Posted by T Stone (IP: 208.202.251.88) on July 18, 2000 at 15:59:55:
In Reply to: Maverick Front-end posted by Earl Pillow on July 18, 2000 at 13:38:12:
: Is it possible to change the entire "front clip" on a Maverick, and if so how hard is it to accomplish? My car has some rust and collision damage, and I want to consider every option before I put a lot of work into the metal that is currently there. I am now looking at cutting out the damaged pieces and welding in straight/unrusted metal from a donor car, but that looks to be a great deal of work and money. Are there any easier options that might yield better results? Or am I stuck doing this the old-fashioned way? Thanks.
Earl,
By "front clip" do you mean the fenders, hood, etc...or do you mean the front frame and suspension pieces, etc....? The fenders, hood, etc... can be changed, but the frame and front suspension and such are "unitized" into the body itself and are not easily separated. It can technically be done however.
I did one over the winter. I converted a '72 into a full-on race car by taking a sawzall and cutting the original front-frame completely off of the car (before all of you purists start flaming me, the front-end was junk to begin with...it had been wrecked and could not be lined up any more). I replaced it with a "front clip" from a '71 Nova and installed a 468ci big-block in the car. I also ran frame rails from the rear of the car to the new front-clip and installed a narrowed 9-inch with ladder bars. It wasn't physically that hard to do, but unless you're willing to do a lot of fabricating, I'd go another route.
Because of the physically larger engine, I had to relocate the firewall and build a new transmission tunnel. The car is nearing completion, and when it's done, I'll post some pictures.