Pulled the Rustang in the shop onto the lift for the last time with the rusty old front clip. Wow, does this thing look like a pile or what?

Got everything off that was worth saving – mostly the spindles and strut bars (Jim might want the ‘bars for his Galaxie 500 XL). This side wasn’t so bad getting the spindle and strut rod off – the lower control arm was actually quite cooperative.

Jim fought with the spring for awhile on this side – because the lower control arm was pretty much rusted in-place. The previous owners ‘redneck engineered’ the ball-joints and messed them up badly. No wonder the wheel was ganked at a weird angle.

And… rusty front clip is no-more. It’s gone… dropped off the lift and tossed out on the scrap heap. Just gotta go back and trim up the scraps I left on there and start drilling out spot-welds to get the torque-boxes and rest of the frame rails off. Then clean up the firewall and slide in the new front clip.

It looks weird with nothing forward of the firewall, but Jim and I were talking about how much better the whole car looks without that rusty ol’ front end on there. It felt weird as well, watching the whole front end of the car fall away with the saw still running in my hands. The back end dropped back onto its wheels as well… so much for all my measurements. LOL!

Got the ‘flashing’ left from the fender aprons drilled out and removed, as well as trimmed the frame rails down a bit so they’d be easier to handle. Also cleaned away some of the excess seam sealer and blobs of undercoating with a wire brush and got started cutting on the passenger side torque box.