Quarter Panel Replacement

Click on images to enlarge.

It's been a while since the last update. We have made progress, but it's been slow lately. The quarter panels appeared to be in decent shape and thought we would just patch the lower rear portion behind each wheel where water collects, but upon removing the paint, alot of cancerous rust was exposed, so we decided to do quarter panel replacements in the rear.

The green tapeline represents the area we thought we were going to cutout and replace that lower area.

As you can see, the there is some pretty nasty cancer on a compound curve, and would be difficult to patch, plus once you see what was behind this, you will see why the decision was made to cut it all out.

OK, so here it is all cut out. The outer edge of the wheel house is in bad shape.

Here is some is bracing we put in place in the rear section of the car to keep everything in tact while the major structural areas were cut out.

So here is the new full quarter panel mocked into place with sheetmetal screws and clamps to hold it temporarily. You can see the gap to be butt welded is decent for the most part, except for a bout a 8" section. For that wide gap, we made a backing strip and plug welded it to the new quarter panel.

But before we welded on the new quarter panel, we removed all the surface rust from the inner structure and treated it picklex20 to convert the remaining rust, and top coated it with Zero rust. The lower part of the inner wheel house was repaired by but welding in an replacement panel. Looks alot better than the first pic posted above, don't you think?!?!

OK, so on to welding the new quarter panel in place. Just like all sheetmetal but welds, we put tack welds about 1-2" apart skipping around to prevent warping the panel by putting too much heat in it, then after all the tacks were 1-2" apart, we welded between them with a small stitch weld.

A few plug welds where the new quarter panel attaches to the original decklid reveal.

From the factory, the quarter panel spot welds to the rocker on the inside creating a seam on the outside. We decided to weld the seam on the outside and smooth it down for a "shaved" look. We plan to do something similar with a number of other factory seams on the car.

The last step is to smooth all the welds down to get them ready for a skim coat of lightweight body filler and epoxy primer.

New Quarter panel now in place

While we had the quarter panel off, we took time to recondition the quarter windows, and install new window regulator. Before you could barely roll them up and down, now work good as new.

Firewall Flange Repair

Due to leaking seals, lack of protective coatings, etc, the cowl / firewall area rusts out on almost all classic mustangs.

This car really need a full firewall. The toe boards were rusted out, and the top flange of the firewall where the cowl mounts is damaged from the previous owner drilling out the spot welds, and the flange is rusted out in several areas as well.  The firewall on these unibody cars is what connects the front subrame to the car and I did not want to mess with having the front subrame disconnected from the rest of the car. 

As usual, Matt was along side doing a great job helping.  Holding things in place, grinding, keeping tools organized, etc.

The thing that makes repairing the flange difficult is that it is 90 degree angel, and has a compound curve to it.  So here is a closeup of the corner.

The firewall is thin, so we are using 22 gauge sheetmetal.  Cutout a piece the right length and the right witch to math the size of the factory flange.

Matt clamped the piece down and bent the edge to create a 90 deg flange.

By doing 6-12" at a time you can matchup the height and curvature of the factory flange.  You can see the cut line drawn by laying the patch panel in place and tracing it out.  

Bad section cutout.

By cutting reliefs in the vertical part of the flange, the horizontal part of the flange can be shaped to match the factor contour.  This is important in ensuring the cowl fits back in place properly.

Flange is partially welded.  Once this is complete further shaping of the edge can by done before the reliefs are welded up.

Reliefs welded.

Here is the piece welded into the front corner.  The corner had some lower so an od shaped patch was made.

And here is the corner with all new metal in.

A shot of the completed firewall.  Pretty big contrast to the pics above.

Interior Restore - Part 8 - Firewall - Toeboard

Matt and I got out in the shop this morning and did a little work.  In addition to the full floor pan being replaced, we also needed the toeboards replaced.  This is the angled piece that joins the firewall to the floor pan.  

I didn't take a pic of the passenger side before we started, but here is a pic of the drivers side.  As you can see, it's pretty well rotted away.  We were very fortunate that the frame rail extensions that the toeboards weld to are in good shape.

We started with a toeboard repair panel from NPD.  This is 18 gauge sheetmetal that is stamped in a shape that closely resembled the original shape, but it was far from "drop in and weld" piece.

We were having a very difficult time getting the complete unit to fit properly, so Matt cut the repair piece in half.  This worked out much better.  Here is the right side welded in.

Here is the left side of the repair panel trimmed to fit.

Left side mocked up and tacked in place.

And the final unit welded in.  The piece but welded to the firewall and trans trans tunnel and plug welded to the frame rail extensions and where it meets the floor pan to duplicate the factoryh spot welds.

Interior Restore - Part 7 - Welding Lesson

Decided to let matt try his hand at welding.  Probably should have done it sooner, but I am just learning myself.  He actually did pretty good.  We did a few plug welds and stitch welds.  Not bad for a first time.  Click to enlarge each image.

Finished plug welds

Some Decent Penetration on the backside

Interior Restore - Part 6 - Floor Installed

After  a couple of weeks without working on the car, we finally got the floor installed.

Matt did some final prep and grinding:

5/16 Holes punched for plug welding

Interior Restore - Part 6 - Floor Pan Prep

The rocker panels, frame rails, torque boxes, etc, basically everwhere the floor pan attaches to or covers, was sanded, treated with picklex 20 rust converter and painted with Zero rust paint.

Here is what it looked like before.  You can see all the old paint, primer, and some surface rust:

Notice the two tone paint job! :-).  On the rockers, I will use weld through primer on the lower part.  The top part of the paint will be masked off and the bottom sprayed with weld through primer.  The paint line represents where the floor pan originally was which will help when putting the new one back in and getting it fitting right.





Matt getting jiggy with the DA on the bottom of the floor pan. Getting it all scuffed up and ready for 3 coats of Zero Rust. I asked him which he liked better, block sanding the roof or sanding on the floor pan. He said the floor pan was alot easier.

Interior Restore - Part 5 - Dash Paint/Repair

The dash on a 65-66 is actually part of the frame.  The front windshield reveal is part of the dash.  The cowl is spot welded to this area from the factory.  The previous owner of the car removed the cowl by dilling out all the spot weld instead of using a spot weld cutter.  I welded up all the holes while matt used held a copper backer in place.

Here you can see the dash / windshield reveal area with all the holes:

Holes welded up:

Welds ground smooth and painted with Zero Rust Paint:

The dash had quite of bit of surface rust.  No pitting or rotted out areas. 

 We sanded it down good with 150 and 220 grit paper.  Treated it with picklex-20 rust converter.  Then sand and scuffed with Zero Rust.  Black zero rust leaves smooth satin finish.  Should look good on the interior as a finished product.