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Pics from my first trip over to Marks house to deliver some parts and check on the dash. He carefully and slowly welded in the gauge cluster bezel and that gave the dash some stiffness to do the rest of the work.
Needed a little touch up.
Took the cluster and all the AC vents for trial fit.
I really like how it looks so far! I'm heading out to Cruisin' The Coast in a few days. I couldn't talk Mark into going with our crew so hopefully he can make some progress while I'm out goofing off LOL
While Mark is finishing up the dash I started on the bracket that will tie the grill to the radiator crossmember. During the construction of the Mustang 2 front end and relocating the radiator there was a factory bracket that was eliminated so this bracket will take its place. .
Support for the top side that won't be seen.
Mocked up
Welded out
A great application for a rivnut
Made a world of difference in the stiffness of the fenders and grill. Its mounted to the grill with rubber washers for just a little wiggle room.
In recent news my home computer crashed, but I am back online thanks to a Black Friday special. Anyway, I've still been working on the car I'm just a little behind on posting. I went to the Nashville Triple Crown a while back and bought some Guni Wheels they were selling at "show special" pricing. These will work great for all kinds of stuff and I have my good wheels stored for the moment. The first task at hand was to finish the front suspension that was installed waaaaay back. It needed everything torqued, cotter pins, ball joint boot shields, grease, etc so I could do a front end alignment good enough to get it to an alignment shop later. I borrowed some turn plates, thank you Jack Marvel, and bought a caster/camber gauge. I could only get 5 degrees of caster (spec is 4-6) by moving the A arm to the back of the slots, but I'm told that should be fine fingers crossed.
The gauge from SPC seemed to repeat as long as you take your time and be very precise. Zero camber
And 1/32 of Toe IN
When my son was racing go karts I used to do front end alignments all the time, but this is my first big car that I've done. And the kart front end specs were pretty wild since it was set up to turn left ALL the time The concepts are the same, but the kart was so easy doing it on the workbench at waist level LOL. Anyway, got this behind me and hopefully the adjustments are real close. Can't wait to see what Penny drives like!!
Dash is done thanks to Mark Dunbar. I was just going to paint it a shade of brown for now to sort of match the original interior, but Dunbar told me he could make it look like factory woodgrain and sure enough HE DID! And it matches all the garnish moldings very well. So glad he talked me into that!
For reference here is the beginning of the dash construction...
Over the Christmas holidays I decided to finish the console frame that was "roughed out" a few years ago. Here's the prototype made with some fuel line and cardboard.
Here is the real frame I bent with some 1/2" steel tubing
I took that console frame and made a fixture so I could finish building the console on the workbench, and the fixture can also be used for paint/bodywork purposes.
I do not have access to a slip roller right now so I had to get creative on the sheet metal curves. I found some pipe with the radius I needed and tack welded it to the pipe so I could bend it.
Here's that piece
Building the frame
When you don't have enough hands
All curves done Hoping the flat sections go faster
Console has a shifter bezel, cup holder, power window switches, AC controls, and a space in the top is for a radio of some sort to be added later
Making sure it fit the car before I delivered it to Mark Dunbar yesterday for bodywork and a woodgrain look to match the dash. On to the next item after I clean the shop
I tackled a fab item while the console was getting the woodgrain treatment. When I put the front clip on I realized I had some clearance issues with an AC hose and the inner fender. More fab hours LOL
It was on the top corner, and I knew it would try to move when I welded the piece back in so I made a fixture with some shop scrap. And the front end on these type of cars is already tough enough to get all the gaps looking nice so I didn't want to add to that problem .
Here's the little jewel.....the hole is for a bolt and washer that needed clearance going to the backside of the grill. Space is one of the biggest challenges with these cars.
Picked up the console this week and installed it this morning. Thank you Mark Dunbar for the bodywork and paint! We both have quite a few hours tied up in the dash, extender piece, and console This wasn't my original vision, but I'm really excited about how it turned out.
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The concepts are the same, but the kart was so easy doing it on the workbench at waist level LOL. Anyway, got this behind me and hopefully the adjustments are real close. Can't wait to see what Penny drives like!!
