breakin' out the epoxy

Now onto the BIG ONE! If you've been following the refurb of the passenger compartment, (one, two, three, four) then you may have been wondering if it would ever be completed...well you're not the only one! The answer is that it now pretty much is. There was just one final thing to do before I could hit the dash and front area with epoxy...Zero Rust. The under-dash openings to the cowl were in excellent condition for a car of this age, even before I cleaned them up. The Mustang cowl is notorious for being rusted out, and is probably the most difficult portion of the car to repair due to Ford's "closed" design. In other words, I really lucked out with this car...again!

Still, I wanted to give the cowl a little extra bit of protection, so I applied some Zero Rust as far inside as I could get with a small foam brush. I'll be taking care of the rest of the cowl later on.

I also dealt with a few little bits of surface rust that I couldn't properly get at with the wire wheel - for example the recesses where the door hinges mount. I keep weighing up whether, if I could wave a magic wand and do this project again, I should have had the body shell sandblasted on day one, and saved myself a ton of rust removal work? I'm still not convinced either way....

The Zero Rust had plenty of time to cure while I masked off the car.

The usual masking tape grid

and at the windshield opening

Masking paper pressed on from the inside>

other side of the car has a useful access hole!

I mixed up my usual PPG DP74LF red oxide 2:1 with DP401LF activator (I have not been using reducer on this project so far) and filled up the paint gun. I started under the dash and moved on to the front and around the windshield. After waiting about 40 minutes for the epoxy to flash, I went back over these areas and then moved on to the foot wells and seat platforms. After another 40 minute interlude the floor got hit again and then I taped off the "access hole" and left the car to dry. (Note: the flash time is usually more like 20 minutes, but it was about 55 F - a very cold day in other words - when I did the spraying). This is the result after the dust had settled, so to speak:

With the interior drying (and closed off) I moved on to the doors. First though, I had to make sure that absolutely every trace of aircraft stripper had been removed - it's easy to tell if you've painted epoxy over paint stripper, because the primer will never dry; it just remains a wet blob no matter how long you wait. After I stripped the doors I cleaned up with a soap solution, but in the interests of certainty, I did the it twice more - both doors were given a thorough wash down with a sponge and then dried with paper towels and compressed air. I paid particular attention to the edges where the door skin meets the interior panel and to the lower edge. When this was done I wiped down with a rag soaked in lacquer thinner and finished off with a tack cloth.

The next question was how to position the doors for paint. If I had an engine hoist, I'd probably use that to hang the doors, but since I don't (yet), I tried suspending the door from an A-frame I had in the shop.

Unfortunately, this turned out to be too unstable, so in the end I just laid one door on top of my bench and put the other one on top of my tool cart. This worked OK, and I just had to be careful when turning the doors around. I masked off the interior side of the door before spraying the primer - I am doing my best to preserve the texture on the inside surfaces, so I won't be using epoxy in these areas. I tried to make sure that the edge where the paint changes color will be covered by the weatherstrip.

Each door got two coats, again with about 40 minutes flash time in between.

While I had the paint gun out I took the opportunity to put primer on the rear valance - the metal was prepped in the same way as the doors to ensure all the residue from the paint stripper was gone (I hope!)

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passenger compartment part four

After months of grinding, you'd think I'd be sick of it...and I pretty much am - but after scouring out the dash area the end was most definitely in sight with just the front part of the floor and the upper A-pillars left to take care of. Here's a shot of the front of the car several weeks ago:

The main areas of concern were the drivers floor pan, where there was some obvious rust - the extent of corrosion wasn't as bad as it looks in the picture below - most of that mess is fibers from the underlay which have stuck to the rust in the floor pan.

Rust on the passenger side was less serious but still needed attention.

As usual I started off by scraping away the sealer around the seams in the floor with a stripping knife.

Then it was on with the wire wheeling; first the passenger side...

...and then the driver side and front of the transmission tunnel.

There was some very noticeable corrosion on the inside of the upper A-pillars - I was relived to be able to remove this with the wire wheel without much fuss, as these areas will be displayed when the car is complete.

I also cleaned all the old sealer out of the channel around the windshield, using a rag soaked in lacquer thinner and plenty of effort - this job sucks....

...but eventually I had a nice clean windshield opening to show for my efforts.

I also dealt with excess sealer on the inside of the channel above the dash.

Another grinding session later and the seat platforms and rear foot wells were all cleaned up.

  
A through wipe down with the usual lacquer thinner-soaked rag and the metal took on a clean, dull hue, all ready for epoxy.

grinding on the dash

Cleaning up the inside has been a long slow grind, literally - it's now almost three months since I started sanding of surface rust around the perimeter of the roof. The area behind and under the dash was always destined to be the most complicated - all those small edges - and so it proved. This area was covered in surface rust, and I'm not even sure if it was ever properly painted. Here are some "before" pictures:

I was concerned about throwing grinding dust all over my new primer in the back of the car, so I taped off the rear section as best I could - not perfect but better than nothing.

I started wire wheeling at the passenger side. Apart from the inherent danger of grinding in such closed quarters, there are also a ton of places where the wheel just will not fit.

Here's the view looking towards the driver's side after the first grinding session:

And looking back towards the inside of the dash...plenty more work to do here!

At this point in the proceedings I had already turned the car around and pulled out the engine, so it made sense to remove the steering column and clutch pedal support in order to get better access to the dash on the driver's side.

This was as far as I could get under the driver side dash with the big wire wheel:

Switching over to the drill and die grinder provided better access to some of the tighter corners:

The cowl area in this car - a notorious area for serious rust issues in the Mustang - is in absolutely fantastic shape. A little bit of surface rust was all I had to remove from the underside.

At the end of the second marathon grinding session I had most of the area under the dash cleaned up.

Then it was onto the outer side. I mainly used the drill for this area, as it runs at a lower speed and although that means it takes more effort to remove the paint, there is a much lower risk of damaging the sheet metal by catching an edge with the wire wheel - this area is going to be seen after all. This part of the project was also much easier because I didn't have to contort my body while I was working. I started at the front and worked upwards.

And then moved on to the top of the dash - having the windshield out of the way was an enormous advantage.

Pretty much done in terms of the first pass, and ready to move on to cleaning up the foot wells before I give the entire area a coat of epoxy primer.