When doing this swap it is best to use an aftermarket k-frame. I am going with the tubular AJE piece that seems to be the popular choice amongst other fellows who have done this swap. Griggs also makes a nice piece I here, but is more for those who are seriously racing their cars and it costs significantly more.

A safety tip first, and a very important one. The front springs are in a loaded position in the front suspension. If you are not careful when removing them you risk property damage, serious injury or death. If one of those springs let go and fly out of the side of the car, you best cover your ass and pray it doesn't hit you. You can get spring clamps for fairly cheap at any parts dealer or hardware store with an automotive section. That way you can unload the springs safely and take them out.

Anyway. The k-frame 13 points of connection. First, once you have clamped your springs, you want to remove the nut from the top of the strut towers. This frees the strut.

Next, unbolt the flex lines from the frame of the car and if they are still connected, from the calipers.

Now undo the steering arm bolt. It is easiest if you undo the single nut and bolt on where the shaft meets the arm rather than the ones on the flange at the bottom of the shaft.

It is a good idea to support the k-frame with stands or jacks before you drop it out of the car. I also keep the wheels on so that it doesn't bounce off the floor and gouge it. Also, once the k member is off of the car, it can be rolled on the wheels to wherever it is going to sit.

Undo the 4 bolts that go through the frame and in to the underside of the strut tower. Undo them from under the car since the nuts at the top are locked in place with braces.

Next, there are 4 bolts connecting the k-frame to the frame rails of the car. Again undo those from underneath and make sure the k-frame is supported.

Now the frame should be floating. Let it down slowly making sure that the steering shaft slides out of the arm as it lowers.

And that is it. The k-member is free to enjoy its new life in a scrap bin. Here is a picture of the k-member out of the car. It shows all of the connections that need to be severed before it is dropped.



Depending on what you want to do with your car, or what your vision for your car is, you may want to prep and paint the engine bay. I have a vision of this car being show quality or at least close to it. I am doing a complete prep and smoothing of the engine bay including welding all holes and seams.

If you are not going all out, at least grind or wire wheel any rust you see. You might as well get rid of it while you can. If you find any pin holes in the floors or skirts of your car, now is also a good time to fill or patch them. If you are not good with welding, get someone to help you who is. I suck at welding so my cousin will be taking care of the welding for me.

At the very least, I suggest you use a gloss black Tremclad paint and do the entire engine bay. The finish is shiny and easy to clean and works with whatever color the exterior of your car is. You will be happy with the look, trust me. Paint it up to where the fenders bolt on, but do not put any paint on the fenders themselves. It also really makes the engine stand out from the rest of the car when the hood is open.

As you are grinding and wire wheeling any rust, you will be exposing bare metal. I don't care if you have a temperature controlled garage or not, do not leave the bare metal exposed. This does not mean you have to put the finish coat on the engine bay right away. It does mean that you should buy some cheap spray bomb primer to apply to the bare metal for the time being. Spray bomb primer is also nice to zero in on work that needs to be done. As I primer over things, those things may still need work (I am just covering bare metal after all). I use a black marker to write on the primer the things I need to do still. It is a good way to keep organized so you don't miss anything. Here is a picture to show you what I mean.



One other thing that I forgot to mention. If you take out your carpet, also rip up the factory tar paper that is laid on the front of the floor pans. This stuff hides rot and traps water. You may find good looking pans are actually rough underneath that stuff. You may need to use a heat gun to get some of it up.

That is about it for now. Work resumes on Monday with the welding and final prep of the engine bay.

Hours in.

22 hours total previously

Saturday Oct. 14 - 5 hours for a total of 27 hours (per person).

Oct. 17/06

No update today, just dropping in to say I haven't died or anything. I will have a big update on Saturday evening.

Oct. 21/06

Starting with a picture today.



Is that what I think it is, you say? Yes it is. That is the entire cowl panel off of the Coupe. Now before I go into why it is off the car, I have some advice for you. If you do not know what you are doing or have doubts in your abilities to do something like remove a cowl panel, don't do it. You WILL screw it up and Ford no longer makes these pieces.

Now on to the goodies. The Fox mustang never ceases to amaze me. It is no secret that these cars rot like no tomorrow. Every time I think I know every spot to check for rot, I encounter something new. Case in point, my very clean 1988 coupe that rotted in the cowl underneath the dash. I can't blame the car wholly though. It seems that the previous-previous owner (who owned it before the guy I bought it off owned it) knew of a water leakage problem and attempted to fix it. In doing so he made the car worse.

He sealed the leaking area inside the car with seam sealer. What this did was give the water no where to go so it would sit in these spots and rust away. He would have been better off to let the car leak. Next, in the cowl area he "fixed" what was probably a small issue with everything he could throw at it. First he layered on a fibreglass mat, and then he put on fibreglass poop, and then bondo, and then metalex, and then seam sealer, and finally seam sealer. What he forgot to do was cut out the problem spot.

Lessons learned for you: If you have a spot where the car is rotting, it needs to be cut out and patched, sealed and finished. Surface rust you can just wheel off, but if there is pitting or perforation in the metal, it need to be removed. DO NOT poop over it and hope for the best because the best will never happen. DO NOT rust paint over it and hope for the best, really you are just prolonging the inevitable.

Patches need to be welded in with full bead welds, not just spot welds. Use spot welds to hold the piece in place and then bead it. After that, both sides need to be wheeled, sealed and painted in whatever manner you see fit. Exterior patching is a little more involved then under body or places people will never see. You need to be careful, but you don't have to go all out on those patches.




Nice, huh? The big patches up top I need to do aren't hard. The real challenge are the puppies in the pics above. I am going to have to cut out the rot and make L-shaped patch panels. The real challenge is getting all of the rot out since it is in a peculiar place. Luckily, above that spot is a large opening into the upper frame rails where the fenders bolt on. A difficult fix, but not impossible.

So this is a set back...however it is also an opportunity. I am going to have the cowl shaved smooth. What I mean is that the holes where the grill sits etc. will be filled and smothed over, giving it more of a modern car look. That coupled with the hood I am going to go with will make the car very sleek. To my knowledge, this has never been done before and will hopefully make the car even more unique in the end.

Now before you go rushing to shave the cowl f your car, keep in mind that you will have to use a tig welder to do the panels. If you use a mig, you will warp the shit out of your panel and have to do nasty things to get it straight again. Not to mention that this mod is best done with the cowl off the car since once you seal that puppy up, you won't be able to get at the inside to rust proof it. To take the cowl off, you need to dill out about a bajillion spot welds, some hidden.

Other than that, my cousin has been working on welding up the engine bay.



So once there are solid beads going up and down the seams, I will grind the slag off flush. Once it is all painted up, the seems will be barely noticable, if at all. Many holes will also be filled and smoothed.

I just recieved my shipment of goodies from the Eastwood company. It includes chassis and frame paint in a gloss black. It also had rust converter (converts the rusties to an inert oxide). There are primers and thinners and different paints, oh my. I am sealing and painting the entire interior of the car. When I am through with it, nothing short of submersing it in concentrated salt water for a year will rust it out. I am also sealing and painting the entire engine bay (obviously).

That is it for now. The cowl fix is going to take some time and it is a dissapointing problem to find (mostly because I REALLY want to start ripping the Cobra apart).

Time in:

27 hourse so far.

Thursday Oct. 19 - 3 hours (all cowl removal)
Saturday Oct. 21 - 5 hours

35 hours so far (just so you know, that is $2100 in labour so far @ $60 an hour if it was at a shop getting this done).

Oct. 25/06

Just a short one today. All that is going on is the continuence of work on patching and repairing the problem spots on the car. Pretty boring stuff really, and if you don't already know how to do the stuff, there is nothing I can tell you here to help you learn. I will have a bigger update on Saturday once I feel that sufficient progress has been made.

Hours in:

35 hours so far

Monday + 4 hours
Tuesday + 2 hours
Wednesday + 2 hours

43 hours total so far.

Oct 29/06

Lo, what do we have here?



Yes, that is a floorpan after it has been ousted from a Fox Mustang. You can see how crispy the pan was. There is not much to tell about a pan swap other than it is a large pain in the ass. Bodywork is not my favorite part of the automotive hobby and floorpans nearly rank near the top of my shitlist when it comes to it. All in all, the pan drop went pretty smoothly. We are about 2 weeks behind schedule on the project because of the body work stuff and also because of inclimate weather. I need it to clear for just one day so I can get my sandblasting done. It has rained for 2 weeks straight thus far.



Here is the hole where the pan used to be. This is before I removed the transmission crossmember and the excess metal and rusties. As with all of the panels in the mustangs, this one was spotwelded on in about 200 places, so all of those had to be removed before the pan could drop. You also have to deal with the seat bracing.

Me in the Flintstone mobile. West side yo.



When you go to put the new floor pan in, you need to make sure to test fit it first. Don't just toss it in and start welding it up all willy nilly. Once you have it lined up, drill holes around the edges of the new pan every 1.5 to 2 inches. Now when you line it up in the car to where the old pan used to sit, put in a machine screw in every other hole that you had drilled. Then you weld the holes without the screws to the car (like a spot weld). After you have welded all of those, remove the screws and weld in the holes left behind. Once that is finished, you can lay a bead weld all the way around the pan, up top and underneath.

Test fit.



You can see by the picture how well it lines up. You can also see where the pan was traced with a marking crayon. The lip that the pan will weld onto was cut 1" below the trace line.

Now comes the real fun part. Most of you looking at this site will probably be familiar with the concept of frame connecting. It ties the car together and makes it more rigid, which is a good thing. Most people use the bars that weld onto the front frame and connect at the back on either the rear frame rail or the torque boxes.

I opted for something different, and as far as I'm concerned, the best way to fame connect a car. I am using Chassis Engineering connectors that require you to notch the fram and slice open the floor pan. The connectors not only tie the frames together, but they also weld straight through the floor, offering even more rigidity. I would suggest using the standard type of frame connectors unless you are so skilled enough (And really want to get into a huge job) to use these ones.

Here is a pic of the frame connector mocked up in place. Notice the screws in the pan. Nothing gets welded until it all sits right.



That is it for now. I will finish the other frame connector on Monday and hopefully get the sandblasting done so I can finally square away the cowl fix.

Hours in

43 hours previous

Thursday Oct. 26 - 2 hours
Friday Oct. 27 - 4 hours
Saturday Oct. 29 - 13 hours (woo, marathon run today)

62 hours total and $3720 saved in labour costs.

Next update will start page 3.