Front
frame-rail patches arrived from NPD along with 3 cans of Weld-Thru today, so
after I coated them in weld-thru, I took them over to the shop and we
got to work. 3 hours later, one is done, and the other is out.
I cleaned out the rail, what a ton of crap (found most of the headliner
insulation in there). The new inner rail patch went in first, tacked,
checked and then partially welded. After test-fitting the outer
portion, my cousin "adjusted" the outer and welded the inner part in
solid.
Next the outer, which is made just well enough to work BTW, went in,
checked and clamped to the inner. Then both pieces got perimeter welded
along the cutting seam, and along the top and bottom seams. It cleaned
up verrry nicely and you won't ever be able to tell after I undercoat
it.
After a little checking and figuring, out came the driver's side rail.
Then I POR-15'ed the insides of both rails with a rag on a stick, which
was incredibly messy. (You should see my hands, I look like an asphalt
worker)
The American Designers stuff is thick and a bit crude. The outer
framerail doesn't sit in the inner like the originals did, and the
outer is too long at the front and I think the taper is off. It's
OK stuff, but whoever said it was the best is Full Of Shit. By no
means does it qualify as that, but it all went in ok and nothing is far
enough off to cause any notable problems so far.
The other one goes in tomorrow night, and the radiator support should
be in by this weekend. I'm trying to get them to put in my export
brace, and remove the factory stuff and weld the holes shut, then I was
going to try to get them to stretch the rear rails, but I think they
want it off their lift and gone so they can work on their
stuff. We shall see...after all this started out as a favor
of sorts!
Today was a good mustang day. I even got to
drive my car for the first time (being pulled by the truck and I ran
alongside and steere )When we got it up to the "garage", I finally got
to do something to the car in the way of reassembly: the Scarebird Disk
Swap. Took off the passenger's side front drum setup and was promptly
stumped trying to figure out which Scarebird bracket went on which
side, while it got dark. Such a shame to be ripping off a fresh set of
shoes, wheel cylinders, adjusters, and hardware....not!
Scarebird conversion seems pretty good so far as well; if I could figure out which bracket is right and which is left, I'd be done already!
I figured out which bracket went where and then I went out and bought the rest of the parts. Slapped on the rotor & bearings, tightened the nut, and spun the rotor. Volia....awful grinding noise! Take off rotor and see paint missing off of welds on face of bracket. Realize that bracket looks nothing like any of the Scarebird ones I've seen pics of. Ran inside and call Scarebird, and he says it's a production goof, just grind down the welds. Ground down the welds but not enough, so I cleaned them up this afternoon and dropped them off at my uncle's so he could weld up the backside, which wasn't welded at the factoy...call me paranoid.
Today was a good mustang day. I even got to
drive my car for the first time (being pulled by the truck and I ran
alongside and steere )When we got it up to the "garage", I finally got
to do something to the car in the way of reassembly: the Scarebird Disk
Swap. Took off the passenger's side front drum setup and was promptly
stumped trying to figure out which Scarebird bracket went on which
side, while it got dark. Such a shame to be ripping off a fresh set of
shoes, wheel cylinders, adjusters, and hardware....not!
Scarebird conversion seems pretty good so far as well; if I could figure out which bracket is right and which is left, I'd be done already!
Well, I'm now $110 poorer and I should
have the "obsolete" Scarebird brackets in my hands next week. The
steering box will be in the mail by the end of the month
hopefully. Steel wooled and waxed the Ranger wheels, now to mount
up a set of junkyard tires and slap 'em on the stang. See, I
actually DID something :D
Removed all the bolt on stuff in
the engine bay (Master cyl, washer pump, ect), then took off the
fenders (bailing twine and 2 bolts, what a chore :D). Now, I was ready
to strip the engine bay. Wait, there's 3 bolts over there that aren't
supposed to be there, both headlight bucket brackets are missing, and
there's an ugly lap-welding induced slash in the firewall. Man, have I
got some welding to do!
That was in May. I've since aquried a
free set of very nice 15x7 Ford Ranger chrome rims. This month, I'll be
ordering the Scarebird front disc brackets, and if I can get off my
lazy butt, I'll send the steering box off for a rebuild. Ah, the joy of
having (a little) money (but not for long :D) Lotta progress...not! The
good news is that concrete, electric, and a place to weld are allegedly
coming soon!
Well, it's done!
Framerails and radiator support that is..hehe The driver's side
rail and HD Improved core support went in tonight, "we" worked from
6-9PM. We as in not me very much hehe. It ended up at my cousin's FIL's
shop, which is probably better equipped than most bodyshops or
dealerships Fred, the FIL, ended up doing all the welding, and it
turned out great. The new driver's side rail went on well, the
remainder of the rail POR'ed and the new part weld-thru coated, with
the welds sprayed afterwards too.
Then came the new NPD HD radiator support. The curves on the pass. side
edge matched OK with some tweaking of both parts this way and that. The
driver's side curves matched very well as is and are nearly perfect
now, thanks to some careful tweaks. We had to bend and whack the crap
out of it to get it to slide over the ends of the rails, then beat it
down a little so it's tight and fitted over the rails.
Getting it centered and the tabs to match up to the end-tabs on the
rails was the biggest challenge as it looks like it's a teeny bit shy
widthwise, but we were able with very little force and some careful
measurement, to get it close enough that a little tweaking of the tabs
on the support had everything together fine.
Bottom line: Not the hottest piece in the world, but the Chinese
supports are so much worse it's not even funny! Yes, I would buy it
again.