[Socram]

Hi I'm restoring a 65 coupe and the area of the engine compartment where the battery battery goes is completely rusted through and pretty messed up. What sort of steps should I take to fix this? Is this common? I can post a picture if needed.

The battery mount, or whatever you call the actual piece the battery sits on, is okay, I was able to buy an original replacement.

[Bill/66Fastback]

I don't know how good you are with body work, but several Mustang sources ie, Virginia Mustang, Mustangs Unlimited, etc sell the replacement side panel that you attach the battery tray to. Mustang monthly had an article several months back that addressed replacing panels such as those. Good luck!

billb

[Jay H 237]

While mine only had surface rust it was crinkled bad from a long ago accident and needed to be replaced fully. The steps would be the same as I documented on my website inner_fender_replacement

[Boomyal]

Originally Posted by Jay H 237

While mine only had surface rust it was crinkled bad from a long ago accident and needed to be replaced fully. The steps would be the same as I documented on my website inner_fender_replacement

Nice tutorial! What did you end up doing for the grille? The aftermarket parts were dimensionally wrong?

[Socram]

Awesome guys thanks for the replies, they look very helpful.

[Jay H 237]

Originally Posted by Boomyal

Nice tutorial! What did you end up doing for the grille? The aftermarket parts were dimensionally wrong?

I bought 4 or 5 sets of used grille parts off Ebay later that summer (05) and took the best parts, cleaned them up, repainted the argent paint on the wide moldings and buffed the rest. I still have some good spares if I ever need them too from some of the others. The original moldings were dinged up plus because the stone deflector had the wrong hardware it dinged/creased the original wide moldings beyond any easy fix for them. Here's a shot wide shot with the grille in, I have no close ups of it right now. This pic is from the same angle as the pic on my site when I washed the car but just taken a year or so later with the new repro rims too
http://i194.photobucket.com/albums/z...sideview-1.jpg



OK, the repro grille moldings, the thin and wide Convex brand parts for 67/68:

The wide moldings were too short in the center. The center cap wasn't wide enough to cover the gap and if I moved the moldings in further then there was a gap at the headlight extensions. Basically they weren't long enough.

The thin moldings didn't have the correct contour to match the radius of the curve from going verticle to horizontal. These were very flimsy compared to the originals too. Just trying to gentley bend/tweak them to the contour of the opening as you bolted them in place would make them buckle. If I forced them further I think they would have permanent creases.

I have the feeling that the repros are done in batches. I have heard others that have had problems with these and even other moldings while yet other people have had them bolt right on! This is where I think that they are done in batches and not every batch is the same. Basically the quality seems to vary. I didn't feel like buying multiple sets of repros hoping to get lucky. I decided if I had to buy multiple sets to hope for a good one I would go with original parts.


No new updates have been done to my website for years since my host no longer supports the Frontpage file extensions. I have to completely redo the site in another format but it's not high on my list. I just keep paying the monthly fee and yearly domain fee to keep that one up as it is very helpful to people and it's linked all over the web.