The trunk

A couple more patches needed to be made before finishing the trunk for primering. The right (R) hand side rear transition...

... and the left (L) hand side. This patch was made of the leftover part of the door skin repair panel. It had a suitable flange on it. Thus the patch is bigger than the one on the right (R) side, this one fits better. Maybe the size does matter...

No, it does not ! It's how you use it ! Then grinding down the spot welds. Note that I welded the stupid looking extra pieces of sheet metal to the front corners of the gas tank opening. My car had similar stiffeners when I got it. I am not sure if they were originally installed at the Ford plant, but I tried and succeeded to refabricate them.

I removed the trunk lid hinges and found something which amused me a lot. Now, think about being a new employee at Dearborn assembly line in the sixties. There was a massive demand for Mustangs and prpably no time to train the new personnel. So the Ford engineers solved the problem creatively. They designed a trunk lid hinge support brace which educates the employee by itself. There was a big "R" pressed on the right hand brace and "L" on the left hand brace.

After grinding there was some sanding to be done. Excellent therapy after a frustrating day's job at the office. Can be recommended to anyone.

Same treatment for the outer side of the rear quarter.

And finally some primer to cover the cleared area. I'm not too happy with the result of the paint job. My spray gun needs a thorough cleaning prior to the next use.

After the first coat of primer there are still a few areas which have to be brush painted before applying the next coat of sprayed primer.

Little by little the Mustang is turning black.

There is no way using the spray gun to enter the cross-member area behind the backrest of the rear seat. It has to be finished manually.

Springtime

OK, no updates for a long time. The reason is: The springtime. The light has overcome the darkness and spending the evenings outdoors has defeated long nights in the garage.
But every once in a while I've been doing this and that.

The driver side door came out better than the notorious passenger side. I ordered the lower skin from NPD yesterday. We'll see their ability to deliver this time.

The springtime is an excellent season for repairing the suspension and springs. The structure of the Mustang suspension is well explained in Alex's blog. I had dismounted mine in a very early phase of the restoration. Now I had some of the parts sandblasted and painted. To find someone to do the sandblasting was (once again) hard to do. Ten years ago there would have been a couple of companies nearby where some would have done the job off-the-record for a fixed fee.

I checked all the bushings and joints, then decided to replace only the parts which were decidedly damaged. I'll replace the inner bushings of the lower control arms as well as upper ball joints and all of the tie rod ends. My original intention was to fix the car for a daily driver, not to improve the suspension or performance at this time. I'll try to stick to the plan A.

No, I'm not going water-skiing yet. These are my rear leaf spring leaves separated. You could easily order a new pack of leaf springs for $ 200 but I deciced to recover the old ones. I'll just have to replace the bushings and rear shackle kits and wrap the leaves with a set of new clamps.

I spent an hour or two (three nights altogether that is) sanding the engine compartment and finally I was able to give it a coat of epoxy primer. I'll let it dry for two weeks before applying final coat of semi-gloss black. The front fenders have been welded and found a handy place to be stocked.

Guess what colour this car will be ! I spent 3 long nights (2 hrs, saturday morning) sanding the under-dash area. The red was not chosen for the consistency but for better visibility when assembling the appliances.