Floor removal, toe board eval & frame rail straightening

Now that my taxes are filed and I'm square with the Fed for one more year, I was able to get back to business on the Boss.  With the cowl complete, the next step was to begin the process of repairing the floor area and all of the associated areas that required attention.  There is nothing “pretty” about this phase of work and the pictures certainly reflect this, but with this ground work in place, the end results will ultimately show the effort.

I decided to tackle the removal of the floor pan by first removing the seat pans.  As previous pictures will show, the floor in my car was a mess, with little salvageable material left to use.  As such, I didn’t need to be especially frugal in the removal of the bulk of the floor pan structure, so out came the smoke wrench (a.k.a. oxy/acetylene torch) and after a few minutes, the seat pans were history.

With more room to work, I could now concentrate on getting the floor pan out of the car.  Here again, there was nothing left to save, so I decided to employ my trusty recip saw for the removal of the majority of the old floor pan.  I decided I would take the floor out in three pieces beginning with the center and leaving the front and rear sections for later.  Mainly, I did it this way to make it easy, but also to allow a more precise removal of the front and rear sections where considerable spot weld cutting would be required.

Once the center section was out of the car, I concentrated on removing the front section attached to the front frame rails, the transmission tunnel brace and front toe boards.  There were a lot of spot welds involved here and I was once again thankful for the efficiency of my Blair spot weld cutter.  After a few hours of work, I was able to carefully peel the front floor section away and have my first serious look at the frame rails and toe boards.

As I have mentioned on numerous occasions in the past, the abuse this old car has taken in its life is hard to imagine.  Almost everywhere I look are signs of an extremely hard life and the lower surfaces of the frame rails were certainly no exception.  First off, Mustangs were never designed to tolerate jacking on the frame rails.  As a unibody car, they were designed to be jacked up along the pinch seam that runs along the bottom edge of the rocker boxes.  This is the area where the car is especially strong and capable of supporting the weight of the car without damage to the structure.  Somewhere along the line, someone was very enthusiastic with a bottle jack of some kind, and had managed to severely damage the bottom of both frame rails with deep, quarter-sized dents the exact shape of a bottle jack pad (ugh!).

I spent several weeks pondering the most effective way to repair these areas, particularly since the frame rails were in such good shape otherwise and had miraculously managed to avoid the heavy rust damage the remainder of the floor had endured.  In the end, I decided to basically use the old hammer-and-dolly technique, expect the dolly was going to be a piece of flat steel plate on the end of my frame jack post pad and the hammer was going to be a combination of 2-lb sledges and a simple forming tool I made from some spare ½” plate.  I knew ahead of time I wouldn’t be able to remove the deep scars from the bottle jack pad, but I felt I could get the frame rails straight enough that a thin skim of filler would be all that was required to make them perfect again.  I am happy to say the results were even better than I expected.

With the frame rails in good shape, I turned my attention toward a comprehensive evaluation of the toe boards.  I knew I would need to replace the obviously rusted lower edges of the toe boards, but wasn’t sure how far up the firewall I would need to go to get back to good metal.  As it turns out, the repair of the passenger side would be quite minimal in scope and the driver side would be quite manageable as well.  I wanted to keep the amount of weld seams inside of the trans tunnel to a minimum such that the metal finishing would be minimum and the least amount of filler would be required to make these repairs invisible.  Looks like I just might get my wish!

Next up, I will start preparing the toe board repairs and tidying up the frame rail and transmission tunnel brace flanges.  I will also remove the remaining flanges from the old floor as well as the rear floor section under the back seat area.  Somewhere in there, I hope the weather breaks enough to get some sand blasting done in these areas as well.  That should really make everything not look so much like a junkyard dog…….c’mon SPRING!

A few minutes with a torch and the seat pans were outta there.  This made the rest of the floor removal quite easy.

My recip saw handled the bulk of the floor removal with ease.

I left the front section of floor in place as there were numerous spot welds that required a rather precision approach to removal to ensure minimal damage to the parent structures underneath.

After a few hours with the spot weld cutter, the front floor section was removed without much fuss.  This allowed a much more comprehensive inspection of the inner frame rail surfaces as well as the toe boards.

Here you can get an idea as to the extent of damage there was to the bottom surfaces of both frame rails  from the use of a bottle jack.  With such structurally sound frame rails, I had to figure out how to repair this damage rather than replace the rails.  This is the passenger side"before" shot.

Using the jack posts I made during my cowl replacement, I fashioned a flat steel "dolly" that gave me a hard surface to work against when reshaping the lower frame rail surfaces.  The adjustable jack post on the opposite side of the car was extended to provide slight pressure on this assembly to provide a solid work surface.

While generally ill-advised, I used a small 2 lb sledge as the first means to get the damaged metal moving.

For the finer work, I made a simple bucking die that allowed me to restore the shape of the corners and edges of the frame rails as well as the bottom.

By turning the bucking die sideways, I could rather easily restore the lower frame surfaces by simply walking the die up and down the length of the fixed dolly until the surface was nice and flat.

Here's a rather poor shot of the driver side frame rail during the straightening process.  You can easily see one of the remaining heavy dents just to the left of the trans tunnel brace flange that has yet to be removed.  The jack post and dolly can be seen in position at the far right of the picture.



Here is the driver side frame rail after straightening.  Notice there are no more nasty, jack-induced dents in the lower frame surface!  A small amount of All-Metal filler and these surfaces will be nice and smooth.



Here's the passenger side frame rail after repair.

After careful examination of the exposed rust damage, I marked the passenger side toe board using a bit of soapstone.  Nothing too extreme required here.

Similarly, the driver side toe board repair section is surprisingly minimal given the extent of rust damage that was in most sections of the original floor.

Cowl Panel Replacement - Episode 6: Touchdown!

It’s kinda funny what inspiration a brand-spankin new mig welder can give a fella.  When I last left off, I had fit each cowl end enclosure to the cowl and clamped them into place. Having nailed the fit on both ends to near perfect, I prepped each one for final welding and refit them one last time and clamped them securely into place.  I was absolutely chomping at the bit to try my new Lincoln mig welder out after practicing my plug weld technique on some scrap sheet metal.  With some easy adjustments to my technique, I was able to crank out respectable plug welds and I felt really good about the prospects of getting the end enclosures welded into place and putting paid to the cowl replacement project.

With a few butterflies in the pit of my stomach, I set off anchoring the corners of the enclosures with solid plug welds right out of the box.  I could feel myself smiling like a fool under my welding helmet at how well the machine worked and decided Lincoln didn’t paint their machine Ferrari red by accident!  Man does that thing perform….!!!

It seemed like no time at all and I had both enclosures welded in and I was grinding the welds.  Each weld was far less bulky than my old welder could produce and they all cleaned up quite well with a little grinder work.  In the matter of a few hours, I looked up and realized I had completed the cowl replacement and lived to tell the tale!

With all of the welding completed, I finally had the opportunity to evaluate the entire job more critically.  Most obvious was how solid and tight the whole structure felt.  With an actual structure back in the car, it was really amazing the difference in how the car sounded when rapped on with the knuckles.  There’s something oddly rewarding about that solid “pop” when you “knock on the door” on a new structure like this.

With the hard work out of the way, I just need to touch-up the interior of the end enclosures where the weld heat damaged the Zero Rust paint and then seam seal the remaining flange seams once everything is dry.

Next on the agenda is the removal of the floor pan, toe board repairs, lower subframe straightening and preparation for a new floor pan and seat pans.  Following that, I will be ordering subframe connectors (RM-102), chassis brace (RM-023) and 4-link rear coilover suspension (RM-101) from Heidt’s Hot Rod & Muscle Car Parts.  I’ll also be on the hunt for a 72-74 Ford Torino rear swaybar to complement the new, modern rear suspension while giving the car maximum wheel width allowance without wheel tub modifications.  Just a little hint into what’s on the horizon……and it ain’t likely what you might expect.

I went a little overboard on clamping the end enclosures perhaps, but it ensured the fit was near perfect.

Even between clamps, the flanges were straight and tight before welding.

The top flange is effectively the guide for the rest of the panel.  Good fit here is critical.

Here is a look at the fit in the top rear corner of the end enclosure.  Beautiful!

From the first arc strike, it was obvious my new Lincoln mig welder was light-years ahead of my old, fussy mig it replaced.

Here is the driver side end enclosure welded in.

And here is the passenger side enclosure fully welded.

Driver side welds ground smooth.

Passenger side welds ground smooth.

Here is the back side of the driver enclosure.  The fit here was truly excellent.

Passenger side rear of view of the end enclosure after welds were ground smooth.

Here is the finished driver side upper rear corner.  The fit here really couldn't get any better.

A faked aerial shot of the finished cowl.  On to the floors!

MIG Welder Tango: Opportunities, opinions, options & decisions

As I mentioned in the last few blog entries, my old, cheapy mig welder has been dying a slow, painful death.  My last welding project finally finished it off and I was now forced to look at a replacement, whether I liked it or not.  Fortunately, I have been looking at the available replacement options for some time and was able to narrow my choices to a rather tight group based on my own experiences over the years as well as the experiences of several welding professionals.  What follows is not intended to be an absolute review of all the welders out there.  It’s just what worked for me and nothing more.

The portable MIG welder market is rather full of options of varying pedigree and that can make the choice quite difficult when considering the allure of low price versus functionality.  After weeks of intense research, I narrowed my choices to one of four machines:  The Everlast Power I-MIG 160, the Hobart Handler 187, the Miller Millermatic 180 Auto-Set, and the Lincoln Power Mig 180C.

I have to admit, that my early intention was to give the Everlast Power I-MIG 160 a try because it was cheaper, and had the nifty feature of being an inverter-based power source with stick weld capability.  All told, the Everlast would have been about $100 cheaper than the next closest competitor and the only inverter machine in the running.  Since Everlast only sells direct, I wanted a few questions answered before dropping my bones on a new welder, so I sent an email to their sales link on their site…………crickets.  So I decide to send the same note to their tech email link………more crickets.  So I finally call their sales department and got a voicemail message from some clown who could barely speak English asking me to leave a message…….so I did…….left my home #, cell #, email address and mentioned that I’ve already sent two emails with no answer.  After another week of waiting……..crickets.  After a few well-placed garage expletives, I vowed NEVER to buy one of their products and was satisfied evaluating the remaining three knowing any information I may want was a simple phone call or visit away.

The Hobart Handler 187 was next in the queue and as Miller’s “house” brand, has many similarities to the Miller line of machines without many of the “fluff” features of their higher-end machines.  The Hobart has considerable top-end power, but the practical use of this in automotive resto work is almost non-existent and I didn’t like the feel of the 7 heat range settings and found many of the under hood parts rather cheaply built for the money.  Furthermore, it seemed none of the local distributors actually stocked this machine but had no problem ordering one.  The reviews of the Hobart among the resto crowd weren’t overwhelming (though not bad), while a bit cheaper than the Miller or Lincoln competitors, it just didn’t blow me away with any feature and irritated with the general cheap feel of things.

The next shooter was the Millermatic 180 Auto-Set.  Miller is notoriously proud of their machines and their reputation is good, but not good enough to justify the almost $300 premium they command over the next closest cost competitor.  This machine has more bling than Mr. T’s jewelry box, but that ain’t the whole story in my humble opinion.  For the kind of money they command, Miller still has a downright crappy ground clamp and a drive roller mechanism that simply doesn’t impress.  And did I mention the price?  Even with very good reviews, I was concerned about the ultimate usability and reliability of the Auto-Set features (I find them kinda fiddly).  The good news here is that the machine maintains full manual setting functionality, making the Auto-Set features a take-it-or-leave-it proposition for me and not worth any amount of up-charge.  Not to be discouraged so easily, I had the opportunity to help a buddy out a few weekends ago by welding in a pair of Hotchkiss subframe connectors into a ’67 Pontiac Firebird.  This gave me the opportunity to test drive a Millermatic 135 mig on someone else’s nickel.  While it certainly can weld quite well, the gun was annoyingly cheap (Miller branded), the feed roller assembly was mostly plastic and it had that miserable ground clamp.  As the grandpa of the new Millermatic Auto-Set line, I decided I’d seen enough given nobody was willing to let me test drive the new 180 Auto-Set.  Also, I am a bit of a purist when it comes to welding.  I like full manual control over the mig settings as this lets me tweak the weld almost any way I want.  While the Miller Auto-Set may do all these things for you, I also believe it has the effect of taking away a significant and important part of the welding experience (e.g., it tends to make you lazy).  In my humble opinion, you need to LEARN how to weld and that involves understanding WHY something works and HOW it works so you can think on your feet.  Only then do your KNOW how to weld.  This philosophy is only supported by a machine requiring full manual control.  I learn something new about welding every time I light up on a piece of metal.  EVERY time, no matter how small the detail and I practice as often as I can.  No free lunch.

The final machine left in my “circle of four” was the Lincoln Power Mig 180C (the “C” stands for “continuous”).  In many circles, Lincoln is considered the leader in portable mig machines.  Just about every big-box store carries the hobby variety Lincoln migs (none of which qualified in my evaluation) and they work remarkably well.  But I wanted to step UP, not sideways, so the 180C was the baddest of the bad.  While I didn’t get to test drive one, I was able to do a side-by-side physical comparison with the aforementioned Miller Auto-Set 180 at my favorite welding supply house, and I am happy to say that in all areas I considered important, the Lincoln Power Mig 180C was the clear leader.  Very robust construction, great feed roller construction, fully potted electronics boards, very nice gun and a superb ground clamp.  Essentially, I had nothing to bitch about, including price since Lincoln offered a $75 rebate on this exact machine.  So for Hobart price, I got Lincoln quality and phenomenal performance!

And perform in does!  It is really hard to explain how much of a quantum leap in technology and performance this new Lincoln mig welder is over what I had been using over the last 15 years.  Absolutely everything about this new machine is superior in every way to anything I have ever used before.  From the construction of the hardware items, to the absolutely HUGE welding sweet-spot range, to its ability to weld very thin sheet metal in the lowest ranges, to it’s incredible top end power, this machine will feature very strongly in every welding operation required in my restoration along with countless other jobs around the shop.  Have a look at the few attached pictures to get an idea of the highlight areas I really like plus a few examples of welds I was able to make with almost no practice.  This machine could make any welder look like a rock star!  Check it out here:  Lincoln Power Mig 180C

I couldn't be happier with my new Lincoln mig!  It even had the decency to fit my existing mig cart perfectly!

Here's the business-end of the machine.  I love the simple design and one of my favorite features is the continuous adjustability of the heat range (voltage).  No more detents dictating what amount of weld current you have available.  If I want to tickle in a few more volts for a difficult, out of position weld, I can do it in seconds and light-up and go.

This has got to be one of the most useful bits of information Lincoln has provided with the Power Mig 180C.  This handy welder setting chart just inside the machine cover give excellent machine setting recommendations for almost all forms of steel you are likely to encounter.  Every setting I have tried seems to be spot-on.

Another demonstration of good quality:  brass-on-brass cable connections with large, easy to manipulate knobs.

The build quality of the wire feed mechanism is absolutely second to none!  Cast aluminum structures throughout make this the baddest feed system of any of the machines I looked at, hands down.

With the tension roller swung up out of the way, you can see the geared lower roller nestled in the lower drive feed assembly.

Here is a look at the tension roller with its matching drive gear.

Lincoln's wire guide mechanism is really very impressive.  The wire is exceptionally well supported through the drive path right into the cable liner.  No kinks here!

While regulators like this don't really measure gas flow specifically (a floating-ball flow gauge is far better and reads actual gas flow), the unit supplied by Lincoln is plenty nice and easily adjusted.

A full-size 11lb roll of wire loaded into my new mig is a beautiful sight!  I really appreciate the robust, simple design of this machine the more I use it.

Where the rubber meets the road.  Five nice plug welds with no fuss or bother from the Lincoln Power Mig 180C.  Life is good.......

Cowl Panel Replacement - Episode 5: First and goal to go, but there’s a penalty on the play

Last time, I left off with the cowl install essentially complete with the remaining work involving the prep and install of the cowl end enclosures, apron brackets and rear fender mounts.  In the last few weeks, I have managed to tackle the majority of those tasks along with embarking on a rather extensive research project targeted toward replacing my old, ailing MIG welder (which I will cover in a separate posting).

To begin, I decided to protect the inside of the cowl kick panels with a rust preventative coating.  The product I chose to use is called Zero Rust based on its ease of use, good laboratory performance reports, its ability to be easily sprayed and the many positive end-user reviews and durability examples.  Since all of the places I envisioned using this product are out of sight when the car is completed, I chose the standard black color, although the range of colors is quite extensive depending on your particular requirements.

The most obvious thing I noticed about Zero Rust black was how heavy a single quart of this material is, indicating (to me anyway) a very high solids content.  It also has a rather heavy body to it and that makes brush application a challenge on many surfaces.  I started my application of the product with a foam brush (lasted about 5 strokes) and quickly moved to a conventional disposable bristle brush to paint the kick panels.   Note to self:  Home Depot foam brushes SUCK! 

 I used two coats on all surfaces but was rather frustrated at the thickness of the coats required to cover properly.  After a bit of research, it seems the black colored Zero Rust may be slightly thicker than the other colors (like red oxide) and could stand a little bit of thinning to ease application (more on this in a bit).  Indeed, some of my other blogger friends have used the red oxide colored Zero Rust and successfully brushed it on with apparently little hassle, so there must be something to this.

I let the inner kick panels dry for several days with the help of a heat lamp and then set off on the hateful task of sealing the entire cowl panel and ends.  I spent a lot of time evaluating the various iterations of available seam sealers on the market and decided that I wanted nothing to do with those that could be formed with a wet finger and cleaned up with water.  Generally speaking, these are limestone-based products and are usually referred to as “general purpose” seam sealers.  Naturally, a paintable, flexible seam sealer is desirable in most applications involving structural panels like this.  After much research, I settled on 3M #08405 Flexiclear Body Seam Sealer for most of my sealing requirements.  This stuff is kinda like household silicone sealant on acid.  Truth is, I think this stuff could glue together greased, day-old mayonnaise and not break a sweat.  The down side is this sh*t sticks extremely well to EVERYTHING including human hair, skin, eyelids, t-shirts, zippers, shoe strings, cat fur, carpet, light switches, toilet seats, coffee tables, light bulbs, tennis shoes and chocolate chip cookies (ask me how I know).  This stuff is bad-ass expensive and just plain bad-ass.  In the immortal words of Forest Gump……”that’s all I have to say about that”.

Anyway, with the inner kick panels fully sealed and protected, I switched my focus to the rear fender brackets which were thankfully included with my new cowl.  These brackets are an exact duplicate of the original parts and fit the cowl very nicely right out of the box.  After a few seconds on the wire wheel to remove the e-coat where I needed to weld, I was able to position each one exactly based on the previous measurements I made from the old pieces before their removal.  A few minutes with my (now) very fussy MIG and they were welded in place and solid.

Next, I focused on getting the rear inner fender aprons remarried to the new cowl via new Dynacorn apron brackets I bought from NPD.  As you might expect, I wasn’t thrilled with them at all due to their significantly thinner material and everything-but-fit condition.  Not to be accused of failing to give it a shot, I massaged these damn brackets for several hours until the fit was almost perfect and they looked quite nice.  Then after one more sanity check with them clamped into place, I took them off, threw them in my pile of “what-not-to-do” parts and exhumed my original brackets and set to work refurbishing them for re-installation.  I just couldn’t bring myself to accept the thinner gauge material after all.

Fortunately, my original brackets were in decent shape and I was able to remove them with little drama early on.  I did have to weld up a few stress fractures in the corners and tidy them up in the blast cabinet, but once I was done, I had a pair of brackets original to the car and fitting perfectly by most accounts.

With the rear apron brackets ready to install, I carefully marked the location of each required plug weld using a paint pen.  I carefully ground off the e-coat under each weld and dusted them with SEM Copperweld primer and welded them in, dealing my old MIG the coup de grace.  At this point, I had decided it was a mercy killing long overdue…..  I protected the back side of each plug weld with Zero Rust paint while they were easy to access and called this phase of the project done.

With my immediate welding tasks out of the way for the time being, I moved to the preparation of the cowl end enclosures.  As I mentioned in earlier entries, these panels were in astonishingly good shape when I removed them.  In fact, following several minutes work in the blast cabinet, they looked exceptional and ready for a coat of phosphoric acid to prep them for paint.  The following day, I decided to experiment with thinning the Zero Rust paint before application.  As it turns out, I really liked the performance of the paint much better with a slight thinning and will experiment more with the technique in the future.  Fortunately, I discovered that Zero Rust can be thinned with my standard PPG DT-870 reducer with fantastic results  (BONUS!).  As if that weren’t enough, I found I can also use PPG K-201 hardener with Zero Rust to speed the hardening process in sprayed application at a ratio of 5:1:1 (5 parts Zero Rust to 1 part DT-870 reducer to 1 part K-201 hardener).  These two bonus features alone make this product much friendlier to use than the comparable product POR-15.

With a slightly thinned Zero Rust mixture ready to go, I applied three medium coats to the inside of the cowl end enclosures and let them dry overnight with the aid of a heat lamp.  Next, I trial fit the enclosures to the cowl and adjusted the fit until they were as close to perfect as I could make them.  Then, I carefully marked the top cowl flange where each plug weld needed to go and center punched them to make them easy to drill with the spot weld cutter.  Once the plug weld holes were drilled, I went around each flange with my angle grinder and sanded off the e-coat and Zero Rust everywhere there was a weld location.  With the flanges in good order, I clamped everything back into place to check the fit one more time.  Now, if I only had a welder…….

Zero Rust paint applied to the passenger side cowl box.  I ain't bad with a spray gun, but this shot proves I STINK with a brush!

Driver side cowl box coated with Zero Rust.

3M Flexiclear seam sealer is awesome stuff.  It takes on the color of the base material and seals extremely well.  Once dry, it is paintable in any color you choose.

Passenger rear fender mount welded in place.  Welds are looking progressively worse with my ailing  MIG welder.

Driver side rear fender mount welded in.  How much longer will this 'ol welder live?  Or perhaps, how much more can I take?

After wrestling with new Dynacorn rear fender apron brackets, I ended up refurbishing my original brackets.  Here I have marked the locations of each plug weld on the cowl with a paint pen.

Rear fender apron brackets welded in place and welds ground smooth.  This will be the final job for my old MIG as it's just not doing the job anymore.

Fresh out of the blast cabinet, the cowl end enclosures look great and ready for phosphoric acid treatment and Zero Rust paint.

I decided to thin the Zero Rust slightly for the end enclosures and really liked the way the paint responded.  I will be using this technique more as the project moves forward.

With the en enclosures fitted, I marked the top flanges with a paint pen to locate each plug weld location for drilling.

I center punch each weld location to allow the spot weld cutter to accurately center and run true.  The Blair rotabroach cutter makes perfect plug weld holes every time and can easily be controlled to go no deeper than the top layer of material.

With all of the weld holes in place, I sand off the e-coat and paint around each weld area to ensure a good weld surface.

With all of the prep work complete, the end enclosure is clamped back into place one last time.

Fit along every flange is checked for fit.  Looks good!

Top flange fit is exceptional.  Now, where's my new welder........