Rear End Deconstruct

Hitting the leaf spring perch with the impact

Now that I have an engine built and a working welding rig it's time to start getting the chassis ready. I started by getting down and dirty with the ass end of this pony. Recall way back in November when I ordered new 4-spring leafs, shocks, and drop-shackle-lowered rear suspension pieces, along with replacement frame box ends, a new gas tank and fuel sender?  Before installing all that I decided to remove the whole rear end, clean and inspect everything, replace any worn out junk, and make any upgrades that make sense. Oh, fair warning, when working on the ass end, butt jokes, cliches, puns, and innuendos will ensue.

Brake check

New wheel cylinder, springs, stops, e-brake.

She's got a lotta junk in the trunk- Backing up that ass is exciting, but getting her to stop is sorta important too!- and although I'm upgrading the brake system with a new master cylinder, power brake booster, and front disks/calipers, the rear drums shall remain. I looked at a lot of cool upgrades including rear disk brakes, but that upgrade did not make the cut. Since we're on a budget, and since this is going to be street/touring car (a.k.a., not a full-on racer), leaving the drums in the back makes sense. It's going to be loads better than the stock manual 4-drum brakes. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the rears had been recently rebuilt, including the e-brake!

Drop it like it's hot

One stout keister. The part on the lift is pretty substantial too!

I need to replace the gas tank and repair the floors, necessitating the removal of the rear end. The plan was to just drop her booty in one chunk with the leaf springs attached and everything, but the leaf springs had other ideas, none of which included giving up their place attached to the underside of the car. Given the amount of dirt, rust, and crud that I shook out, I imagine this stuff hasn't been taken apart in possibly ever. The impact didn't even nudge the leaf spring mounts, so I'll torch them out later. After disconnecting the brake lines, the shocks, spring perches, and dropping the exhaust system, at least she conceded the rear end, which I finally got to take a good look at after I eased it out. It's our 78th date, so I think we're all good, but she does not like that I am seeing other cars.

Clean up

Already looking better

My junior high gym teacher Mr. Mauch was a stickler for hygiene. Lord help you if you tried to leave without showering. His point? Wash your scuzzy, stanky ass. The Mustang rear end had 50 years of gym class on it, so I took a wire brush to it. It should shine like a sparkly diamond when I put it back.

Now that the pumpkin is out of the way, I can clean up the underside, fix the frame where it's rusted, and paint it all up nice. Mr. Mauch would approve.

More photos

This was my view for a large portion of the weekend

I like big butts and I can not lie

Light, dark, mechanical. Inspiration strikes!

Making a little mess

old shocks are out

old exhaust system is out

This picture is not complete...

...without me blasting away at things with my trusty impact wrench!

Hot and sizzly

After fighting a losing battle with the new welding rig last week I returned with a couple days thought on the issue. My ideas orbited around two thoughts, one around poor grounding, and the other around possible gas starvation. I also went back and re-read the manual, which ultimately solved the problem - I assumed the copper welding tip was already installed when setting up but then noticed one pictorial that instructed the user to install it. Sure enough, I disassembled the torch and lo, it was missing. After digging through the stuff that came with it, I found a .030 tip and screwed it in. That was the disconnect last week. Welder works great! This is good news since all the things we need to do to the Mustang right now depend on the welder working nicely.

Dialed in the welder and made this cart

Not to much left in this week's report, other than I told you I was going to build a welding cart for practice, and I did! It took 14 hours in all, including cutting, grinding, and painting- and about $45 in metal stock. I used 1-inch square tube stock and 22 gauge sheeting. It's a freaking tank. I painted it with some yellow ceramic engine paint. It's nice and cheery.

Time to go repair the floors in the Mustang!

More Pictures

Fullmetal Alchemist shirt is apropos, no?

The assembly is starting to look like the picture I drew on the napkin!

The cart fab is done, setting up for paint

All painted!

Done! Wheels added and loaded up with my gear.

Cold and shitty

Fred Flintstone-approved floorboard

The Mustang project is at the point where we need to start welding patches into the holes where the rusty bits were. At last count that includes driver and passenger-side floors, firewall, engine compartment where the battery tray was, headlight cups, frame box where the driver's side leaf spring shackle attaches, and possibly the driver's side wheel tub. The engine is done, and now we need to focus on getting the chassis and body solid, right, and painted so we can put the engine back in. This means I need to get cracking with the metal work, like now-ish.

The goal for my Independence Day weekend was to set up my new welder and get some practice time in, since it's been a couple years since I've last MiG'd something up. I wish I could sing a story of success, but if you've been reading my blog regularly, you'll understand when I explain that I got more experiences than I bargain for, and ultimately got no welding done at all. Will I get there? Sure. But it looks like I have some things to check out.

So here's what happened

 

Showed Xavier the angle grinder, and he went to town

After moving Project Invadr to the new space, I organized the empty stall into a couple different work areas. One is just for welding/fabbing. All good. If you recall way back in December I mentioned I would tune the setup on the new welder by building a cart (own a welder? Don't buy a cart, sheesh). Xavier had already cut to length all the square steel tubing on Saturday, so I just squared, chamfered, and  jigged it all up with some magnets.

After setting up the welding rig, I went to tack some of the pieces together. The weld was cold and shitty. 

After grinding bare the surface on which I attached my ground lead, I went to tack. The weld was cold and shitty.

After realizing I had forgotten to turn on my gas tank, I cranked it open, dialed in the right output volume and went to tack again. The weld was still cold and shitty.

Went back and read the manual (yes, this was getting serious, serious enough to actually stop and read the instructions), realized since I was doing solid wire welding with gas that the default polarity was backwards. So I changed the polarity and went to tack yet again. God. Damn. It. The weld was cold and shitty.

Now if you've never welded, let me explain that when you lay down a nice bead, it sizzles like bacon, and penetrates enough to achieve a strong bond, but not enough to blow through the backside of your work. I got none of this. I'd even take a blowthrough over what was actually happening. The wire arced and spit, and even started to maybe think about flowing on the last attempt, but it sounded like crap, didn't look good, didn't pool, and didn't feel nice. Each time I was able to just snap off with a pliers the weld I had layed down. So frustrating. I retired to the house to try and figure out what else it might be.

Thing I need to try #1: Weld up something thinner. I should be able to weld 1/8" steel, but just for fun, maybe seeing if I have better results with some thinner stick, like 18 or 20 gauge.

Thing I need to try #2: Wire up a 230 volt 50A receptacle. I have a postwar modern home build in the 50's, which has great architecture, but the wiring is dated - I was running the rig off 115 volts, although it can run on 230v if I wired up a 2-pole outlet to use. Like I mentioned in #1, I should be able to weld up 1/8" steel, although that's probably the limit without supplying more power.

Thing I need to try #3: Crash a friend's garage with my rig and see if it works there. I will entertain volunteers but if you are my friend and you have a garage, consider this fair warning that I may show up unannounced with a welder, a gas tank, and a truck bed full of steel. I will also bring plenty beer, because fair is fair. Apologies to spouses.

Nothing like a little mystery. Let's figure this out.