to the transmission tunnel crossmember.

First piece removed.

Second piece removed.

Everything out, backside.

Everything out, frontside.

Look at all that rust piled in there, and the rat nest that has been sitting in the bottom of the rail.  This is after cleaning out one nest already. 

Here we are looking at the inside of the rail.  It is really difficult to see in the picture, but there is another nest up behind the bracket.  It is also pretty much rusted through the bracket in a few places.  I couldn't get a very good pic of that stuff.

Seat riser and other stuff

I know updates have been kinda slow lately, but real life has a tendency to do that.  After being out of town, working, yard work, and various other things, I finally managed to get something done on the mustang.

I fit and installed the driver side seat riser without any real trouble, and proceeded to finish something that I have wanted to do for a while.  I built a frame to hold up the car.  Couple of reasons for doing it.  I wanted it higher than the jack stands were going to let me have it sit, I wanted a reliable way to level the car front to back and side to side, and I wanted to be able to have all the measurements for the underside of the car integrated into the frame.

I made the frame from wood for a few reasons.  First, I wanted it to be high up off the ground.  That means a lot of more expensive steel than I was willing to pay for.  I would rather spend that money for the steel to build a rotisserie.  (Hopefully that will be coming here in the future.)  Second, I like the ability to cut and install the wood with minimal tools and effort.  It also made it very easy to come up with a way of leveling the frame without too much trouble.  Finally, I am expecting the work with the frame rails to be done sometime next year, and since I am not planning on restoring any more mustangs in the near future, that means I don't need the frame for an extended period of time.  When I'm done it will be easy to then make the frame disappear in any number of ways.

And now just a few pics for your enjoyment.

Prepping the underside.  I cleaned it up, masked the welding surfaces, and painted it with Zero Rust.  

Painted!  I finished up the welding surfaces with weld through primer.

Here it is being fitted into place.

Zapped it solidly to car.  Bzzzzzt!

Ground the welds, cleaned it up, and painted it.

Here is the front of the frame.  It is very sturdy, and easy to work under.

Here is the backside.  If you look close on the left side of the picture, you can see the bolts that I put in to level the frame.  It actually works really well and gives me a very fine adjustment.

Looking back from just under the torque boxes.

Now I mentioned that I was out of town.  While I was a away, I visited a museum of classic cars from the 20's and 30's.  Thought I might share the pics for all you guys.  All the cars are concourse restorations and are numbers matching.

Transmission Tunnel Work

This post has been a long time coming, not because I haven't wanted to post anything, but more because real life has managed to steal a lot of time away from the mustang.  I hate when I can't get my mustang (therapy) time in.

So in this thrilling edition, we will take a look at the horrible hack job that was done to the transmission tunnel by a previous owner trying to stick I don't know what type of shifter/transmission in the car.  I sourced a piece from a 70 Cougar, found out the shifter opening was the wrong size, cut and adjusted it, and welded it in (many thanks to Dennis for getting me the measurements needed and the people on the VMF for confirming the repeatability of those measurements).  Here are the pics of the process.

Here it is after cutting it out of the Cougar.

Here is the mess that needs to be repaired.  I marked off with my paint pen the area I was looking at replacing.  (I started using these pens after seeing them on other blogs, and I was tired of fighting with sharpies, these work SO much better.)

Cleaned it up some, quick lick of paint, and it just isn't the right shape.  For a 64 -68 mustang, the hole needs to be square.  If it wasn't for Dennis' measurements, I may not have ever realized this.

After lots of measuring, here is the first cut.

After more measuring, here is the second cut.

Welded it back together, filled in the holes from brake line screws and from cutting out the crossmember.  Then ground everything down and checked for those pesky pinholes.  Fixed those and whew, the hole is the right shape.

After some paint it looks pretty good.

Here it is all fit, cut, and tacked into place.  After confirming the measurements several times, I proceeded to weld it in.

Here it is fully welded in.  I used the tack and move method to eliminate any chance of distortion.  It takes longer to weld a piece in, but it looks better after the effort.

I had to fill in this area with a patch as the piece didn't quite match up with the floor on this side.  It is tacked in place right now, I still need to finish welding and grinding it.  You can see some marks with the paint pen where I still  have some pinholes to fill, but for the most part it is pretty much done.  One more thing off the list.

Floor part 2

So I believe we left off with starting the floor fitment process.  I have done that and managed to get a fit that I liked.  I trimmed it and then welded it in, ground it down and now we are at the final touches for the most part.  I think I will let the pictures tell this one as it is pretty straight forward.

I clecoed and screwed the panel to the existing metal of the tunnel.  I then grabbed my thinnest cutting wheel and proceeded underneath the car.  I slowly cut along the line of the tunnel and trimmed the new piece down.  This made a very tight and exact fit for the welding process.

I started tacking it together, jumping all over the joint, trying to take my time and space them out.

Here you can see all the finished welds.  I think it turned out rather well.

Here is the front portion.

At the same time as I was doing the butt weld joint on the tunnel, I was also jumping around and doing all the plug welds.  Here is on the torque box.

Up front on the toe board and floor support.

Here it is after grinding.  I did find a few pinholes, they are marked by the circles.  It seems to be unavoidable when you try and grind down both sides of the panel.  I'll be finishing them up soon.  If you look carefully towards the left of the picture, you can see that there is a slight hump where the panels come together.

This is that same hump from earlier.  Fortunately a little hammer and dolly work with the shrinking hammer has managed to smooth it out.  If it hadn't worked, I would have had no option but to cut it and weld it back in.

Plug welds ground down.

Plug welds on the rocker ground down.  This was a fun area as I had to use sheet metal screws to tighten it down, and then use my hammer judiciously to get the closest fit.