After starting the preliminary work on the Mustang I was able to get down to business. I started off my approach by stripping the "front clip" of the car. I wanted to remove the fenders, valance, grille, and other associated parts from the front end, trying to get everything down to just the fender aprons and structural support. Really this was a matter of just starting to take bolts off. I did start with the fenders, taking bolts off at the top but even after that there were hidden bolts that had to come out. There was a bolt by the door hinges, a couple of bolts along the rocker panel, and several bolts inside the front of the fender that were holding the headlight bucket assemblies. These headlight bucket assemblies turned out to be connected to the grille making an overall large component that was all connected. When I did manage to get the bolts removed from the front of the fender to detach the headlight buckets, I was finally able to get the fender off. Having to repeat the same business on the right side I finally managed to get the right fender removed as well. And just like with the left side, this fender was rotted out just the same. Of course I'll be replacing most of these panels when I do start the reconstruction of the car when its mounted to the truck frame, but for the time being I will need these panels for the sake of lining things up during the mounting process. Since I had the fenders off I went ahead and started pulling off the valance panel and the panel that mounts right under the grille. In the process of going through this area I encountered some bolts that were rusted up enough that I had to put the metal to the grinder and the reciprocating saw to just cut through everything to facilitate their removal. When it comes time to install new panels I will probably end up having to make mounting points out of scrap metal and weld this to the points on the subframes so I can be able to mount the new valance panels and fenders. With the valance panels removed I figured I might as well go ahead and pull the front bumper just as well and clear the whole front end on the car so I can move on to another area of the car in my break down. I had to fight a little to get the large carriage bolts to turn on the bumper but with a little WD40 and some effort I finally managed to get the bolts loose. There were a couple of end brackets on either side of the fender that connected to smaller bolts on the bumper that were rotted out so much so that I didn't even have to worry about these in the removal of the bumper. I will probably end up fabricating brackets to get these points mounted back up solid just as well during the reconstruction phase of the project. As for the front end, it's pretty much broken down, no fenders, no valance panels, no grille or headlights, no bumper. The hood is just there until I can get the engine and transmission removed and then that panel will be permanently removed just as well. With the front end taken care of the next session will be removing stuff from the cab area. I'll be targeting the doors and seats here. I'll also be removing the trunk lid and fuel tank from the rear of the car. As I stated in a previous article, I wanted to get all the larger stuff that can be removed before really digging in and gutting the interior and removing the more minute components of the car in my quest to get this thing stripped down to a bare shell. Stay tuned.
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