My ride originally comes from Pennsylvania. As a result it has an ATROCIOUS rust problem. Fortunately, it doesn’t look like any of the rust directly impacts the structural integrity of the vehicle. After removing my hood and fenders I was able to see the full extent of the damage. I decided to fix the damage by bonding fiberglass directly to the vehicle unibody.

Tools Used:

• Hammer
  
• Flathead screwdriver
• Metal Snips
• Orbital Sander
  
• Super cheap paintbrushes (They turn into plastic after you’re done)
• Latex Gloves
• Respirator
  

Materials:

• 3M Bondo Home Solutions All-Purpose Fiberglass Resin, 1-Gallon
  
  
• 6oz Fiberglass Cloth
• Rust-Oleum 7582838 Professional Primer Spray Paint, Gray Primer, 15-Ounce
• Rust-Oleum 7579838 Professional High Performance Enamel Spray Paint, Gloss Black, 15-Ounce
• Acetone (Optional but handy especially to make your brushes last longer)

 

Liberal application of a hammer, flat head screwdriver, metal snips, and my orbital sander gave me a good look at what exactly needed repairing.

The most significant damage was under my driver’s side fender. I had to remove a fair amount of metal in order to eliminate all of the rust spots.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Other damaged areas included the engine compartment frame that my fenders were bolted to and the floor on the drivers side. And yes I could stick my hand right through the bottom of my car and touch the road!

 

 

 

 

 

There was also some corrosion damage around the battery compartment that needed patching.

 

 

Patch Management

The first step was to prep the regions. Affixing my handy dandy respirator I mixed fiberglass resin with MKP (catalyst) in order to start the clock. The resin is very sticky, but starts to harden within 3-5 minutes. I coated the problem areas liberally. By the time I’d gotten through coating all of the areas the places I started at had already gotten tacky.

Tacky – Fiberglass resin is said to have gone “tacky” once it is no longer wet and gloppy like an oil-based paint, and is holding its position. At this point the resin is very sticky (like glue). Once it has dried and is no longer sticky, it ceases to be “tacky”.

Once the resin became tacky I added my first layer of 6oz fiberglass cloth. You can technically add resin to any type of cloth in order to form a solid part. The most common materials are:

Fleece/Cotton/Other Crap – Fleece or cotton are common base materials used in DIY composite construction due to their high availability and low price they lack the strength of more advanced fabrics.

Carbon Fiber – Carbon fiber is super cool, super light, super strong, and super expensive. It is also relatively hard to come by when compared to other fabrics, but it looks sick!

Kevlar – Kevlar is very strong, but it is also extremely heavy when compared to other fabrics.

Fiberglass – Fiberglass comes in two general flavors: fiberglass mat and fiberglass cloth.

Fiberglass Mat vs Cloth – The general difference is price and finish. Mat has a much more course grain and is often used in the construction of temporary parts like molds for future fiberglass work. Cloth is more expensive, but it has a denser weave and can be more easily sanded to a pristine finish. Since fiberglass is not overly expensive I chose to use it as my learning material (as opposed to expensive carbon fiber). I’m using 6oz fabric (fiberglass fabric is differentiated by the weight (oz) of the material).

The next step was to coat the fiberglass with another layer of resin in order to set it appropriately.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Depending on the location I laid down between 3 and 4 layers of fiberglass.

 

Sanding

 

 

 

Before applying paint I sanded the patches smooth.

 

 

 

 

Finishing Touches

Finally, I added a layer of paint and let the sucker dry!

 

I’m really happy with how these repairs turned out. The fiberglass is extremely strong (I tested it with my hammer).

 

In making these repairs minimal weight was added to the vehicle. I didn’t have to purchase expensive welding equipment. The project only took a couple days despite my lack of experience with this type of work.

 

 

 

 

 

Let me know what you think or if I left out some obviously crucial detail that you’d like to be regaled with. Yanking the engine out was a load of fun!

It’s time to ditch my greasy old Internal Combustion Engine (ICE)! My Mustang II is currently running a 1976 2.3L v4 carbureted hunk of scrap metal. That’s not to say I’ve got anything against a carb, having that over fuel injection would certainly have solved some of the recent trouble I’ve had with my other car, but… a v4? In a Mustang? Nope, goin ‘lectric!

I bought an Impact Tool to help me pop the nuts off of the rig, but I found that most of the time I only had the room to use a plain old wrench. Getting this hunk of junk was a total pain that included me standing on the engine itself and trying to deadlift some of the bolts loose. Slippage? Let’s just say that I have about a hundred bruises.

Lesson learned during this sprint: ??? Wrenches suck…

Tools used:

• Ingersoll Rand 236G 1/2-Inch Edge Series Air Impactool, Silver
  • English Driver Set (Stanley)
    
  • Metric Driver Set (Stanley)
    
  • Impact Joint Set
    
• Wrench Set
• Ratchet Set 12mm – 23mm (needed english set not metric, old Fords…)
• Couple Buckets
• Car Jack
• 2 Jack Stands
• Cherry Picker/Engine Hoist
• Air Cutoff Tool (had to cut through some of the bolts on my exhaust piping, was epic fun!)

The motor before I started turning wrenches

Started by jacking the vehicle up. I was afraid of the jack stand’s stability for a while, but after jumping on the engine block for hours on end I managed to develop a modicum of bravery. It certainly looks precarious though. Ya, I was under that!

Hours of tugging on wrenches, draining oil, and smashing things with my hammer out of frustration (not on the parts list) later…

I wrapped trucker chains around the motor in order to get it out. Unfortunately I stripped the heck out of the bolts on the exhaust system so I couldn’t disconnect it. You can see it hanging off in the picture below. In order to rectify that I had to cut the bolts tying it together underneath the car. That allowed me to raise the motor as high as seen in the photo, but the exhaust pipe was still to long to go any further. Fortunately, getting the engine out this far allowed me to get a better angle on the nut and my air impact tool was able to spin it write off. That sucker was money very well spent. Glad I went with the higher-end IR. It was on sale on Amazon too, $77 bucks! At the time of this posting it was back up to $100 with MSRP at $130. so definitely happy with my timing.

Finally loose!

Motor out and engine compartment cleaned up a bit.

This next part of the project is actually for the next phase (installation of the electric motor), but it shows the engine bay cleaned up and painted so I figured I’d throw it in.Anyway! Let me know what you think or if I left out some obviously crucial detail that you’d like to be regaled with. Yanking the engine out was a load of fun!

 

In this second post about my 1976 Mustang II project I’m going to discuss the vehicle’s body, and the modifications I either have to or want to make to it. Most people hate it, but the 70s Mustangs are my favorite in the long line of pony cars. Whilst trolling the Internet for sexy hot rods, I stumbled upon this saliva inducing beauty put together by the folks at A-Team Racing. I’m using that vehicle as the reference and target for my own project. Note that not only do I have absolutely NO experience working on cars or with composites, but I also do expect to spend most of my time stepping on my tail and failing. Best way to learn right? At least I’m realistic…

Rough Design

The vehicle I’m starting with has some significant bodily differences from my target so I did a quick mockup of what the vehicle should look like before and after. This allowed me to really get a feel for how large the project I’m taking on actually is. It’s pretty big…

Sorry the bottom image didn’t scan well. I’ll try to spruce it up in the future.

You’ll notice that the biggest issue is that hatchback problem. My donor vehicle is a notchback, not cool. The part that I’m most worried about there is the glass. I intend to fabricate the rear panel out of fiberglass and use a lexan sheet for the window. I think I can drill holes through these layers and bolt them together, then grind off the bolts and fiberglass over top of them to get a smooth finish.

Fabrication Plan

The basic idea is to pull off most of the body panels and replace them with fiberglass replicas. This allows me to cut weight while also giving me the opportunity to adjust the vehicle’s appearance to better suit my ego.

Here’s the general layout of my plan:

• I will be using foam to build the general shape of the body panels
• I plan to overlay that with clay in order to mold a more defined shape
• Next I will cover that with aluminum foil and spray it with a releasing solution
• Then I plaster fiberglass on top of that and let it harden into the part
• After reinforcing the piece I should be done

In some cases I may have to take the positive and pull a negative form off to get the actual desired shape, but that is generally speaking what the process should be to build virtually every part of the car… I hope…

Let me know where the wrinkle is in my plan! No, it’s not the whole plan, Jeez!