The right side torque box came out relatively easy. When I jammed the scraper into the seam sealer between the ‘box and the firewall, it poked straight through into the cab. OK – time to fire up the body-saw and do some trimming. Still got some bad metal in there, but I’ll worry about that later when it’s time to cut out what’s left of the floor pans.

And finally, got the driver side torque box removed. Turns out the floor on that side was a little more gone than I first thought, so I wound up just cutting this one out as well. Just like on the passenger side, I’ll be removing the leftover torque box ‘flashing’ by more drilling of spot welds.

No more torque boxes – got the real Fred Flintstone look going now. Now I gotta get the rest of the frame rails out and score some metal for the firewall patches.

Didn’t feel like cutting any more, so I decided to get all of the rubberized undercoating off the firewall. Looks like only a couple of minor bad spots that can be repaired with some flat sheet metal (later). Cleaned up pretty nice.

Since I was heading out of town and it would be a week before I got back to it, I put a first coat of Rust Bullet Black Shell on the newly cleaned firewall. This stuff is awesome! Can’t wait til I get the cowl repaired and painted, and slide the new front clip under there – It’s Gonna Pop!! LOL!

Looks kinda weird seeing something that looks almost ‘new’ on this car. Shouldn’t be too much longer til the front clip goes on.

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.

And here we are after the first coat of Rust Bullet Black Shell. I didn’t bother painting the battery tray and apron because they’re so bad and will be replaced later after the clip is on the car (so I don’t mess up any factory measurements). I didn’t paint up the battery tray area since I need to replace it as well – I’ll catch it up once I replace the apron piece.

This stuff is awesome! First coat and barely used 1/8 of the gallon. According to the instructions, it’ll take two coats and be really glossy. This was after using a paint brush on it and the stuff flowed nicely leaving hardly any brush strokes showing.

The stuff covered like crazy and looks great! Thanks to my 7173 Mustang forums brother Scott for the tip about using Rust Bullet… and thanks to my pal Jim for helping me paint it up.

So, here’s the first coat pretty much done – still gotta flip the whole thing back over and do the radiator support. New plan is to catch the bad spots, and start prepping the Rustang to be (gulp!) cut apart maybe next weekend.

Also, according to the instructions – “If Rust Bullet coatings comes in contact with skin, immediately wash with soap and water for at least 5 minutes. Rust Bullet that has dried on the skin will wear off in approximately seven to ten days.”

Yeah – I’ll be wearing latex gloves from now on. LOL!

Finally got all the ‘leftovers’ off the front clip and sandblasted – and it looks awesome! Now, to make some repairs.

The ‘yard dogs cut this clip off a ’72 Fastback, and didn’t really think it through or talk to each other when they were doing it. They attempted to cut it off on the passenger side ahead of torque box and remembered I wanted to keep ’em. Then the guy cutting the right side must’ve figured I’d want the frame rail too – but not the left-side guy… nope… he hacked the frame rail right off.

A shot of the passenger side – turned out really nice and no really bad spots anywhere. The car this came off of should’ve been restored instead of mine. But, the the salvage yard wouldn’t just sell me the whole thing and trade. Oh well.

Aside from the battery apron and tray, the stray cuts, and the left rear frame rail, here’s the only bad stuff I’ll need to repair. The sand blaster made the hole even bigger and uglier.

So, I cut a hole around all the bad stuff.

Found the same spot on the Rustang and cut that part out.

Then welded in the ‘new’ piece after sandblasting it. Just goes to prove that there was still some good metal left on the Rustang after all. It really did look a lot better than that – the dark stuff is really actually shiny metal with the light all wrong.

Here’s the initial slice the ‘yard dogs made in the passenger side frame rail. Almost all the way through, and then changed their minds.

And here’s the same slice after I welded it back up and ground down my nasty-lookin’ welds. Another case of bad light – that part is actually really shiny compared to the ‘blasted areas around it.

On this side, they simply cut off the frame rail behind the torque box – leaving me wondering what to do about it.

So, I grabbed a new frame rail extension from Ohio Mustang and welded it on. Had to trim it to fit, since I wasn’t planning on removing the torque box. Plus, the new one is actually bigger than the original… probably to use as a sleeve to bolster the original stuff or something.

I’ve had the car for 6 months now and have pretty much been taking it all apart, and not so much getting anything else done. I decided to redo the dash panel once I had it out just so I can finally say I got something done!

After some body-filler and lots of hand-sanding, it’s finally primered. Wish I would’ve taken some pics of all the filler it took to fix the bad spots, but oh well – I was just glad to get to this point.

I forgot to get a shot of how messed up the glove box door was before ‘blasting, filler, sanding, and primer… suffice it to say, it was just as bad as the rest of the dash.

Here’s a full-on shot of the dashboard after some Krylon Rust-Stop Satin Black. Took almost 1 1/2 cans, and even then I missed some spots on the bottom side – which I took care of the next afternoon. The ‘faded’ areas are where trim panels will live, so I didn’t worry too much about perfect coverage.

Driver side – the filler came out OK. Not perfect, but a TON better than it was. Plus, this part of the dash is pretty much hidden – unless you’re under it diggin’ for money for the car wash.

Passenger side – again, wasn’t going for perfection in the places you won’t be able to see anyway. But it’s still WAY better than it was – can’t even see where the hole was thanks to my pal Jim helping me with the filler (I still suck at that game).

Glove box door – the only part you’ll be able to see is the 2″ strip on the bottom. The rest is covered by a cool ‘camera case’ textured trim panel.

Here’s the driver side of the dashboard after bead blasting. Looks like some pitting by the rust while sitting all those years. Should clean up pretty well with fiberglass filler and a nice coat of satin black paint. I took it over to a friend’s place with a large blast cabinet and made short work of it all. Thanks, Mike!

Passenger side has more of the same pitting along the bottom edge when the moisture most likely accumulated and went to work doing what it does best.

Finally got a weekend to work on The Rustang. I got the carpet, driver seat, and dash board removed. Not too bad on this side, but I’m still going to replace the floor pans anyway. The paint in the transmission hump is still a nice pristine Ford Light Pewter, which is what the rest of the car will be someday (hopefully sometime in 2011). I’d like to have the car done and running while it’s still [only] 40 years old.

This side’s not so great. We’re completely Fred Flintstone’d to the front on this side – yes, that’s the floor and front subframe you see poking through. Ain’t nothin’ but a thang!

So, sometime early in the weekend, My pal Dave and I went to Clark’s Auto Salvage and picked up the front clip from the 1972 Mustang Fastback donor vehicle.  I tried to buy the car outright since it was in much better shape than mine, but they said they couldn’t do that (probably didn’t have a title or something like that).  After we got it back to the shop, we commenced to taking some of the interior apart.  Fun time – but, the more we removed, the less enthusiastic things stayed.  After a couple of hours, we pretty much bailed on went home to watch movies and play Xbox (Forza 3 – much more fun on a long Thanksgiving Day weekend).  Also found that the donor car had a much better trunk lid than mine, so we swapped it out – it was even the right color (both inside and out, apparently – LOL!).

Been a few weeks, but with the engine and transmission out of the way, it’s easier to see how much of a mess this poor car is.  The battery tray has the usual corrosion damage – no biggie, I can get a new reproduction replacement piece.  The engine and front cross members look damaged as well, pushed up from the air time evidenced by the smashed oil pan and pick-up, and the driver side frame rails have major rust damage around the power steering gearbox area – that’s a major problem.  The cowl has some pretty heavy damage as well – someone mentioned being able to see my sneakers through the hole as they were pushing me around the compound.  Based on the damage seen here, it’s time to go looking for a donor car to attempt to swap the front clip.  Hey, I got nothin’ to lose as this point.

Something I found interesting – what’s up with all the bailing wire wrapped around the driver side spring?  Some kind of redneck-engineered lowering system, or maybe a redneck-engineered spring compressor gone bad?  I’m stumped.

The next day, I wheeled the engine outside and rinsed it all off, so I could begin taking it all apart.  Everything was going well until it was time to pull the distributor – with the engine being seized nothing would rotate, along with the retainer and cam gear not moving, so getting the dizzy out was a major PITA.  Ended up breaking the nylon timing gear and forcing the distributor out.  With the heads off, it was very easy to see why the engine was siezed – the #4 and #8 cylinders had rusted into place – #4 being the worse of the two.  After I flipped the engine over and removed the oil pan, I noticed that the previous owners had tried to out-do the Duke Boys… the oil pan had been smashed in from what I’m guessing was some ‘air time.’  It was so bad that the pick-up on the oil pump had been damaged as well – no wonder the engine had seized… with the oil pan smashed up against the oil pump pick-up, it starved for oil and that was that.  This poor car had been abused and basically thrown away and left to rot.  Once I pulled all the bearing caps off the connecting rods, I was able to slip out the rest of the pistons and conn-rods without hassle, along with the crank, which fortunately looked really good.  The #4 & #8 pistons had to be coaxed out with a half can of PB Blaster and a BFH, revealing some scarring on the cylinder walls.  Hopefully, the machine shop can still work with it, either by boring or sleeving the cylinders.

It’s a good thing I’m not planning on restoring this car to absolute stock conditions… this engine’s going to get some performance goodies put back in.