Finally got back into the garage to do some more work to the Cougar this last weekend. Got the drop down welded in on the driver side along with the lower quarter patch panel welded in. Had to make some patches on the front part of the driver side quarter panel. Kind of a bitch welding on the quarter on the D-side as it has been replaced before with an aftermarket panel which is thinner metal then the original. Did some modifying to the wheel arch and inside wheel house to gain more clearance for wider tires. I got 13" of width to work with now for a wider tire. About the absolute best I can do without making some real fender flares or installing wheel tubs.
Started working on the passenger side which is in better shape. Got the lower panel cut and fitted for the replacement panel to be welded in. The wheel arch on this side is going to require more work as it has more rust issues on this side around the arch, but the other panels are in good shape.
I got the p-side all welded up, so this should be the last of the major rust repair! Have to build the wheel arch on that side which came out OK for a race car. I flared out both sides to gain tire clearance. I think I’ll wait until I have the rear end mount with the tires before I go back and do the finish body work on the quarters in case I have to do some more adjustments. Mitchell worked on the front fenders and got them sanded down and ready for some flare work as well. Both fenders are in pretty nice shape, so not a lot of body work to be done there. Ordered up all the suspension parts and rack last week so stay tune for some eye candy soon 
Couple more pictures of the quarters and front fenders.
I got the rough in body work done on the quarter panels. Finished some clean up work in the trunk and got it shot with etching primer. Mitchell and I hung the doors and got them close to being lined up. Going back and doing some little touch up body work in a few places before some high build primer. Before that happens we need to get the front fenders finished and a hood on it yet. Not real happy with my flare on the pside, but not sure how I want to fix it. So, for now I’ll leave it and move on to other things.
Now for some more interesting eye candy. I got all the TCP front end parts last week. Finally had time last night to lay it out to make sure I had everything needed. I switched over to 71 Cougar spindles which have a larger spindle and bearing size. Going with the TCP manual rack. Their rack seems to be the best built on the market right now as they make it from scratch vs. retro fitting a late model OEM rack. Added the bump steer kit, adjustable strut rods and a Hellwig sway bar to round it off. Should have the TCI 3 link rear today. last check it was sitting at the truck terminal in Detroit.
Recieved the TCI 3 link rear suspension yesterday. So far everything is very good quality. Lets hope it performs as good as it looks. Need to narrow down my package for brakes and that should finalize all the major purchase parts for the suspension. Should keep me busy for the next few months. The full cage should get delivered at the end of this month.
We got all the front sheet metal prepped and installed. Now that everything is in primer we can get away from body work for a little while. The next step in body work will be aligning the panels better and some high build primer. In the meantime moved on to getting the cage installed. I bought a pre made kit for a 67 Mustang which was a good decision. For me to build one from scratch would have took a couple of months and a lot of guess work and re-doing. The cage fit pretty dare good. The only thing I would change is the front cross bar at the top of the windshield. I think it is going to be on the low side and would have liked it to fit higher into the roof. Have to wait and see where it falls after the seats are installed. Added 3/16 plates welded into the floor pans to gain more stiffness for the cage mounting points. Installed a cage vs roll bar for added safety, but wow, really surprised at how much stiffness the cage added to the Cougar body. With the cage installed just started on the rear suspension mock up. Getting the sub frame connectors installed.
Looks fantastic from where I sit…
I got the rest of the rear end linkage installed. So far everything fits good just a matter of drilling holes and install. Now on to the task where I could really do some damage and mess things up. Installing the brackets on the rear end housing. The pinion angle is at 0° and the shock brackets go straight down at 90° The brackets are for a 3" axle tube and mine necks down to 2.8" Decided the best way to do this is to make shims to go inside the bracket so they fit the axle tube. Then I cut the brackets in half vs cutting the ends of the axle tubes to install. Got the housing pinion angle set at 0° and then set the brackets at 90° and tack welded in place. My little digital angle finder worked great for this. Few more brackets to tack in place for the sway bar and third link. But, first I’ll finishing welding the shock brackets in place. Going to tig weld everything and hope the hell I don’t warp the housing out of shape! Plan on doing an inch at a time switching between both axle brackets and keep the heat down. 
Wow, that should be pretty solid! Looks good.
Nice work.
Nice work. The suspension looks bullet proof. You guys are moving along very fast.
We took on the task last Saturday of welding up the rear end brackets. Started out Tig welding, but after trying a couple of inches that wasn’t going to work. The metal on the rear end housing even after blasting just wasn’t clean enough to do a good tig weld job. Switched over to the Mig and welded a couple of inches at a time switching between the brackets. Used some wet rags to pull the heat out. After about three hours of welding and wait time in between for cool down so we didn’t warp it. We were successful with all the brackets welded, and according to the digital angel finder nothing moved out of place. The only real snag is the TCI rear end print for the Cougar is wrong! After back calculating their numbers didn’t add up. How they locate the sway bar brackets is wrong on the Cougar print. Had to use the Mustang print. luckily I discovered it before welding. Made them aware of it so hopefully the print is getting changed.
Had a friend at work setup the rear end gears for me. He did it over his lunch hour with out even having to think about it. Got trained on the process so hopefully maybe next time I can rememeber enought to perform the task. Got a Yukon case with Eaton Tru Track and Richmound 3:89 gears. Got the rear end assembled and the axles slide right in which is a very good sign the housing didn’t wrap during welding. Already to bolt it in and discovered they sent me the wrong rear end shocks. Needed eyelets for 5/8" bolt on the bottom vs 1/2". Getting them exchanged for the right ones.
Moved on to the front suspension. Not much drama there as everything pretty much just bolted together. Had to do a little adjusting and fitting to get the rack mounted right so it didn’t bind. Next task will be modifing the steering column and getting that mounted. Then spending some more money getting all the brake system.
Wow, looks fantastic. Nice welding table, is that at home, or “the office”?
At work. Nice table setup, and top of the line welders. So, if I mess up welding there. I can only blame the guy doing the welding 
Wow, really nice build, look forward to seeing how this turns out.