Project OCD (I bought a car to build tools???) - '67 Mustang Coupe

[MichaelUser]

Looking great. I would make one recommendation. Mount the bottom LCA spring mount in double-shear. The load on the lower bolt will be pushed to the limit quickly. I am sure you can fab something. Also, try and distribute the load through three contact points. Look at this design from Fabtech's kit for Dodge Rams.
Just a suggestion. Keep up the good work.

[modmotor46]

MichaelUser, thanks for the suggestion!!! I've redesigned the lower coilover mount. I cut out some 10GA steel, put some bends in it, welded on some gussets and powder coated them mini-tex black. As mentioned earlier there is very little room for coilovers in the shock area on these IRS's (axle and boot on one side, tie rod on the other) - positioning the shock was a pain in the A&&. After it's all said and done I should have just enough room on either side for full articulation...now, on to the quarter panels.








Danny,

[MichaelUser]

Great job.

Keep us posted.

[modmotor46]

On to the quarters...

In my efforts to remove the old quarter panels I uncovered some rust with a big hole and some other pin holes around the driver side B-Pillar (luckily the pass. side is solid). Time to break out the shrinker\stretcher again.






I cut out the affected area and fab'd up some pieces to replace it.








Danny,

[the dan]

wow youre pretty good with that stretcher shrinker!

[modmotor46]

wow youre pretty good with that stretcher shrinker!

Thanks! I had a little practice making a corner for my one piece floor pan (to line up with the wheel house) since it didn't initially line up as produced. The key to that machine is patience!

and your truck is sick! What an awesome project!



Danny,

[LowFast]

Nice progress, not sure how I missed this build. In for updates!

[modmotor46]

I just love removing bad metal to...find more bad metal!

I'll have to fabricate and replace a large section of the roof support shown here that's rusted out. Dang, I was hoping to start welding in the quarters :-|




Danny,

[LowFast]

Story of my life right there. Rust, rust and more rust.

[modmotor46]

Story of my life right there. Rust, rust and more rust.

LOL, my wife walked into my shop earlier this week so I proceeded to show her my progress (of course I was excited, like a kid showing his parents how he learned to jump a ramp)...she just stood there nodding her head as I was explaining the current work completed as well as all of the pieces I have left to replace\fix...when I was done she simply smiled and asked "why did you buy this car?"

[LowFast]

My wife does the same thing. When I fabricated the trans tunnel I asked her to come take a look. She looked in, said "that is nice" and went back inside. She does not question why I bought the car and she is a bit of a car chick but more on the driving side than caring about working on them. Her eyes glaze over when I go into detail on my plans for the Falcon. I am just happy she puts up with me.

[GT500KR_Vert]

Same here with my wife - she asked why I didn't just go buy a new mustang and why I put myself through this nightmare! I get excited about every little thing about the car, but she has had to put up with the restoration for almost 10 years.

[alexandros]

Nice build. I like your version of an IRS build. Very clean and well thought out. You addressed all the issues that might arise from the beginning.

[modmotor46]

My wife does the same thing. When I fabricated the trans tunnel I asked her to come take a look. She looked in, said "that is nice" and went back inside. She does not question why I bought the car and she is a bit of a car chick but more on the driving side than caring about working on them. Her eyes glaze over when I go into detail on my plans for the Falcon. I am just happy she puts up with me.

Same here with my wife - she asked why I didn't just go buy a new mustang and why I put myself through this nightmare! I get excited about every little thing about the car, but she has had to put up with the restoration for almost 10 years.

LowFast and GT500KR Vert, even though our wives don't quite understand the insanity (I question it myself at times), it sounds like we're all lucky they put up with us ;-)


Made a little progress this weekend. Removed the trashed roof support section and started building and welding in some new metal. I don't plan on trying to match every shape, dimension and hole the factory had - I'm primarily going for structure.







Danny,

[modmotor46]

Nice build. I like your version of an IRS build. Very clean and well thought out. You addressed all the issues that might arise from the beginning.

Thanks alexandros! I sure hope the IRS ends up performing well! I've got at least a solid years worth of time invested in getting the IRS to fit in a modular fashion. It's pretty much self-contained, where the coil-over shocks mount to the IRS cradle brackets. And the cradle itself slips over the somewhat factory frame rails. Towards the end of the year I'll be going through the whole thing - replacing all the bushings with delrin, stronger tie-rods, FR diff cover, etc.


Danny,

[modmotor46]

Made some progress through the holidays. Finished the driver side inner roof structure and to my surprise the passenger side was just as bad - somewhere along this car's life it had it's roof replaced; as with other sections of this car there were too many overlapping pieces of sheet-metal and\or the welds were not structurally sound. And of course rust didn't help either :-(

Cut out the bad section (passenger side).


Rebuilt the section using my brake and bead roller.


Finished trimming the piece to fit and applied some weld through primer.


Welded the new section in place.


The interior roof structure needed some sections replaced as well.


and after another fun day of sand blasting (what a freaken mess), finally got everything epoxy primed.



On to the quarters...except I've gotten myself side-tracked again building more tools and started working on my rotisserie (pictures to follow).


Happy Holidays!!!

[wfo guy]

I'm enjoying your build. I did chuckle at your rust comment. Most of us are surrounded by rust. Once a body is blasted, you find that the paint and gunk was all that was there.

[modmotor46]

Thanks wfo_guy! I guess sometimes we have too much optimism; hoping that we've seen the last of the rust...nope, just found some more ;-) At least I'm down to the final stretch considering I've replaced or repaired dang near every possible section of sheet metal on the car. The crazy thing is, it will actually be a brand new car - it'll just look old.

[DC-69]

Awesome ..... will be watching..... you got skills for sure !!!!

[modmotor46]

Thanks DC-69! The best part of all of this is the learning. It's sometimes frustrating trying to figure all of this out but at the end of the day I'm learning a ton of cool stuff, especially the welding and metal work.