Slowest resto ever - Project AmsterFoose / Current subject: The bloody floor.

[Fabrice]

I told you this weekend, you're getting a champ at this! 120 tags of love!

 

[droptop73]

Very nice work!

 

[Steve McMahan]

Pop welds are the devil himself. You are truly a craftsman. You inspire me to become a better welder.

 

[Vinnie]

The RH quarter is finished

Before and after:



So all together the RH- and LH quarter are done as well as the taillight panel and the cowl. Only 3 biggies are left; the RH and LH floor pans which I have in storage already and the battery tray needs work. I'm thinking of moving the battery to the trunk so I could maybe fabricate a replacement panel that mirrors the LH side which will improve the look of the engine bay later... And of course there are lots of little holes from trim that won't come back and other stupid holes from the factory. I want my car to be as airtight as possible so that the moist Dutch air doesn't come in when parked outside...

Meanwhile I think I should also remove more parts off of the car like the exhaust and drive shaft.

 

[Vinnie]

Had to lift the car further and wanted to be able to move the rear around so I finished my home made wheel dollies. They are really strong, no flexing whatsoever:

View attachment IMG_7376.MOV

And then I wanted to try and get the drive shaft out but the exhaust was in the way, so I removed those instead:



The bolts that fix it to the manifold came off without problems.

 

[Vinnie]

Because I didn't want my resto to go tooooo fast, I took a small all-inclusive vacation with the family to the Turkish riviera:



When I got home, I had a great surprise, my front discs arrived! These were ordered through NPD on January 4th!



I now have Wilwood discs in store for all 4 wheels. When it comes to the esthetics of my future ride, this was on the top of my must-have list. CHECK!

 

[Vinnie]

This weekend I had 2 goals.

1) Remove the driveshaft. Not very hard, it weighed a LOT less than I thought!







I did not have bearings falling out of the U-joint or oil running out of my C6. The whole thing was a lot less eventful as expected.

2) I wanted to start ripping out the floor. After drilling out spotwelds for the seat riser, which got real frustrating, I started grinding them out with my power file. This went a lot better and it left the chassis beams in good shape (= no holes from drilling)




Got the first part out. Pretty happy!

 

[Vinnie]

Pfff, no posts for over a month... What's been happening (apart from being quarantained for 9 days due to Covid...)?

I de-rusted the sides of the RH seat riser that touch the floor in phosphoric acid. :



After cleaning it up I primed it so it won't rust for a while. Oh, and I patched that cut out at the top in the middle:



ALso cut out the rest of the floor:



At the bottom of the floor pan there is a hook that guides the E-brake cable. I took it off the old floor and welded it on to the bottom of the new RH floor pan:



While the floor is out, this is a good time to put in subframe connectors. Ordering ones from the USA and shipping them to EU is too expensive so I decided to make them myself. So I found a website with this drawing:



It stated they also fit 71-73 model Mustangs. Since I have to start somewhere I decided to believe this and bought some tubing and put a set together:





After cutting open the front frame rail it was time for test fitting:



At first glance it looked OK but when checking underneath I saw it was not lined up with the torque box very well:



As I do not want to use too much force to put it in place I have decided to cut open the 2 170 degree welds and adjust the connector by putting it in place first. Apparently those 170 degree angles are not right for our cars (or just mine...). But, before I do so I want to know if the other side is off as well and if so, if it's off just as much.

So I have started to take out the LH floor as well now:



To be continued...