Blake's 1965 Mustang Project

[Dvous]

I think learning how to TIG is easy, mastering it is hard.

This.  Especially with something like Stainless, very easy to learn on if you ask me.  Aluminum...notsomuch.

[digitalsolo]

A bit of progress.   It's occasionally annoying that I have to fabricate everything from scratch.   Ah well.

Rear brakes are on;   I need new retaining plates as I ordered late large Ford and have early large Ford ends (which oddly are shaped like late ends, hence my mistake).  The backing plates didn't fit either but I just machined them to work properly.


 
Brake cable:



And the handle.   This is super dark, need to get a better shot.   Regardless it's raised up about 3.5" off the tunnel to get it better in line with the shifter, which is on the tunnel that was raised for the TR6060.    This will be inside of a center console eventually and the dead space will be used to hide electronics and such. 



I've since finished hooking up the parking brakes, though I need to adjust the drums a it (internal drum parking brakes on the rear discs) to take out slop, then add some pre-tension to the handle as they don't quite lock up yet.

I also have all of my (current) heat exchangers:



Radiator is an AFCO all aluminum single pass, 27x19x3 with Ford outlets.   There is an AC condenser you cannot see which is something like 24x12x3/4 and then a 25x12x3 intercooler with 2.5" inlet/outlet.   It's just a little guy, but I'm only planning 7-10 psi of boost, so it's arguable if it's really even needed.   It's a CX Racing piece with some funky trapezoidal pieces, but it's a bar/plate setup.   I may make a custom one to fit in the same spot sometime in the future but for now this will work fine.  I'll paint it black so that it's not obnoxious looking.  It does fit the "Shelby" valance I have BEAUTIFULLY though, so that's snazzy.   All of this is getting round tube + tab mounts that will make it easy to service later, and I'll seal/shroud all of it.    Oh I have a Volvo fan setup as well.   Same motor as a Taurus but slightly thinner profile with bypass flaps.   Kinda neato.

Finally there is this:



That's a piece of 1.5" .120 wall tubing, welded to 1/8" plates on both sides of the gas tank area.    It also has a piece of 1/8" plate that ties it into the center sheetmetal.   This is what you see in the trunk, under the car the passenger side has a brace that ties from that 1/8" plate on the side to the frame rail and panhard bar area.   I did this to get a bit more support around the panhard bar pickup/frame rail, as the frame rails are just sheetmetal and had been replaced in the rear, around the area where the panhard bar mounts.    FYI the panhard mounts to a big bracket that wraps around the frame rail, bolts through the floor and was then welded to the frame rail by me.   This just adds a bit more support, the front of the bracket already has a crossbrace between frame rails, so this supports the rear also.    The trunk will be sealed off from the passenger compartment with steel plate and I'm planning to use the plate in the center of the picture as a fuel filter mount as I'll be using an Aeromotive Stealth setup in a new tank.    I also welded in a 5/16" bolt for a battery ground (battery will go in passenger rear part of the trunk).  It also makes a handy ground point for all my welding as I got sick of grinding clean areas to ground clamp.... 

[digitalsolo]

Oh, I thought I'd posted this one, guess not:



That's the turbos in place.   I need a touch of clearance on the driver's side frame rail, and I'm going to move to forged joints on the steering linkage for about 1/8" more radial clearance (I have 1/8" now, 1/4 seems better for any movement, though it'll be slight and rocks away from the linkage).    I set the car on the ground and measured clearance to the skid plate at my planned ride height (car won't be SLAMMED).   With 1.5" taller tires (so .75" more height) and .75" of fender gap all around, it looks about right.   That's about 5" of clearance to the skid plate and ~6" to expensive shiny bits, which seems fine.  My Focus only has 3.5" to the skid plate and 4.5" to the engine and I've never had any trouble with that at all (in fact it's only lowered 1" from stock).   I figure that means I can play around with ride height/tires about .5" or so and not worry much about ground clearance.   The skid plate will be the lowest part of the car, which bugs me, but there just wasn't any other good way to package it without other compromise.

[babillaracing]

Looking good bro

[digitalsolo]

Thanks!

Worked on intercooler mounting today:

I wanted to make a couple small posts at the bottom of the intercooler that slot into the bolt holes to secure the bottom in place.   It sits forward of the crossbar so I added some tabs for the posts:

My welding doesn't suck as much as it used to:



Linished back:



And the intercooler in place with the upper mounts.   There will be a removable upper bar that completes the front doghouse area, which will tie into the radiator upper mounts and add more security to the intercooler upper mount, but it's pretty stout already:







Cooling "stack" up front:





Next up will be the lower radiator mounts (small pads that will hold it in place), then the upper mounts and a way to secure the condenser to the radiator.   Then some shrouding to keep all the air going the correct direction.     Hoping in the next 4-6 weeks I'll be starting on the exhaust and charge/cooling pipes.   I need to get all the engine bay/undercar fab work done so that I can get the car ready for paint.

[N2v8fcs]

nice work as always Blake!

[digitalsolo]

Rebuilt the upper crossbar.   It bolts in on both sides and the secondary mounts for the intercooler and upper radiator mounts will bolt into it.   I plan to build a plate that runs up the sides and seals the radiator to the front and hold the AC condenser.  The hex bolts will be replaced with button heads.

[digitalsolo]

Made some more progress.   I put the hood on to validate clearances.   I put it too far back and chipped the epoxy off the cowl.  Whoops.   Oh well, that's why it's not done yet.

Proper bolts on the crossbar:



Upper radiator mounts are fabricated:





Need to add a bit more glass to the lower valance to tighten it up against the intercooler.   I had a brain fart measuring and opened it up far too much.   Anyway, here's the overall look of the front minus turn signals and grille:

[Classy]

Could you imagine what Ford would do if they saw what you are doing to this car way back in the day when they designed it

[digitalsolo]

Probably kick me in the junk, haha.

Made some more headway on the cooling stack:

The things are braced to the things:







Also, it's hard to see in the above pictures, but there is an aluminum shroud that seals the radiator to the core support.   This was my first attempt at TIG welding and well, it is melted together fine and I'm good with a grinder, haha.    I actually got a few good beads toward the end.   I had more trouble dialing in setup than actually doing the work I think.   That's the same thing that took a while on the MIG.    I do think that starting to TIG has actually improved my MIG, so there's that at least, haha.

These next two are looking down the sides of the radiator at the shroud.   It will bolt to the core support in 4 places by itself (which will add more rigidity to the core support and all of the bracing above) and also support the AC condenser with 4 bolts that will pass through the core support for even more support.   That's if I keep AC...   I've been kicking around a dry sump setup lately...

Driver side:



Passenger side:



I may run a piece of mylar tape down this once it's final installed.   We'll see.

And the overall status:





Next up will be finishing the shroud mounting and condenser mounts, then building fan mounts.    After that, I'm pretty much ready to roll on this area and I'll get started on brake lines and do the final tweaks on the parking brake.    I'm a nerd for the tube work, so I'm kinda stoked with how the brackets all turned out;  it looks a lot like my FC, so I guess silly 1/4 bar brackets are my signature, haha.   You'll be able to see these through the grille up front.   I may mount the horns up to the tube brackets (clear of the radiator air path) also.

Oh and that Volvo fan fits MINT.    I trimmed about 1/4" off each edge and it nearly "clicks" into place on the radiator.   Super slick.

[frijolee]

How big is the gap between the forward vertical lip on your radiator core and the upper core support bar?

I ended up running bulb lip seals to close that out on my rx7 (pics TBD).

[gc3]

your work is great, but i can't help but feel like you're missing out on a lot of dimple die opportunities.

[digitalsolo]

How big is the gap between the forward vertical lip on your radiator core and the upper core support bar?

I ended up running bulb lip seals to close that out on my rx7 (pics TBD).

That's really cool!   It's about 2".    I'm actually planning on modifying the upper core support bar to funnel air at the top to within about 1/4" of the radiator instead of the giant gap.   I'd have done it today, but I had to mow my lawn.

I like that stuff though, I think I have a few places that could be really handy, I'd not seen that style of seal before. 

If you look at the "head on" (or nearly head on) pictures, you'll see an arch in the upper core support bar, the arch currently rolls down in front of the radiator.   I'm going to modify that to not fold down, then weld in some sheetmetal behind it to follow the contour of the radiator.    Additionally if you see the 1/8 aluminum plate that runs across in front of the radiator (that's the top of the "shroud" and needed to lay there because of other interference) I'm going to tie that into the intercooler bracing so that it can't get floppy at high speed.  Most of this stuff is pretty solid, but I want to make sure that 150 mph speeds won't, erm, move anything around, which is most of the reason for all the crossbracing.

It's a ton of work on little details, but I figure that A) this is a highly visible area, so a bit of extra "flare" is kinda cool and more importantly B) I don't want cooling issues, so I'm trying to assure that I have as much frontal area dedicated to cooling as possible and that all of the available air is going where it should.  I am planning on some type of splitter and air dam as well as I know that the splitter/air dam on my FC made a ~10* drop in medium speed air temperature (the 35-50 mph zone where the cooling fan transitions to "off" and it depends on airflow from vehicle speed, but doesn't yet have a ton of air speed).

your work is great, but i can't help but feel like you're missing out on a lot of dimple die opportunities.

I don't have any dimple dies.     I need to buy a set of knock-outs and dimple dies, mostly because they look awesome and a solid 40% of my work is "because it looks cool" haha.

[freeskier7791]

That intercooler mount needs some "gussets" that are full of dimpled holes.  This thing is looking mean. 

[spacevomit]

I have a 3/4" bolt-through die you can borrow.