Drivers Side Door finished?

From my last blog you noticed I had a problem with the door alignment at the rear quarter panel and the door opening.  I figured out why, the rear quarter panel was replaced before I bought the car.  Well the bozo's that did the work didn't care.  And by looking at the alignment holes around the edge of the convertible top the holes do not align up.

The holes toward the top are suppose to align up.

You can see the hole is off toward the back by about a 1/4 of an inch.

So I can either remove the rear quarter panel or find another solution.  The other solution is to add metal to the door.

I believe Alex and others did a similar process on their doors also.  I got a 1/8 inch metal rod and started to weld the rod to the door edge.  After buying new doors, the last thing I wanted to do was to weld on them.  What if it makes it worse? Or the panel warps?  Well, I have to move forward.

I would tack weld the rod and cool it off with water to keep it from warping.

Checking the alignment.  The top of the door has a bigger gap than toward the bottom of the door.

Guess I'm going to be adding another rod toward the top.

Making marks with a paint pen to help me.

Starting to look better.

Progress.

Looks like it might work.  Trimming, cleaning, welding, grinding, hours and hours of working the metal.

Had to add a bit of metal to the inside or else it would catch your shirt or jacket when you close the door.

Painted it the base coat to check for errors.  Need to clean up the edge a bit but this is almost finished.

The inside edge.  I hope this works out and doesn't look funny.

Door Latch and Lucky Striker post

I know the door will need some more alignment, so first I wanted to install the door latch and lock mechanism to make sure the door locks first.  I cleaned up the latch and installed it in the new door.

I should have taken a pic of the before.  It was painted over with a few coats of Turquoise.  I found a pic of the door from before (below) and you can see part of the latch below the data plate.  I originally took this pic for the location of the data plate since I am removing it and putting it on the new door.  They sell the rivets online.

I used WD-40 and let the part soak for a while.  The tough layers I used a little citrus foaming paint remover and a q-tip.  As soon as the paint started to soften, I scraped it off with a screwdriver.  I didn't want to use my media blaster because it would have taken the gold cadmium plating off.

You can see one hole for the data plate to the upper left of the latch.  I will have to drill the other before I paint the door.

I ordered the screws for the latch from AMK and installed them.

I also installed the Striker latch with new screws from AMK.

Once I got the fenders on and the doors, I made sure the door latched correctly and rigged up the handle so I can open the door.  Door works fine. Now I have to deal with the "Gap!"

Drivers Door Remote Mirror

I am working on the door alignment and fit of the new doors and needed to get moving so to get started I went ahead and drilled a hole in the door just for fun!  Actually it's for the remote controlled mirror for the drivers side.  The door came pre-drilled for the standard mirror but since mine has the Pony package, it has the remote mirror.  I measured the old door, checked on the Mustang forums, and doubled verified the right distance and location on the door and started the process.

Checking the location.

Drilled the hole for the cables.

You can see the two holes in front for the standard mirror mount.  I will fill those in shortly.

Lower mirror bracket

Lower Mirror bracket mounted.

Mirror is mounted.

Grind down to the metal to fill in the old holes.

Welding the holes.

Add a little body filler.

Sand it with my round block.

Ready for primer.

Fender Action

Many moons ago...

 Happy New Years!  I know I have not posted an update in a few months, so I will do my best to get up to speed.  I started a new job and got the commute synced so I can get home and still have time for family and the Mustang.

I was working on the passenger fender in a previous blog and I tried to save it since it was the original fender that came with the car.  But the fender had so much body filler, the lower fender had a panel welded on top of the rusted lower back portion and then more damage and rust.  I thought I could make it work.  Replaced the lower section, bumped out the dents, worked the metal and when I thought I had it, it didn't fit.  Way off on the alignment.  So I did what I had to and bought a replacement Ford fender.  Cost more than the aftermarket fenders but I'm trying to go original as much as possible.

 Painted it the brown base coat that I found on the original fender.

Test fit and all looks good.

Headlight Bucket Crack repair

So a while back, I was detailing parts and I took these pics of my headlight bucket that I was trying to repair.  I saw patch kits online but found this product called HTS-2000 http://www.aluminumrepair.com/ and it is sort of pricy for a pack of rods, but I figured it's cheaper than buy a new bucket.

You have to build a trough out of steel metal to hold the molten aluminum.  It's very tricky but once you practice a bit, you can figure it out.  And the metal melts down hill so it took me a few tries to get it right.  It was only a crack I thought I could fix but after the heat, it turned to mush.  So I built the trough and clamped it down.  Heat it very slow and take your time.  It's not like plumbing / soldering copper pipes which is easier than this.

This angle worked best.  Flow it on.

Took the casting / trough off.

Cleaned up and drilled the hole.  Stronger than the original.  So they say.

The Doors Part II

It's been months since I updated the blog.  We had a crazy storm in the area and no power for two days.  I'm at a friends house and figured I'd update the blog!  So here is the updates.  We all love pictures so I'm loading up a bunch for everyone to enjoy.

I needed my peace so I enforced the man cave rules for the garage!  Fortunately for me, I have a small fridge, a room AC unit, computer, radio, propane heat (during the winter), and a wife and daughter that sort of understand I got work that needs to be done but they still try to cross the man cave entrance to the garage.

This is about where I left off.  No doors and I bought two new ones.  

The old door is on the floor and the detailed hinges are hanging from my garage door frame above the doors.

When I went to put the hinges on the doors, the bolt holes were too large for the original bolts.  Doubled checked on the old doors and yep, the new door brackets are too large.  I couldn't find any bolts similar to the originals at AMK that fit the new doors and I didn't want to just put anything up there unless they were original, so the best thing I could figure out was I welded up the holes, and re-tapped them to fit the original bolts.  I spent many hours making sure the holes were welded up really good so that they can handle the weight of the door, glass, and hardware.  Wasn't easy since the plates inside the door could not be removed to weld it from both sides.

17/64 thread(I think) or 1/2 in bolt head.

9/16 bolt head on the right, tapping the new threads on the left.  I used the 9/16 bolt to hold the bracket from moving around.

1/2 inch bolt fits.  Yay!

Hinges in place.

After I spent many hours struggling with the doors to hang them I figured I would see what other folks did.  Alex mentioned that others used paint sticks or thin pieces of wood on the door sill frame to prop the door to the right height.  It worked great for me.  Thanks Alex and Homer Depot for the sticks.

I used four paint sticks, two in the front and two in the back.

Few adjustments and it started to look like a car again.

It didn't align up with the front fender very well, so I tried a few different things like metal shims, cursing, drink a couple of beers, and try again and I figured out since the car was wreaked in the front driver side, it didn't really line up right so I took the shims out and I'll get it as close as possible and think about it some more.

Looks a little better.

I will have to deal with this gap at some point.

My template from the old door.

The original.

New door is going to get cut.

Since the doors are standard doors, they didn't have the holes for the courtesy light on the inside of the door.  Measured the old door and proceeded to cut away with my Dremel tool.   I will also need to make a hole for the drivers side remote mirror also before paint.

A new hole in the door!

Media blast the courtesy light frames, aluminum paint from Eastwoods and white on the inside, looks like new.

Test fit and good to go.

Rear quarter needed some cleaning up.

The brown car.  This was the base coat after much digging I found this color inside to original fender. It is rust-oleum anodized bronze.  Has a little shine to it and it helps me see the flaws in the body that gray primer wouldn't let you see.  After this coat and all good comes the gray primer.

There is my fenders on the top of the car, had to put them somewhere since I need them handy to align the fenders and panels.

More to come.  Looks like the power will still be out for a couple more days.  My friends house is full of people but at least we have power, AC and internet!  Thank you Jim for reaching out to us to stay with you.  200% better than watching videos on the iPad in the basement at home and taking cold showers.  :-)