1968 Mustang Project Generation Gap Paint And Body - Painted Pony, Part 2

For our 12-inch-long LED third brake light, we used the same steps for cutting the lens opening as for the side marker lights. We made the initial cut with the trunk lid still mounted to the body and aligned from the initial body fit. This ensured our LED light opening was centered at the rear of the car.

Once the opening had been cut, the trunk lid was removed to a body panel stand to finish filing the opening to the edge of the metal template.

To fit the lens, and eventually the LED light assembly, an opening in the rear of the trunk lid's inner skin is required. Gaydos made an opening by using a hole saw at each end and then used a pneumatic saw to cut the remaining center section free.

With the mounting hole established, Gaydos can fit the LED's lens into the trunk lid and sand the lens flush. A thin coat of body filler was used not only to make the lens-to-trunk-lid seam perfect, but to fill some low spots Gaydos found in the fiberglass as well.

Gaydos leveled the filler with 36-grit sandpaper on a long board sander. This made the trunk lid's "face" nice and even, and sanded the lens plastic down flush at the same time.

Due to the narrow mounting area, it's impossible to reach the trunk lid's face to bond brackets in like the front fascia installation. Instead Gaydos whipped up a simple aluminum bracket to mount the LED light directly to the 18-gauge steel block-off plate for the opening. Here, the parts are laid out for assembly and test fitting.

Once assembled, the third brake light slid right into place, and once screwed to the trunk lid, the LED light housing sat within 1/8-inch of the lens. This gap will be taken up with a small adhesive backed foam gasket to prevent light leakage into the trunk.

Last month we got our fender-to-hood gaps looking perfect, but we still had the fender-to-door gaps to tackle (the door-to-quarter gaps were taken care back when we did all of our fiberglass work). Gaydos used a coarse grinding disc to shape the leading edge of the door first.

The end result is a gap that is more even than what we started with, but still too wide in some places. The door skin was actually separated in places from the grinding disc, but no worries, as the fender will come off next for some build-up welding.

Before the fender was removed, Gaydos marked it with a Sharpie where the door skin needed to be built up to match the fender. This will close the wide gaps and even everything up.

After grinding down the fresh welds and replacing the fender, you can see how our fender-to-door gap is much more even now-but we're not done yet.

Plastic body filler to the rescue once again, as Gaydos put a light coat of filler over the door and fender. This will allow Gaydos to shape the final gap precisely, just as he did with the fender-to-hood gap last month.

The filler was rough-sanded with 36-grit sandpaper on a long board across the fender and door, leveling the area. Then Gaydos used 36-grit sandpaper folded twice to sand the gap opening directly for a uniform gap the entire length of the fender and door seam.

Followers of our '68 Mustang project know that we've borrowed a few different styles to design the exterior of our project, including the traditional Shelby look, a bit of Eleanor (but not too much!), and some of our own ideas. One of those ideas was doing something with our cowl vents. They're not needed anymore with the A/C system we're planning, so out comes the cutoff wheel.

One of our first thoughts was to just fill the vent in smooth with the rest of the cowl, but after discussing with Gaydos and Classic Creations of Central Florida's Merv Rego, we thought it would be great to have the cowl area match the handformed steel upper air extractors that Gaydos made for our quarter-panels. Forming an angled tray out of 18-gauge steel is where Gaydos started his design.

The metal tray was tacked into place where the cowl vent used to be. The angled metal, approximately 3/4-inch deep at the forward end, will be the basis for the extractor look.

After fully welding the metal tray in, the scrap metal's old paint is ground away while grinding the welds too. A quick blast of primer to seal the bare metal and a small drain hole in the outboard corner finished the base of the extractor.

The top of the extractor is another scrap of 18-gauge steel that Gaydos cut out after creating a few paper board templates that were used to mock up different extractor looks. The top portion we all agreed looked best is shown here, fully welded into place with the welds ground.

While only roughed out with 36-grit sand-paper and one coat of body filler, Gaydos had the extractor's final look locked in. Only one more to make and then Gaydos could start concentrating on our next coat of primer and some serious sanding. Tune in next month and we'll have our final installment of paint and bodywork on our '68 fastback with color, stripes, and more.