Progress Thread 64.5 Coupe - Xsboost90's Build Thread

pulled the brake master and pedal out tonite. Swept up abit and started poking around the car. Decided to see if the car would flip completely upside down. Flips over pretty easy, doesnt want to balance so i would have to prop it up to get it to stay, but man that is awesome seeing how easy it will be to detail the bottom, run brake lines or anything else...now that she is stripped to a shell, time to call the sandblaster guy.
 
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Sandblaster is coming saturday morning to strip the entire car except the roof and quarters. Just need to scrape a couple more spots of undercoating off and she will be ready to go. Cant wait ive been wanting to rotisserie and media blast a car for many years now and here we go! Bought a gallon of epoxy primer gray and a quart of Chassis Coat which is basically the same thing as POR15 but a different brand name. I plan on brushing all of the seams with the Chassis Coat and working it into spots that cant be reached with a gun, brushing the roof inside with it- car upside down- and then epoxy coating everything to seal up the bare metal. After this i can finally install my torque boxes and weld up the rest of my rust spots. I also found some inner panel spray at the paint store that has a super long straw that you use to spray inside of frame rails and other spots that cant be reached. Pull the trigger and it sprays everywhere inside to coat the bare metal and works its way into seams etc to keep more rust from forming. I will definitely be ordering some of that.
 
got the car blasted today- man what a mess that makes of your driveway! After spending the afternoon cleaning up the mess i started to evaluate the work i have ahead of me. Ive decided im going to buy the mini tub kit from mustang depot with the frame mod parts. I cut the drivers side inner wheel house out and kinda made a mess of things but once the new stuff is in there i'll weld it up and make it all pretty. Rust isnt much worse than i thought, the ps quarter was butchered a bit with some patches and bondo, drivers quarter replaced, taillight panel, front aprons and core support as well at some point. A few small spots where i need to weld in patches but pretty solid otherwise. I also drilled out the spot welds on the dash board "eyebrow" that holds the dash cover on and im going for a smooth look, prob add some metal eye brows to mimic the stock look. Time to start brushing seams with chassis coat and get some tubes of seam sealer.
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been a couple weeks since ive been on here- but i have made alittle progress on the car. After cutting the wheel wells out i decided that i would have enough room without moving the frame rails- only wanting like 255-275 rear tires- and that the price of wheel wells were much too high. I came across a large piece of flat steel heavy gauge same as the car panels, and decided that i would try to make my own wheel houses, and if i screwed up i would just buy the kit. After some cutting and measuring, a couple trys and lots of welding, i have both wheel houses welded in. Not factory looking by any stretch which im not worried about, but once i clean up some things and seam seal, bed liner spray and finish everything they will look pretty nice. Also saved me about $400 so i like that. Looks like now i have about 13" from the inner wheel well to the flange on the quarter panel, and it tapers to about 11" on each side, should be plenty for a 10" wheel and some rubber. Managed to weld up some rust spots in front of the wheel wells in the floor, coat most of the seams with Chassis Coat and im still working on cleaning up/grinding welds in the floors and filling in holes im not using. SHould be able to do some epoxy coat this week before she starts to get surface rust.
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so i was allowed out into the garage again tonite and went right to work. I wanted to get the body in epoxy primer before she starts to rust so my mission was to finish up some grinding and welding beforehand. I finished flap wheel grinding some welds on the bottom of the car and welded up a few spots there as well. I had decided to delete my battery tray since the battery is going in the trunk, so i cut that out and welded in some metal to fill that hole. I think once the engine is in the ignition stuff will get mounted in this spot... Finally i got the car vacuumed out and sprayed it inside and out with some epoxy primer. I didnt spray the roof or quarters yet since i still have to sand those down and do some welding on the quarter. Now that its all sealed up with primer, next step it filling in a few spots to smooth out some welds and i can coat and install the torque boxes. Time to order some seam sealer and some bed liner spray!
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Not sure how tall you are but if you are over six feet, cut down the seat pan height by about 1" to 1 1/4" before you weld them into the floor. You will have more head and leg room, I'm 6'3" and it made a big difference for me.
She is looking good by the way!
 
used up a quart of fiberglass filler the other day filling in around all of my welded areas inside and out. This seals up the seams and lessens the amount of filler i need to use to smooth stuff out- although most of the areas are in the floor and just will be covered in bed liner spray top and bottom. Welded up a hole in the rocker panel at the front and a couple small cracks in the frame rail! Today i got my Eastwood package and already used almost the whole can of brush on seam sealer going inside and under the car sealing up anywhere water could get in or out. Also ordered some bed liner spray for the inside/underside of the car. Shame i cant spray that stuff on until i get my quarter welded in and some other stuff.
 
So after the seam sealer dried i decided it was time to start stripping the body of the last of the paint, so i can epoxy primer the rest of the chassis. My cousin Jim worked on this with a DA sander for awhile while i was welding in my torque boxes last night. Welding these on a rotisserie is cake! I finished both boxes in a couple hours, but his progress was only a couple square feet. Decided to get some stripper and do what i originally was planning on doing. Went to the garage tonite and started stripping the roof. I got the top heavy layer off, then got distracted. I drew the lines out where i wanted to cut my struts out. Since im eliminating the top a-arm and going with an SN-95 front suspension, i only need the top of the strut and the new cross member bolts to the bare frame rail. Everything for the old control arms needs to come out. I basically drew a line from the frame rail straight up towards the top, then notched around the bottom of the strut mount portion. Since im running coilovers i wont need a ton of room, but i left plenty. I cut this out with a saws all and then cleaned it up abit with some grinding. Once the surface was flat, i layed a piece of metal on there- heavy wall like the original- and traced out a pattern. Once that was cut out, i made a brace inside the wheel well from heavy U-channel, from the top of the frame rail up to the strut mount and then it angles in slightly. This is not totally welded in but it is from the engine side. Then i layed the metal in there, notched it around the brace, and welded it around the perimeter. this left a couple triangle holes by the top which i cut out, shaped and tacked in place then shaped with a body hammer. Alittle flapper wheel cleaned it up nice. Now to finish welding on the wheel side and it should have some structure to keep the strut from flexing- Any thoughts on this? Plus it will have all three "stock" strut braces of some sort, customized and welded up heavier to keep things straight.Im planning on welding the arms to the strut tower better, boxing them and the braces to the firewall. he fatman fab front end im buying said on the website that you could cut this out for more room by the headers, pretty sure this will work fine..... Next time im out in the garage i'll be cutting the other side out and welding in -finally- my frame rail where it was rusted by the strut and then replicating this, then adding some metal to the bottom of the front frame rails for strength where there was a crack.
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well after looking over my work, talking to the guy at Fatman Fab and realizing that i needed that lower control arm mount for my new suspension, i decided to start over. I cut out the ps tower all together and ordered a new tower and lower brace. Im just going to weld all this in and smooth out the welds etc, no cutting down. At least this one wont have a huge dent in it that someone added. I did make some progress on the drivers side. The tower was pretty solid and the bracket but the top of the frame rail between the tower was rusted pretty bad. I cut out the piece in the top of the rail and a small couple spots in the lower tower, welded in some new metal and then POR15 coated everything. I'll go back with some inner panel spray at some point, at least its sturdy.
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if you haven't bought your bed liner yet you might try the Rustolium liner at wall mart , in the auto motive section .it is a two part mix just like Rino and the others and sprays very well
it takes over night to harden .it cost $80 a gallon and comes in a kit that you can roll on or spray,spray on looks better. you will need an under coat gun to spray it .make sure you mix it well it is very thick.one gallon did my inside firewall ,the floor and trunk floor. i have used it a few times and i realy like it and its cheaper than the others with the same results
 
so i talked to the rep from AJE today and i am definitely going with that setup. It has a tubular K member like a fox body aftermarket deal, doesnt use the factory mounts which i actually like, and it puts the fox body rack in the right spot up front! Also about $500 less and readily available. They also have a rear suspension that would allow me to bolt the sn95 rear end directly into the stock rear of the car with now modifications- supposedly. Have to look into that. If anyone needs a reman escort rack.....i have one. This setup would have made my shaved strut tower work fine- doah!! This week i should get the new tower, weld it in and then do some chopping on that one- prob. not as drastic though.
 
Out to the garage tonite, got the strut tower just about all welded in, then pulled my frame ties out that showed up yesterday and started on those. WOW i didnt realize how out of whack my floor was until i put these frame ties in and saw an inch gap between the floor and the top of the rail! I started welding these in and then got out the hammer and wood and beat the floor down until it fit into all of the notches in the frame tie rails. Then i let my buddy practice his welding on a long floor to frame tie weld. Still alot to go but i have one rail in and about 3/4 of it is welded. Floor fits nice and tight to it now. Still need to weld in my lower passenger quarter panel and shop off my ps drip rail and weld that in. This is my life now, weld, grind, repeat. - ha funny thing about my taiwan-eze strut tower i bought from ebay- the tower itself looks great, just like the stock and fit right in place. The factory upper/lower a-arm bracket that comes with it- that im not using luckily- seemed to not fit at all when i tried it. Since im not using it i tossed it on the floor. Later i looked and it is made to fit the other side-ds angle wise, but then the flat plate with the hole in it is on the wrong side- for the passenger- so it wouldnt fit either side correctly. Junk.
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had most of the day today to get out in the garage and i made the most of it! Welded in the ps frame tie, finished welding the drivers and then started on the strut towers. I welded up the braket that holds the firewall brace and smoothed it in with welds all around. Then i cut the drivers side a-arm bracket out and welded up the holes on each side for the uppers. Since i made the repairs to the drivers side tower with the bracket in place, now i could get to the rest of that and welded it up smooth to match the passengers side new tower. After many hours of welding and grinding i decided it was time to roll the car outside and clean the garage. Afterwards i mounted my stock wheels on the rear end and jacked it up into place- which showed me that i will be narrowing this rear end quite a bit. Dang.
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stopped by a reputable mustang shop yesterday to check out some options for my rear end narrowing and check out the cars there. Now im just depressed thinking of how much this crap all costs. He was trying to talk me into a coyote swap and a heits front end, a rear end that costs double what i wanted to spend and much more. All nice but this car needs to drive at some point, if i want a new car i could just go to the dealer.....
 
getting things ready to move out of our house and hopefully we find a new house soon! Bigger garage is in the works, more room for the project. No real progress lately but this winter its on!
 
so im changing some plans up abit. Found a guy with a nice fox body rear end converted to five lug and im trading the sn95 rear end for this, which will save me from having to narrow it and or flaring the rear quarters out. Also, decided to ditch the 351w- although its a great motor, it seems too common...?... easy. Im going to find a more modern drivetrain that i can incorporate and weighs less. The car also may be taking more of a track inspired turn, ditching some creature comforts for simple and fast. For now, still waiting to move so i can set up shop and get started again.