The deal was made and the car was shipped from South Texas to Birmingham and driven to our shop. Upon first inspection the car seemed pretty decent...an older restoration that needed freshening. The brake booster leaked and the trans slipped a little but it ran well and drove just OK...you could tell the suspension was worn out. The paint was shiny but it was that ugly Pond Scum Green color that those of us into Mustangs just can't seem to get away from....what were they thinking back then AND in '05?!?
Anyway....disassembly begins...pulled the engine and transmission.....then I start pulling out the interior and when I removed the door sill plate on the RH side I saw a welded seam.....crap! I had a feeling of what was about to reveal itself....pull up the carpet and the seam stops where a floor patch was put in....get to the transmission tunnel and the seam comes back....all the way across. What we have now is TWO cars put together! On top of that the floor had been covered with fiberglass reinforced body filler and ALL of the welding with the exception of the rockers was done with BRASS...this was done a LONG time ago from the looks of it. The rockers appear to have been stick welded but grinding down the exterior paint showed rust holes around near the welded area that had been filled with body filler. Of course the rockers were covered with a rocker molding and you could not stick a magnet there.
So now we have a car that has been previously sectioned....found a repair to the driver seat frame in the form of a brazed on lug nut to the seat back adjuster which suggests the car had been rear ended long ago and the seat broke on impact(typical for these seats).
Now on to removing fenders and doors to prep the car for mounting to a rotisserie and then soda blasted. I noticed the seam sealer around the cowl looks suspect....I start digging at it with a screwdriver and it turns out to be household latex Caulking! After digging at it for a short time I notice the entire cowl started to move.....Holy crap this thing is just glued on with caulk! In the end the 4 corners were pop riveted on and the rest was glued with white latex caulking! Someone had done a VERY poor attempt to fix the typical cowl rust found in these cars!
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Paul
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