Isn't this a beautiful site? Rust. Ahhh... For me rust isn't such a bad thing cuz' not only do I get to put brand new metal in it's place but I also get to practice more welding!
Ya! I turned to my trusted friends over at Mustangs Unlimited for the 2 pieces that make up the front frame rail. I ordered the passenger side (Right) but what do they send me?
The drivers side (left)... what a bunch of turnips.
The good news is I now get more practice by fabricating a new inside box frame rail from a left side to a right. This was not easy as they are quite different.
Here i've cut and began reshaping the left rail to work on the right side. I won't get into the boring details of what I did but rest assured, i made it work :)
Some fancy work here to try and replicate the original
Notching of the old frame for removal of the rusted piece (view taken from the top while inside the engine compartment)
Cutting out of the old frame rail is now complete
The new piece fits great. A lot of care and attention was taken to ensure that this was welded square and true as any misalignment could cause a lot of problems with the other body panels I needed to replace (not to mention the front bumper)
OK, so not the prettiest weld but this was thick metal and I wanted to make sure that it was SOLID! Note patching of one of the bolt holes. Since I was using the wrong side I need to plug the old holes and redrill to match the original ones. Since the outer frame rail gets welded beside this I wasn't worried about grinding the welds on the inside of this box. Unfortunately I didn't photograph the next step but trust me, it worked out well...
See?
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