Mustang Roof and Rear Quarters sectioning

This is the highlights page of the job done over the weekend of OCT 12th & 13th of 2013 There will be more to come. 













At this point we were ready for the removal of the roof. There was welded in reinforcement supports added and the suspension for the most part was hanging free so that there wasn't any added stress to the floor of the body. For the most part my rockers were pretty decent. This car was rust proofed at some point in its life, but that doesn't do anything if you neglect the car as this was. Previous owner had it parked under a tree with no cover on it and it was sunk down in the mud to the lug nuts. I did strongly debate on finding another body, but in Wisconsin this generation mustang is very hard to find and if you do they are in the same or worse condition in most cases or just flat out restored and unaffordable.



Now to start cleaning up remnants of the old section and carefully drill out all factory spot welds with a spot-weld cutter. Harbor Freight ones were a fraction of the cost and held up well. My brother the Autobody Pro was praising my Ridgid Power tool set. Lithium Ion batteries held up well.






This is the old roof.




Years of debris that fell out. lol



Spot weld drilling and cutting to remove remainder from floor.






More floor rust that will be repaired later by hand from scratch





After cleaning areas up coat bare metal contact and weld points with Weldable Primer to prevent rust.




Preparation of the replacement section begins






Unfortunately my SLR camera Double battery pack went dead at this point and I had to resort to Cell phone pics. The Poor Picture below was taken by the wife with her phone as I was standing in the back of the mustang trying to lift and assist piece into proper position. Before the original body was cut up we had hung the doors and perfected the gapping so that we could use the doors to gauge positioning and fitment of part.

 This took 3 people. My brother, my cousin and myself worked on getting things fitted just right.



Thank you for viewing this. It was very labor intense and you should not try this at home unless you or your relative is a bodyshop professional. This can be a very dangerous job and should not be tried if you do not have the experience needed to complete it. Every factory weld that was cut and drilled has to be re-welded. 3 tanks of Argon/CO2 mix and over 17lbs of welding wire was put into welding this car back together. 



No comments: