Helo-tech

Hey Guys,

I've been working on cars for MANY years but never had the chance to work on a classic Mustang. anyway, my wife has always wanted a '66 so we picked up a fairly rust free project car for her. it is a 6 cyl car that will be converted to a v-8, I already have the spindles and rear end for the conversion along with the motor (302) and C-4 tranny.

but first things first, the "bones" of the car are solid, it has none of the normal Mustang rust though. the floor are perfect as well as the cowl, torque boxes and frame rails. the worst rust on the car is in the rear quarters which will be replaced.

my question is this, it will probably be into the summer before we can actually start buying replacement panels for the car but I would like to spend the winter removing the parts that need to be replaced, can I remove the rear quarters and let the car sit for a while without causing any issues with the structure of the body? I am planning on building a rotisserie for doing the bottom of the car and am wondering if the quarters have to be in place before hanging the car or not.

I will be replacing the rear tail light filler panel too due to pretty good bend in it. the previous owner took the car off the trailer and let the car "get away from him", the car rolled back into a small tree which dented the trunk lid and the tail light filler. we already have a new trunk lid but will wait to pick up the filler till we get the quarters.

we have a Mustang vendor about 3 hours from us, so we plan on making a shopping list and driving up to pick up all the big parts to save on shipping costs.

thanks for any advice

TexasAxMan

If you have the skills to replace a quarter, you're undoubtedly familiar with the bracing that's required, right? Don't go cutting without shoring everything up. I'd have the quarters hung before mounting on a rotisserie.

groho

strip the car completely down before you determine exactly what you're going to replace. Full quarter replacement is time consuming, and you may only require the bottom sections. Sounds like you already have much of the tools to do the work. You get exactly what you pay for with sheet metal. Most of the aftermarket replacement panels are 20-22ga, but the more costly panels are 18ga. Big difference in welding results and quality of the welds. Spend the money on better panels, you'll appreciate it later. Enjoy, and good luck.