Princess has been blasted. While it is waiting for the booth to be primed, I went and took a look to see how many surprises there were. Fortunately, most of them are on the panels I already plan on replacing. Some just need some cleaning up of questionable looking welds. Over all, it is about as expected when I bought it.

Starting in the front, not much different than what expected. I plan on replacing the battery tray apron and the radiator support. Now that it’s blasted, I see the rot in the lower passenger side of the support goes all the way through, front to back.

The one area I didn’t realize was replaced was the outside front plate of the passenger side frame rail. I expect I will be cleaning up those welds at least, so it doesn’t look so concerning, but otherwise, it looks solid.

You can see the battery tray apron is missing the base where the tray itself bolts in. I could try to cut the bottom half off to save the hidden VIN, but the top also has some issues.

I think the plan is going to be to replace the lower flange that is part of the shock tower with a small patch, then replace the whole front apron. I have VIN stamps so I will just stamp the replacement piece with the VIN. For the rear apron, I plan on cutting and patching both layers. Fortunately, its just flat metal with a slight break on the edge and the rot doesn’t extend into any of the bolt clip holes.

Moving back from there, the torque box also looks a little suspect from the welding. I don’t really want to tear all that apart and redo it, so I will most likely just do some grinding and clean up the welds to make sure its solid. Both kick panels look a little thin on the front lower corners, but I am not sure yet if they will need patching. Maybe want, but not need.

The Cowl looks surprisingly good. This is the first spot I expected to rot out and it doesn’t even look like it was replaced from what I can tell. It’s hard to get pictures from underneath, but I didn’t find any trace of rot around the air vents or anywhere else under the cowl.

Both B pillars have similar rot near the bottom outside. I can’t tell yet how deep it goes. I am hoping it is only eating through the panel and not the pilar itself. I can’t seem to find the B pillar in stock anywhere for a convertible, plus replacing it has a risk of messing up the door opening if I get it wrong. And its just more work.

The dash looks solid. No trace of rot there or around the windshield. Floors look solid too, but I suspect they have been replaced at some point.

The whole rear convertible infrastructure looks great. There are some holes for the “custom” dual exhaust hangers that I will need to address, then weld in some stock style reinforced support plates for dual exhaust before placing the holes in the correct location.

On the sides of the rear floor under the back seat, there are some thin areas with a little rust through. I need to look at that closer when I cut the quarters and wheel wells off to see just how bad it is. I worry it may be getting into the rear rails which are right under this spot.

The quarters are rough, but that was clear before blasting. I just didn’t realize there was so much filler all around the rear.

The passenger side of the trunk and wheel well area is the worst. I don’t even know what’s going on here.

It looks like there was some previous trauma here. There is also a lot of rot. As you can see, some has been cut away and maybe had a panel screwed in to replace it, which was gone when I got it.

The rot extends into the wheel well, inner and outer.

I am hoping the slope in front of the fuel tank is salvageable. The replacements are not well built and include hard bends rather than a gradual slope, making it not mate up correctly to the side floor pieces. Replacing it all with a single floor piece would be the best solution, but so much work and it would include the frame rails, forcing me to get it on a jig that I would also have to build. I will have to see how things look once I start cutting things apart to see if that path is going to be best.

The passenger side isn’t too bad. A few dents, but its mostly solid. Even the exterior trunk dropoff is still intact and connected to the quarter panel.

The wheel wells are pretty bad. I’m guessing when the floor was replaced, they may have replaced the convertible inner rockers. It looks like it got in the way on the passenger side, so rather than bending the flange, they just cut out the wheel well and folded it back, calling good. On the driver side, it had a replacement panel riveted over the whole at least. But they are both pretty rotten and have to go.

After checking out the body, I thought I would have some fun and clamp together the parts I have so far to get a visual on how much of the car I will be replacing. It looks like a pretty complete rear end of a mustang. I’m looking forward to getting the body back in the shop and getting to work.