When I visited Barry from Jo Daddy’s Garage, he suggested doing a one piece floor, which I opted to do. The problem was that they were not readily available and I was about to get out of Arizona for the hot summer. Well, time passed, the floor arrived just as I got back and ready to work again.

I had to open it up with the delivery driver there. The shipping frame was damaged, but it thankfully didn’t reach the floor itself, so all good.

This thing is solid. Not too heavy at about 400ish pounds. I used a couple of appliance carts on one side, and the engine hoist attached to the shipping frame on the other. I bought a simple frame supporting body cart to put it on while I’m assembling. Once it has all 4 actual suspension support points, I will move it over to the mustang specific body cart the original shell is currently on. By then, the original should be pretty well cut up and out of the way.

I should point out I spend a lot of time reviewing JoDaddy’s Garage Youtube videos on his Brooklyn Pony series, and now his Fangled series. Both use this floor, and the first one is a convertible project, so lots of great advice to follow. Amazing work; check it out. https://www.youtube.com/@JoDaddysGarage

Step one is rocker panels and wheel wells. Rockers are Dynacorn, and the black wheel wells are Scott Drake. Being a convertible, the wheel wells are unique with a flat spot on the inner well to make room for the top, when retracted. These were all I could find when I was amassing parts in the spring. Lesson learned. Don’t do it. The rockers were good, they just had a little spring since they were not perfectly flat, but a couple dozen clamps, and everything is fine.

Here is the first fit. They are too low, and the floor needs a small relief cut on the rear radius for them to fully seat, but even then, they were still 5/8 inch too far out. Being fall now, I looked online again and found Dynacorn convertible wheel wells and ordered them. I forgot to get a picture, but they fit nearly perfect. The floor still needed the same relief cut in the back, but they were able to get snugged in and flush on the back drop.

While I was test fitting the quarter panels, I found a patch of rust bubbles under the black ecoat. It looks like the manufacturer let them sit for some period before coating them. I looked closer and found about 6 spots. I ground it down and found a thin layer of brown rust between the ecoat and the metal. Only on the driver side though, passenger side had none.

Test fitting the wheel well with the quarter, I just could not get these things to fit right. I don’t know if its a lack of experience, or just bad stamping, but I think even if I had no idea what I was doing, I should be able to hold the thing up against the side of the car and get it to line up if it was stamped correct. So I did that, and without a wheel well, just lining up the back to the tail light panel area, I still had a 1 inch gap on the rocker. The wheel well lip doesnt line up as it has a different contour than the quarter. It is snug in the top, then it gaps half way down as I clamp the bottom to make it come together. I spent so much time messing with these trying to get them to line up. I learned a lot and got them closer, but no where near as easy as the JoDaddy’s videos where he seemingly just pulls it out of the box and its a perfect fit.

Eventually, I got the wheel well in a position where it fit the best, and looking over at the original body, the lines were pretty much the same for height and rotation. That gave me enough confidence to do one final fit and start welding.

First rocker welded. From there, I refit the wheel well and quarter after punching/drilling all the plug weld holes and did the wheel well, then the same on the other side.

Progress is made, and things are moving again. My next step is to remove the two major assemblies from the back of the original. The first is the back seat support with the side supports for the convertible top. The second is what I will refer to as the rain gutter because that’s what it looks like, but its the outer lip of the convertible top well, and the back panel between the top and the rear deck. The first part is reproduced, but the original is solid with no evidence of rot, so I will pull it and use it. The second is not reproduced in whole. The only way I found to get it was buy the entire side wall for nearly $2,000 each, plus the back tray support separately. The one I have isn’t awesome, but it’s going to be reused. Lots of drilling pinch welds in my future.