Putting the Puzzle Back Together

This afternoon I had about three hours to work on the Mustang before my dad's 55th birthday dinner. Since the jams were recently painted, I had the opportunity to start putting the car back together which meant aligning the doors, fenders, hood, trunk, etc.The hardest part so far was aligning the doors. Since I had both doors off and the hinges off on one side of the car (to replace the pin and bushing) I had to re-set the gap all of the way around the door. Fortunately I had my older brother around to help hold the door while I loosened and tightened the hinges. Much of the time I had to work on the car today was spent adjusting the doors, but I'm sure it will be worth it in the end.

Driver Door Gap

I was also able to set the hood, but haven't gotten into "fine tuning" it just yet as I'm waiting to set the gap in between the doors and fenders.The hinges were a pain in the butt to loosen since I couldn't get the hood to close once it was mounted. I think that since the hinges haven't moved in over 2 years, they were just seized. I used some penetrating lubricant at the pivot points and that seemed to loosen them up.

I couldn't help but take a motor shot since I've got the fenders and the hood mounted back on the car. It looks like a complete motor with fenders on the car.

I thought it would be worthwhile to take a picture of the rear tail panel with it painted (and no afternoon shadows) to show just about what the car will look like once its painted.

Below is the dash and steering column painted. It'll need to be sanded and re-shot, but it looks pretty good with some paint on it.

I didn't have time to mount the headlight buckets, nor the front valance, stone deflector and lower grille support, but I"ll get to those parts this weekend. I was hoping to paint this weekend, but with all of the prep work that now needs to be done (sanding and adjusting) I don't know if that will happen. The high on Saturday is foretasted to be 62 which I would think would be good enough to paint. Depending on how much of the sanding my brother can do between now and then will determine if we paint or not on Saturday.