Rust and Weld

Last week and this week I have been working on the rear floor pan. They're both welded in now and ready for some POR-15 sealer. This is a top view of the driver's side rear floor pan. You can see where its been welded and grounded down to smooth it over. The other side looks just like this...only backwards so I chose not to include a picture of it.






Yesterday (Wednesday), I began grinding down different areas on the car that either need to be filled due to rust or just because I wanted to fill in a factory hole that I will not be using. As it turns out there was a little bit of rust in a few different places including the trunk lid, trunk pan, and rear passenger quarter panel. As you can see in the picture to th left, the trunk has a 3 inch rust area that became apparent after I took the grinder to clean off all the brittle surface rust. We'll have to patch this section in the next couple of weeks. I didn't get a picture of the rear quarter panel that I filled, but it it'll need to be hit with a skim coat of Bondo. Filling in the rivet holes from the rocker panel brackets was probably the most fulfilling thing I did yesterday since I think a 'Stang looks much better without the black and silver striped piece of metal running along the bottom. The picture to the right is after I used the grinder to clean off the paint for welding. I didn't get a picture after I filed them and ground them down since it was dark by the time I was finished with both sides.



There was also some rust in the trunk pan that needs to be cut out. We'll end up welding in a new piece of sheet metal in place of the cancerous portion. there were a couple of other small holes spread out that I need to fill in the trunk. According to the VIN, this was originally a Michigan car so I'm assuming that is why I've found rust in different areas of the car. I don't know how long its been in California, but I'm sure that being here has prevented it from being even more rusted out.



While I had the welder in hand, I also spent some time welding some of the frame that either had small cracks or poor previous welding jobs. We are going to weld in some metal strips where the export brace mounts too under the cowl at the back of the engine since the area there is mostly filled with Bondo from the factory and proves to be a weak spot of the car's suspension. The metal should stiffen it.

Cut to Fit

Rear Passenger Floor Pan

 I went over to my parents house on Tuesday and Wednesday this week to work on the Mustang now that Lauren is in week two of her final semester of grad school. She's has class on on Tuesday and Wednesday so I'm not missing any time away from her by going over on those nights instead of Monday. Tuesday I cut out the driver's side rear floor pan, cut the new floor pan to fit and welded it in. This was my first time ever welding so it was definitely a learning experience. The good news is that the floor is under carpet so no one will ever see it. Wednesday I went back over and welded in the passenger's side floor pan which was a little more tricky. I had to cut out more of the old floor because it had more rust. You could tell that I knew a little more about what I was doing on this side, but it still wasn't the most pretty thing in the world. While I was welding the top pan of the passenger's side, my dad was grinding down some of the high welds on the driver's side. I'll need to go back over the driver's side top again to hit any small gaps I missed and we'll also need to weld the underside since we left room for the pan to overlap for added strength.

Once we finish welding in these pans, we'll be able to spray acid on the underside of the car to neutralize the other surface rust that exists. We were planning on spraying Muriatic acid, but after some research, it would appear that it will do more damage than good in the long run and the use of Phosphoric acid is better. In a nutshell, Muriatic acid is a dissolver and Phosphoric acid is a uniter. After we neutralize the acid, we can spray "etching" primer and then black paint on the underside of the car, rear differential and engine compartment.

We're on our way!