On the Mustang I moved on to the trunk area. On these vintage Mustangs the trunk is the fuel tank. When you remove the fuel tank the trunk floor is gone. This is cool since it means you don't have to go under the car to remove the fuel tank, simple design. Well just like with the rest of the car, the trunk area was not spared from the rust demon. The fuel tank was rusted all to hell with a giant hole in the top of it. The trunk lid was rusted so bad that there will be no saving it. The side floors in the trunk are actually pieces of sheet metal that were screwed and welded in since the original flooring metal was rotted all to hell. I started off with pulling the fuel tank. Conveniently, the fuel tank wasn't secured to the floor in the trunk. Either I didn't bolt down the tank from the last time I was working on this thing or the screws/bolts rusted out. Either way I didn't have to worry about fighting stuck rusted bolts so that was a win for me. As noted the tank is scrap metal. It's probably just as well, since when I put the body on the truck frame, I will more than likely not be putting a stock tank in the trunk. Depending on where the truck's frame rails sit compared to the sub frame rails in the back of the Mustang body, I might not be able to put a stock tank in due to spacing between the truck frame rails. If that's the case I'll end up getting a fuel cell that's made to fit in the space between the frame rails and I can just add a longer filler tube from the port on taillight panel. If I end up doing that I'll just redo the trunk floor to be a more or less complete solid floor. Maybe I'll add a feature where part of the floor can be removed to pull the fuel cell out from the top. As one can see I pulled the trunk lid next. Also as stated, the trunk lid was hashed due to rust. The inner support of the trunk lid was rusted so bad as to almost be separated from the outer skin of the trunk lid. I could try to do some bullshit patching and welding to try and save the panel so I don't have to buy a new aftermarket piece at an aftermarket price, or worse, finding an original panel from a classic car salvage yard at the price that good condition old stock panels typically go for. We'll see, depends on my full assessment of the panel. I would rather replace the damned thing but sometimes reality comes into play and it ends up being a case where I do have to patch the panel and reuse it for the time being until finances allow me to replace that part/panel with a new replacement. After taking care of the trunk area on the Mustang the next area was the fender wells at the front of the car. There's two rusty panels that go towards the back of the fender wells, from the way it looks, to act as splash pans to keep the door hinges from getting water from the wheels while driving in the rain. As any panel that takes the brunt of dirty water, these panels were trashed and close to falling out anyway. I decided I may as well just finish them off and chop them the rest of the way out since this shit will need replacing anyway. Even if I don't replace these panels with aftermarket replacements, something will need to go in their place to replace the metal in order to protect the hinges and keep water from intruding between the door and the door jambs and into the cab of the car. I may end up just cutting some scrap sheet metal and welding it in place to serve the same purpose as the old panels.
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