Well I started the front end re-build this week.Shoulda took me about 8 hrs from tear down to finished install.Best laid plans of mice and men right??All was good till I started teardown on the right side.The swap monkey with two left feet a cleft pallet and a sledge hammer for a right hand showed off some of his handy work yet again...What a yutz!!!I found this saturday.(see pics below)So after much harrumphing and bewildered head shaking i decided to do an interem patch job.Sorry took the pick after fitting the A arm(tonight)Still gotta close up a small hole at the rear of the tower.I did get the left side together though It wiil be interesting to see if the A arms rub against the hammered to death towers.How this monkey managed to beat the towers back allmost an inch is beyond me Betcha this poor thing wont aligne for S!%T either!!! Anyone still have the remnants from their shock tower shave.I could use them to section these back together.This is what I get for ignoring my number one rule of car purchasing."Never buy another mans hot rod!!!!!"I was planning to get this thing road worthy so I could cruise it for the summer.Dont know how thats gonna pan out at this stage.May be a while before you guys and gals get to see the magnums on it with fresh rubber.I have resurrected worse though.I will stop now,just needed to wank a bit.
Looks like you made the best of that situation. I would get that car on an alignment rack before going too much further into it. If it is off, someone who knows what they are doing with a frame machine could become your best friend. My white Comet ran perfectly straight after getting mashed by a large truck and 3 hours on a frame machine ... it always had a pull to it prior to that ... That poor car was hit several times before I got it. 351s in these cars are a real challenge, especially without cutting the shock towers ...(which he almost did ... )
Looks like the important mounting location wasnt damaged. Shame on you for making fun of previous owners birth defect.
Wow, I've seen some hack jobs over the years but that is one of the worst. But it is repairable. Sometimes I think its very rewarding to fix crap like that.
Well,its all put together now...I lined it up as best I could with a level and a tape measure.It all panned out pretty darn well actually.Now I need to replace the core support...get the tires/magnums mounted and get a proper alignement.Iron out a few minor electrical proplems,put a pair of E-brake cables on it and it should be ready for the road.Then the real fun starts.The mysterious wont start problems(leaving ya stranded)LOL...The electrical gremlins that will no doubt appear.The inadequacy of the parts not changed being pushed around by the 351 LOL...Oh the joys of putting a car on the road thats.. been sitting since 1989...Has an "Un-tested" powertrain combo...and headers that make left turns a chess game of planning three moves ahead...ITS GONNA BE SOOO COOL!!!!!
LOL...It was actually easier to raise the engine off its mounts to change the plugs (which I did this weekend) Than it was for the swap monkey to set up and cut that wound in the tower.
