Rear frame rails and inner wheel wells

I've been a bit lazy with the blog lately due to many private reasons. In spring I was not lazy with project Snowback so here is a belated update of what was done in February.

The newly re-skinned door made a reference point for aligning the quarter panel, so the rusted sheet metal could be cut off. I started cautiously by cutting it about 2" from the final line in order to keep it rigid during the wheel house repairs.  I would trim the excess off when the quarters panels would be fit.

The cut-out revealed the badly rusted outer wheel house and the inner wheel house which was not that bad but was pitted in the area where it attaches to the trunk floor flange.

As the trunk floor drop-off would also be replaced there was not much to be done other than to remove the wheel house entirely. This demanded for a few spot welds to be drilled out.

Spot-welds marked for drilling

Finally,when all the spot welds had been drilled and excess metal had been ground off I was able to test fit the new replacement wheel house. At the time the remainders of the trunk floor drop-off was also removed. I was suggested by a couple of FMOC fellow members that I should mini-tub the wheel wells so that wider wheels would have more room. That would require the inner wheel house to move about 2" inwards. I measured and concluded that only less than 1" is available without affecting the fold-down rear seat. I intend to keep it untouched so I rejected the idea of mini-tubbing. Originality and functionality went over the performance.

So, prior to welding wheel houses the trunk floor would need to be welded. As a matter of fact you will have to mate all the parts before welding any. Once you are sure that all of the parts (quarter panel, outer wheel house, inner wheel house, trunk floor) go hand-in-hand you are ready for welding them in reverse order.

But the rear part of the frame rail seemed like this.

My spare part supplier had frame rail repair sections in stock and I received them the next morning (!). The car got supported from the body and the rear axle with leaf springs were loosened. Next thing to do was to carefully measure the distance from the shackle mounting and mark the cutting line. For easier working I went with only cutting the rotted area and left as much original metal as possible.

I cut 31 cm from the shackle mount

Careful measuring and masking the cut

I made use of the left over by welding it upside down as an overlapping section to give more support that just seam welding the parts together.

Adding some overlap

Then the rear part was clamped tight and welded. When correctly cut the parts will automatically position themselves. I took measures for reference but I did not add support to the tail light panel because there is not much weight on it as almost everything of the rear is away. 

Once the front and rear were one again I was able to verify the distance between the frame rails at the shackle mounts and weld to the bumper bracket.

Now that I had reached the ground the fitting of the trunk floor and wheel wells would finally begin. This phase consists of uncountable number of repeated fitting, cutting and measuring until you're sure that you are ready to weld. And all this is repeated on the other side of the car !

Here are some pictures of this. Enjoy !

With the driver side solid again I moved to the passenger side. After cutting bigger pieces the body looked quite scary.

Right quarter removed

Recording the position of  the seat bracket

A block of wood and a clamp keeping the gas tank opening square and within measures

The trunk floor front panel is being welded. I used gas tank (empty) as a gauge to verify correct position.

The reparation continues in the next post outer wheel wells and quarter panels.

Door skin replacement

The passenger door showed up to be in decent conditions after being media blasted. In spite, the driver door did not. It had some rust damage in the inner door shell and the skin had dents and rust. A friend suggested that I would replace the full door shell with a new one. But as the new door would cost hundreds of euros if ordered from overseas and due to the fact that I had a door skin available for 50 euros from a fellow FMOC member, I decided to take a chance to repair the old one. Should I fail to fix it correctly, I would only loose some time and little money.

First thing to do was to fix the rust in the door shell to add rigidity before removing the skin.

Rust damage in the lower front corner

Patch being test fit

Patches welded

I'll need to put the doors back before I will move further to the quarter panel repairs. Therefore I needed to make sure that the doors will remain in their correct position. The door hinges got blasted and a set of new hinge pins. 

The hinges repaired

Door to quarter gap looks nice

I left the door attached to the car, pulled my angle grinder and little by little ground the door edges so that the skin would separate from the flange.

Rear edge is getting loose

There are only few spot welds along the edge

Instead of drilling I ground the spot welds off

The door is split in halves

There is a bracket for the vent window in the door skin that needs to be collected from the old skin. I recorder its position by measuring the distances from certain points. (The door skin had date code 10 2 2 E , btw) Then the spot welds were drilled out and the bracket cleaned and painted.

Vent window bracket

The bracket being welded to the new skin

I spent a while grinding the major rust off the inner surface of the door shell before it was handled with rust encapsulating acid and painted black. A new insulator was glued on the structural bar that faces the door skin's inner surfaces.

Inner surface painted

Insulator to prevent unwanted rattle and noise

The shell was placed on the table and the door skin was set on top of it. I checked the many times to ensure correct positioning before tightening the skin against the shell with all the pliers I could possibly find. Then, with light hits with a hammer, I started the bend the flange carefully. I kept rotating the door at least three times over until done. The final round was assisted with a dolly to prevent twisting the visible surface of the door skin.

I did not weld the spots to the flange at this point. I wanted to ensure that the door aligns well before welding. The door was hung back on and the gaps to rocker and quarter verified. The skin appeared to be quite good but not perfect.

Fits fine from this angle

It appears that the dent in the old skin had also twisted the lower edge of the shell as well. The skin gaps well with the rocker but the center area of the edge is a couple of millimeters out of the rocker. This needs to be addressed with gentle hammering. I will not add welds until this is done.

Another problem with the new skin is that it seems smaller in height that the original door. That is, the door has to be lifted up a couple of millimeters until the ridge in the belt line matches with the quarter panel. This may effect that the rocker gap will grow too big and needs some filler metal.

These final adjustments are to be done after the quarter panel repairs are finished and the front fender is installed. Then all the three are to be adjusted together to match with each other.

Seat platforms lowered

I appreciate good seats in the car I drive. Modern cars usually have reasonably good seats but very often they are designed so that short people are able to move towards the steering wheel. The seats can be yanked up and down and most of the people are satisfied but it is very seldom that you find a perfect position if you are, like I am, 190 cm. If I am able to adjust the seat so that I can easily handle the car, it the inadequate support for thighs that finally lets me down. Especially the front-wheel driven cars have another typical structure which makes it almost impossible to feel comfortable behind the steering wheel. It is the distance between the pedals and the steering wheel. The rear wheel driven cars, like Mustang, have much nicer shaped triangle formed by the pedals-steering and the seat.

Having said that, Mustang is better, does not mean that it couldn't be better. The original seat is quite flat which means poor support for thighs. So the seat platform angle has to be changed. I am planning on using original seats (if I will find a pair with reasonable price) but will also keep an option for modern sport seats. Sport seats need to have their own seat tracks which will need clearance in height.

The solution to prepare for both versatility and better position is to lower and change the angle of seat platforms. A bonus of the operation is a little more headroom, which is welcome if I ever should participate track days with helmet. So without hesitation I grabbed my angle grinder and cut the rear flange off of the platform about one inch above the floor level.

The rear flanges cut off

Fitting. Masking tape shows where to cut and bend

It took quite a many times fitting before it sat nicely. Not a hard thing to do anyway. I cut and ground small pieces at a time until the shape followed the contours of the floor. Then a wise and a hammer were used to force the flange to smoothly touch the floor pan.

Floor finished with primer and paint

The inner surface got some paint too

Note that I did not weld a flange in the rear. The platform will lay welded on the subframe connector so I did not feel like the floor pan would require a flange.

Rear edge welded with beads to the floor 

The front flange welded with spots

Once done with welding I measured the change. The front is now 1,5 cm lower and the rear is 3,0 cm lower. The change can be seen in the below picture where the drilled out old spot welds can be seen in the side flange and in the rocker. 

Some grinding needed. Then final welding.

I did not have the seats at hand to test but if the lowering was too heavy, I can always return to original height using shims. On the other hand, the change is so small that I think there will be no trouble fitting the carpet.