Ok.
I know you guys think you've already seen these pictures,...fact is you haven't.
For the last few days, since roughing in the mustang tail lights,..I've been going back and forth betwen them, and the 67 Cougar tail lights I bought last year for the thing.
The Mustang tails are close, but they crown. The Fairmont trunk deck is straight across. This morning I made up my mind to keep the Mustang tails, and went to my storage facility to get the back bumper, and the trunk deck to see how wonky the tail lights will look up against the bumper, and trunk deck.
Terrible.
My initial mock up had the tail lights waaay to far off the rear, and they hung out so far past the deck, the only picture I can paint for you is something like:
View attachment 182094
I cut them back off.
I left the tails for the moment and dealt w/ the bumper.
The bumper in it's stock location is hideous. It hangs a mile back, and a 1/4 mile out on each side. Those shock absorbers are filled w/ some sort of silicone fungoo that was supposed to help the bumper absorb a 5 mile per hour impact.
I know they were filled w/ silicone because I cut them apart. Once cut apart, I was able to gut those shock absorbers so I could collapse them enough to be able to move the bumper closer inboard.
Believe it or not, this is the bumper 3.5" closer than it was in the pic above. I also dealt w/ the significant side hangover by cutting the aluminum bumper ends off, and sectioning 1.5" off of each side. I think I'm gonna use epoxy to put the bumper back together, along w/ a screen backer as opposed to taking it somewhere to have it tigged. It's actually 1/8" aluminum, and those end caps are not supporting anything, so I believe that I can JB those bad boys back on, and w/ the screen backer giving additional strength,..it'll be a permanent solution.
The plate on top of the bumper is the start of a filler piece to fill the gap between the bottom of the tails and the top of the bumper. Fairmont tail lights are about 1.5" taller than Mustang pieces, so I got a butt load of space to fill. Even w/ the taller Fairmont tail light,...Ford still used a cheesy plastic filler to fill a 3/4" gap that remained between the stock lights.
The remaining gap w/ the Fox tails, is why I didn't go w/ the Cougar pieces. They are about 2" shorter than the Mustang lights, so I'd have even more of a gap to deal with.
* there's something on the lens of the camera,..I thought it was my bad eye. It's what it's like to look through it.
So there is the gap. I plan to fill it w/ a strip angled back to just under the Fox tail lights. I think it'll be OK, because that angle will match the angle of the trunk.
Speaking of the trunk;
Huge mismatch between the crown of the Mustang tails VS the flat ass Fairmont trunk. I'm gonna have to add a new rear facade and crown the fairmont trunk to follow the Mustang tails. Additionally, The plastic pieces that sit on the ends gotta go as well. They don't follow the curve at all. If you look you can see where I had to cut the quarter so I could get it to follow the top of the tail. The quarter extensions will have to be built out of steel and welded solid.
I'm gonna build a rear valance that goes under the bumper. I'll call it a "modesty panel" because it'll hide my rear end and all of the other junk under the trunk.
Even here. It don't show it, but I had to roll the quarter below the tail to make it follow the damn thing as well.
1/8 thick aluminum bumpers......Now you know why these cars weigh under 2800 pounds.