Introduction and '69 convertible build

[Tgriffin91 27]

Good work. I just finished welding in my floors. Although I only had small repairs not entire floors like you. I started putting in the dash and harness, just have to finish grinding as well and then paint.

Thinking I will be starting her up tonight when I get home from work :P

[bryonbush 85]

thats amazing man. always amazes me when i see something like this get done. wayyyy more patience than i have.

[Happystang 10]

Good work. I just finished welding in my floors. Although I only had small repairs not entire floors like you. I started putting in the dash and harness, just have to finish grinding as well and then paint.

Thinking I will be starting her up tonight when I get home from work :P

 

Yeah, just fired mine up today. Felt sooooo good!

 

thats amazing man. always amazes me when i see something like this get done. wayyyy more patience than i have.

 

Thank you!! Honestly it's not that bad of a job, just takes a lot of discipline to make sure you do things right the first time. This is my first really big welding and fabricating job. I think I did alright!

 

So close yet so far :)

 

I still have to reassemble the car, fix the front frame rail where the bumper mounts and eventually tackle the trunk...

 

The trunk will probably wait until I go to paint the car. I need to drill some spot welds that would show through the tail light panel. Don't want patches of primer showing on the outside... (nothing wrong with primer, it's cool!)

 

 

 

More from today...

 

 

Welded in the parking brake bracket. I actually have one now!! The first time I tried using the parking brake when I got the car was hilarious. I pressed the pedal and it ripped out the bracket from the floor. It was just dangling there so I ended up just tearing it completely out in the middle of a parking lot. :skullnbones:

 

 

I put down sound deadener as well. It's a combination of Boom Mat and peel and seal from Lowe's :) Also test fit the carpet. Looks MUCH better than the old clapped out carpet that came in the car. It's going to look good with the console and rest of the interior.

 

Also ground down some more welds under the car and painted it all black. No way I was going to leave it silver. I'd get to pissed every time I'd drive through a puddle and get mud over the shiny paint :) I think the repair is fairly seamless. Could never tell I did all that work from underneath! (that's what I was going for lol)

 

 

Not pictured, but I removed the carpet, installed one seat and the steering column so I could drive the car into the garage. Moved it a whopping 20 feet, but it still felt good to be driving it again!! Missed that cam lope at idle lol...

 

 

 

[Happystang 10]

Finished the front frame rail today! As you can see it was a bit worse for wear... (It was toast)

 

 

The side and the bottom were trashed so I had to fabricate something. The frame rail patch for the bumper I got was super long so I cut it up to patch the bottom as well. Just like I did with the seat belt anchors, I put down an extra bead of weld around the capture nuts for the bumper.

 

 

As you can tell, this piece is almost unrecognizable. It's what's left of the bracket that goes in the frame rail combined with whatever chunks were floating around in there...

 

 

Painted it all with Zero Rust

 

 

 

The patch tacked in place...

 

 

This piece of the front crossmember/radiator support was toast as well so I cut it out with the bottom the frame rail. I fabricated a little patch complete with holes for plug welds to make the repair look more seamless.

 

 

 

All ground down. I need to come back and fill in some pin holes and maybe make things look a bit better, but for now it's good enough lol. There should also be an oval drain hole that I need to replicate at some point as well.

 

 

Done!

 

 

 

 

 

I ground down the rest of the welds and painted the repair black. I actually put the rest of the car back together and drove it today!!! I still need to pull the steering column back out and install the new seal I ordered.

 

 

The sound deadener made a huge difference, the car is much more quiet in the cabin. Having some actual structure in the car is pretty great too! Definitely feels more solid on the road :)

 

I have a few little odds and ends to finish up, but that's for another post. I'll keep you all updated with the finished product! Thanks for tagging along :)

[69RavenConv 286]

The sound deadener made a huge difference, the car is much more quiet in the cabin. Having some actual structure in the car is pretty great too! Definitely feels more solid on the road :)

 

I have a few little odds and ends to finish up, but that's for another post. I'll keep you all updated with the finished product! Thanks for tagging along :)

 

I'm enjoying watching your build, you do good work. I wish I had put a little more sound deadener in my vert. Maybe a little better muffler, too. I went with some economy Turbo's that are OK - the exhaust note is actually pretty sweet - but I'd sacrifice some of that for less drone at speed.

[Happystang 10]

I'm enjoying watching your build, you do good work. I wish I had put a little more sound deadener in my vert. Maybe a little better muffler, too. I went with some economy Turbo's that are OK - the exhaust note is actually pretty sweet - but I'd sacrifice some of that for less drone at speed.

 

Thank you! I used to have Cherry Bomb Turbos. They sounded awesome! I actually ended up changing them out for some Walker Sound FX mufflers. I think it's the exact same design as a turbo muffler but with a larger casing. I'm sure I could uncork a little but more power with some free flowing mufflers, but I daily drive this and it would get too loud with the four speed and 3.55s on the freeway.

 

Can't beat the price at $20 each either!

 

 

Put the seat belts back in, installed a new steering column to firewall seal and screwed down the console. Done! For now...

 

The steering column seal made a HUGE difference in how loud the noise is in the cabin of the car. Significantly brought the sound level down.

 

I'm not impressed with the carpet I bought from CJ's... The front piece is cut a few inches to short. Not cool!

 

[Happystang 10]

It was a nice day at the beach the other day! Surf sucked, the view was nice :)

 

[mustang351 10]

Great job and great result!

[Happystang 10]

Great job and great result!

 

 

Thank you!!

[Happystang 10]

Great job and great result!

 

 

Thank you!!