latoracing

I just recieved a quote from Keisler about 2 min. ago for a TKO-600 "perfect fit" set-up, I am wanting to build a 427W and specked out a trans that would handle 600 pound feet of tourque. The quote included everything to convert an auto to a stick, minus the flywheel, with a hyd. clutch mech, quick time bell housing, 10.5" stage 3 clutch, drive shaft, trans mount... for $5705.00 to my door. I had a sS-700 quoted a while back, and it was allmost the same, like $200.00 more, shipped. I have read good and bad things about them, haven't ordered anything, just two quotes.

The right side quarter is on for the final time, all nice and prepped for welding. At least this side went back together without any problems. I had the priviledge of showing my step son how to TIG weld this afternoon. He has never shown any intrest in this before, kinda likes the XBOX more than anything. I am impressed with his progress, he was using filler rod and running beads on some mild steel in less than 2 hours. Took me months to learn what he did in an afternoon. Hopefully he will stick with it. Going to get the left side quarter prepped and do some more fitting before I light it all up. Lots more drilling, yea.......

You, and your "crew" are getting this thing into shape, quickly. My wife doesn't even like to come out in my shop, much less want to pick up a welding lead. What "brand" are the front fenders, and did they fit? I went rear end first, and haven't bought the front end yet, but will get there one day. Your project is looking quite nice!

I have tried to correct the funky gap at the front of the quarter, but with full pannels, twisting it up messes up a bunch of the other parts, like the rear glass fitment, and the quarter to tail light pannel. My door can be adjusted down, there is a gap at the bottom, (the factory quarter was 1/4" higher) so once I put it all back on, I will adjust it and see if it is any better. If not, I'll cut it and make it fit, that is no big deal, except cutting on a new quarter. Like I've said before, I've made worse work. I have been finishing up all the little brackets, and getting ready for all of this to be one big assyembly. I made the reinforcement strip for the drivers side, removed the old "strap" from my old inner wheel house, and got it all nice and fried together. I need to get the rest of my welds ground down, and all the unseen surfaces prepped for some epoxy primer. I guess I will have to take the driver's side quarter off and on a couple more times, but the pass. side is fixin' to get drilled, and put back on for hopefully the last time, we'll see... :punk:

What place did you buy the quarters from? 95% of the parts I have purchaced are from CJ Pony Parts, and have been pleased with their service. (Free shipping except for large items) I did buy the inner wheel tubs from Goodmark ind. quite expensive, (and other people are carring them now.) along with the direct buy from Dynacorn for the trap door frame. I am shure the quality of Dynacorn parts (who ever their supplier is) will continue to get better. It is still A WHOLE LOT better than some of the JJ crap I've installed in the past. Just a few issues to work out with the B pillar area on both quarters, I've got the entire rear of the car taken apart fitting the deck lid, and prepping for a bunch of welding and grinding.

Shifter handle out of Alum., adjustable strut tower brace with some 303 stainless steel hex stock and some 1/2" x 20tpi hyme joints, (left and right hand threads so you don't have to take it off to adjust). I made a simple alt. bracket out of some 6061-T6, and machined the offsets and radi in it, with out the CNC controller, that was fun. I guess if you look around enough, there are a bunch of small brackets or maby even a knob of some sort that would need to be turned, then machined. Be creative, customize some alum. valve covers...

Nice build, with a fantastic final product. This will be alot of fun once all buttoned up.

This quarter pannel all most went in the yard several times! I can't believe this stupid thing would not go on. I have beat on, pried, trimmed, and all most took a BFH to it several times. I gave it one last try, and adjusted the bend at the rocker pannel, and got it screwed into place. It was a compromise between the wheel well and the door, the wheel well won. I adjusted the door to fit the factory quarter before I removed it. This one, as you can see in the pics, is way off at the top, and is crashing at the bottom. The passenger side is the same way, but not nearly as bad as this one. Thankfully, the pannel sits about 1/4" lower than the factory, and there is a gap at the bottom of the door that I didn't like when I lined it up. It might work out just fine. I used Dynacorn parts, like I have been, and this one, well I'm glad I didn't start on this side of the car. Hopefully the rest of the parts will go on without a bunch of problems. I would still use these parts agean though, it could have been worse! :surrender:

(quote) I'd like to get lighter doors, just not sure how I would run fiberglass doors, with lexan windows of course, but that can also be "rolled" up and down. Or some sort of system where I can latch it closed (as simple as possible) and unlatch to open it. I can't remember where I saw it, but there was a race car, with lexan windows that used a nylon strap to open / close the window. I suppose the tracks were stock, or made, and the strap attached at the bottom of the window. The strap was long enough to allow the window to rest on the stops when down, and when pulled to shut the window, it snapped to the door pannel, close to the arm rest, to keep it there. Kinda retro, simple and effective.

Tore it all apart, swiss cheesed all the attachment places, and fixed my last frame rail patch. Put it back together, tacked it up, and welded it all in place. The only thing left to attach is the outter wheel house to the trunk drop off. Won't go there untill the quarter is ready to be attached. Started grinding some of the welds on the inside. This is much better than watching football, plus my project is fixing to look a whole lot better. Up next, more quarter pannel fitting...

One other thing, if you can make a "shot bag" it will adsorb alot of the noise, and keep your nice new quarters from getting dented. If you don't hold the dolly square to the surface you can dent your skin. (like I did on the bottom of my door) I do use a home made dolly, out of an old rubber mallett, and a chunk of 1.5" steel bar for weight, on stuff like this. My ears like the shot bag alot better, a little lighter, but gets the job done, with less bouncing.

Mike, (good name by the way) I don't think it is awfully difficult, I've done it several ways, building, and complete. My prefered way is the hammer and dolly method. I seem to be able to flatten it out better, but you still have to be careful not to mess up the outside. It is a little easier to move the lip up when it is not trimmed, to begin with. You have to work it up a little at a time, if you take one spot and flatten it totaly, it will buckle. Eastwoods roller looks like it would work, if the rear end was still in the car, haven't tried that yet. I have tried pie cutting the lip on an old Fox body project, and welding it after, you can get it really flat, but it is alot more work, it was ok, wouldn't do it agean. Take your time, keep the outter edge nice and rounded, not a sharp bend. It really isn't that bad to do. Good luck, Mike

I'm installing full quarters, and fairly much every component on the rear of my car, and will be rolling the lip also. I am going to weld up eveything, just like a stock install, then roll / trim the lip. I thought about doing it before, I just don't want the two to seperate, and not be able to get them attached after bending them up. I agree with Fordrevhead and Buckeyes points as well.

Last post of 2012, hope everyone has a great 2013! Started fitting parts today, it is starting to look like a Mustang agean, at least in the rear. I had the inner wheel house semi fitted in order to modify the frame rail, so it went in with out too much drama. The trunk drop off is a little short of hitting the correct placement though, no big deal. The outter wheel house took a little bit of finesse in order for it to fit. Once the two halves were screwed together, I had to get the entire inner structure to sort of shrink. When I removed the outter wheel well support, I drilled 1/8" holes in it before removing it, so now all I did was cleco this bracket into place and clamped the parts together, then installed the screws. There was a 1/2" between the two. Once secure, it measured correctly, which is nice that I didn't mess this up. I had to try the quarter pannel fit, which wasn't as great as the right side, but once pried and pushed into place, it will work quite nicely. The major exterior parts on the car are still held on by screws, in order to get all of this stuff on and fitted with the deck lid. I will remove the quarter and the wheel houses, in order to get them welded into place, then more fitting and prepping for a whole bunch of welding. I like the way it is looking, RUST FREE!!! :punk:

Welcome to the site jonwen. There are several companies offering rear suspension set-ups for classic Mustangs, trust me, I've looked. Price and quality does come into play, just like anything else. Some that I've considered doing business with are Ride Tech, TCP, Griggs, and the one I ordered the complete front and rear set up from is Street or Track. I wanted to have a single supplyer on my suspension, and I didn't want to mis match coil-overs, or have to engineer my own set up. The coil over will dictate how much suspension travel you will have, there agean, it can vary between 3.5" to 5.5" (or more) depending on supplyer and application. Some people will swear by their leaf spring set ups, if that is what they like, me, I wanted to have the suspension to not bind, or use a component to do more than one "task" (ie. keeping the housing centered, and supporting the car,...) at a time. Plus, my car is getting a wider inner wheel well, and re-locating the leaf springs would not work to well. Search around, there are + / - to everything, find what you like, and can afford, it is not exactly cheep. Good luck

I had intended on fitting my wheel houses today, after I fixed my "little" rust problem, ha ha ha, found more... I started looking at my frame rail, and could see my work light through a couple of pin holes in the bottom of the rail. Oh boy, it was crunchy in a 9" area, there was no way I was going to leave that alone, espically with the possible grip this thing might have when done. More of the same, templates, marking the areas to cut out, bla bla bla... I did want to make this repair "invisible" when done. Rounding the filler parts of my repair made shure there was plenty of metal left after all was ground nice and flush. This type of repair had to be strong, so everything got a backing plate installed to make extreamly shure this would not fail. After making all the parts, the frame rail was trimmed, and drilled for the rosette welds (to hold the backing plates) I installed the repairs one side at a time, then installed the bottom last. Welded all of it solid, and ground it all down. I think it turned out nice, cause once I sprayed primer on it, you can't tell anything was done, kinda like when I started this morning. At least it is fixed, on to the tub fitting! :punk:

Looking at your build thread, looks like alot of fun metal work. It is scary how much rot can be in these cars. Keep up the good work, I'm shure this will all be worth every minute.

It was a nice day to be out playing with some metal. I wanted to at least get this part made up before installing the wheel house, it was a lot easier to get to, plus I found more rust I need to fix. The part I am working on can be bought, as the entire sail pannel, but I don't want to go there now, so I'll patch it. I don't have a sheet metal brake at the house, so some vice grips and some flat bar does what I need it to on this part. To make the radius the same, I am using the right side of the sail pannel as my template, and making it backwards. Using cardboard as the templates, and radius gauges, gets me in the ball park. I bought an Eastwood sand bag and plastic mallett set a couple of years ago, and love to beat on some metal with them. A little hammering, some trimming and fitting, more hammering... untill it starts to look like the part I need. I cheated just a little, and used the new floor pan to also check my progress as I went. This took a little while longer than I thought it would, but once it was all tacked up, trimmed, then final welded and ground, it is going to be just right. I am going to install it when I put my new floor pan in, just to make shure it will fit. There are a few hammer marks in it, which I will smoothe out, but for now, it is back to wheel house fitting, and more rust repair. :hammer:

Merry Christmas, and a nice nap after all of the hoopla!

Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas! I am taking a break, and thought I'd give an update. Made the attachment flange for the front part of my frame rail, cleaned up everything, and fried all of it together. Ground everything nice and smoothe and shot some primer over it. The trunk floor is also all welded up. Removed the gas tank agean, and installed the corner brackets (easy pcs. to fab) and welded them in. I want to go ahead and fix my sail pannel before I get back on the inner wheel house, since it is a little easier to reach right now. I'm taking pics, so I will show some more at home fabrication.:santa:

I am boxing myself into a corner, so to speak. The rear end suspension I am going to run sorta messes up any type of over the axle exhaust. I really don't want "dumps" as they tend to blow dust all over the place. I kinda like the set up on the Agent 47 car. I don't know how the pipes are attached to the underside, or through the quarter. Looks to me like these would be solid mounted, with some sort of flex pipe at the connection to the rest of the system. The systems you have listed will work, they will be lower than you may like with the sub frame connectors. You could have a local shop bend you up some and use some oval pipe for the last few feet to run to the rear torque box area. Are you wanting to run the glass pack set up? I am wanting chambered mufflers, I got over glass packs in the '80s, they still sound cool though.

Put my "gussett" in the frame rail this afternoon. Welded it into place, along with all the beef up plates at the joints. Cleaned up the area, more rust preventor while it was still warm. Went ahead and swiss cheesed my trunk floor, so it will be ready to install. Stuck it in place with self tapping screws, reinstalled the gas tank, and it is ready to weld...

Playing with the frame rail and trunk floor this afternoon, had some old (it can't be that old) Iron Maden cranked up in the shop, just having a nice afternoon to myself. Got the filler section for the outer part of the frame rail cut, bent and tacked into place. Removed the remnents of the old trunk floor and drop off. Bunches of scraping and wire wheeling is always a good way to coat everything in the shop with a nice reddish hue, but it had to be done. Once that was fairly clean I fit the new trunk floor to the frame rail and all other attachment points. I marked the underside so I can drill it off the car and remove the section for the mini tub. Prepped and sealed the inner frame rail, so it will be dry for the next time I get to mess with it. I did make the reinforcement plate for the frame rail, and also shot it with some weld throgh primer. So far, it is going alot easier the second time around, imagine that. The gas tank was removed, and replaced several times this afternoon, it actually lined back up, which is nice. More to come...

I have been searching the net this afternoon, along with this site, and haven't found alot of intrest in a "R" model valance. I have seen some air dam ideas, but nothing quite like a 65/66 bumperless front end on a '69/70. I know that there will be a bunch of opinions on modding the front end. Names like RICER, and the dreaded Elenor will come up, but there must be something a little diffrent, yet tastful to do. I have sketched some ideas, but I am not quite ready to show what I've come up with yet. Some inspiration came from the cover of Modified Mustangs and Ford, with the cover featuring the Ring Brother's Producer, and of cource, the Shelby GT 350R, and a carbon fiber splitter. I might regret opening this can of worms, but what is the general thoughts on such of a mod?

Welcome to the community. Your build is a little better off than starting with a roof and a title, still alot of work. I'm shure your wife will like all of your hard work. I don't know if I would send her a bill for it though...lol