So I spent some time playing with the door gaps again last night. I made a tool out of a #4 screwdriver and a 10mm socket to get the striker bolts out (well, 3 out of 4... one is going to have to die. Current plan is to weld a nut to it and see if I can get it that way, turns out 50 years in place can convince a screw it doesn't want to move). Driver's side door was miles off before, at least 5/8" gap at the top and 3/8 at the bottom along the 1/4 reveal. I have the top half at 1/8" now and the bottom is flush, so I'll have to open that up. The top section was just flat out stamped wrong where it meets the 1/4 near the glass. 1/2" gap even with the rest of the door aligned, so I pie cut that and will fit it and metal work it to get the alignment right. Nothing too major.
The biggest issue with the door is the bottom of the Mustang "C" body detail in the door/quarter panel. It's at least 1/4" low while the rest of the door (including the top of the "C") lines up correctly. Stamping issue again. Oy. Going to have to slice it back 6-8" and move the metal around to get it in place. Yay aftermarket crap. Also going to get some 1/8" TIG rod to work the front fender/door gaps as well as fender/cowl and the decklid/quarter gaps, as those are absolutely terrible (at least 1/4" everywhere, not sure WTF the deal is there).
On a positive note, my metalworking skills are improving daily, haha. Get lots of practice when you're this anal about gaps and have a 50 year old car with 4 manufacturers replacement parts and panels that were previously installed by a possibly blind man welding with a coat hanger and a car battery...
Oh, one other design I think I've finalized. The front suspension normally has braces that tie to the firewall for support. Since I'm cutting off the factory strut towers/suspension for Mustang II based stuff, I lose that support. Sooooo, I'm going to take some .063 wall 1.5" round tube and run stringers down to the front subframe just fore/aft of the factory strut tower locations and connect them to each other and a piece of plate on the firewall/cowl. I'm going to set them into the inner fender aprons and stitch weld it all together. I also plan to put a couple of reinforced tubes in near the factory pickups for the firewall support and tie those into the stock cowl/firewall support area to triangulate it all. I figure more bracing is more better up front. I may add a tie bar from front subframe and the new stringers into the torque boxes as well. I looked at adding convertible inner rockers, but I think I'm just going to do subframe connectors and then add boxes (jacking rails) to the pinch welds on the rockers and then run stringers between them to solidfy it all.
Best part about all of these projects is they only cost a few dollars, but the results should be dramatic. I want 0 creaks/groans out of this chassis when it's done.
POR-15 is in place in driver side hinge pillar/dash area also. I'll get some pictures of all this tonight...
