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1968 Mustang body on Howe road race chassis


Tinman
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Ditto on no obnoxious music, and ditto on the audio volume being a little hard to hear. This looks amazing to me though. I was always wondering how a car body/shell would mount onto a tube chassis. I guess I'll have to wait for the future video to find out how you dealt with the wheelbase discrepancy. I hate cliff hangers. It's probably been discussed a while ago, but how did you line the body up on the chassis? Is it based on windshield location, roof line, rear wheels? Obviously not front wheels since they did not line up.
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Thanks everyone!

 

I did not notice the lack of volume when editing, only after viewing it on youtube. I was using an external microphone but I'm guessing I was just too far away from it, or I just need to speak up. I'll be sure to come up with a solution for the rest of the videos.

 

Locating the body on the chassis was all done with the original coupe shell. Once it landed where it fit, I took multiple dimensions and pictures, even pictures of an angle finder laying on different areas of the body. Most of the dimensions were to the windshield frame and cowl. Then everything was stripped off and the windshield frame and cowl were set back in place according to the dimensions taken and the new sheet metal was fit up from them. The only issue I almost ran into was the roof skin to main roll hoop. The fastback roof slopes down towards the rear much more so the the coupe's roof, but there is still roughly 1/4" gap at the tightest point where as the coupe's roof had over an inch of clearance.

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  • 2 weeks later...
*checking in each day for a finished product

 

I'm sorry the updates are not more frequent. And even more so that the finished product is way off in the future.

 

Went on vacation, now catching up from vacation. More progress will be made and documented soon.

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I'm sorry the updates are not more frequent. And even more so that the finished product is way off in the future.

 

Went on vacation, now catching up from vacation. More progress will be made and documented soon.

 

I was shocked when I read 2 weeks , it takes me longer to cut my grass haha

 

Still awesome can’t wait to see the next update

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I was shocked when I read 2 weeks , it takes me longer to cut my grass haha

 

 

 

Still awesome can’t wait to see the next update

Ha, "two weeks" is an old CR joke for when people would have their car done and ready to race. In some cases it means never lol.

 

Sent from my SM-G973U using Tapatalk

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  • 1 month later...

So, it's been a little more than two weeks, maybe closer to two months, but I still think with only just two more weeks this project will be complete :rolleyes:

 

 

So, making videos is far more difficult and time consuming than I expected but I have not given up hope. Well, I have, but not all hope. There is still a glimmer of hope that I intended to nurture into something worthy of wasting your precious time with but it might be another "two weeks"

 

 

For now, some photos.

 

piXJlDO.jpg?1

 

The first slice. I cut the rear quarter panels at peak of the valley? How can there be a "peak" in a valley? What's the opposite of "peak"? Whatever that is is where I made the cuts. I figured this would be the best place to add a filler strip to widen the body at the beltline. This way filler would be minimal.

 

05P3RbC.jpg?1

 

The original intention was to widen the body 3" on each side and add fender flares to cover the tires from there. After cutting and sliding the rear quarter panels out the intended 3" I realized it would not work. By adding a consistent 3" in width, there would be another 3" of flare required in the front and nearly nothing in the rear. This would not work. So, after a few beers, some measuring, and a few minutes... or hours of staring at it, I formulated a modified plan. The body would be widened but at different increments. 3" at the front, 2" where the doors meet the fenders, 1" where the doors meet the quarter panels, and lastly, 1 1/2" at the rear.

 

I felt it would look best to keep the inner tail lights at their factory Ford location, move the outer tail lights with the quarter panels, and move the center tail lights halfway, 3/4".

 

lyjpcbd.jpg?1

 

The Howe chassis is a 104" wheelbase, the 1968 Mustang is 108" wheelbase. I've found a few places to narrow the gap between the two. One is at the rear quarter to roof panel meeting point. I was able to gain 3/4" here but doing so caused a misalignment in the drip rail.

 

nJnPVhz.jpg?1

 

After some trimming, welding in a filler strip and additional filler metal, and some grinding, it's ready for filler... or so I thought, every time I look at it, I find more places that need some fine tuning in hopes that a high build primer might be all that's needed.

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