1-26-05

.....Welcome to another installment of "Me working on my car almost every day after a long day of work just so I can be covered in fiberglass shavings, bondo dust, and drink beer while talking smack about Greg's big block Mustang!"  hehe

I got the driver's side door mounted up with all the hardware, interior and exterior door handles, and the factory window regulator with factory glass. The window works perfectly, the latching mechanism works perfect. Just like a real door.
I finished the driver's side body work under and around the door.
The passenger side door was easy now that I have the knowledge of how to rig the hinges. Everything looks good.




This is what the inside hinge plate looks like after it's been epoxied and bolted to the door.
I welded the nuts onto the plate and then sprayed both sides with DP90 epoxy primer.



Here is a pic of the latching mechanism. I had to cut this part out so the striker will operate with the latching mechanism. I tried to cut out the least amount of material for these doors so they keep their strength.



Front hinge plate with factory hinges welded on.





I had to clean up the interior a little bit so I could take FourBanger out for a drive. It's been about a year since I started painting. I'm having serious boost withdrawal. With the new light weight doors on and no windshield, Fourbanger pulls like a crotch rocket.
I can safely say she's in the 11's now. But will wait to gloat until I have the time slip in my hand. hehe.



Here is what has to be done to fit the factory locking cylinder into the glass doors. I bought a super tiny knurled bit for my tiny dremel and slowly carved out the notches. This process takes many tries because it's a custom fit and must fit snug in the hole. There are no templates to go off of that will provide this custom fit.



The HO Fibertrend doors fit OK. I was able to get the tops and centers of the doors to line up. The bottoms seem warped and do not match the lower rockers. They're not that bad, but it's noticeable. I will have to fix them personally using dura-glass. I called them to tell them about it and the person I spoke to told me a million excuses about how no mustang has straight rockers all doors are different, bla, bla. Basically the standard BS you get from manufactures now days.



Here's the driver's side door mounted with all parts installed. Fender was on for alignment purposes. I'm using the fender for spare metal. hehe.



Window in and working great. I'll have to buy the felt channels for these doors. I'll put them in once the doors are painted.


This is a picture of my cowl. I had to cut the left and right sides out because they were damaged beyond belief before I bought this car. It seems that the hood, at one time, had come up and crushed the cowls down. Some "body shop" tried to fix it by using a dent puller and a gallon of bondo. I couldn't fix the old metal so I decided to cut them off and replace them using junkyard ones. While I had the cowls off, I took some spare metal and welded up the old A/C vent hole. No more leaves in the car! yay! hehe.
All the bare metal was covered in Permatex rust treatment, then primered with DP90 black.


Here is one of the new cowl pieces I cut off a car in the junkyard. Got them for 5.25 a pair.


After welding them on and grinding the welds down, I applied a nice coat of bondo to flatten it out.



And here is the finished product! The new cowl looks great. Way better than repairing the old junk metal.



I've been working on covering up the A/C holes. Everything is coming out nicely.


I have completely removed the front bumper from this car. I didn't have a scale handy, but I'd guess the front bumper with supports weighs about 55 lbs. The front end is super light.
I have ordered a custom made One-Piece Fiberglass front end for FourBanger. It contains the fenders and nose all in one. I will be mounting that in the next few weeks and getting the headlights and side marker lights to mount onto it.
This car is gona be fast. I can't wait!



With all that said, I'm going to be installing a new 6 point roll cage into FourBanger before I paint her. The cage is mandatory now that she's going to be quicker than 11.99 in the 1/4. The cage MIGHT be Chro-moly also to save weight.
So I have that to look forward to also. It should be a full month of work. lol


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