OK – here’s the floor on the driver side. Part of the big hole was self-induced by cutting the bad metal around the torque box and frame rail. But there’s plenty of rusty stuff as well.

Here’s the part behind the seat platform – it’s in bad shape – rusted through in places. Yeah – it’s outta here.

Passenger side front floor. It was in worse shape the driver side… but I cut a lot out around the torque box to make getting the front clip on a lot easier.

And this is the really bad spot behind the passenger seat. I didn’t have to do a thing to this side to achieve this look. Well, except take what was left of the carpet out.

After I got all the bad stuff seen in the above pictures out of there, I dropped in the new floor pans… just to see what it would look like. So far – so good! I still got a long way to go before I can drop them in for real, but it’s looking good so far. Should be done by the end of the weekend if all goes well.

So here’s the new steering gearbox. Most of them are painted black, but I actually like this color. It’s appropriate for the color scheme planned for the car. Too bad we’ll never see it again once the engine, headers, master cylinder, and everything else gets back in there.

Here’s how today started – all the suspension and steering system installed waiting for the spindles so I could get the rest of it all back together.

Here’s the whole suspension/steering system back together again… finally. I’m not going to worry about the brakes just yet, since I don’t even have brake lines yet to connect up. It’s not ready to drive yet anyway… just gonna roll it around for now.

And finally… back on its wheels with the new front clip! The whole front end is quite literally new (with the exception of several nuts and bolts I ‘blasted and reused). Those front springs and new bushings are quite stiff – once the engine and everything goes back in things should settle down and look normal.

This is looking a lot better – the wheels are actually straight up and down (camber-wise), which is a huge improvement over how it was when I pulled it in to begin the front-end swap. I wish we could’ve gotten a picture with Jim and I sitting on the front end with Gonzo pushing down on each side just to get the upper shock studs bolted down – would’ve been hilarious. Next up should be the floor pans.

Not much changed since the last pics, except for some really crappy lookin’ welds where they needed to go. They’re plenty strong, just not pretty. I’ll spare the gory details.

Got the driver side suspension on – except for the spindle, that is. Turns out the originals were toast, so I had to order some new ones. Still waiting for the steering gearbox as well – then the whole front end will be close to done.

Here’s the passenger side. Once I get the new spindle and steering gearbox, and get it back on its wheels, I’ll work on the battery tray apron and get going on the floor pans.

After cleaning the Rust Bullet off the places where metal meets metal, I grabbed my pals Jim and Jason to help me get the front clip loaded onto the power train jack and slide it into place.

I had to get the power train jack out of the way so I could lower the lift. Once it was balanced on the lift’s center jack, I finally (hopefully) got it into place with some minor tweaking and liberal application of the big rubber mallet.

Everything looks pretty close – I’ll know more tomorrow with the laser levels and tape measures.

Almost looking like most of a car again. Just gotta weld it all back together now.

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.