I'd say get the holes welded up with some replacement metal and put 90 degree zerk fittings on the upper control arms. This way you can grease them up from inside the wheel well.

I'm not a welding expert but I've seen cracks repaired by drilling small holes at the ends of the cracks to elimimate the weak spot at the ends. They then V'd out the crack and welded it up good.

My 69 had a large 10" tear in the shock tower caused by a hit to the drivers fender and wheel by another car. I pounded it back into place with a block of wood and sledge hammer and welded it up. I sold it shortly after because it was so badly rusted so I don't know well it held up.

 

Yeah, my 65 has the 90 degree grease zerks, and I don't have any holes in my shock tower. I would fill in the holes, and patch over them.

 

Well, since you are tubbing the car and have a subframe in there, I will assume you aren't worried about correctness. You might want to take a look at this kit:

http://www.drgas.com/store/product.p...&cat=22&page=1

Nice stuff, 3/16ths inch thick cold-rolled gussets that reinforce that very area of the shock tower. My cougar was rust-free and had the original 302 and C4 in it when I got it... but it had plenty of hairline cracks in both shock towers. This led to something I called "dynamically adjustable alignment". Except you couldn't control or predict it. I'd be driving along and hit the most minor dip, and the car would swerve a foot. At least I caught the cracks before the metal had time to migrate... everything was lined up well, just cracked. You weld up the cracks, then you can weld in the reinforcements. Technically the motor needs to be out of the car to weld in all of the reinforcements, but I found I could weld most of the new parts in with just the export braces and plug wires removed... I think I might have pulled the power steering pump out of the way as well. The rest will wait until the motor is out of there (I am planning on doing a 460 / C6 swap, some year). That problem was solved, and then it was on to the next 1000 problems.

 

nice one rustang! All of my gear is out and I have no rust on the towers, this looks very cool.

yep, not looking for correctness as much as safety and a little performance - car is project for my son

 

Nice project, looks clean. Forgive me if you posted this already, I'm 3 pints down and haven't slept in a few days, but what are your plans for this one? Are you gonna stay original or a resto-mod?

 

my goal is more restomod than anything concours. Although I can appreciate the original restoration projects, I get much more enjoyment from driving the car than looking at it. Additionally, my son is going to be driving the car and it will be his first car so I want it safe. If I had my druthers, I would have it look like a hot rod from the 70's - more my days of thunder

For upgrades, I have the granada disk brake kit, rack and pinion steering, new suspension/springs/sway bars, new gas tank with steel plate, 8" rear end with posi, and looking at headrest/3 point seat belts. As you can see the interior wasn't that bad but I am going to change colors - thinking about silver with black stripes so I will probably go with a black interior. Originally, I had thought about going with the loud restomod - burnt orange with black stripes, but ..............

 

You could always tone it down just a little bit... maybe go with the simple elegance of purple metalflake. Maybe a huge ghost skull on the hood, and a ghost Starsky and Hutch stripe, something like that. Get you a nice distinguished look without being tacky.

 

Ya part of me thinks the stripes on the silver is a little too raider nation and a bit over the top. That and the whole eleanor wanna be thing would not be good. The stock color is Tahoe Turquoise and I saw one of these with large chrome rims and it almost sparlked like a gemstone, looked very cool. But the tahoe turquoise is such a chick color. My favorite color is the Acapulco blue but I have a blue STI for a DD..... decisions, decisions. Well, I reckon I will have a few more months before I have to pull the trigger and commit to color anyhoot

 

here a few shots of the back seat area of the tub, it didn't clean up too badly, but what a **** on the back

I stripped the paint off down to the metal and then did the infinite amount of simple green to get all the debris off and a clean surface and then shot rubberized underbody asphalt product, next stop is padding and carpeting!

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Finally found the USB cable for the digital camera and thought I would upload a few pics. As usual, it is slow going at times and kinda comes and goes in spurts......... I have managed to get some headway ina few areasso its going - slow but steady wins this race I reckon, more like LeMans than 1/4 mile(I wasthinking it would take me about 12-18 months and I am about 9 months in):
[ul][*]Underbody/frame - replaced front frame rail, added TCP stage 1&2 sub-frame kit,[*]Interior shell - stripped shell to metal and tried a few variants for substance - bed liner/underbody/por-15 -- I like the por-15 the best but definitely was some work stripping[:@]and the inside of the firewall.......[*]Engine compartment - welded cracks in the shock towers, welded pieces to cover the huge holes some moron had drilled in the shock towers. Coated in por-15[*]Steering/suspension - put in Unisteer steering rack (need to install steering linkage), put in new suspension parts and heavy duty sway bar - put all new bushings poly or midolyne[*]Brakes - put on Degins granada disk brake kit, love the slotted rotors[/ul]
the goal was to get theshell fairly solidand start the assembly (the really funpart has been a having my2 sons helping me turn everywrench)!My wife's cousin works in the autobody biz and is helping me so I alternate between working on the body andputting stuff on.

I am not looking to go show car but just want everything clean and in keeping with a "70'srestomod" project. I wasn't exactly a big fan of the way the por-15 looks but I love the way it has helped"sturdy up" the old metal -it sure is durable stuff and I wanted industrial strength, we plan on driving this car.

can't wait to get this rolling

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