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Discussion starter · #23 ·
Looks like a great start to the project! Your car has a ton of great options--almost makes you wonder if it was ordered as a dealer demonstrator or something along those lines.
Thanks. It's amazing such a car exists since the sticker price was 25% higher than a Shelby GT350! It was even more expensive than the base GT500.

Actually the story we got was it was a Captain in the Navy that ordered it through a dealer in Washington D.C., which matches the dealer address listed on the Marti Report. Apparently he was stationed in the Philippines and had it shipped over on an aircraft carrier. I don't know if that's how it actually got there but it's a fun story, none the less.
 
Nice looking job on those rear brackets. I cheated and cut the ends off the leaf springs and welded them to square tubing.
 
Discussion starter · #26 ·
Chassis Jig

After I decided that I need to tear off the entire front end I decided I needed a chassis jig to keep things square and give me a level measuring plane to weld the new parts back in the correct position. I'm a Mechanical Engineer so I took to my schooling and designed something I thought should do the job. I knew I needed to control four points per side per factory mustang chassis drawings, for a total of eight supports. I designed some trusses and thought a lot about how it would assemble and how it would work with the restoration. Went through many sketches and decided on a design. I then ordered up a bunch of square tubing and went to work in the fabrication bay at work.

I ended up with a bolt together frame work that turned out WAY better than I expected, especially considering my experience welding thin wall steel tubing was lacking. I just considered this needed experience before I jumped onto welding on the actual unibody.

Here is what I came up with after about 60 hours of fabrication over 2 or 3 weekends. The main structure is 1-1/4" x 0.065" wall tubing with 2" x 1/8" wall main supports. The two uprights attach to the front leaf spring mounts and the forward bar with the scissor jack is at the front of the rockers. This allowed me to pivot the car around the leaf spring mounts so I could adjust the front suspension mounts to the proper height off the measurement plane which is the top surface of the trusses.


Here is one of the four perpendicular trusses clamped down to keep it from warping while welding. Overall had to think about the sequence to clamp, tack, and weld to keep from warping.


Since I made most of it from thin wall tubing with bolt together joints, I had to TIG weld in crush sleeves into the holes. The main welds were with MIG. I used 1/2" grade 8 bolts, IIRC, with 5/8" tubing sleeves.


Next step was to get the car on the jig. First was to support the front by jackstands and the back with a cherry picker. Note that the closest side truss had to be placed throught the cherry picker leg prior to lifting. The side trusses were set into place and loosely bolted. Not shown here is setting in the four cross trusses and bolting everything up.


Next was leveling the jig with shims down to the concrete. Once the top surface was generally leveled, tightened all the bolts. Next step was to dial in the shims to get a good level measurement plane on the top surface.


Next I adjusted the scissor jacks to get the car to match the prints on all the suspension and rocker measurements from the factory drawings I found online. One note is that one common drawing online is completely wrong. Once I figured out the right angle, to get the measurement right, I put two more scissor jacks under the front of the front frame rails and welded in some fixed uprights to the rear leaf spring mounts.


In the end, it turned out to be a pretty rigid structure! I can push and prod on the car and nothing shimmies or budges. :grin2:
 
Nice job on the jig!

Bolting them down to the concrete and pushing/pulling them into square with shims/jacks is a great way to do it.

Only thing I would point out is that sometimes you still need to weasel under the car while its on the jig, to weld from underneath or knock out a dent. Looks like you can still squeeze through an opening and get to the underside though.
 
The next step was to build a roll-around cart. I decided to use a combination of 4x4 and 4x6 and some huge casters. The front casters were salvaged from some military equipment. I borrowed them from a co-worker.


Being able to roll the shell around is such a nice luxury! :smile2:


The next step in the plan was to get it ready to get dipped. I decided to have the car stripped and electrolysis dipped. Unfortunately, they told me I they couldn't dip the car with any black undercoating since they can't have those chemicals in their tanks. Not what I wanted to hear! Nearly the entire interior and underside were coated in undercoating by a previous owner. I tried many methods but finally had to resort to paint stripper on the interior and physical scraping on the underside.

I did most of the interior before the rotisserie but first I'll show some pictures of the rotisserie that my uncle and his friend built. What a nice piece of equipment!

First though, I needed to make some adapters to attach the rear of the car. I decided to grab into the rear leaf spring holes. Building the adapters involved drilling some holes, getting hardware, welding on some nuts, and welding the assemblies together. My first welding project in years! I was happy with how they turned out.


Attaching the rear:


Front goes on the bumper mount holes:


Wha La! :grin2:

What would they have charged for dipping?
 
Discussion starter · #33 ·
Long Overdue Update

Hey guys,


Time sure does fly and a lot has happened since I last posted. I have a lot of photos over the last year that I'll try to "paraphrase" to get you up to speed.


Long story short, I've had to replace a LOT of metal - so that's what you're about to see...

Here it is after I had removed the entire floor sitting on my chassis jig:
20160917_145625 by 7T02S, on Flickr

At this point I had determined the rocker panels, rear torque boxes, rear frame rails, rear floor section above shocks, and trunk divider were salvageable.
20160916_204911 by 7T02S, on Flickr


20160918_171530 by 7T02S, on Flickr


Here's the one-piece USA floor board and the Taiwanese firewall. You can also see the new front torque boxes in the back ground:
20160918_171511 by 7T02S, on Flickr
 
Discussion starter · #34 ·
Long Overdue Update 2

Here's the rear cut out. Bye bye to the tail light panel, rear cross brace, and floor panels:
20170416_222741 by 7T02S, on Flickr


Here I've removed the cowl and the lower cowl is definitely a goner:
20171021_125733 by 7T02S, on Flickr


Upper cowl is in good shape and a keeper:
20171021_125757 by 7T02S, on Flickr
 
Discussion starter · #35 ·
Long Overdue Update 3

Then I spent a bunch of months fabricating some replacement pieces for the front lower quarter panels and wheel wells.


A few tools of the trade:
20161121_145807 by 7T02S, on Flickr


Pic before being fully welded:

20161123_185659 by 7T02S, on Flickr


20161121_145708 by 7T02S, on Flickr


Don't seem to have a picture handy for after I welded it but here's the patch locations for the driver's side wheel well that was too pock marked from rust:
20161029_092019 by 7T02S, on Flickr


Passenger side front wheel well. I fabbed the piece shown welded in on the inner well but still had work to do on the outer.

20161016_220506 by 7T02S, on Flickr


New vent piece tacked in:
20161122_174844 by 7T02S, on Flickr
 
Discussion starter · #37 ·
Long Overdue Update 4

Now after months of fabricating and welding little pieces, I came to the realization there was too much rust damage to fix, since many of the deteriorated pieces were in the door frames, inside the quarter panels in hard to reach spots, the roof support cross beams front and rear, and the inner quarter structure.


I don't seem to have many photos of the pock marked metal but here's a good example from inside the front torque box.
20171124_155313 by 7T02S, on Flickr


I finally decided to order more metal; both door frames and inner quarter structure, full quarter panels, roof beams, roof, rear window divider (the panel between the rear window and deck lid.


Here's the driver's side door frame:

20171126_175106 by 7T02S, on Flickr
 
Discussion starter · #38 ·
Long Overdue Update 5

Now for the all important car step, and hard to actually decide to cut, of removing the left side of the car! :surprise: Not an easy decision to make, especially since I was also cutting out all of the work I showed in the previous post...

20171124_154636 by 7T02S, on Flickr


A cleaner slate.

20171124_160248 by 7T02S, on Flickr


On with the new:
20171126_184741 by 7T02S, on Flickr
 
Discussion starter · #39 ·
Long Overdue Update 6

Now off with the rear window divider to see what's underneath:
20171216_125336 by 7T02S, on Flickr


Lot's of damage in the inner structure from a leaking rear window.
20171217_103625 by 7T02S, on Flickr


A bunch of fabricated replacement pieces. Looks like a 3 dimensional jig saw puzzle!
20171223_114835 by 7T02S, on Flickr


One welded in:
20171223_170036 by 7T02S, on Flickr
 
Discussion starter · #40 ·
Long Overdue Update 7

I was originally intending to one side of the car at a time so made these inner braces to indicate where I needed to lean the new side of the car up to while keeping the passenger side supported. I later found out there were enough differences, that I just needed to start fresh and do both sides at the same time...


Here is the door frame fitted and prepped with plug welding holes:
20180128_130432 by 7T02S, on Flickr


I stitch welded the front rocker while I was at it.
20180128_132831 by 7T02S, on Flickr


Here's the interfaces all prepped with epoxy primer bushed on:
20180128_172448 by 7T02S, on Flickr


Off with the roof and a good view of the cross braces:
20180203_145706 by 7T02S, on Flickr


Here's the passenger side trying to convince me to not cut it off...
20180204_114844 by 7T02S, on Flickr


Its pleads didn't work: :surprise:

20180204_115913 by 7T02S, on Flickr
 
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