Why do so many classic Mustang’s have rusted out cowls? Here’s the answer. This is what collects inside the cowl area. It soaks up rain and eventually destroys the metal since Ford didn’t prepare this area well enough to prevent the rust.
This is a comparison between the new replacement part and the original rusted part.
I cleaned up the front spring with the wire wheel and painted it Chassis Black from Eastwood. I also painted the shock tower area since it will be much more difficult to paint later. The installation was easy enough the only difficult came when installing the shock itself. It’s not very easy to install the nuts from the underside of the spring perch. It’s a blind fit and there’s not much room to work in.
The passenger side suspension in the front is complete now. I did run into a problem with the parts I ordered from Mustangs Unlimited, the kit included the nuts to replace at the front of the strut rod, they were a different thread size. Be careful here, it threaded on enough to make me think it was good. I took the air tools after it and damn near ruined the strut rods threads. The other problem I ran into was the spring perches did not had nuts to secure them to the upper arm and the originals were also a different thread size. Just because you have replacement parts, please dont throw anything out until the replacement is on the car. Those old parts may still be useful for something during the restore.