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67 Fastback GT 390 Full Restoration - Build Thread

67K views 256 replies 40 participants last post by  Master Hack 
#1 · (Edited)
Hi everyone,

I thought I would start a thread showing the project I'm undertaking. What kind of build is this? It's a full on strip and restore with a little "new" going back in. What are the car details?
It's a 1967 Fastback GT 390 4-speed that's just about fully loaded and originally exported to the Philippines (93 DSO) with an MSRP of $4753. Options you ask?

  • Fastback
  • GT
  • 390 4V
  • 4 Speed
  • Wimbledon White
  • Deluxe Red Interior
  • Competition Handling Package (basically Shelby suspension)
  • A/C
  • Limited Slip 3.25
  • Interior Decor Group
  • Exterior Decor Group
  • Convenience Lighting Panel
  • Lower Console
  • Upper Console
  • Shoulder Harness
  • Deluxe Seat Belts
  • Tilt-Away Steering
  • Deluxe Steering Wheel
  • 8-Track
  • Fold Down Rear Seat
I convinced my parents to buy the car when I was in high school back in Nineties. It was originally intended to be a restoration project for me and my Dad back then. The car turned out to be a huge project and I ended up buying a 68 C10 to restore during high school instead. Fast forward two decades, my parents recently handed the car down to me since they never got around to restoring it. I got the car back in January 2016 and have got a fair bit done during the year but have a LONG way to go. I’ll be posting some photos of what I have accomplished so far and update things along the way. LOTS to do since there was far more rust than I had hoped for.
Starting off, here are some photos from 1994. I’ll follow with some various photos bringing me up to present state shortly.
 

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#97 ·
After all of this, I don't really think there is a magic bullet to weld corrosion protection other than seam sealing and cavity wax afterwards. I just picked up a tube of Fusor 2098 Crash Durable Structural adhesive that I'm going to use for several joints, like the upper cowl because you can spot weld through it when wet, it's extremely strong and tough, and it doubles as a seam sealer. I'm also planning to use that for my wheel well seams and rear deck filler piece below the rear window. I'll probably use it in the lower corners of the quarter panels at the lower, rear corners of the rear window. I'll probably remove the cowl hats and reattach them with structural adhesive as well to get rid of the un-protected spot weld joint unless that e-coated part look like it was dipped and not sprayed.
 
#98 ·
I greatly appreciate your experience with different weld through primers as it will save me time and frustration. I have two areas of interest for its use, my replacement cowl panels and my Spintech subframe connectors which are welded on unlike many that bolt into place.

When welding in the lower and upper cowl panels, are you using some type of weldable seam sealer between layers? When I removed my cowl panels, it was obvious the Ford had some kind of sealer between the layers before spot welding. I would like to replicate what Ford did as best I can. If necessary, I would use the weld through primer around the plug holes and a seam sealer some distance away from the holes as a filler.
 
#99 ·
I greatly appreciate your experience with different weld through primers as it will save me time and frustration. I have two areas of interest for its use, my replacement cowl panels and my Spintech subframe connectors which are welded on unlike many that bolt into place.
I purchased a set a spintech's and decided to not use them. One reason was all the overlapping areas at the frame rail extension that I wasn't sure how to protect from rust. They also don't seem setup to drain water very well. They didn't really seem to follow the floor contour as well as I liked. I also thought the section height just in front of the rear torque box wasn't tall enough to be effective. Just my opinion though.

When welding in the lower and upper cowl panels, are you using some type of weldable seam sealer between layers? When I removed my cowl panels, it was obvious the Ford had some kind of sealer between the layers before spot welding. I would like to replicate what Ford did as best I can. If necessary, I would use the weld through primer around the plug holes and a seam sealer some distance away from the holes as a filler.
Good question as I'm still deciding. I think I'm going to use Cobre to weld down the lower cowl and MIG plug weld it. Then I'm planning to use the Fusor 2098 to glue the upper cowl down and place a few spot welds around the perimeter while it's wet. End result will be a completely seam sealed and tough structural seam. The only other way I can see sealing this joint with plug welding is to try and spray cavity wax into the grills and hoping it gets around the perimeter but I don't want to rely on that, plus it won't look as good what I'm planing because I'm also planning to paint the top of the lower cowl piece body color before gluing down upper cowl. I'll place some plastic on top of the lower cowl before gluing the top in place. That should protect it from overspray of primer during body work. Then I'll pull the plastic out through the hats.

I can't bring myself to plug weld the upper cowl because of the difficulty sealing after welding and that weld through primer doesn't really completely stop rust. Capillary action suggests this seam will suck in water if not sealed.

Side note is that Fusor can't be applied within 2 inches of a plug weld due to the heat.
 
#100 ·
I found this YouTube video on Combining Seam Sealing and Welding In Collision Repair. The process is what I would expect with the exception we will be plug welding instead of spot welding. I was thinking of following the procedure shown with the exception of leaving space around the plug weld holes. Once clamped, the excess seam sealer would be removed from the spot weld holes prior to MIG welding. I would hope, with most of the seam sealer removed, that good plug weld quality could be achieved, what do you think?

 
#101 ·
I found this YouTube video on Combining Seam Sealing and Welding In Collision Repair. The process is what I would expect with the exception we will be plug welding instead of spot welding. I was thinking of following the procedure shown with the exception of leaving space around the plug weld holes. Once clamped, the excess seam sealer would be removed from the spot weld holes prior to MIG welding. I would hope, with most of the seam sealer removed, that good plug weld quality could be achieved, what do you think?

Unfortunately, the cowl is structurable and needs lots of welds. If you do plug welding, it'll burn up all the seam sealer within 2 inches. Also, the seam sealer they used isn't structurable adhesive, which I'm using to take most of the loading. The crash durable type adds toughness over normal SA, which is why I'm using 2098. If you do plug welds, you can only use weld through primer, which will mostly burn up too given the spot weld spacing the factory used. If you only use weld thru seam sealer that's compatible with spot welding, you'll need a very legit body shop level spot welder. My 220v HF spot welder is just okay, so I'm pairing it with the crash durable SA.
 
#102 ·
Hi there, wow man, amazing, amazing thread. I spent a few days reading it (and the extension thread of the bending the misaligned rails) I've learned so much! You've practically torn this entire car apart and rebuilt it from the structure on up weld for weld. Makes me feel lucky that after all I went through with my 68's resto that rust and body issues were very minimal as I have no welding or painting skills. Just a Network Systems Engineer who had a brief career as an auto mechanic in my youth!

Question: Is this what people mean when they reference a 'frame off restoration' or was this just an especially valuable and/or especially rusted out car?

Anyhow I will be following and learning....can't wait to see the finished car one day!
 
#103 ·
Question: Is this what people mean when they reference a 'frame off restoration' or was this just an especially valuable and/or especially rusted out car?
Frame off restoration is actually an over used term and doesn't apply with Mustangs. Most cars used to be built with an integral frame and all the inner and outer body parts bolted to it. Mustangs are unibody. this means instead of depending upon a frame to give it strength, the inner body panels are welded together to form the "unibody" that the rest of the car is attached to. In a vague sort of way this is a frame off but careful using the term around Mustang guys or you will get an eye roll. More a nut-n-bolt restoration.
 
#105 ·
For our Mustangs, frame off and body off restoration simply does not apply as we cannot unbolt the frame from the body on a unibody car. The term that appears to best describe what we are doing is ground-up restoration or as said above, a nut and bolt restoration. When we strip these cars down to a body shell and build it back up from bare metal, we have done about as much as you can with the exception of full sheet metal replacement. Then we get into other issues like is it real or a replica, not going there. Like Huntingky, I have taken my car down to a shell and have repaired and restored from there. In following this thread, I feel very fortunate that my car had minimal rust damage. With our restomods, components and fasteners are changed and the car becomes a different animal from when they left the factory. We all look forward to seeing our efforts return to the road. I am thankful that we have this forum and members who are willing to chronicle their efforts as it both inspires and scares us to death at times.
 
#108 ·
Hey everyone, I've been busy working on the car over the last few weeks and have fallen behind on updates. I've been working on the wheel wells, C-pillar structure, quarter panels, and taillight panel area.

The wheel wells took a few weeks to get sorted out and welded in place. I started by doing some more clearancing for the tire, this time in the rear, and rolling the lips.

In a previous post, I showed how I clearanced for the front of the tire. Here is what I did to add a 1/2" more clearance for the back of the tire. I drew a line parallel to the centerline of the car until it was past the tire then used a hammer and dolly on the trunk floor lip to reform the flange along that line.
20200113_165548 by 7T02S, on Flickr

Here is what it looked like after reforming the floor lip.
2020-02-13_05-09-18 by 7T02S, on Flickr

I then hammered out the wheel wells so that I could follow that contour.
2020-02-13_05-11-01 by 7T02S, on Flickr
 
#109 ·
Next up was rolling the lips of the outer wheel wells. The plan is to fit the wheel well first then form the lip on the quarter panel to match but after the quarter panels are welded in place, everywhere but the wheel well. Then I'll form the lip of the quarter to match, then weld the lips together.

First step was to fit up the panels and see where some representative tires would hit the lips. These are old tires off my C5 Z06, 265/40R17 on the front for grins (not going to be that low but there's a steel tube on my jig that it holding it at that height) and the 295/35R18 on the back. I'm planning for 17's all around but I already had the used 18" 295 tire, so it's good for fitting with, especially if I'm only going to fit a 275 or 285.
2020-02-13_05-17-28 by 7T02S, on Flickr

Once I marked the pinch points on the lips, I took the outer wheel wells to the bench to start rolling. I used a 12 gauge romex wire in the corner to form around and used a monkey wrench to start the bend.
20200118_095240 by 7T02S, on Flickr

I used some sandbags to keep the well down on the bench. Eventually I moved to a hammer to roll over the lip.
2020-02-13_05-24-54 by 7T02S, on Flickr

Here's the right well back on the car. If you ignore the mess in the background, you can see that the lip is rolled tight at about 45 degrees forward and also about 45 degrees rearward.
20200118_112044 by 7T02S, on Flickr

Here's the tire in place. It's a little hard to see but the two places with the lip rolled the most is where the tire intersects the compound curve of the wheel well opening.
2020-02-13_05-28-26 by 7T02S, on Flickr

2020-02-13_05-30-22 by 7T02S, on Flickr
 
#110 ·
So next up was getting the wheel wells(WW) ready for welding to the car. Since the WW's are basically the base of the C-pillar in the car, the position is very important, as they not only set the tire clearance, but they set the height of the C-pillar and thus how level the rear area comes out to be. They also can drastically affect the width of the car where they meet the quarter panel.

Here I'm fitting all the panels back on the car and leveling everything.
20200120_114807 by 7T02S, on Flickr

I found a major issue was the width. The Dynacorn door-frame (A-pillars, B-pillars, C-pillars) assemblies, which include the inner-quarter panel structure, were welded together in such a way that they forced the wheel wells too far inward. This kept them from mating up with the quarter panel's WW openings by about 1/2". This would drastically affect the amount of tire width I could fit. This was a little odd since the rear window opening width was perfect. It's a bit hard to see in this photo, but the semi-circle of material that mates to the wheel well's "mohawk" flange, is on the outside. The original parts are also on the outside, which means the WW is on the inside and gets forced inwards by design. I actually had to cut the spot welds on the Dynacorn inner-quarter structure to allow the WW's to move outward enough to meet the Dynacorn quarter panels. I used a stretcher bar here to push the WW's outward.
20200120_150745 by 7T02S, on Flickr

Here are a couple images showing the 1/2" I gained by cutting the spot welds I mentioned above. The quarter-panel inner structure (C-pillar) has inner and outer panels that both extend down and get welded to the WW. Between the two of these is where I had to cut a couple spot welds per side. Interestingly, the stock parts are also pushed outward like this, so the Dynacorn parts aren't correct at placing the WW's laterally.
2020-02-14_06-11-57 by 7T02S, on Flickr

2020-02-14_06-12-27 by 7T02S, on Flickr

Here's a picture from later on in the process showing that I slit the inside panel rearward of the spot welds I cut. This allows me to push the inner panel outward, weld the spot welds back together and then I'll fabricate a new piece to fill in the inside corner that will cover up the slit and strengthen everything back up.
2020-02-14_06-32-25 by 7T02S, on Flickr

Once they were positioned where I wanted them, I clamped everything into place:
20200120_152529 by 7T02S, on Flickr

Then I added some cleco's so that I could reposition them exactly again after disassembling everything for weld prep.
20200120_153751 by 7T02S, on Flickr

I also clamped the C-piller to the wheel well mohawk before taking the quarters back off to hold the position. I also kept the stretcher bar in place.
20200120_154720 by 7T02S, on Flickr

Then I cleco'd the mohawk's into place.
20200120_155229 by 7T02S, on Flickr

I also cleco'd the mating WW mohawks together:
20200120_164202 by 7T02S, on Flickr
 
#111 ·
Next up was cutting more spot welds. The resulting position of the C-pillars and the wheels wells left a gap too big to weld between the two. Fortunately, there's this 90 degree flange that is meant to be positioned to take up the gap but unfortuanetly is pre-welded by Dynacorn to the C-pillar. I cut all the spot welds so that it could be repositioned and welded back into place so that the flange to the wheel well was close enough for welding. Like I've found on several of these Dynacorn "weld thru primer" prepped panels, is rust between the flanges pre-welded together. If the Dynacorn weld-thru primer was so good, how come they don't use it in their own welding process?!!! They actually leave ALL of their mating surfaces BARE steel. Not cool. #Dynacornweldthruprimersucks I really wish they just e-coated them like I heard they used to. The Musclecar GT branded parts that are e-coated are way better, like my firewall and roof. I've heard Musclecar GT supplies some stuff to Dynacorn but maybe this factory doesn't do e-coat. #BringbackE-coat
20200125_153454 by 7T02S, on Flickr

Nearly all the metal between the inner and outer quarter-panel C-pillar structure is bare steel. Dynacorn very clearly sprays this primer after all the panels are welded together, making most of this no better than Ford did in 1967, which by the way is why these 60's Mustang's rusted away. Once I get the body done, I'm planning on trying to coat all of this while the body is back on the rotisserie. It's not just these parts, it's my quarterpanels and radiator support that are all coated this poorly by Dynacorn because they are bare steel at all the mating spot welded flanges. They make nice stampings, I just can't believe they use this primer process. I found the same thing when I cut the rocker panels off of these door frame assemblies.

Here's a picture showing the area between the two panels that is BARE steel. You can see the metallic primer stopping at a certain depth then the rest is bare steel.
2020-02-14_06-51-22 by 7T02S, on Flickr

Anyways, here that flange positioned downward to close up the gap for welding. I did this for both sides.
20200125_150016 by 7T02S, on Flickr
 
#112 ·
Next up was welding the wheel well halves together.

First step was to apply weld thru primer and let dry.
20200126_095138 by 7T02S, on Flickr

Once dry, I carefully cleco'd them back together so as to not scrape the primer off anywhere. The clecos are great because there's no question as to whether they are properly positioned to each other. They also hold things together for welding.
20200126_095417 by 7T02S, on Flickr

I decided to use the HF (240V) spot welder to go around the perimeter of the "mohawk." I used a decent amount of pressure and a 5 second ON welding time, then a 5 seconds holding pressure after each weld. This allowed less than the 50% duty cycle rating after adding several seconds after the hold to position for the next weld.. HOWEVER, the welder broke on the last weld! It literally doesn't weld anymore, it's not the switch because I can hear a faint something going on inside other than the switch. At least it was the LAST weld lol. The 50% duty cycle claim is clearly exagerated. The welder was extremely hot to touch at the handle even with leather welding gloves, after welding both halves together. I didn't get the warranty on this because I figured how could something so simple fail. I'll try taking it apart to see what burned up.
20200126_121418 by 7T02S, on Flickr

Because I didn't get a tight spacing on the welds, I decided to stitch weld along the inside. I'm confident this will hold things together and transfer any forces that need transferring. These will get covered up with seam sealer.
20200126_130828 by 7T02S, on Flickr
 
#114 ·
Next up was finally welding them in!!! That deserves three exclamation points because I've been waiting so long to be able to do this. The wheel wells are the base of the C-pillars and interact with so many different parts, which is a big deal when replacing most of the panels that touch them.

I cleco'd the back of the car back together and used the spreader bar to push the top of the wheel wells into the quarter panels. I then started welding at the front and worked my way around.
20200127_151547 by 7T02S, on Flickr

There wasn't any need to skip any of the welds since there's a decent amount of time spent repositioning the vise grips along the way and since there's lots of surface area to dissipate the heat. The cleco's and surrounding panels also hold it securely in place, so there's no much concern for moving around on me.
20200127_163152 by 7T02S, on Flickr

20200127_165421 by 7T02S, on Flickr

Once I was done with everything but the cleco holes, I removed the cleco, placed an Eastwood copper tool behind, and welded the holes up. On the holes where the underlying panel was only one thickness, I increased my welding time to ensure the lower panel was included in the weld puddle. The copper behind was used because it blocks off the hole going through the backside of the two panels and keeps the MIG wire and puddle contained.
20200127_180453 by 7T02S, on Flickr

20200127_180602 by 7T02S, on Flickr

20200127_180745 by 7T02S, on Flickr

On the front area where there were two panels below the wheel well, I used a spot weld cutter to make the hole bigger on the outside panel so that I could increase my weld time and get full penetration across all three panels.

Total welding time to get these welded onto the car was 2.5 hours, including all the clamping along the way. I was sore from being in some awkward positions!
 
#115 ·
It's amazing how much welding just those lower portion of the wheel wells to the car stiffened them up, even before being welded to the C-pillars.
2020-02-15_08-48-06 by 7T02S, on Flickr

I still have some more pictures/posts to come to bring the thread up to date. It's amazing how many details are involved in the rear of the car. Next up will be the trunk divider and associated pieces that I welded in already. I'll post some more tonight. Lot of pictures!

This weekend I should be welding on the quarter panels. I'm off to the shop to prep them for weld thru primer and epoxy primer on the backside areas that will be hard to coat later on.
 
#116 ·
I really appreciate the pictures and details of your work. I thought about the HF spot welder for welding in my lower and upper cowl panels. After your failure, I will just take the time to drill the necessary holes and plug weld.
 
#117 ·
Thanks for that! Yeah, the HF welder did a good job with what it worked for. It turned out it is very difficult to consistently get a good weld over time. The tips wear out and increase the diameter, which significantly changes the equation that includes tip diameters, material thickness, clamping force, clamping duration, weld time, etc. It's WAY easier with a MIG welder. It would be different with a professional body shop spot welder with a timer built in, but well, how many of us have those??
 
#118 ·
I decided I should fit the fastback rear interior trim to make sure it was all going to fit.

Here's the door. Everything looks fine. Needed to make sure the lower legs of the trunk divider were inline with each other, and that they were flat and square with the door.
20200201_095749 by 7T02S, on Flickr

No problems here either. Taped all the panels in place.
20200201_105500 by 7T02S, on Flickr

Here's the trunk divider. This combined with location of the wheel wells and the C-pillars, really dictates whether the back of the car will go together squarely. It influences the rear window squareness, quarter panel level-ness, deck lid placement, and the interior trim and door. I spent a long time on this since the only thing original mating to it was the rear frame rails and the shock tower floor area.
2020-02-16_06-40-49 by 7T02S, on Flickr

I had to do some prepping of the trunk divider.
20200202_122729 by 7T02S, on Flickr

I had to deal with some rust between some of the panels, namely these transition pieces that weld it down to the floor, which was a result of the water/phosphoric acid mix the dipping company used, in which some areas flash rusted instead of being protected. This is an example of that. I used a combination of the hacksaw and multi-tool to cut the factory braze joints. I'm going to clean off all the braze and weld these in later. Any one else notice these are brazed on by the factory?
20200202_084050 by 7T02S, on Flickr

Here's the other side. Also brazed on.
20200202_084905 by 7T02S, on Flickr

I had to deal with the rust there and in some other areas, including the new sheet metal pieces I fabricated and welded into near the rear window opening area (see previous posts about that - I fabricate about five pieces). I had the car phosoric acid coated after it was dipped, so most of the bare metal on the car has been rust free for the last couple years while I've worked on it. The pieces I fabricated out of sheet metal weren't coated and formed some surface rust. I treated various areas on this panel with more phosphoric acid, then neutralized it with water, then prepped if for weld thru priming.
20200202_124649 by 7T02S, on Flickr

After priming
20200202_145732 by 7T02S, on Flickr

Also prepped the car.
20200202_133559 by 7T02S, on Flickr
 
#119 · (Edited)
Once everything was primed for welding, it was time to fit that darn trunk divider in for the last time! (I don't know how many times I've installed and removed that thing!)

Here's the right side cleco'd into place. Pretty straight forward on this side. It welds to the C-pillar and the wheel well. I had to hammer the flange on the wheel well filler piece downward to fill the gap. Actually did that on both sides.
20200202_150608 by 7T02S, on Flickr

The left side was a little more difficult because I had to cut off the 90 degree flange on the C-piller because it was too far forward. I fabbed up a new 90 degree piece and cleco'd it into place.
20200202_150551 by 7T02S, on Flickr

I once again made sure everything was all squared and leveled with my two lazer levels. The green one is above and shoots down the centerline of the car with a 90 degree plane to square things up. The red level is a separate horizontal laser I can quickly move around and adjust the height of things.
20200202_161602 by 7T02S, on Flickr
 
#120 ·
Next was actually welding the trunk divider in place. I also welded the inner C-pillar panel down to the wheel wells with the 90 degree flanges I previously cut off to re-position on both sides. In this photo you can see the blue colorations at the welds to the trunk divider between the cleco's. I also welded two of the plug welds on the flange down to the wheel wells (not shown).
20200202_164316 by 7T02S, on Flickr

Here it is with two welds per side of the flange. For most seams on the car right now, I'm not completely welding everything and am typically just welding two plug welds per flange.
20200202_164730 by 7T02S, on Flickr

Here's the outside panel of the C-pillar where it meets the wheel well's mohawk, cleco'd in place. The clecos held it in place when the quarter panels were on. Now I've removed the left quarter panel to access this area to weld.
20200202_170124 by 7T02S, on Flickr

Lots of progressive clamping along this seam. This one I welded all the holes instead of just two, since it's going to be covered up by the quarters when I weld them on, and won't have access after that.
20200202_171136 by 7T02S, on Flickr

20200202_170620 by 7T02S, on Flickr

Driver's side completed!
20200202_173244 by 7T02S, on Flickr

The right side pretty much looked the same, so you'll have to imagine what the mirror image looks like!
 
#121 ·
Once the trunk divider was in place, all of that inner structure in the rear of the car stiffened up substantially. Now was time to start fitting the quarter panels, tail lamp panel, quarter extensions, rear window panel, decklid, bumper, and lower valance. I need to make sure all of these parts align so I can dial in the position of the quarter panels prior to welding.

Back using the lasers to make sure the panels go back to where they were before I welded in the trunk divider. I used a sharpie before taking all of this apart last time so that I could reference them easily.
20200203_191522 by 7T02S, on Flickr

20200208_113247 by 7T02S, on Flickr

I've been having several issues all along with this rear area. The tail panel doesn't really fit the quarter panels. The quarter extensions don't fit the curve of the tail lamp panel, the decklid sticks out too far, the quarters naturally want to sit a little low so they have to be pushed upward and clamped into position, the decklid gaps are a little off, and the lower valence has a curve that isn't matched on the Dynacorn quarters. Also, total width of the quarters is narrow causing the quarter panel extensions to not align with the bumper's width. Lot's of issues to resolve.

Here's the valence curve mismatch. The quarters don't have the right curve.
20200208_113300 by 7T02S, on Flickr

The black lines on the quarter adapter panel are where I need to cut it to match the tail lamp panel.
20200208_102618 by 7T02S, on Flickr

Another issue I had was the repro tail light panel was taller than the OEM. Basically, the height between the upper flat area and the lower flat area were spread out by about 1/4". I was lucky to find an NOS tail lamp panel in the local adds for a reasonable price and snagged it up. It fits much better.

Sorry, don't have pictures handy of some of the above observations. Once I get the quarter panels welded in place, I be able to address these issues one by one and take some pictures.

One thing I've learned on this project is the importance of moving on. It's great to plan and measure 1000 times but at some point you've got to start welding in some panels. It's amazing how slowly welding in the underlying parts causes the next issues to have fewer solutions, which is sometimes a good thing as long as you don't have to go backwards and cut out the parts previously welded in. That's why good planning and measuring is important, so that you don't have to go backwards. When you have fewer solutions to solve the problem at hand, issues that seem to have been insurmountable in the past all of a sudden have a solution. When the entire car is just clamped together, any issue you find can be explained by seemingly an infinite number of different ways the underlying parts can be clamped together, not to mention having some flex in the assembly. As they are methodically welded in place, the structure starts to become more rigid and when you push and pull on the next parts to address issues, things get easier solve and to lock down. That's why the big list of issues I listed above I'm not overly worried about. Once I get the quarter panels welded in about 75% (leaving some room to flex in the back), I know that I'll be able to start solving the puzzle.
 
#122 ·
Made some good progress over the few days. The was a LOT of prep in getting the quarters ready to go onto the car for the last time.

Last weekend, I marked and drilled/punched the plug welding holes in the quarters.
20200215_155054 by 7T02S, on Flickr

Next up was prepping all the surfaces for the weld thru primer. Since there were large areas that would be extremely hard to get primer/paint on later, I decided to do both weld-thru primer priming and epoxy painting. Since the Cobre weld thru primer sets up nicely overnight and can be taped/masked the next day without pulling it up, I decided to do the primer first.
20200215_173234 by 7T02S, on Flickr

Masking done after a couple hours. Then it was time for priming.
20200215_173208 by 7T02S, on Flickr

Masking removed.
20200215_205835 by 7T02S, on Flickr

I let the weld thru primer dry over night then masked over it in the morning.
20200216_121847 by 7T02S, on Flickr

I chose to use VHT Epoxy Primer (satin black) in spraycan form to coat the Dynacorn primer and areas I sanded to bare metal. I'm not set up to spray SPI Epoxy yet, so the spray cans will have to do. The VHT went down extremely nice with three light coats. Zero runs.
20200216_125408 by 7T02S, on Flickr

Here is the final result on the car, with both weld thru primer patches and the VHT Epoxy. I'm really happy with how this turned out.
20200216_143347 by 7T02S, on Flickr

2020-02-17_07-04-24 by 7T02S, on Flickr
 
#123 ·
After I finished the VHT paint, I had four braces to fabricate.

The first two were to finish up the slot I made in the C-pillar to allow the wheel well mohawks to push outward.
20200216_152744 by 7T02S, on Flickr

First was to use this tool to figure out the angle for the patch.
20200216_152756 by 7T02S, on Flickr

Here are the patches made from a flat sheet of sheet metal. I cut them out with a cutoff wheel and bent them over in a bench vise.
20200216_160413 by 7T02S, on Flickr

Prepped with primer and I let them sit over night. The primer scrapes off pretty easy if not left over night.
20200217_093113 by 7T02S, on Flickr

Clamped into place.
20200217_093159 by 7T02S, on Flickr

After four plug welds and a seam weld at the top.
20200217_093959 by 7T02S, on Flickr

Other side
20200217_094700 by 7T02S, on Flickr
 
#124 ·
The other two braces were to stengthen up the area where the rear of quarter panels meets the trunk floor drop off at thin metal the flexes. These braces will weld into the rear floor cross member. I used a pneumatic flange tool to create an offset.
20200217_095441 by 7T02S, on Flickr

Left side welded in place on the inside.
20200217_100035 by 7T02S, on Flickr

Welded on the outside in two places then welds ground flush.
20200217_100951 by 7T02S, on Flickr

Inside on the left.
20200217_101001 by 7T02S, on Flickr

Right side.
20200217_101608 by 7T02S, on Flickr

These really strengthened up that area. I can't believe Ford left the quarter panels welding to the thin metal there. I just flexes a lot. I like this much better.
 
#125 ·
Next up was actually placing the quarter panels on the car for the last time!!! It's hard to describe how big of an accomplishment this feels like.

First step was to place some heavy craft paper onto the car to protect the weld thru primer as the quarters are slid into place. Weld thru primer isn't as tough as other primer and paint and it scrapes off pretty easy due to poor adhesion. It's best to protect surfaces that slide against each other when the mating panels are put into place.
20200217_114807 by 7T02S, on Flickr

I found the wheel well was a little to tight for craft paper or tape to protect the surfaces. I was able to pull the quarter around this lower area on the quarter and cleco it in place without sliding the surfaces.
20200217_121339 by 7T02S, on Flickr

Here's the left quarter panel cleco'd in place.
20200217_115848 by 7T02S, on Flickr

Here is the series of clecos used to positively locate the right quarter.
20200217_193022 by 7T02S, on Flickr

20200217_193005 by 7T02S, on Flickr

20200217_193051 by 7T02S, on Flickr

The clecos allow everything to go back together with the quarter perfectly matching the door contour and barely having to shift the panels along the fragile weld thru primer without scraping it off. The craft paper also helped.
20200217_122609 by 7T02S, on Flickr

I'm not going to actually weld the quarter until I get the tail light are sorted out a little. The clecos do allow for a little bit of movement, so I can raise and lower the back of the quarter a little that wouldn't be possible if I weld it. I just ordered some new quarter panel to tail light panel pieces to replace the sub par ones that come welded on the Dynacorn quarters. I'm going to cut them out and start fresh. I ordered some goodmark pieces from rockauto and they'll be here before next weekend.
 
#126 ·
Well that brings me back up to date with my story line and photos. It took me 4 days (since post #108) to catch up on the last 3.5 weeks of work and photos, while also continuing to work on it this weekend, posting those as well. It got to a point where there were so many photos, I didn't know if I should skip a bunch but I decided to plug through them and get enough of them posted to show the work I had done. I can't tell you how great it feels to have the quarter panels in place never to be removed again. Next will be the tail light area, welding the quarters, drip rails, and roof. After doing more and more work, I'm starting to get a better understanding of how long each step will take. I think the tail light area can be mostly done next weekend, the drip rails and roof the week or two after that.
 
#131 ·
Alright, it's time for a few engine updates. I've been acquiring parts for my engine since October. It's going to be a stroker 445 c.i. with approx 500hp and just north of that on torque. My custom pistons just shipped, which are the last major part I needed for the build. In less than I week I'll be taking the block back to the engine builder (Roy Paolo in Oregon City, OR) along with all the parts. I'll give an update on all the internals soon but wanted to do a quick update on the front accessories since I fit them up tonight.

Firstly, pardon that darn C#&^! in the background. Just trying to keep it honest with an FE in the room!

Here's the new stainless, low-mount alternator bracket from a seller on ebay. I went this route so that I could fit a large frame 3G 130A Motorcraft alternator (shown is the old 1G for fitment). I like the simplicity of the bracket. The waterpump is from Tuff Stuff. The damper is a PowerBond PB1111SS SFI balancer. The pulleys are from CVF racing. They are 8 groove and should keep the high output 3G alternator from slipping. The pulleys are usually part of a conversion pully set that CVF makes but it comes with a high mount alternator bracket that is only compatible with a small frame 3G that is limited to 95A. I decided to do a low mount bracket and asked CVF if I could just buy the pulleys, and they said yes but didn't gaurantee the fitment since I wasn't using their bracket. The alternator spacer to the block needs to be 1.5" to align with the other two pulleys. My stock spacer is 1.625", so I'll likely have to space the crank and waterpump pump pulley's out that much. Not a problem there, I just have to buy some purpose made 0.125" spacers. I'm getting rid of the power steering pump and not going to install the air conditioning for a while, so this will be the setup for some time. I'm also going with an electric fan, so no fan and mechanical fan shroud to cover up the front of the engine.
20200218_185939 by 7T02S, on Flickr

Since I'm taking the block down to the engine builder within a week, I wanted to test fit the parts to the block and get the pulleys measured up for a belt so that I have it ready for the engine dyno in a few months. I used a fabric tape measure and got numbers at the ends of the travel. The measurements were 38-5/8" to 40-5/8", so I'll get one just small enough to slip on, so I'm guessing around a 39" belt but my meaurement is to the top of the grooves, so I'll to make an adjustment based on where the actual belt length is measured. CVF said they would help me with that. They sell Gates 8 rib belts for the job.
20200218_191551 by 7T02S, on Flickr

I think I'll be happy with this setup as long as I can tighten the alternator down enough to keep it from squeeling. All for the quest for more amps... I think I can use that third hole on the alternator and a bracket down to the back of the adjustment bolt to mount a turn buckle if needed but I think it will be just fine like this using the standard prybar method before tightening the bolt.

Then for nothing else than taking a photo, I placed my Edlebrock Pro-Flo 4 EFI system on the block. I think this will look killer with my Edelbrock heads and some headers! That block will look great in a corporate dark blue suit too!
20200218_190845 by 7T02S, on Flickr

Cheers
 
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