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My 1967 build

13K views 85 replies 11 participants last post by  jerrytotin 
#1 · (Edited)
I was encouraged by others to start a build thread, so here we go.

First a little background. My brother owned a 1967 when I was in high school. Right before I graduated he actually let me drive it a few times. I loved the look of mustangs for a long time, and now I get a chance to save a classic.

About the car. I have been looking for just the right car for many years. What does the "right car" look like for me. Well it needed to be fairly rust free, decent body lines and be in overall ok shape. I found this one on craigslist a couple of hours away and spent 2 hours giving the once, twice, three times over look. I knew there were rust issues that were going to need to be addressed, but they seemed kinda usual for a stang and I figured why not. The car was already blown apart and will need lots of parts that I know are missing. I have a lot now but not near enough to finish it.

So in the middle of September she came home with me. Below are some of the pictures from the original craigslist ad and the progress I have made so far.

I should add that I have never done this type of work before. I have rebuilt a few engines and do my own repairs, but this is a whole different level. I'm sure that with your help this will be awesome car once it's finished.

These are photos from craigslist.

Ray

 

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#3 · (Edited)
Where to start? I knew the quarter panels for sure would need work. How much I wasn't sure and I needed to see what I was up against. So an exploratory hole was cut. Ummm ok about what I figured or maybe hoping for. So a bit more cutting to see how far the damage extended.

Ok let's see the trunk drop downs, outer wheelhouse and quarters. Looks like pretty good metal down at the wheelhouse tips. I still need to get in there and do some sanding to see just how much good metal is in there. But that will be for another time.
 

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#5 ·
So the quarters are going to wait. I need more practice welding, and fitting new patches. Since the floors won't be seen by anyone I figured they would be a good place to start. I'll save for the quarters, I figured parts are going to be about $425 per side.

The car had diamond plating screwed and riveted to the floor boards and part way up the toe board. First things first remove the diamond plating and see what awaits me.

Umm fiberglass. Great, this should be fun. A google search of how to remove fiberglass from body panels leads me to a heat gun, pliers and a putty knife.

If you look close past the spider, you can see the diamond plating. The second is after I removed the fiberglass. I didn't really think too much about documenting this build until after I started a little work on it.

Now I am trying to capture many more pictures.
 

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#6 ·
I'll skip forward a bit here to current work. I removed the floor pan, seat pan, part of the lower firewall, torque box and seat pan support.

What I found was a hole in the toe board above the torque box. With each little bit of cutting I did in the toe board caused more and more rust to just fall out. With not knowing exactly how bad the torque box was I removed it to be on the safe side. All in all it wasn't too bad, but I don't regret replacing it. Once I got the torque box out I noticed something not good at all. The back of the frame rail where the floor support attached is completely gone on the bottom left edge. You can see it in one of the pictures. So out came the floor support.

Now that everything is cut away I can see what I am dealing with. From what I can tell the rust is isolated to that one section. I will continue to do more testing before I start any assembly to make sure.

So I have a new floor pan, torque box, floor support, toe board and frame rail patch. It's supposed to be nice this weekend which allow me some time to start doing the cleanup work of grinding, sanding, rust preventative and primer applied.

After I get the edges cleaned and squared up, the spot welds ground down and any holes filled I can start the process of getting everything but the new floor pan lined up. I'll work on that next after getting everything upfront put back together.

I'll post more as I start the next phase.

Ray
 

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#9 ·
Wow it's 2 months since I last updated this, time does fly. So what's been going on. I bought and mounted an electric heater in the garage and a couple more 4' lights. So the last I left off removing the floor support and other pieces. I now have the floor support welded into place and the torque box welded in. The floor support wasn't too bad at all. Once it warmed up a little I fired up the heater and let it run overnight. The next day it was warm enough inside to etch prime the torque box, floor support and frame rail.
 

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#10 ·
After priming the torque box and floor support the cold weather came in. This was right before Christmas and I had use it or lose it vacation time and took a week off to build a rotisserie. I figured it would be like a winter project that would give me something to do. Well with the exception of the wheels, paint and extended rams I had it finished in the week. So now I have the rotisserie sitting there waiting on me to get the metal work finished. So here I have all of the pieces sorted out arranged by the components. Then on to all the drilling of the holes. Those 3/4 inch holes took me 9 steps for each one. Tried it at first with my 1/2" hand drill, yeah that didn't work out. I thought I was going to break my hand the first time the bit got bound up. Time to buy a inexpensive drill press. That was sooooo much better!!
 

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#11 ·
Spent time with the family over Christmas and New Years. Welcome to 2016 and what it holds in store for us. Here comes the cold weather again, so no time to work on the car. What I should be doing is cataloging and cleaning my box of parts, but that's no fun. So a couple of weeks pass and the weather warms up enough to only run heater for a few hours. That's enough to warm it up and make it comfortable in the garage. Since I split the torque box I started by mounting the bottom half first. Not bad, I had to trim the edges a little bit but all in all the lower half went well. I failed to take any pictures of that part of the installation. The top half was not so easy. It fit better under the flange on the frame rail than it did on the top, and I considered keeping it that way. But I knew the way it came out and decided to do what I could to make it fit on the top. After a couple of hours of trial and error I had it clamped in place and ready to weld in. I'm still waiting on my 1967 weld/sealant book, it's been on back order now for almost 3 months. But others members here were kind enough to post some pictures of their repairs and I modeled my welds after those. Thanks for those! Not perfect by any means, but I think it will do. Especially since this will be my daily driver I knew that I would be happy getting it close.
 

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#12 ·
What's next? I need to clean up the plug welds on the floor support and torque box. I need to find something smaller than my grinder to get into some of the crevices on the torque box to grind those welds down. Once I have those down where they should be I will go over the bare metal with an etch primer again. Then coat the entire top portion with Master Series. I still need to order the Master Series, but in the mean time I'll start the work on getting the toe board cut and fit. I am hoping to be able start on Saturday and make some decent progress on it. The cold weather hits again this Sunday with highs in the 30's which will slow the project down a bit.

One thing the cold weather allows me to do is research the things I want to do with the car. There is so much information on the forum already and more and more added each day. I have bookmarked recommended websites, copied text from posts and saved them for reference when needed. For anyone visiting and reading about my build and how it's going, join now. It's free and there are some great people with years and years of experience and are happy to share that experience with anyone who asks. :smile2:
 
#14 ·
I like the Hobart...I've never welded before and it took a while to figure things out but I just kept practicing. I also found a local company that offered a Saturday beginners welding class. That was blast I gotta tell ya. I think it would do an excellent job on the body panels but not for the rotisserie. My family all chipped in and bought me the Miller for Christmas which is what I used to build it.

If you haven't already, start a build thread. I would love to follow along as well. I'm just trying to soak up as much information as I can and see the awesome work that people are doing on their cars.
 
#15 ·
Good work so far, kind of similar to some of the things I have been doing. I am new to body work and welding as well, so slow and steady progress on that stuff is my motto on my '67 build. I try to get a few hours in a week (sometimes more sometimes less) that way I feel like I am getting somewhere.
 
#16 · (Edited)
I took advantage of some 60 degree weather today and fit the toe board. I was dreading it a bit with all the angles and such but it turned it pretty nice. I still have the holes to drill in the toe board for the plug welds. Mark the holes on the torque box and apply some weld thru primer. :pirate:

Ordered some Eastwood internal frame coating and Master Series sealer/primer today. The frame rail has some surface rust in it and the Eastwood coating should take care of that. The Master Series will go on the torque box and toe board to keep the moisture away.

Once the toe board is in place I can start on the drivers floor pan and seat pedestal (still to be ordered). Yay :smile2:
 

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#17 ·
Nice and warm today. Warm enough to apply the first coat of the Master Series Silver to the top of the torque box and bottom of the toe board. Tomorrow will be almost as warm and each piece will get a second coat.

Saturday will be spent sanding the edges of the toe board where the welds will be. Start welding it place, get the welds cleaned up and apply some more MSS. :pirate:
 

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#18 ·
I can't believe it's been over a year since I last updated this build. I haven't forgotten about it, in fact I've been busy getting things patched and the quarter panels ready to go on. So let's see what's been going on with the car.

I have finished up the torque box, toe board and drivers side floor pan. Below are some pictures to you get you caught up.
With the torque box in place, time to start the toe board fitting. Getting it all welded up.
 

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#19 ·
Now that toe board is in place, time to start on the floor pan. I only needed to replace the drivers floor pan. The passenger floor pan basically had 3 smaller spots of rust. I need to take some pictures of the passenger side patches and I will get them posted.

I was very nervous about doing the floor pan. All those angles and cuts, the curved area in the back. :surprise: Well it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I took my time getting it lined up, marked it larger than what I needed and cut away pieces a tiny bit at a time before it all fit. Laid it in place and marked where all the plug welds were going to be. Once I had the holes drilled I was ready to start welding it in place. I did a few plug welds along the rocker panel to hold it in place, and had screws holding it down to the floor support. Once it was tacked in I started the butt welding along the transmission tunnel. Here is where you need to take your time and don't hurry. Just jump around from end to end to keep the heat down until you get a solid line of welds.

I hit the tops of the welds with my grinder just to get them down and manageable. After that I took my bandfile belt sander to knock them down the rest of way.

The floor pan cut out and sprayed with weld-thru primer. All of the holes drilled and etch primer applied, ready to weld in. And finally the finished product.
 

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#20 ·
On to the passenger floor pan. There was rust through on the very front edge of the floor pan that went through into the toe board. So I cut out the rust and kept the floor pan cut larger than the the toe board so I could weld them both in. You can see that in the picture below. I didn't get a picture of the bottom patch but it looks a lot like the upper patch only smaller!! :laugh:
 

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#21 ·
The other rust spot was on the rear floor pan, over the rear torque box. I ordered the patch and cut it down to fit. Interestingly this area is where I experienced my issue with shrinkage. As I started to tack in the patch starting in the upper right corner it pulled the entire patch CCW and up. To fix it cut out some of the welds, realigned the patch, screwed it down with self tapping sheet metal screws. Once it was held in tight I tacked in each corner to help keep it in place. Kinda ugly but it's in place and will be covered by carpet!!:wink:
 

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#23 ·
Time to move on to the trunk drop downs, outer wheelhouse and quarter panels. I got lucky I guess in that only the outer wheelhouses are rusty around the lips. I purchased complete outer wheelhouses and cut it down to fit. I did that because, as I looked at trying to remove the outer wheelhouse the more I realized I wasn't going to go through that. Props to you guys who remove the outer piece. I didn't much like having to patch just the outside lip, I just couldn't bring myself to try and remove all of those spot welds. Some of which would be a pain to get too.

The first step was to determine where the rust ended and the good metal began. Once I figured that out I started marking where I wanted to cut. I use blue painters tape to mark my cuts, which helps me cut a more straight line.

Below we have the outer lip cutout, the patch cut and clamped in place ready to weld in and the final product.
 

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#25 ·
I don't have any pictures of the trunk drop down in place. So the 2 pictures below are where I cut out the rusted piece and etch primered new piece. I'll see about updating this portion with a picture of the drop down in place. I need to remove the quarter panel to get a picture of it. It will need to come off anyways because I just getting it fitted.
 

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#26 · (Edited)
With the drop down and outer wheelhouse done time to move on to the quarter panel itself. I have a rear valance being delivered tomorrow and with that I can do the final fitting of the quarter before doing the final cut. I'm nervous and confident all at the same time about the cut. I have gotten some fantastic help from VMF members about how to go about the cut. That's where the confidence comes in. But I am still nervous about screwing it up. Which is a good thing because it will force me to take my time and do my best to get it right.

I don't any pictures of the old quarter panel being cut out but again I will get one taken before I actually tack in the panel.

Here is quarter being fit into place. It's only clamped in a few places and not in it's final position yet but it's close. It's looks further off than it really is in the picture with the door closed.

You might find this part kind of funny. But being that this is my first time at any kind of body work, I started on the passenger side so that if were off I wouldn't have to look at it every time I got in the car. :grin2:

Once this side is finished I will still have the drivers side to do. With what I learned I think it will go a little easier and faster.

So up to this point I have had the car 19 months. I am not as far along as I had hoped, mostly because of other projects that came up. With all that I am not discourage by where I am. I still have a loooong ways to go with this build. That's ok too. I have the car built in my head and I know what the final product should look like. So it's taking the larger project and breaking it down into smaller chunks to keep it manageable. My smaller chunks consist of the outer wheelhouse, then the trunk drop down and finally the quarter panel. It helps me getting those smaller wins along the way to mark my progress, instead of saying "the body work is a chunk" and getting discouraged by how much is left to do. ;)
 

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#31 ·
With the help of my daughter I was able to get the quarter clamped and screwed into place before the final cut. Since this is my first ever quarter panel replacement I think it will turn out ok.

I wasn't really sure how I was going to cut it to fit and I ended up removing too much metal from the old quarter panel, and too much metal from the new one. Meaning my overlap really isn't enough and will make cutting it more difficult than it should have been. It should make the other side a bit easier now that I am aware of it. :pirate:
 

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#32 ·
Quite the milestone tonight. With the quarter panel clamped into position I made my final cut. Next will be cleaning up the edges and getting all of the primer and junk off from where it will be welded. :pirate:

The cavity has 2 coats of Master Series Silver applied. The back side of the quarter panel also has 2 coats of Master Series Silver. Once the quarter panel is welded into place I will go back and touch up any spots that need it.

I didn't feel comfortable with the number of clecos I used originally to clamp it down so I added more to fill in the big gaps before cutting. I just didn't get a picture before the final cut.
 

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#33 ·
How about a quick write -up of what you did Wrong with trimming for the quarters, so I'll know what not to do?

Who's quarter did you use and how was the fit?

I'm worried about the scoop lines matching up with door lines, so I was leaning towards keeping the front inch or so of the door jam quarter and matching up the repo quarter to that,....thoughts?
 
#35 ·
The quarter panel is now all welded in. :pirate: I have all of the tack welds ground down and fairly flush. There are a bunch of high and low spots with the spot welds that I will need to figure out how to take care of. A couple of small high spots in the quarter itself right below the seam.

All in all I am very pleased with how it turned out. The original door gap was pretty close and this one is no different. So for now it's fine and it will all get taken care of during final assembly.
 

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