I've heard of guys making it work but it just doesn't make sense when the correct part is available. I've got a set from an '84 car also to use for the T5 swap. I'll have to lay both side by side to see the differences.
My wife is deathly allergic to peanuts, so you'd think she checks everything she eats at a restaurant. Wouldn't you?
Unless she's out with her friend to have a dinner (I think they're drinking). Then all bets are off. So, two nights ago she decided to try a new dipping sauce with her friend. It had peanuts in the ingredients.
Now after a quick quick visit to the er and an overnight in the hospital she's back home and doing fine.
But I did get her home by about 4:30 last night and felt obligated to go work on Booger to help her to feel happy.
I had taken some of my tools back to work yesterday morning and didn't bring them home with me because I wasn't sure when the doctors would release my wife from the hospital. So I couldn't let not having the proper tools stop me from working on the car, right?
I wanted to get the booster out. I started by pulling the rest of the wiring harness
The interior was so dirty with rat poop, dirt, rust, leaves, yada yada....I went ahead and vacuumed it out.
Y'all know you need a long extension to get to the four nuts holding the booster on, guess what I left at work?
Tonight I'll bring the rest of the tools home and get the booster out. Then I'll scrub the eb down really well and let it dry. I've got loads of other little stuff to do while the eb (and the floor under it) dries.
This weekend I should be doing some cutting and welding, Yay!
Just read this post, great save and you are very talented sir! love the color also Keep up the good work! How about more pics of the hood. lol
It was hot today and I sweated buckets of fluid, so I wasn't really full of energy tonight. Though I did get some things done.
I brought the rest of my tools home. With that it took maybe 60 seconds to remove the booster
This is the new frame rail sitting on top of the passenger side.....ooooh, pretty!
This picture shows the inside of the left frame rail, nice and clean and absent of rust!
This is the passenger side that's being replaced. The picture doesn't really show how bad it is, the closer to the shock tower you get , the nastier it is. There are piles of rust flakes closer to the shock tower that don't really show up in the picture.
There it is! Ready for a good scrubbing.
I'll start relatively early tomorrow scrubbing it down and rinsing it off. While my floor dries I'll get the measurements to make sure everything goes where it's supposed to. Then I'll start cutting about a bagillion spot welds. I'm not real sure how far i'll get, we'll see.
Pass side is always bad on the early cars due to battery acid and ensuing rust / rot.....
1979 Indy Pace Car Mustang 302 / 5spd
1982 Mustang GT T-Top 302 / 4spd
1986 SVO Mustang - 1C
Such easy access to everything for cleaning!
What's your typical method for cleaning from this point prior to sanding and other bodywork?
I got the engine bay all cleaned up. No grease or dirt, time to get to work!
Like I said, the frame rail replacement is the first real repair that I'll do to the body. So I guess the first thing to do to replace it is to remove the old one. I made a drawing of the engine bay first and made several measurements to ensure the new one goes back in exactly the same place as the old one. Since I'm putting in the Scott Rod sidepanels I hacked out a fairly solid chunk of the frame rail with a good part of the panel.
I got a couple spot weld cutters from HF to work my way through all of the spotwelds for the frame. I think I cut out 52 total. After getting all of the inside spotwelds cut I moved to the outside. There are welds even underneath the brackets that connect the rail to the down tube that goes under the floor pan.
I was interested in how the shock tower is formed. It actually folds under at the bottom of the frame rail, the crush tubes set on top of that, and has a tab on each end that is folded and spotwelded on the sides. Due to the rust damage, I couldn't tell if there were spotwelds on the bottom of the frame to the bottom of the shock tower. I do know it was stuck on there. Wether through spot weld or rust bonding, I cut that section off to get the rest of the rail out.
Hoopla aside, here's the front and back with the frame rail out.
As you can see, I need to do a little rot repair on the shock tower. I'll replace about the bottom four inches with new steel. I'll have to do that next since I can't do it after the frame rail replacement. I'll go see what I can find at Lowes tomorrow. The shock tower is a heavier gauge of steel than the floor pans, Maybe 16-18? Anybody?
To keep going. The down tube of the subframe is filled with dirt. I'll vacuum that out tomorrow. When I replace the floorpan I can finish cleaning that crap out.
So here's the carnage.
I spent the couple of minutes to remove the rest of the old radiator support from the upper rail. It's kind of ugly, It's got a tear in it I'll need to weld up and basically beat it back into shape.
Just so you can see how much rust debris was around the shock tower area. I guess this pile is mostly my missing shock tower parts.
Last picture of the day are the two heros of the day. The HF spot weld cutters. They're dirt cheap and I wasn't sure they would make it through all of those welds, But they held up like champs. They went on to there finally resting place after this.
Ok, follow up to your question. After I used the Gunk to get rid of the grease I used this stuff to scrub everything down with using scotchbrites
It's kind of like Softscrub with no bleach. It's free for me also.
I had a hose in the garage to rinse all of this stuff thoroughly off.
That paste helps to scuff the panels as well as get rid of any dirt on the panels. I recommend this type of stuff for anyone scrubbing down their engine bays preparing to paint.
I went to Lowes this morning and bought my shock tower repair kit, Lol.
I'm going to go out and start measuring, cutting and shaping it here shortly. I'd like to have the shock tower repaired today.
The tower is 16 gauge for those that want to know.
I bought spotweld cutters at the local jobber, and broke several, maybe I don't know how to use them I went with two drills, one with a supply of 1/8" bits and one with a 3/8" bit. That worked the best for me. Anyhoo, make sure you're up on your tetnus shot.
Last edited by 2nd chance cobra; 06-17-2018 at 02:32 PM.
Lol Shane, I've given that a thought or two.
So I trimmed the chunk of metal.
Then shaped and fitted it.
Then welded it and ground it down.
Them slipped on the new frame rail just for kicks. It'll fit fairly easy to the original measurements.
When I did mine. I had a couple of firewall spot welds break while I was pushing/pulling/hammering things around. I almost missed them when I was welding things up. Mine had a piece inside ( I can't remember eclxactly) that was inside the frame rail at the back and attached to the fire wall. Did you have That? I tossed them. No real way to put them back. Could have been from the convertible donor too.
Nope, nothing at the firewall. So far the toughest thing was shaping that piece of 16 gauge metal without a real solid surface.
I’ll start fitting up the frame tomorrow night. I’ll bring home the POR15 so I can do the coating inside the frame rail as well.
Hopefully by next weekend I can have the new radiator support in and start smoothing the bay. Though I have enjoyed sitting in a chair in the eb while I’ve worked on it, lol.
So, nothing done the past two nights.
Last night I had to take an online EPA mandated painters certification. Wheeeeeeee!.........yes, I passed......
Tonight I had to make a run to the yard. Remember I said I needed a manual pedal assembly? I got one tonight! Woohoo!
I got a call from the guy that owns the yard I got Booger from. He said 30 bucks, okie dokie!
He's acquired some new (old) cars since I've stopped by. Including this '88 GT convertible shell. He said he got it for a hundred bucks! It's not much of a car now, just a shell, but it has beautiful bones.
Here's the new to me pedal assembly on Booger's floorpan! Woohoo again!
I'll take it with me to work tomorrow, I think I'll disassemble it and paint it the trim grey.
Awesome progress!!!
1979 Indy Pace Car Mustang 302 / 5spd
1982 Mustang GT T-Top 302 / 4spd
1986 SVO Mustang - 1C
You ought to take the fuel and brake lines off that shell. The hard lines are hard to find and a pain to ship if you have to buy them! Plus they route in a better place over the 4/6 cyl counter parts.
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