45th anniversary

Mustang was presented in New York on April 17 , 1964. There is legend that a finnish dealer Are Oy made a false start and exposed Mustang a couple of days in advance on April 12 as a world premier. True or not, there are as many legends as there were Mustangs produced. Anyhow, the demand for this car was so big (one million sold in 18 months) and they were manufactured in such a hurry that many mistakes in design and production remained for years. Take the cowl vent structure for an example.

This is one story to add in the list. Below is my passenger door with the rusted out lower edge. The tape is to expose the distance to the edge after I cut out the rusty part.

I left some of the flange to both ends. This would help me line the patch.

Then it was time use some precise tooling to fabricate an exact patch panel for the bottom part of the door. A table, a couple of clamps, a piece of 2"by 2" and a hammer. My table is one of extremely rare tables which are equipped with inline-six and water-cooling. See below picture.

The unique reproduction part was then tack welded. Note that I drilled holes for plug welding the bottom flange. Do not follow my example ! Later you'll find out why.

The patch was seam-welded and... ...ground. Looks good at this phase but it is not often when you lye on the ground looking upwards to the bottom of the door.

Before welding the visible parts I wanted to make sure that the door fits with front fender, quarter panel and outer rocker. Minor hammering was needed to adjust the bottom flange.

The gap between the door and the front fender is ok.

Enough with fitting. Let's proceed! This is the patch panel for the door (Canadian made, excellent fit). It's about 8" wide but I decided to use only the lower part of it in order to avoid welding the curvy area in the middle of the door. Holes were drilled to the flange which will bent to cover the flange in the bottom part.

Mark the line for cutting the rest of the rusted area.

There is no picture of the next phase ( Do not try it at home ! ) I plug welded the holes in the flange of the bottom part to the repair panel ( A mistake ! ). The welds generated heat and pulled the repair panel against the bottom flange. The only plug welds which are needed are the ones in the below picture.

The door fits fine and looks good from a distance but the lower area is as bumby as a potato field. There are three possible ways to fix it. One: Use some hammer and a lot of putty. Two: Apply tape stripes to cover it. Three: Order a new repair panel from NPD and re-do the outer part.

So, after 45 years Mustangs and Mistakes still go hand in hand.