Fabrice's 429CJ 71 project

I'm a 2-D CAD person, but I have over 40 years experience. I can give you multiple views. DXF is no issue. I'm on AutoCAD 2022, I just never learned 3-D, GM wants all facilities and equipment drawn in 2-D AutoCAD, so that's what I know. I'll measure the thickness (gauge) of the steel sheet stock for you. It's relatively light gauge.

Time for a little update

Unlike in most of the world where summer has arrived fr ages, even with crazy high temps, seasons are here locked to October. rain, rain and low temps.
That to say, that in a rare weekends when weather was okish(dry) I went enjoy my 73... well that too, isn't really true at least until a few weeks back..

My Holley Sniper was acting weird for a while and as said in my last post, I bought an external regulator and needed to have the time to install it.
Well, it was a good move because all my issues are gone. from the first test install, where the pressure is to be set, it looks like the pressure was way too high, 72ish vs the 59.5 psi expected by the unit. So once a few tests were done with temp lines, I needed to spend some time to install this properly... and go test drive over a few weeks to see if the problem would return. So far, not a single issue since install..




After 2 blank installs to test each lines (feed and return), As I did not wanted to make holes into the firewall and also did not wanted to replaced the breaded hose that was in place for just a few months, I did pick the location where on 73, there is this piece of plastic for vacuum connection that I no longer use for years. so removed it and made a bracket that would bridge nicely. And could cut the line I had. For my 429, I'll install one of these right away but probably else where.




In past weeks the 71 project did not stay still. I did lots of things like enjoying to the max for hours the removal of excessive ancient glue/kit stuff from my rear window moldings.
I did not even come to polishing/dents fixing for these, I was simply tired to look at them after this ungratefull task! Took ages as thinner, acetone did nothing and it had to be tediously removed bits by bits! :O



the plan was to turn the car around for weeks, but as mother nature served us only rain for weeks, one thing that needed be done is to remove the rest of the paint from the roof. The rest was already done. If you wonder why I remove 4 layers of ancient paint this way: it makes no noise (something my neighbors like) and much less of a mess in my little garage. Tho fun is something else!!

While I did not find anything on the 1/2 roof done previously, on the right front side, I have discovered some ancient repair using bondo and even rust!! :O




Once the bondo was removed, the rust turned out to be almost nothing. The metal has some small creases/dents, deep enough to explain the bondo as a repair, as you need to "spoon" from behind and remove the interior/head liner. In my case ofc, no issue with that! So used my self made spoon (and ancient file bended to go places no finger/dolly can go) and after a few session of carefully hammering/spooning, brought the lows back to where they should be. There is so little diff now, that a bit charged sprayed layer of primer should suffice to cover it completely.




Another little thing; on the rear window lip, passenger side, no matter the excess of kit being used, the water had found its way, and there were 2 places that needed attention, or better said: a small chirurgical intervention. So cut these sick places, made templates with excess (to trim later), sprayed some zinc and zapped in some strong zincor metal. Poof: like new!




Eventually a day with no rain and my "help people" available came so I finally could push the car on street, turn it and push it back in to start the next chapter of the body restoration: fixing the rusty rear! Much better light and of course my tools/bench near!




Time to get to work: the most rear part of the trunk floor is crispy and so is the taillight panel...
Plan from 3 weeks ago was to remove the tail panel... but turns out no less than 79 spot welds needed be drilled among other things... The poor thing might be in a bad shape, it was amazing how hard it fought me to finally let go! My back demanded me to do this in 2 steps!




The last 10 cm / 3'' were the toughest. Somehow that poor thing, still healthy there, didn't want to let go and I had to be a real man to persuade it!




Because last weekend the weather decided to be seasonal unlike past weeks. I did what I wanted do for a while: clean up the fold down. The idea, obviously, was to remove the dirt, but mainly to see if I will need to change the carpet or not. Few hours later with loads of soap/washing machine stuff and elbow oil, got it so far that no coloured water came out. And put the 3 part of the fold down dry in the sun. Once dry, it was clear that 2 are ok, one is discoloured by the sun. So chances are I will replace them unless I find some kind of pigment/ink for this as the carpet on itself is in good shape. The metal needs plating, so will do this during the winter. I needed have it appart and clean first anyway...




This weekend I've returned to the 71, next patient: The trunk floor. My back didn't really enjoy the idea at first, but eventually after seeing the percentage of rust on my car diminishing every bits I was removing, I found the motivation and in few hours the rusted to death metal was out. Well most of it... I first drilled from behind to make sure I wouldn't cut anything structural and cut in between dots. The real fun was yet to come, as it was so rusty, there was no way to locate the spot welds! ::O




Expecting more corrosion horrors I was actually surprised by 2 things: first the frame is in excellent shape. As if it was zinc coated. In many places it's as new, there is only light rust that will be gone in no time as soon as it meets my acid...
The second good news is that the metal of the floor is healthy at the second V transversal frame piece. Still have the original paint underneath too. So this means less work! As I was planning to remove the fold down structure, which won't be necessary. I should be able to weld the new part on 1/2 that frame lip and obtain very strong bind.
But before I even start do this. I have have plenty more to do in the drop-offs regions...

All with all I've been busy here and there and the project enters a new chapter!

To be continued...

Your sheet metal work looks incredible, as has been the case in all you previous posts! I really enjoy your updates. I'm looking forward to each of your progress reports.

By the way, I'm working on the drawing for the grille center support bracket we discussed. I'm going to do two versions. A concourse correct version, and a slight variation that would be relatively simple to fabricate. I'll send you the DXF, PDF, and the AutoCAD file.

More amazing work, Fabrice! It's always a pleasure to see your craftsmanship and innovation in your updates.

Fabrice said:

Time for a little update

Unlike in most of the world where summer has arrived fr ages, even with crazy high temps, seasons are here locked to October. rain, rain and low temps.
That to say, that in a rare weekends when weather was okish(dry) I went enjoy my 73... well that too, isn't really true at least until a few weeks back..

My Holley Sniper was acting weird for a while and as said in my last post, I bought an external regulator and needed to have the time to install it.
Well, it was a good move because all my issues are gone. from the first test install, where the pressure is to be set, it looks like the pressure was way too high, 72ish vs the 59.5 psi expected by the unit. So once a few tests were done with temp lines, I needed to spend some time to install this properly... and go test drive over a few weeks to see if the problem would return. So far, not a single issue since install..


View attachment 90728

After 2 blank installs to test each lines (feed and return), As I did not wanted to make holes into the firewall and also did not wanted to replaced the breaded hose that was in place for just a few months, I did pick the location where on 73, there is this piece of plastic for vacuum connection that I no longer use for years. so removed it and made a bracket that would bridge nicely. And could cut the line I had. For my 429, I'll install one of these right away but probably else where.


View attachment 90727

In past weeks the 71 project did not stay still. I did lots of things like enjoying to the max for hours the removal of excessive ancient glue/kit stuff from my rear window moldings.
I did not even come to polishing/dents fixing for these, I was simply tired to look at them after this ungratefull task! Took ages as thinner, acetone did nothing and it had to be tediously removed bits by bits! :O

View attachment 90726

the plan was to turn the car around for weeks, but as mother nature served us only rain for weeks, one thing that needed be done is to remove the rest of the paint from the roof. The rest was already done. If you wonder why I remove 4 layers of ancient paint this way: it makes no noise (something my neighbors like) and much less of a mess in my little garage. Tho fun is something else!!

While I did not find anything on the 1/2 roof done previously, on the right front side, I have discovered some ancient repair using bondo and even rust!! :O


View attachment 90725

Once the bondo was removed, the rust turned out to be almost nothing. The metal has some small creases/dents, deep enough to explain the bondo as a repair, as you need to "spoon" from behind and remove the interior/head liner. In my case ofc, no issue with that! So used my self made spoon (and ancient file bended to go places no finger/dolly can go) and after a few session of carefully hammering/spooning, brought the lows back to where they should be. There is so little diff now, that a bit charged sprayed layer of primer should suffice to cover it completely.


View attachment 90724

Another little thing; on the rear window lip, passenger side, no matter the excess of kit being used, the water had found its way, and there were 2 places that needed attention, or better said: a small chirurgical intervention. So cut these sick places, made templates with excess (to trim later), sprayed some zinc and zapped in some strong zincor metal. Poof: like new!


View attachment 90723

Eventually a day with no rain and my "help people" available came so I finally could push the car on street, turn it and push it back in to start the next chapter of the body restoration: fixing the rusty rear! Much better light and of course my tools/bench near!


View attachment 90722

Time to get to work: the most rear part of the trunk floor is crispy and so is the taillight panel...
Plan from 3 weeks ago was to remove the tail panel... but turns out no less than 79 spot welds needed be drilled among other things... The poor thing might be in a bad shape, it was amazing how hard it fought me to finally let go! My back demanded me to do this in 2 steps!


View attachment 90721

The last 10 cm / 3'' were the toughest. Somehow that poor thing, still healthy there, didn't want to let go and I had to be a real man to persuade it!


View attachment 90720

Because last weekend the weather decided to be seasonal unlike past weeks. I did what I wanted do for a while: clean up the fold down. The idea, obviously, was to remove the dirt, but mainly to see if I will need to change the carpet or not. Few hours later with loads of soap/washing machine stuff and elbow oil, got it so far that no coloured water came out. And put the 3 part of the fold down dry in the sun. Once dry, it was clear that 2 are ok, one is discoloured by the sun. So chances are I will replace them unless I find some kind of pigment/ink for this as the carpet on itself is in good shape. The metal needs plating, so will do this during the winter. I needed have it appart and clean first anyway...


View attachment 90719

This weekend I've returned to the 71, next patient: The trunk floor. My back didn't really enjoy the idea at first, but eventually after seeing the percentage of rust on my car diminishing every bits I was removing, I found the motivation and in few hours the rusted to death metal was out. Well most of it... I first drilled from behind to make sure I wouldn't cut anything structural and cut in between dots. The real fun was yet to come, as it was so rusty, there was no way to locate the spot welds! ::O


View attachment 90718

Expecting more corrosion horrors I was actually surprised by 2 things: first the frame is in excellent shape. As if it was zinc coated. In many places it's as new, there is only light rust that will be gone in no time as soon as it meets my acid...
The second good news is that the metal of the floor is healthy at the second V transversal frame piece. Still have the original paint underneath too. So this means less work! As I was planning to remove the fold down structure, which won't be necessary. I should be able to weld the new part on 1/2 that frame lip and obtain very strong bind.
But before I even start do this. I have have plenty more to do in the drop-offs regions...

All with all I've been busy here and there and the project enters a new chapter!

To be continued...

Click to expand...

Wow Fabrice, you are making a lot of progress! Everything you have done has turned out very well. I wish I could fabricate and weld as well as you can. I have been at the stage you are right now with the rear sheet metal. I remember there sure were a heck of a lot of spot welds to drill out, I don't miss doing that stage at all, haha.



Coincidentally I was just working on my fold down seat panels this last Sunday. My car was originally green with a green interior and I painted it white and am changing the interior to black. The carpet was rough and had been spray dyed from green to black by a previous owner. This is why I did not even attempt to clean it, but just ordered new carpet panels. The back of the seat panel and the hinges were originally painted green, so I just painted them black to match the interior. I also spray dyed the silver metallic vinyl the previous owner installed on the seats to black as a temporary "band-aid" so I can drive it this summer. I intend to reupholster all of the seats over the winter. I am hoping to get some time this week to finish work on the folding seat parts, so I can take them to the car this weekend and get them out of the garage and in to the car.



Keep up the great work, all the expert workmanship you have done so far has been really impressive!

@t.kohlmeyer thx. Well, take your time. I'll see once I got the files what I could do.

@Sheriff41 thx, tho I'm being more destructive than anything else atm!

@tpj71mach I can return you the same compliments: WOW! Yeah drilling out these spot welds wasn't really much fun. My back did not like the tail light panel lowest ones!!! You have removed the door/structure I see. On my side I'm lucky as the metal is in really good shape right after the last beads of the floor and won't need to remove that. I wasn't looking forward for it and my back even less!
For the fold down, I only wanted to clean it and have it in 3 pieces as it weight a ton. I'm not sure yet what I'll do with it. The carpet is not really a problem, I mean the metal around each piece. It's in good condition but rust is present just enough to annoy me. Not sure if I will re-plate, polish and coat or as you did, silver paint them or buy some stainless or aluminium square tubbing... I won't get to this thing for a while, so plenty time to decide what to do.
Good luck with the welding back!

Always an inspiration Fabrice. If you are having back problems maybe you need to get yourself a work stool like this. If you are still having trouble, get the other one

@Vern Cook thx, I have a chair ( a classic Dutch school chair for young kids) but working on this trunk floor is about moving crawling, stand up etc... and me being a programmer not moving enough during the week, I pay the weekends !!

Tiny little update
I was planning to do much more this weekend, but crappy weather and other stuffs came along
and started on the 71 around 16:00... No time to start on big things...



First a little rewind in time. A couple of weeks back, before starting on the rear of the car, I went looking for what I would need...
Because I'm at this point in restoration where I do not need much and as shipping from the USA has reached stellar levels. I try to look in the Netherlands and surrounding countries to buy what I need...

Unfortunately, for the 4 little things I needed, 2 drop-offs and 2x inner brackets (is it even their name??) , by most shops I could find having them listed, the same "out of stock/not before xmas" showed up.

Even more annoying, is the absolutely crazy price for these. I mean, How can this bracket, not even close to what the originals look like, be costing 35 euros, €70 the pair ($76) not even counting the near 20 euros shipping. Then the drop-offs, not even in the metal quality I would like, be about €110 euros the piece?? I mean, these are made by the thousands and should be 1/4 of what they ask for. Mebbe it's me, but I can't accept to pay for simple parts that are not worth the material/fabrication. This simply does not compute for me! And I'd wait till chicken grow teeth too to have them here! :O

PLAN B it is!
Instead bought a meter of square tubbing (which also required me to seek a normal shop as too many tend to think that iron is some kind of precious metal these days). I ordered the 40x40x2mm tube much longer to make the brackets as I need more to stiffen my bead roller to handle the metal quality and gauge that I plan for the drop-offs. For the latter, I needed buy a new sheet of zincor in 1mm.
Total at my door 16 euros fo tube, 25 for the sheet! Both much bigger than needed. Bam!



Ok, so fast forward to yesterday: as it was late in the afternoon. I decided to use the time I had to fab copies of these crusty babies...

In case you need these, the rest of my post should show how easy to not only make them, but also end up with a pair that is much closer to the originals than what shops dare to sell for 40 buxx a piece!




To make these, I only used a cutting disc, a grinding disc, files and my MIG welder. First started to measure the dimensions of the originals (taking in account the missing bits at their ends due to corrosion) and make a template of on side, reserving 2 extra mm for the welding (the why being detailed bellow)

Started first to cut the 2 raw tubbing 4x4cm x 2mm, (roughly 1.6 inch side), in pair, so I could do each same cuts 4 time and build the bodies in tandem ( 4 cuts because their sides are mirrored and we have 2! )

It doesn't take a rocket science degree to cut them, but made a small mistake ( as you can see on the lowest part of the image, the left overs that I wanted to make the side lips from were too far cut...)




Top left shows the little mistake, so as I had some scrap metal, rests of an ancient fence, prepped it and would use it vs the left overs from the "bodies" cuts.
Then because we use square tubes, it's time to make sure the little difference on each side of the bodies are rectified (so it can lay flat ) and it's time to use some file, deburring tool.
At this point the sides are done.



Next step is to cut strips, wider than the originals. fold them to meet the shape of the body (forgot take a picture when I folded them, but you can see top right ) Then once the lips fit the profile of the side, I've tacked them in place on my vice. The extra metal of the cut as said above, is to obtain a good bind for the weld and prevent the extra work on the visible side. Tho in practice welding with good power, some of my beads went to the other side! but not too many!




Then it's a question of welding the lips on the inside and once cold, time for grinding and trimming to size as the originals.




Tadaaaa! Once cut, trimmed and filed, I ended up with copies close to the originals and with the satisfaction to have saved a few buxx too!

Hoping to be able to do more next weekend!

To be continued...

Better than the original ones, incredible Fabrice, always on the top!!!

You do incredible work. Very professional!

You inspire us all and get the best out of us Fabrice.

Hey all,
Some weekends have passed and I did not post anything.

Weather has been nice after weeks of rain, so I've been enjoying my 73 more than usual ( ain't it the goal!?)
So this took some time off my 71 project. That having said, it's not like I went go burn my skin on a beach!
I did spend some time in my dark cave!!

Not perse in chronological order, as I sometimes worked on a part and finished later on...



I've finished reproducing the trunk "thingies". I did the "butterflies" a while back, which are for those not familiar with these, they are the stops for the door latches when you have the fold down option. They are welded on top of the trunk floor.
A rubber with a channel gets squeezed into them and the quite massive 2 ears of the latch are then secure and prevent the door to move/vibrate and damage the trunk floor.
And the two others, are I think to hold electric stuff or support lines of some kind. not sure actually, but there were 2 on my rusty floor, so make 2 new ones taking care of being as accurate as possible.




While the 2 reinforcements wil be welded in place when the tailpanel will return, As I also did work on the floor and trimmed it roughly to my needs in order to check and test measurements for many
other things on the todo. it was time to weld these babies in place as working outside the car is more easy than later on. Here I do trust a tad the stamped marking for the location to be correct. I might have to correct the latch if not much later on if not, but measurements on my old floor and the new one seamed close enough to gamble and assume they will be at the right spot...

Notice the copper plate top right. for each one, I have welded them at high power, which could potentially make holes. Acting as an heat sink, that worked pretty well and the thingies are not going away anytime soon!



Next on the todo was.. well lets start by the problem first: I got these lower quarter patches, that also do come (supposed to) with the lower part that connects the quarter to the drop offs.
Except there was some kind of issue with these Canadian made pieces. First the way they spot welded these is absolutely terrible and the overlaps are open invitation to rust and frankly made my eyes bleeds by just looking at them!!!

Worse, the sides are supposed to be welded against the drop off's, which are flat. With a difference no less than 1.8 cm/ 0.7 inch over the length, it became clear within seconds than these were Impossible to be used as is... soooooo, instead of focusing on the already long todo, I had to reconstruct this left patch that should have come failry accurate in the first place (the right one is straight and will only require beautifying)




The steps I needed go thru were really multiple. In short, its was about measuring on the car to have the exact same distance to car. especially have the distance of the furthest point (where the rear valance is supposed to align to) and ensure the piece side was absolutly straight to match the drop off's. Took me a while but ended up with a descent result. Still need grind a few details, but I did not have small discs in house to access these beads...




Hard to see on the picts, but next step was to reproduce the connection from the inner wheel case to the to be install later on floor. This part of the inner wheel house, was partly shewed up by the rust and did not apreciate the chiselling to get the spot welds out as none of my tools could reach that place. so as usual, cut and fix it is!




Next on the todo: the lower outter wheel. Basically where the drop offs, quarter, lower quarter and wheel house meet. Very common place to be very weak or gone on our cars. No way I'm gonna weld fresh metal on this misery!! :O So first step: ROUGHLY reproduce both sides. I say roughly because at this point, with lots f metal gone and lower quaters not fixed yet, its not really possible to define the required curvature.
But curvature there will be!! so made bucks to hammer shape the later on to be required metal.. at this point what matters is to have proper measure for the inner sides and bottom.



The next part of the game, the no way back is to cut the lower wheel house to obtain later on a 100% perfect fit to the drop off surface. The more complex part is the outter part and ensure the extra metal previoulsy roughtly shaped metal do match the cut shape and its curvature. Let's just say my hammers did proide my neighbors some nice beats
At some point, the rusty and strong do match and because I do not have a 30 tons press, I need go plan B and provide the missing piece to connect.



And come the reward moment: test fit and all matches! Wohoo!

But that's only 2 out of 3 steps! Next will be to template the radius of the quarter lip onto the side of the metal. Cut the curve and insert the 90 degrees curved lip where the quarter skin lip is supposed to be welded onto!

And theeeeeennnnnn, IF the plan goes well, I need do the exact same thing on the other side!!
And theeeen I actually can think of putting back stuffs together vs cut and build!

To be continued....

oh and a little extra.
As I try to document everything that really goes into this.. I forgot a few details that I did and will not mention later on as I will forget!



I did more details, like further paint removal to inspect the metal that might or not be in need of a future surgery.
That show that I will need to straighten a few things. Not much, but the top connection to quarter will need extra attention.
I mention this, because at this stage the corners are free, and you eventually will have to remove them to fix. And it's way more easy to do it now than when you have all back and no more space to work.



Also if you remove the tail light, instead of having the regular radius, most spot welds on that thing are huge, at least mine were. meaning I had to push more than usual with the spot drill bit and ended up create load of extra holes. Which I needed of course to weld back (with a copper plate clamped behind to obtain a flat bead on the other side with no to little grinding). And if your drop offs/tail light panel are crunchy as mine were. Chance are also high you will need as well to patch the corners of the most front frame rail. No biggy, easy and all, but that also extra work that needs to be done in order to have strong bindings from the drop offs to the frame.

Fabrice, you are the master of metal! Great craftsmanship!

@Sheriff41 Thank you, I wish I were but I'm light years away from that!
I try to learn but man it's hard tho I confess I start to like it! I wish I had more tooling to help, but being hobbyist, it doesn't make sense to invest in these expensive tools for the one or two times I'll ever need them... so call me plan B expert instead !!

Fabrice said:

oh and a little extra.
As I try to document everything that really goes into this.. I forgot a few details that I did and will not mention later on as I will forget!

View attachment 92622

I did more details, like further paint removal to inspect the metal that might or not be in need of a future surgery.
That show that I will need to straighten a few things. Not much, but the top connection to quarter will need extra attention.
I mention this, because at this stage the corners are free, and you eventually will have to remove them to fix. And it's way more easy to do it now than when you have all back and no more space to work.

View attachment 92621

Also if you remove the tail light, instead of having the regular radius, most spot welds on that thing are huge, at least mine were. meaning I had to push more than usual with the spot drill bit and ended up create load of extra holes. Which I needed of course to weld back (with a copper plate clamped behind to obtain a flat bead on the other side with no to little grinding). And if your drop offs/tail light panel are crunchy as mine were. Chance are also high you will need as well to patch the corners of the most front frame rail. No biggy, easy and all, but that also extra work that needs to be done in order to have strong bindings from the drop offs to the frame.

Click to expand...

Nice metal fab work!

Hi Fabrice, I was having a little sleep under the car which I do sometimes when the wife has her friends over and I saw something, and I said to myself, I've seen that before.
It turns out to be the bracket you have just made and showcased in your last post and thought maybe it holds electrical paraphernalia.
So it is under the car and I have a feeling that my fuel tank straps were bolted to them. In any case I have a couple of photos and you can make up your own mind.
Vern

Awesome metal work! Looking at your pics reminds me how happy I am to be finished with that stage of the resto on my car!

Long time not posted anything!! :O

I've been occupied with non mustang related stuffs lately, and while my "cave time" has been reduced, I've been busy as usual.
I did not post anything and picts started to pile up! Tme to address that!



Time has again been spent on both sides lower quarters, which were not only very poorly made, but also totally off on so many aspects.
From the fold to drop-offs not being straight that needed be addressed, to find out the distance fold to drop-offs was wrong, distance to end to floor, shape to match wheel house... basically I can say these quarter were by far the worst piece of repop sheet I have ever encountered!!




What was made for the driver side, needed be done as well, and because the car has been repaired on a few places the wrong way and also because on some places the metal was damaged by corrosion. I have been hammering, cutting and rebuild lots of things. That in order to obtain perfect fit, straight and strong for the final assembly ( that's the goal, we'll see how that goes on that day! )




Because the floor was next, I also had to fix a lot of that piece simply because, well, it does not fit the way I define something to fit. There too, errors on the stamping or poorly cut places such as the fuel hole, which would ensure to have issues installing the filler neck later on...
And once the frame is prepped, in thick layer of epoxy and you have a fit that fits, you have to enjoy making about 200 holes, that if you care to have as many welds as the original spot welds. yes! +-200!!! :O



Many MANY tests fits later, changes to the metal and the also corrected drop-offs in place ( funny detail, I was whining about the price of these to find out I had bought them many years ago and found them with the floor sheet, so did not had to made new ones! . They did not ask for much correction, but they had to be test fitted with the wheel house and floor to allow me to weld them before welding the floor as a whole. Which turned out later to be a good idea as because they were precisely placed they helped guide the whole floor in place with a fairly good accuracy for the final adjustment.




No way back! It was time to weld the 200 holes, and because I decided to keep the healthy part of the upper floor (and therefor save my back the removal of the fold down structure) I had to weld nearly 1.5 meter where 1 meter on the back was on high temperature to make sure the floor and body were having a strong bond because it's not really the best place to cut/weld. (tho my back told me it was the ideal place as all went pretty ok and saved me tons of fold down structure removals)

and then the joys of grinding.... grinding and grinding and also grinding. Not to forget the few holes that needed be re-welded because not fully covered and grind again! My neighbors were absolutely delighted I'm sure! :O




But hey, my floor was in place!! As I had cut partially the overkill big bar part of the fold down to allow my tools to access the welds, it had after clean ups and protection to be placed back in place... another serious amount of welds later I could enjoy again grinding in a weird position!




In between activities there was also the latch support that needed help. The poor thing had been twisted, it was weak on all its connections and rusty. So after enjoying my acid bath, I've reinforced it while test fitting it on the new tail panel...



Speaking of tail panel. The baby comes as a universal piece, so when you have the honeycomb option, you need the holes!! Which is not as easy as one may think, at least if you want something fairly near of where the holes should be so the plastic thing hangs right! And because it's a 71, you also need to weld close the 73 specific holes that you do not want like the extra ones meant for the extension that goes in between panel and bumper. Finaly I could enjoy weld in place the restored latch support after making sure the 2 recess allowed a perfect contact to the frame connector... Not too shabby repop. Tho I noticed a little diff, the original has a round recess where the electrics go to the plate light. this one is straight. as its hidden I did not merge the old with new for this. But if you're after concours, know that there is a diff!




Oh yeah, of course, I won't detail the joys of paint removal, de-rusting, acid spraying and the most incredible positions you need to take to access some regions of the body.... or the multiple local reconstructions like this upper corner, where you need to weld upside down laying inside on your freshly installed new floor to reconstruct the channel, after of course have removed the double metal sheet and welded it back. change the fold metal against the quarter... So much fun!!




And then it was time for a great idea!: The flange patch being unavail at my local shops, and the one found online sold for an idiotic price when you add the shipping and the tax (y a know, the famous tarifffffsssss). Well I decided: I'm gonna build the dang thing!! and if I fail, I can always open my veins later on, but at least I try! Dang tarifffffs! :O

Soooo once I agreed on the stupid idea.... one thing I can tell now that I did not really taken in account, was the fact that our wheel "arches" are NOT regular in terms of curves! Like really not!!
I've spent time to make templates, make bucks and also spent AGES to actually be able to fold the metal with inverted crowns and 90 degrees sharp edges.
Lucky me, turns out on exception of 2 locations, the wheel house metal was strangely strong while the skin was eaten to death. For the wheel house I also needed to build "tools" ( read: repro the curve and cut/sand wood ) for these as well, as they need be the exact opposite as the exterior piece but smaller radius...
That alone costed me a few afternoons in my near freezing point garage....




So far so good, replaced about a +-20 inches in and out and I should not need much bondo for the little imperfections . Each new patch, I "light test for pinholes the previous one and went on that way. This past Sunday I've reached the point where I'm at the last big chunk. ancient dents are gone, and metal is healthy, but dang it its a lot of templates making :O Next weekend I'll enjoy upside down welding inside the wheel house for that last piece that is now just tack welded in place. The good news is that the other side is in a much better condition!




Did also some "inside" jobs, one of them, was to close a hole, that was not even round, that was I bet some alarm related light or switch from the past. This baby is right into your face when you sit behind the steering wheel, so after some "plastic welding", spent some time on the texture, and it's soon gonna be getting another primer/sanding session to soften scratches made to later on look more like the original texture. For now, I can't even see where the hole was, so thats good....


Still here? Sorry for this long post!
I'll try to return to regular updates from now on!

To be continued....

Missed you Fabrice, but I think you've made up for it.