Blue My Mind, 1972 Ford Maverick

[HotRod47]

Happy Thanksgiving!
With Thanksgiving in the rear view mirror I was able to get some good shop time in working on the Maverick project.

Now that I have both NOS quarters in my possession I was able to get going with that repair. I started by stripping the oem primer off of the insides to get them ready for a fresh couple coats of PPG DP90LF Epoxy. I also spent time rough cutting the driver side quarter off the car. Then I started to drill out all the spot welds. I ran into a problem when my Blair Cutter broke. I thought I had a spar, but didn't. So that is as far as I could get with that part of the project.






Before I started to melt out the factory lead I removed the factory headliner. Smart huh?! I don't need any fires. The seams looked really good.





Once that was done I went on and did a custom touch to the inside of the drivers door. I have already done the passenger door some time ago. I took the Ford script logo off of a pair of old Ford steel valve covers. Marked and cut out the top of the inside door frame. Then butt welded in the panel followed by a grinder to smooth the welds. When done and painted I was the script logo to show up, but be subtle. No hi lighting or anything. Just simple. I am actually hoping most people don't notice the change. Sometimes it's the subtle changes that are most fun. But the true "Ford guy" will know that it never came that way. I know I am not the first person to ever do this, but I really love the idea.







The last thing I did was shave the drip rails. Mine had a bit of rust that I wasn't sure how I wanted to fix. And I mean fix in as permanent way as possible. So in the end I decided to just shave them off completely. I did this by cutting out roughly 8" sections at a time, tack weld every inch or so, then cut another 8" section etc, etc. Once all welded I ground it all down carefully. It looks good. I then welded the shaped the base of the A pillar so it flows better. I didn't like the way it just stopped before.







Glenn