When I had the idea of embracing the idea of multitasking or bouncing from one project to another, or ADD or putting too many irons in the fire, I meant it. In this case, after spreading gravel and cutting up branches from the fallen trees and stacking another brush pile I decided to start work on the 65 Mustang. This car's been sitting in one spot or another for the span of 15 years, rotting away slowly. I did try to do a few things here or there on the car in the earlier days of settling here but all in all the car just sat. Well with the acquisition of the Ranger frame recently which followed with the construction of the S10 Ranger Chicken Coop, I decided to try and start on this project in some form or another. Really the first part of the project is going to be a big part, that is stripping down the car to just a shell to first lighten the weight of the shell and second, to allow me to make whatever sheet metal and structural repairs I need to do prior to mounting the body on the truck frame. When I started looking at the car I realized fully just how decayed this car really was. For all intents and purposes, all of the removable panels will need to be replaced - doors, fenders, hood, trunk. The floors are rotted all to hell and the rear quarters are shot too. The fuel tank is rotted out. The frame rails and other structural members for holding the bumpers and struts are all rotted. With that, accepting the degradation, I started breaking down the car. I started off by removing the hood on the car. The hood was even more rotted than I first thought. Even though the hood was bent from rotted structural members, the front of the hood around the latch was really rotted to the point that metal (or what passed as metal) was hanging down. Of course this thing will never be used in its original way again but for right now it'll be used to cover the engine bay, at least until the engine is removed. The engine was covered in trash from rats moving around chewing on stuff and dumping stuff around. From the way it looks I will probably end up removing the intake to remove the dust and trash that may have ended up in the intake ports. I will also end up probably putting the engine on a stand and removing the oil pan and try to get everything loosened up and moving again. This engine was rebuilt before it was parked so in all reality it is still fresh. As long as no water made its way into the engine in some way As long as no water rusted anything deep inside this thing should be able fire right up and run like a champ. In the trunk the fuel tank had a giant hole in the top of the unit. Of course this component will be scrapped but at the same time I will have to think about what I want to use for a fuel tank on the car. I might just rig up an aftermarket fuel cell and set it up where I can attach a tube from the filler tube on the car in order to maintain the stock appearance versus just putting a tank in the car and making the fuel filler port be fake while I have to fill the tank from another spot. With the rotted fuel tank there's also the surrounding floors. The floors were already patched once before with sheet metal due to past rot but with the frame swap project I will be able to make changes to the trunk area as well as the fuel tank This will indeed be a unique project that will involve making all sorts of unique changes to the structural aspects of this car since the structural integrity of the car is no longer in the unibody but in a separate frame that the body will be sitting on. The also applies to the floors on the inside. Under normal circumstances one would get the regular floors and weld everything back up to link with the sub frames and the torque boxes at the back as well as the false floors that go under the seats to provide a platform for the seats to sit on as well as mounting holes. This also leads me to the seats. The seats will most likely need to be cut out as the nuts holding the studs are rusted and if they don't fully break the studs I will probably end up having to just cut the nut and stud from the bottom of the floor to pull the seats out. Because of this I will end up probably welding studs back to the seat frames to be able to secure them to the floor. Also at the same time since this body is going on the truck frame, more than likely the sub frames will be cut out and a whole new floor made from sheet metal and possibly other structural support components will be incorporated. If/when I do cut out the subframes (and the torque boxes at the back), this will definitely mean that the floor will be way different, probably a straight run of metal from front to back. Prior to me starting this little project I was in the garage rearranging things and moving things out. Putting the LUV back together allowed me to clear a bunch of parts from the garage. Clearing one of the wood shelves was another part of the garage cleanup. Doing this got things set up so when I do start breaking down the Mustang I can move these parts up to the garage to be staged on the shelves in a neat manner so when it comes time to actually start doing the blending of the body and frame together (which will happen in the garage), I can put things back together without having to hunt down specific parts. Order is very important when doing these projects so one doesn't end up wasting time trying to hunt down a single part in the mix of a bunch of random junk. At least now, just like with the LUV, just like with the Dodge, this is another step towards saving one more member of the fleet and getting it running once again. With this unique project its also a step towards building something that isn't a run of the mill routine normal classic restoration or resto-mod. Even if the car's not restored in the traditional sense, just the fact that it's sitting on a newer truck frame makes it unique in and of itself.
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