POR-Weld

 I continue to work on the 'Stang on Tuesday and Wednesday after I get home from work. I have been using a circular air tool to clean the engine compartment and underneath the car in order to prep it for a sealing coat of POR-15 as well as a bit of rubberized undercoat. My dad is on vacation this week and was able to take some time out of his projects to spray two coats of POR-15 under the car and in the engine compartment. The next step before actually bolting up the suspension and steering is to shoot a coat of etching primer and a coat of paint. The car is really starting to look better with a uniform color. I think we are going to cut out some of the radiator support (pictured to the right) and drop in a radiator from a 67-70 Mustang which will allow for better cooling. It's not absolutely necessary to cut the front, but it opens it up for a wider set radiator and allows for more airflow. The 65-66 radiator is 17" wide while the 67-70 radiator is 20". Details can be found on Mustang Steve's website on how to do the installation.

While I cleaned up the interior to get it ready for a coat of POR-15, my dad cut a piece of sheet metal to overlay a section in the trunk due to it being slightly rusted out. I prepped the trunk to expose the metal for a clean weld. Of course once the car is put back together, this area will be covered up with carpet, but we still want to have a good piece of metal there. We'll also be coating the trunk with POR-15 before also laying down a coat of rubberized undercoating. As you can see in the picture to the left, the gas tank is out leaving a gaping hole, but it will be replaced with a 22 gallon tank from a '70 mustang. That gives me an advantage of 8 gallons over the standard 16 gallon tank found in a '65-66 Mustang. I figured since we would be replacing the gas tank anyways, we may as well increase the amount of miles we can drive with a bigger tank.

I also took some time to fill in the holes drilled in the driver's side door for the mirror since they were a bit bigger than they should have been; the metal was thin so I had to turn down the heat on the welder. I used our air tool to grind down the weld and will flush it off with some Bondo when the time comes to begin bodywork.

POR-15

The past couple of days I have done some different things with the car. I started to grind down the welds underneath where I welded in the new rear floor pans and also started cleaning/brushing the undercarriage to prep for painting the rust sealant known as POR-15. From the reviews that I've read and the pictures I've seen, the stuff is pretty amazing. Tonight I primarily went to my parents house so that my dad could help me put in a new front CV half shaft (axle) on my Civic, but I decided that I didn't want to spend the time on it. My dad did pull a cover on the transmission to find an oil pan bolt sitting in the housing. I'll eventually need to pull out the transmission since it's been making lots of noise lately when the clutch is not pushed down.

Yesterday I coated the rear end with POR-15, but unfortunately I didn't take the time to degrease it and it showed today on a few spots. To correct the problem I decided to take some sand paper to it to clean it up. I decided to also clean up the backing plates for the rear end and coating them with POR-15. They had a good amount of surface rust on them, but they turned out pretty nice after cleaning and coating them. I also had the opportunity to coat the brace the mounts under the engine between the lower A-arms, but I didn't get a picture of that. I still need to coat a fair amount of parts such as the hood latch, hood hinges/springs, bumper mounts, inside car doors, inside floor pans, undercarriage, engine compartment, and trunk. Of course before I can coat these parts, I need to prep the surface and that takes the most time.

I'm looking forward to putting together the front end again (steering and suspension) so that I can drop in the engine and transmission. My dad was straightening up the garage yesterday while I was there and he un-buried the engine that will be placed in the 'Stang and it got me excited...

More Welding

Tonight I worked on welding holes that were drilled by some previous owner where the driver's seat is since the rail broke and they didn't want to just fix it. I also welded in a couple of random holes as well as some seams in the floorboard of the driver's side.

My dad cut a piece of sheet metal to fit below the cowl under the hood where the export brace mounts to. After he cut it to fit, we used some vice grips to hold it in place. You can see that we used another piece of sheet metal to help ensure that the piece being welded in would stay flat.

Once I laid some spot welds down we were able to remove the vice grips. I was pretty wiped out tonight so I decided not to use the grinder to smooth out the welds and instead decided to do it another day. We'll use a sealer to seal the rest of the seam and then use some POR-15 to coat this area along with the rest of the engine compartment. I still need to drill the 4 holes in this new piece of sheet metal for the export brace, but we'll do that before we coat it.

The POR-15 is scheduled to arrive on or about Friday so we'll use it on Wednesday after spending some more time cleaning and prepping the metal.

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!

Meet the Flinstones

Now that my Dad is off on Monday's and I have most everything done on our new condo, I am able to work on the Mustang from 4:30-7:30 every Monday. I went over this Monday for only about 1 1/2 hours since I had other things to do in the evening. I didn't get much done while I was there, but I did get the rear passenger floor pan cut out so that my Dad and I can weld in the new floor pan that we have for it. On my next visit, I'll be cutting out the other floor pan and will probably try and weld in the new ones. I didn't take a picture of the car with a hole in the floor, but if you've seen the Flinstones, you can imagine what the car would look like. You can be sure that more blogs will follow in the weeks to come as I begin working on the 'Stang again.

Moving Along...

I continue to order new parts for the 'Stang, but have yet to work on it since my last blog post a week ago. I've ordered the block plate, throwout bearing, clutch fork, pivot ball, rear differential u-bolts, and rear shock plates. I have just about everything I need (minus mounts) to put the motor and transmission into the car. I shipped out my front steering parts and my new ones are now on their way to California; they should be here by the end of the week.


My next step is to primer and paint the engine compartment in order to drop in the 302 sitting in the garage. I also need to cut out the rear floor pans and weld in new ones in order to paint the underside of the car so that I can put the rear back in. I've got a bid in on Ebay for a set of gauges for a '65 'Stang. Since the shipping is $16, my bid is for $5.99 and the auction ends tomorrow at noon. We have a set at the house, but they have a bend in them and a new set would be ideal.

I should have the chance to work on the car Sunday and I'll provide an update then.