Mustang Rebuild

I’ve finished with the drivers side quarter panel. There still some welding to do along the bottom of the quarter where it meets the trunk drop off, but I’ll get to that at a later date. For now… its time to drop the rear end and clean it up. Its got about 50lbs of grease and road grime caked on it. I used a pressure washer to clean off all the dirt leaving nothing but some grease and lots of rust to blast away. For now its sitting on some bricks waiting for me to load up the media blaster.. Hopefully soon it will look like new.

I’ve been asked why Im not going

Here’s a photo of the quart panel in pla e…

Okay! Enough of poorly made imported parts that are at best crap.  Having finished the passenger side wheelhouse and quarter panel replacement I moved the the drivers side.  Only to find I was having the exact same problems with the first parts I ordered.    This is not a jab at Dallas Mustang,  but the wheelhouse half they sell is a piece of shit and doesn’t even come close to fitting properly.

The radius is way off and without some major modification will not fit properly.  I ordered the outer half for both sides of the car at the same time.   When I discovered the problem when working on the passenger side I ordered a new part from the mustang store in Waco, Tx.  It fit pretty good and i was able to complete the work on that side.   Once discovering I have the same problem on the drivers side I was looking to find a new part to order when I discovered Dynacorn makes parts for the 65-66 years..  (is there a fully body 65-66 Fastback replacement coming???)

I immediately ordered a new wheelhouse half..  The arrived on a Saturday and was drop shipping from the manufacturer.   FITS LIKE A GLOVE!!  By the end of the day I had it fit, aligned, double checked alignment.  Checked one more time to be sure and welded it in place.

More work has been completed on the driver’s quarter panel.  I’ve completely removed the original panel. The outer section of the wheel house was not salvageable.  The inner section had rust along the seam butting against the floor pan and also the trunk floor.   I just cut away the rusted metal and used scrap to shape replacement patches.  The sail panel has some rust hole at the bottom near the window but it should be easy enough to replace the metal in this area.

Here I’m just test fitting the quarter panel. Clamp hold most of it in place.   I’m making sure the panel is aligned properly and that the trunk area is square.  To my surprise, the initial fitting has the trunk area only out of square by 3/16″ inch.

I later removed the clamps you see at the tail light panel and the deck in the trunk corner and replaced them with celcos.  I did this so I could test fit the trunk lid. Which looked great and the alignment was nice.  Next I need to align the wheelhouse and make sure it fits correctly.