OK, so Last weekend, my long time friend, Lynn, and a great guy I met on the VMF, Ryan, came over and helped me replace my rear floor-pans. It was a slow start, as I didn't really have all the tools I need (still working on that) but we were able to figure out how to cut the old pans out using a cut-off wheel chucked into an angle grinder, and and welded in the new ones with my cheap 110v flux core welder. It is hilarious to see where the welding started, and where it finished...I really got better as I went along...by the end of the day I was putting down a decent flat bead that probably won't need to be ground down...but where we started? Oy Veh. I was making mountains and leaving holes. So that will need to be ground down and re-welded. I also have to get some seam sealer, and prime it, and undercoat the bottom of the car...but I'll get around to that soon enough. One of the things is, after I grind down the welds, I'm going to shine a light through it and go back and re-weld all the holes I left...But I'm not welding another inch until I have an auto-dark helmet...MAN talk about a WORLD of difference!
In other news, I have completely removed the front of the car...not the fenders, just the headlights, bumper, apron, fender exentions, etc. Basically anything in front of the radiator support. Two of the things on my "First round" list of todo items are to fix the headlights (The adjusting system had welded solid, so you couldn't aim them, and I want to go to halogens too) and to replace the bumper and lower-valence with a Shelby-style R-Model racing apron I've had for a few years. So I stripped the front of the car off this morning, and now have to repair the apron, and work the fiberglass to get it to fit. This will for sure be a learning experience, but I'm looking forward to it.
One thing I noticed in test fitting the racing apron on, it gets in the way of the support that holds the hood latch in place, so I had to remove that support...now the hood latch isn't sturdy enough. I think I have (in my head) a good solution to that, and will basically "Box" the sides of it (woo hoo, more welding!) to strengthen the latch mount. Obviously, the apron wasn't designed to work with the stock latch, and only to work with a fiberglass hood with pins. But I'm not changing the hood in this "go round" so I'll have to engineer a fix.
OK so pictures of the welds, and the mustang with no face coming later this week...if I remember.
