Right Rear Quarter Panel - Part 7

How long has this friggin' panel been the unrelenting challenge of my life?   I thought the floors, toe board and firewall were all time consuming.   But, at this juncture, I do see light at the end of the tunnel, even if it is a pinhole of light.

My wife headed to her loom to finish a blanket for #1 grandson's family picture with his mom, dad, and two sisters.  It's needed next weekend.  But it has to be done before  tonight since my wife and I are leaving tomorrow afternoon to our family cabin in northwest Michigan.

With my wife at the loom, that means I headed to the garage to see what additional progress I can make.

I had previously cleaned the inside of the trunk drop off and wheel well and gave it a coat of Eastwood's rust converter.   Then I gave it a top coat of flat black primer.

The patch panel has previously been fitted to  the opening with the exception of the top.  This was a delicate operation since the gap potentially could change the profile of entire lower half of the panel.  After getting it close, I used the welding clamps to position the patch and see how it would fit.

It looked OK for straightness along the joint...

There were a couple of places that required some massaging with a pick hammer and dolly to get the two sides aligned without any offset....

Then the profile templates came out for a trial fit.  Each of the photos represents station 1 through 6...

 

For the most part, the profile is not bad.  The gaps are no more than 1/16" and are in the forming of the patch panel itself.  Go figure.

I started the welding process by putting in the spot welds evenly and widely spaced so that I didn't and any unnecessary heat into the panel.

But as luck and metallurgy would have it, there was some shrinkage in the upper joint that caused it to "suck in" somewhat.  This is the front portion that is near the fender opening...

...And this is the rear half by the side marker light.   I expected this to happen to some degree.  It's hard to have a perfectly spaced gap, not to mention the variation in the panel from all the metalwork.

Since I had a few of the welds in, if went to work to straighten the panel after each set of welds.  I ground them down so that I had a smooth surface to work with the body tools that you're already familiar with from previous posts.  When checking with my trusty contractor square, the gap was negligible...

Progress was OK with the exception of two interruptions.  1. I ran out of welding wire.  I had been using Lincoln .025 MIG.  So I dug out a spool of .023 from Thrifty Supply and was back in business after loading the wire, installing new wire cleaner pads, and a new tip.  Right as I was getting everything ready to go, my Australian neighbor who owns a speed and hot rod shop stopped by and updated me on his trip to California to the Drags and his visit to his friend, Chip Foose.  Yeah, Chip Foose.  Dang!  Wonder if I could weasel a way to get a rendering of my car.   That ain't happening.

Anyway, it's not looking too bad after removing the weld clamps and cleaning up the welds...

Sighting down the panel appears to be pretty straight...

Here's a shot after two more rounds of welds...

Here's how the quarter panel looks after about half the welding and cleaning up the entire panel...

Since I wiped out most of my vertical station marks for the profile templates, I put them back on.  It's a little hard to see in this picture, but it's starting to look "purrdy."

It was time to close up shop since I need to get organized and ready to leave for Michigan.  I checked one more time with the templates to find out if all this work is keeping it close to the driver's side rear quarter panel.  Again, the following pictures are in order of the station numbers from 1 through 6...

Station templates 3 through 6 didn't fit as well as 1 and 2.  The difference is in the bottom 1-2 inches.  The aftermarket panel didn't have as much radius as the original.  But overall, it's not too bad.   My decision at this point is to finish up the welding and keep working horizontal joint to keep it straight.  Then I'm going to call this metalwork done.  It's not perfect in comparison to the driver's side, but it is what it is.  And what is will not be noticeable unless there's some anal engineer with a set of templates to compare sides.   So the next installment on this part of the car should complete the work on this corner of the fastback.  Phew!

As an aside, I was going out to get checked out in the club Cessna 182.  It's a bigger, heaver, and more powerful airplane than the 172.  It would be like comparing a Ford Fiesta to a Ford Fusion with a V6.   It's considered "High Performance" and requires a special endorsement to satisfy the FAA.   So everything was going well.  Preflight list ?  Check.  Pretakeoff list?  Check.  Takeoff was near perfect.  I climbed to our initial altitude of 3000 feet and leveled off...or tried to level off.   It was then that I discovered that we had a problem with the pitch trim in the airplane.  The manual trim wheel would not move to add down elevator.  The electric powered trim motor worked to lower the nose, but that was short lived.   We made a 180 degree turn and headed back to the airport.  The last thing we needed was a runaway trim condition and loose control of the airplane.   The good news is that when reducing power to land, the nose naturally lowered and I got it stabilized on final approach.  The landing was not perfect, but it was after all my first in this big bird (no pun intended).   The club check pilot, who has a boatload of hours, said, "This is the first time I've ever had a trim failure."    Definitely a learning experience as all flights are, but this one was a little more intense.  Hopefully, the next flight will be uneventful.

I suppose that's one advantage to working on the fastback compared to flying.  The worst thing I have to worry about is the fastback rolling uncontrolled on the  rotisserie.

Until the next time...

Right Rear Quarter Panel - Part 6

After "noodling" around (as Sven says) in my mind on how to go about proceeding on this part of the car, I came to some conclusions I've mentioned before.  The "semi-full" quarter replacement is always an option.   It's not the cheapest option, especially when you add shipping to the overall cost.   It's still on the table if I can't get this panel sorted.   I'm not sure when Gregg Cly will make it back home from the tornado disaster claims in Oklahoma.  And then I don't know what panels would be available.  Again, shipping could be steep.   So, with all this being said, and with some of the suggestions from some of my blog followers, I decided to see what I could do.   Like I said before, the worst that could happen is that I would gain some metal working skills and replace the panel.  So off we go...

First off, as of this writing, I got home from Vacation Bible School prep that starts tomorrow.  My loving wife had the NASCAR  Sprint cup race on TV and a bottle of Woodford Reserve Kentucky Bourbon on tap for me.  I am thrilled that Greg Biffle won at Michigan today on father's day.  He's a great guy and drives a Ford!   He's a family guy and is holding his daughter in victory lane!   I'm a avid member of the ABJ club...Anyone But Jimmy (Johnson).   But I digress, as usual.

I got a late start on the fastback yesterday since I had some castoff kitchen cabinets I hung in the garage to get more organized.   My hayfield needed to be cut and I got that done.   My wife was weaving a blanket on her loom.  So there's no guilt involved in working on the Mustang.   But in all honesty, my wife encourages me to work on the fastback.  I think there's an alternative motive though.  She want's her set of keys to it when it's done.  I say, go for it baby!   Dang!   I digress twice in one post?   Oh boy!


Now on to the business at hand....

How would I approach the metal work on this cantankerous quarter panel?  It was definitely distorted on the bottom edge where I cut the lower section from the quarter panel due to all the stress induced from the previous metal work.    RJ made the suggestion about using a horizontal template as a guide for the metal work.   I did that...sort of.    I took my big 24" carpenter's square and put in along the horizontal station line I have been using throughout this process.   I then compared it to the right side station ling.  No comparison.   The decision I made was to take a piece of square tubing and clamp it to the cut edge on of the panel...

What the idea behind this was to provide some sort of stability while trying to perform the metal work.   The next step was to run my sanding board across the primered panel to determine the high and low spots.  The high and low spots were quite noticable.  I started working the high spots with the shrinking disc.  That is evident by the dark spots...

 I dug out every tool in my arsenal.  Literally.   Full set of dollys and hammers.  Slapping spoon (my new best friend!)  Wood bucks.  No air tools since this is detailed body work.  The one decision I made soon after starting was removing the square bar stock  I had C clamped in place .  Otherwise, I would not be able to check how straight that edge would be in its natural state.   With the lower end of the quarter panel open, it  also made it easier to access the  upper panel with all the body tools necessary to straighten the mess of dents.   After working the highs and the lows from the top down, I used my sanding board on the panel to be able to keep track of the progress.  Then I would continue my massaging until the bare metal was more prevalent...

I  saw improvement after a half hour of working the panel.  The change that's most notable is that the cut edge is getting straighter.  This is a lesson in how fluid metal is.  The stress that was causing the warping of the panel is slowly disappearing!  Notice how the cut edge is now becoming straight.

Here's a wider view of the panel.  There is more shiny metal present and less primer, an indication that the panel is returning to its original contour...
 

Another an hour and a half later,  here are the results.  There is more shiny metal from the sanding that indicates the panel is becoming straighter...

It's interesting how the metal moves through the panel.  Once again, this is a lesson in fluid mechanics.

It's obvious that the upper quarter is getting closer to the original contour and in the process, the cut edge is also getting closer to it's contour.  At this point, there is literally no oil canning in the panel!!!

There is no more than 1/32" of variation between the bare metal and the remaining primer in some of the low spots.  I'll work those places out to get them closer since I'm a believer of less filler is more.  But as it stand right now, my decision is to go ahead and put the aftermarket panel in that I've been cutting to shape.   I just may be OK with this when I'm done.  And that is good news!

So with the cut edge straight, the next step in the process will be to trim the patch to the quarter panel.  After welding it in, I'll use the templates I made to check the contour of the quarter panel.  If there are any adjustments to make, I'll do it then.

Right now, I would say things are looking up.  My main desire is to retain as much of the original sheet metal as I can.  Lord willing, it looks like that is a viable reality.  Of course, after  all the metal work is done, I'll check it with the templates I made earlier from the left rear quarter panel.

More news at 11.....

Right Rear Quarter Panel - Part 5.1

One of the interesting items I left out of my last entry was a visit from my insurance adjustor to do an estimate on my truck for hail damage.  My wife's Fusion was inspected earlier at a claim center on the side of town where she worked.  It sustained over $4,500 in pock marks, panel replacement and paint.  Ouch!

So the adjustor calls me and sets up an appointment at my house a couple of Saturdays ago.  He beat me to the house.  As I round the corner, there sits a Ram Diesel Deully pickup truck with a Texas plate.  That explains the area code when he called me on my cell.  I had some things to put in the garage and pushed the garage door opener as I pulled in the drive.  Then something fascinating happened.

The guy gets out of his truck and walks directly to the garage and says, "67 or 68?"   I said, "68".   He knew his Mustangs.  I found out within 10 minutes he knew A LOT about Mustangs.   He introduced himself.  Gregg Cly.  He just happened to be a concours judge for the Mustang Club of America!   For the next hour, we proceeded to talk about the car.  He pointed out some of the mistakes Mustang restorers make on some of the simple things, like where sealant goes and how aftermarket panels have incorrectly formed edges, etc.  (No kidding!?!?!?)   

He also tells me that he spent a lot of time at Carroll Shelby's shop because his dad and Carroll were good friends.  He told some pretty interesting stories including the fact that he owned at one time the 1968 Shelby Mustang factory engineering car.  The info can be found here.  Gregg also restored a 69 Super Cobrajet Coupe that was published in Mustang Monthly found in this issue.  He was mentioned in Mike Meuller's book, "Mustang, 1946 1/2 - 1973"

I gleaned all kinds of info from him.  He made no negative comments about my metal work.  I figure he was being kind and kept his mouth shut so as not to embarrass me.   But then he said, "I have access to a lot of old Mustangs in Texas.  If you need something, just let me know and I'll see what I can do."   We traded emails and I sent him the link to my blog.  (Hi Gregg!  And thanks for the help!)

I also found out he is a pilot and part owner of an airplane in Texas.  What are the odds?  Hard core Mustang guy....AND a pilot.  We're kindred spirits!  

Anyway, after Sven, Alex, and RJ's comments, I decided to shoot an email to Gregg to ask if he knew of any fastbacks I could get the rear half of the quarter panel from.  He emailed back and said he's in Oklahoma.   No surprise there with all the Tornado damage!   He said he'll check when he gets home and let me know.   Wouldn't that be cool if he could get one for me.  There would be very little if any fit issues.   Of course, it might cost me my first grandson in ransom to get it.

In the mean time, I'm going to take RJ's suggestion and try and figure out how to make some horizontal templates and work the top half of the panel just in case Gregg can't find me one.  If he does, I'll chalk it all up to practice and go from there.

Ain't life interesting.

Right Rear Quarter Panel - Part 5

It's not that I haven't been doing anything on the fastback.  Sometimes there is a break for "introspection" on how to proceed.   You see, as a "retired" manufacturing engineer I end up weighing the pro's and con's to ridiculous levels at times.  One of the production foreman at a plant I worked in had a framed sign in his office that read, "There comes a time in every project when you shoot the engineer and get on with production."   OK.   Guilty...but not totally.

If you remember at our last exciting episode, I had laid out grid lines on both left and right quarter panels so that the left side would become the template for the right side.   I got that slick profile gauge.   I got some scrap micro-corrugated cardboard for the templates.

Then I used the profile gauge to get the contour at each station on the left quarter panel.   I then transferred it to the cardboard and cut them out.

The next step in the process was to compare the template to each of the 6 stations on the panel.   The template matched the left panel rather nicely after some minor trimming...

The right side...not so much....

 

After getting them all done and doing the comparison between the left and the right panel, I decided to just forget about trying to re-form the panel to match the left, especially since after about 30 minutes of trying to get two side-by-side profiles to match.  It was like chasing a herd of cats.  I'd get one section close and the other would become distorted and vise-versa.  I was making progress, but it was painfully slow.  Was all this work really worth it?  I was bumping up against the limit of my metal forming skills.

Time for some introspection.  What were my options?   1.  I could continue down the path I was on and resign myself to the many hours ahead with the result still ending up with more body filler than I wanted.   2. I could forget using the templates and make the right side look respectable even if it didn't match the left.  Who's going to see both sides anyway?   3.  I could go ahead and replace the lower quarter panel and deal with an aftermarket piece and do my best to make that fit.  4.  I could pull the trigger on the 2013 Boss 302 Laguna Seca at the Ford dealer near my nephew's house in Atlanta and ditch the fastback.   What's a guy to do?

Option 3 became the logical and realistic choice.  Now it was time to figure out what vendor to get the part from.  I have decided that buying repro parts is like one of those dating websites.   A picture and a paragraph are all you have to go on.  You don't know what you're really going to get until that face-to-face encounter.   Most of the time, it's going to be disappointing.   That's what one of my daughters experienced when she tried one of the websites (that will remain nameless).    I ended up getting one from Kentucky Mustang.   I've bought parts from them over the years and got good service and fast shipping.

The box arrived and I was not disappointed.  I got exactly what I expected...a repro part that was going to take a crapload of work to make it fit as received.
 

The first thing I noticed was the form lines are not as sharp and crisp as the original.   This is the fender lip of the original right rear quarter panel.  Notice how sharp the 90 degree form is.

 ...and this is the contour of the panel on the replacement part.  It is probably 3 times the radius of the original!!!

Not very sharp.  I would have to hammer and dolly that aggressively to come close to the original.   Well, I would have to deal with this later as I had a rather important appointment to keep. So if you would indulge me for a few moments....

My grandson turned 1 on May 30..   The trip to to celebrate the little guy's birthday was on the agenda.  The $64K question was how were we going to go out there to the Omaha, Nebraska/ Council Bluffs, Iowa area?   Now that my wife and I have an aircraft available and the cost to fly commercially was actually more than the estimated flight time in one of the club airplanes, we decided to take the club airplane.  We fly on our schedule, no TSA, no paid airport parking, etc.   However, the weather was dicey, especially since the system that dropped those two killer tornadoes in Oklahoma was hanging around the midwest.   I had the plane scheduled but watched the weather closely.  I would do one last check of the weather with flight service at 5 AM make the go-no go decision the morning of the 30th.  If the weather looked bad along our intended route, we'd cancel the airplane and drive.  If not, it would be load up and head to the airport.

At 5:30 AM  I woke my wife up and said, "Hey hon, how'd you like to fly out and see your grandson?"   She got up right away and got ready.  I filed the Flight plans with the FAA, loaded up the truck, and off to the airport we went.  Within 20 minutes of arrival we were loaded, preflight inspection complete, and we were ready to launch at 7:30 AM.  We made a stop in Burlington, IA to get a weather update from flight service, empty our bladders and fill up the airplane.  The weather didn't look great, but there were no convective sigmits (i.e. Thunderstorms).  Just clouds and rain.  We launched for the second leg.  The flooding in southeast Iowa was pretty bad as seen here just outside Otumwa at 4,000 feet...

US 34 is the highway running through the flooded fields

Another 30 minutes and we climbed up to 6,000 feet to get above the cloud deck.  But 15 minutes later we were in the soup flying through moderate rain until we landed at Council Bluffs an hour away.   Total flight time including the stop: 4.6 hours.  Driving time: 10.5 hours.  Airplane wins.

 

We had a great time there for the next 5 days.   We went to Judah's favorite restaurant for his birthday dinner...

Judah kept a close eye on that cow the whole time!

 The next morning, he got his first haircut...

I was a good boy sitting on daddy's lap

 Then we went to the Omaha zoo...

 

Then my son-in-law took me to one of his favorite fishing spots.  We were killing it that evening and caught more fish than I ever had before, including this nice blue gill...

...and a bunch of bass too....

Judah's big family party was the next day.  He had a fire truck cake and liked the Oreo tires the best.

We had a day to relax before flying back home on Monday.  The flight home was uneventful.  We did end up in some clouds until Chicago Center cleared us for a higher altitude.   Here's a short video of that part of the flight...

Thanks for letting me take this little side excursion.

So after getting back home and catching up from being on vacation, I did some more work on this patch panel.   I started by clamping it in place to get an idea of how much reword would be required.  Once again, I am not disappointed by the piss-poor fit.  This is as bad as I've seen...well, maybe the passenger toe board was pretty bad.  If you don't remember that, check it out here

This is a view from the lower right rear quarter panel.  The flange forming is pathetic

 Here is a view looking at the right trunk drop off piece.  Remember, the original is still there.  Glad I didn't remove it first.  Again, the fit is beyond poor.

 This is the right rear corner section of the quarter panel.  Notice it doesn't have the flange that's supposed to wrap around and attach to the rear light panel.

So I elected to try and get the flanges straightened out and more defined.   I used my trusty bench vice and body hammer to get the flange that attaches to the trunk drop off area straight...

The vice is at the bottom of the picture.  All flanges were clamped to straighten them out

I got the lower flange to fit better and it tightened up the rest of the fit but there was still a long way to go.

This is the fit on the lower rear area of the outer wheel well.  There's still a gap in the middle of the corner that would require shrinking it via cutting a pie piece out and welding it together...

After monkeying around with it for a half hour and then evaluating the fit along the bottom of the trunk drop off flange, I decided I would not use the flanges and cut them off.  I needed to measure the proper cut to remove enough of the old material yet leaving enough to butt weld the new piece in. 

There is a line drawn 2" down from the "datum" line running through the side marker light indentation

After I drew my lines with a sharp drafting pencil, I taped off the lines.

 

 A combination of my 3" cutoff wheel and air saw made quick work out of removing the old section of the quarter panel....

 

 This is the outside of the removed piece.  The rust holes are quite obvious...

 

 ...and here is the back side.  I did get all the rust out of the quarter panel.

 

 The inside of the wheel tub looks pretty good.  I'll clean this up and get some rust treatment and paint on it before welding in the new piece.  I'm also able to see some pinholes that will need attention in the seam from the trunk drop off I installed last fall.   Wow.  That never happens does it?!? 

Now it's on to cutting the new piece.   The first thing I needed to do was establish the datum points for both the old and the new.   Using the rear upper corner of the old panel, and overlaying the new panel and tracing its outline on the old panel, I could see where I needed to transfer the measurement  onto the new panel.

 I did the same for the upper right side of the panel at the fender well lip.

After transferring the measurements onto the new panel, I used the old piece and laid it on top as the template to trace.  The 2" datum line I established along with the corner points made the aligning much easier and hopefully I'll have an accurate part to weld in.

Here's a view after tracing the old part on top of the new.  Everything outside the line will be tossed.

Here is the part with the flanges removed.  I still have the top piece to remove, but left it in place because that datum line running across the top will help me keep the panel aligned while adjusting the fit of the other three sides.  When that is done, I'll cut it off, do the final finish grinding and sanding for welding and start that tedious process.

There is one thing I discovered that could be problematic.  As I made the top cut in the old panel, there was apparently a fair amount of stress still in the panel.  All of a sudden, it "popped" and oil canned badly. 

There is a definite "indentation in the top cut line between the side marker and wheel well lip.

I'm trying to decide whether I should try and shrink it now, or take my chances that welding in the new panel will help alleviate the problem.  The heat from welding could make it worse if I'm not careful.  So there's some more "introspection" that will be needed before the next step.

Until then.