Home Again

I visited my friend again to finish up the rust repairs and to get the car back home. I acquired temporary plates for a day as the inspections time had already passed. We visited the garage and cleaned the welds and applied some more paint to the bottom of the car. As the interior had no paint at all, we just sprayed some etching primer in there. I would apply some Temadur over the primer back at home.

The following evening I set off and drove the 150 km from Tampere to Järvenpää. Some of the trip was done in the dark and the new headlights were excellent! Adding relays for them made a huge difference! Everything else also worked like a charm so hopefully I would not have problems in the inspection. Before it, I would have to install at least some of the interior back in the car.

A few days later I got around to also paint the driver footwell and after letting it dry, I bolted both seats in the car and threw in the rear seat too. This way the car at least seemed a bit more roadworthy...

I reserved an inspection time and drove the car there. Unfortunately everything was not fine with the Mustang. The main found problem was the rear brakes. There was a 42% difference between the driver and passenger side brake force! This is extremely strange because my friend had tested the brakes back at Tampere a few days earlier. Everything had been fine then and now, a short trip later, driver side brake was much weaker.

There were other smaller problems too: horn did not work, windshield wipers were perished and the front wheel bearing were a bit loose. Hopefully the bearings can just be tightened and the others should not be too difficult to fix either. Disappointed I drove back home and started planning for fixing the problems.

Rust Repair Continues

I drove to Tampere on sunday and had a full day of working with my friend there. The Mustang still needed a few minor holes fixed and the driver floor replaced. The wheel arch had been welded so I decided to try leading it smoother while my friend concentrated on the welding.

After the small holes had been fixed, he ripped the old floor out and sand blasted the frame under it. Luckily it was in much better condition than the passenger side. Some minor pitting was visible but nothing needing immediate attention. After painting the frame he cut the new panel to fit correctly and welded it in.

In the wheel arch side the welds had already been cleaned.

I started by cleaning everything with acetone and applied some flux paste with a brush. Then I heated it with a heat gun until it turned bright. I moved from side to side trying to prevent the panel from getting too hot.

With the flux on, it was time to clean everything again and then start leading. Again I added a small section at the time until the whole weld was done.

With the lead on, I grinded it smooth.

Unfortunately when everything was done, my friend noticed that the sheetmetal had warped a bit above the top of the arch. I had to apply so much heat to the metal that it had formed a small dent. Hopefully it can be forced out from the trunk later.

The weld area is still not completely smooth and will need some filler to completely hide the fix. At least it won't need the half a centimeter it had previously...

And speaking of filler, we dug out some of the cracks from the front fenders. It was not pretty.

Again a huge amount of filler that had been poorly applied. A lot of it was completely detached from the metal below. The old paint had been incorrectly prepared so the filled was peeling loose. The driver side fender also had some poor old repairs and rust holes so it seems pretty certain that I have to replace them both. And the old owned had known this too as a new passenger side fender came with the car and I also managed to find the driver side close by so both are waiting in my garage.

We still need to paint the new floor and do some minor things before I can drive the car back home. Hopefully already after next weekend.

The amount of poor fixes and filler everywhere unfortunately seems to indicate that a simple overspray paint job wont do. Most likely I have to have the whole car media blasted to bare metal and work from there...