Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Hood Fill & New Rear Shocks

I leave tomorrow for Florida for the rest of the week and in an effort to reduce some of the overtime  I will be receiving, my work sent me home early today.  This gave me a narrow window of opportunity to work on the Mustang. 

I started out on the hood. I wanted to fill  in the holes for the F-O-R-D letters that attached to the front of it. I flipped it over on the horses and using the arc welder, I spot filled the holes from the back. I gave them a chance to cool off and then ground down any bit that was sticking out past the hood itself.
Now that the holes were primarily filled, I mixed up a batch of Bondo and skimmed over the top to allow for a smooth finish.

I took certain  parts of the car down to metal and unfortunately the primer we bought isn't a self-etching primer and therefore wasn't sticking to the car. This was especially true under the hood. My  dad was nice enough to pick up some self-etching primer so I took  down  the paint that was barely sticking to the hood and sprayed some of this new primer. It seemed to stick very well.


I've been reading a lot of negative things about having rear air shocks mounted in a Mustang primarily because they don't give much and the point at which the shock mounts isn't very strong. Most people that have air shocks ultimately crack their mounts so I decided to get a different set. I bought these brand new from a member on vintage-mustang.com for $50 shipped. They are KYB gas-a-just are provide a little bit of a firmer ride, but since I have regular 4-leaf springs I should be fine.




Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Sound Deadner Measurements


I spent a few hours doing some body work on the Mustang and thought I would take a moment to take some rough measurements for where I planned to put my recently purchased Second Skin sound deadener. I also bought a heat shield that will line the roof as well as the firewall. These are the rough numbers I came up with if everything is completely covered:

  • Roof- 28 Sq/ft
  • Doors- 23 Sq/ft
  • Floor- 41 Sq/ft

I don't plan on completely covering everything since it won't make much of a difference. From what I've read, the sound deadener is only dampening the rattle of the sheet metal so some strategically placed strips should do the job. I won't install the sound deadener until the car has been painted so it might be another month or so before it's in.

Second Skin Damplifier


Second Skin Heatwave Pro

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Sanding the 1st Coat of Primer


Today was spent wet sanding the entire car with 220 grit sandpaper  in order to find out what additional body work needed to be done and to get ready for the second coat of primer. The first coat was an attempt to fill some of the sanding scratches that were left from the 40 grit paper used to take down much of the existing paint. it worked great for the intended purpose, but also left many scratches in the remaining paint.




The roof looks pretty good, but had a lot of deep scratches from the low-grit sandpaper that I decided to use. The primer filled most of them on the first pass.



I even found a two dents on the inside of the passenger door that needed to be filled. I will be painting the inside of the car the same color as the outside so I'm not concerned with keeping the "wrinkle" look that was standard inside all Mustangs.



The passenger fender still had a low spot on it that needed to be filled. It'll receive another coat of primer to see it it needs another pass.


The next coat of primer that I'll be using is by Evercoat and is called Feather Fill. I was going to use Slick Sand, but apparently the paint store my dad went to didn't carry that particular one. Feather Fill is a high build primer that should fill a lot of the remaining scratches (although most are completely filled.) There still needs to be a little more body work that will be done on the rear panel and a couple of other places and then we'll shoot coat number two which will be wet sanded with a higher grit and then followed up with a third and final coat before paint.

Saturday, September 10, 2011

First Coat of Primer


Well today was the day that I was finally able to spray the Mustang with it's first coat of primer! I have always been scared to paint any of the cars that I've had so I always let me dad do it, but this time he showed me what to do.

Dad Shooting Headlight Bucket

We worked our way around the entire car. At this point we have off everything including the hood, trunk lid, doors, fenders, and valances. I don't think it's possible to be in anymore pieces than it currently is. He shot most of the car and I shot the trunk lid, doors and fenders.


Spraying Passenger Door

Here are the pictures of the rest of the car:





The next step is to wet sand with a 220 grit paper and do some more body work. There are still a few places that need to be gone over again. Once that has been done we'll spray the first coat of body fill primer. We're getting closer to shooting some color! I ordered the headliner, windlace as well as the front & rear glass weatherstripping. I need to buy the Second Skin "Heat Wave" product to line the roof before I put in the headliner.

Chrome Parts Receipt

My dad also spoke to a guy at the local chrome shop who said that he could re-chrome both wing windows and both rear quarter windows as they are both in desperate need of re-chroming. His price is $370 and includes six different pieces. I stripped down all six parts down so that they would be easier to work with. They're not in very good shape right now and will look much better with a new layer of chrome on them. He actually dropped them off this week and they will be ready to pick up on Friday the 23rd. I'm excited to see them on the car once the car is painted.


Monday, September 5, 2011

More Body Work


 Today was Lauren's 28th birthday and also Labor day. Unfortunately she had to work today which left me with the option to work on the Mustang while she was at work. I made sure to get home plenty before she got home from work so that I could take a shower and be ready to give her the attention that she deserves today (and ever day really.) Since my goal is to have the car at least coated with the first coat of primer soon, I decided to pull out the brand new front and rear valances in order to sand them and make sure that they were ready. I had to put a skim coat of Bondo on the lower corners of the rear valance since that is where the mounting brackets were tack welded.



I wanted to keep as many original parts as I could and the upper stone deflector as well as the part below the grille were in good enough shape to save. I sanded them down so that they'll be ready for primer.


 My dad helped me out a lot today by doing much of the body work that I have been neglecting. He put a skim coat across the tail light panel since it was a little wavy. It was obvious that body work had been done back here on at least one occasion.


The lower running board area where the rocker panel usually mounts looked to be pushed in on the driver's side near the rear wheel. There were no other obvious signs of an accident in this area so I chalked it up to simply being imperfect from the factory since the rocker panel covered this area before. I raised up there area with a coat of Bono-Glass and then my dad came back over and skimmed it with a coat of Bondo.


The rear passenger's side quarter panel was one of the worst looking parts on the car (with the exception of the roof.) If you remember from previous pictures, there were multiple dents in this area. My dad went over it with a coat of Bondo to flush it off. He almost did it all in one pass, but there were a couple of areas that were slightly low so he made a second pass.


Here is a picture of my dad in action sanding the roof where there were at least ten dents:


The roof almost has a layer of Bondo all the way around it since there were dents all the way around it. I'd really like to know who hated the previous owner of this Mustang and what they used to do so much damage to it.


One of the last things I did was strip down the headlight rings to be ready for a coat of primer. I also took apart the headlight buckets in order to sand and paint the inner bucket.

Saturday, September 3, 2011

Jams and Doors

I got off of work an hour early today since I didn't take a lunch and since I planned on going to my parents house to work on the Mustang anyways, it just gave me more time to work on it. When I arrived I saw that my dad had taken off the deck lid and began stripping the underside. 

Underside of Deck Lid


My goal today was to pull off both doors in order to strip down the door jams and the area around the door where the weatherstrip goes in order to get it ready for paint. I met my goal.

Passenger's side

Driver's side

I used the air tool with a scour pad on it to strip down the hinges and jams down to the metal. The jams now look ready for a coat of paint.

 
Passenger's side Door


The doors had surface rust on the mounting point for the hinges, but it cleaned off very easily. I stripped down the rest of the paint around the door area and there was no rust found under the door where rust often eats away at the door.


Since I had some extra time and the trunk lid was off, I was able to strip down down the jam to get it ready for a coat of primer.