Here are the backing plates just off the car. The left one is after a trip through the parts washer, and the other I decided to just ‘blast. Forgot to get a picture of them all cleaned up.

Driver side rear brakes all rebuilt, waiting on the drums. I decided to pull the axle and rebuild it later. The important part is getting it rolling with the e-brake working for now. Oh yeah, did I mention I shot a bunch of undercoating in the wheelhouses and underside of the trunk floor?

More engine stuff: Edelbrock 1406 Performer carb, Accel Super Coil, Cardone distributor, freshly repainted alternator bracket, and very dusty fan blades. Gonna drop it in the car next weekend.

Tossed on the spiffy new Mach 1 flip-open gas cap – just so the car can have some new ‘jewelery’ to make the ol’ girl feel pretty.

Here’s the underside of the trunk floor, all sealed up and undercoated. My friend Don from Ohio Mustang Supply hooked me up with the front gas tank strap bracket – which cleaned up very nicely!

Got the tank in, once I figured out that the sending unit goes in the hole on the driver side – not the one on the top (duh). Pulled the rollover check valve/vent out of the old tank, cleaned it up, and stuffed it in and hung the tank.

Taken from my Facebook posting of pics that day:

Jim Eimer: Glad YOU figured it out.

Eric Hansen Sorry, Jim. EVERYBODY – Jim was the one that figured out that the sending unit goes in the hole on the side, and also whatever that goofy thing on the top was. He also extracted it and saved the gasket as well while we were sitting there talking about it. I keep forgetting that most of my bright ideas are usually inspired by his vast knowledge, experience, and expertise. Hope ya feel better now, Bro! (LOL!)

Also from that thread:

Michael Webster At this rate you’ll have to come up with a new name. ‘Rustang’ will no longer fit.

Eric Hansen Trudy already said its new name is: “Frankenstang,” since I’ve resurrected him from the dead, there’s so many parts from other cars on there, as well as you can still see some of the scars. LOL!

Frankenstang, it is.

Got the driver side quarter panel ON! Startin’ to look like the back end of a ’71 Mustang again!

Lining up the door part was a snap, compared to getting the rear end lined up – Geez.

Getting the back end of this thing lined up pretty much took up most of the weekend. Reproduction pieces don’t always fit well – I had to drill out the spot welds on the new piece to make it fit right.

No more clamps – the quarter panel is ON. Just gotta grind down the welds and primer the bare spots so I can add filler and smooth out the seam later.

Here’s another shot – everything lines up really well. Just gotta adjust the door striker inward a little to get the panels completely lined… after I get new striker pins, that is.

Hung the passenger side quarter panel and lots of tweaking going on. This was before I discovered I needed to boost it up about 3/16″ to line up the style crease in the door. Spent the whole day tweaking some more and will weld it on next weekend.

Here’s the trunk all finished up with Rust Bullet Black Shell. I don’t know if I’ll be shooting some splatter paint or not, it looks so good. Take a good look though as it will all be covered in carpet someday before I start driving it.

I finally made a patch to bridge the gap between the trunk’s weatherstripping channel and the taillight panel. Still gotta grind the welds, but it’s in there and solid.

OK – these came out of the trunk when the pan came out in pieces. They hang underneath, and I believe they’re exhaust hanger brackets, but I have no idea where they go. Guess I’ll figure it out somehow.

Here’s the ‘new’ forward fuel tank strap bracket. WAY better than the one that came with the car (top). Thanks goes out to Don at OMS for the new piece.

Here’s the forward fuel tank strap bracket just before I welded it on. Cleaned up really nice – once again, much appreciation to Don at Ohio Mustang Supply for the hook-up.

Ground down the welds, fabricated a small patch toward the front of the inner wheelhouse, seam sealed, and painted with Rust Bullet Black Shell. Almost ready for quarters now.

After getting this side painted with the Rust Bullet, I moved over to the driver side and finished up the spots I missed when the quarter windows were still in. Next up is quarter panels.

Opened up the right quarter panel and found this – no surprises… I knew the outer wheelhouse would be munched. Time to cut out the bad stuff and get ready to repair the wheelhouse.

You can see right through the car now! Pulled the quarter window and removed the rest of the quarter panel.

I got the new outer wheelhouse section welded on. Still gotta clean it up some more, grind down the welds, apply seam sealer and Rust Bullet, and it’ll look like the other side.

Just about ready for the new quarter panel section after some more cleaning and ‘stepping’ the Rustang’s sheet metal to fit it on.

Here’s the corner patch after ‘blasting, and all welded in. Fits like a glove.

After getting the corner patch installed, I worked on the tail light panel. Here it is all welded in with the welds ground down. Came out just like it was supposed to… which had me scratching my head for a little while – until I realized that I actually did do everything right and it’s all good.

Used the trunk lid to help line up the tail light panel. Also cleaned off the yellow writing from the junk yard, and decided to make it a ‘Mach 1’ again – Sharpies Rule. LOL!

Popped the quarter extensions on and lined everything up. I’m not saying it’s perfect, but I think I can be really happy with how it came out (with proper alignment of the extensions and everything once the new quarters are on, that is).

After my favorite thing in the world (drilling out spot-welds – yay…) here we are with no more yucky rusted-out metal.

Then, after having a hard time keeping the ‘patch’ piece from the junkyard steady to drill out more spot-welds on it, I decided to use the plasma cutter to just burn through the spot-welds. Things went a lot faster from that point. Here’s the ‘patch’ being test-fitted before media blasting – almost perfect!

While I was having fun test-fitting (and burned out the spot-welds from the old panel on the driver side), I decided to see what it would look like with the new tail light panel in there as well. I’m thinking this is going to work out, after all!

Here’s a shot of the sub-frame connectors welded in – I wish this weld would’ve come out better, but it’s not the worst one, and only one of a few that don’t actually look good. I AM getting better… really.