We can attest: There's more to this job than sawing off the coupe stuff and slapping on the fastback stuff. Way more. And if you aren't precise when welding on the fastback parts, you will have a big mess on your hands. Good luck trying to get the door gaps to line up or the glass to fit right. We alluded to it in last month's installment-this isn't a job for the faint of heart. Yet, it is not out of the realm of an ambitious soul who has some metalworking experience and a lot of patience for careful measuring.
We spent a week with the guys at Recon Classic Car Bodies and watched them build a fastback out of our '67 coupe and a convertible out of a nasty-looking '65 coupe. Even if you don't plan on doing this job, pay attention to the build-there are a lot of cool metalworking tricks that will apply to any project CC readers may feel up to taking on.
Fitment and Alignment: Problems and Solutions
1. Filler Panel Finagle
2. Need Longer Doors
Once the Dynacorn quarters were in place, no amount of pushing, grinding, or swearing would close the gap between the quarter-panel and the passenger door to an acceptable distance. Carmody advised not freaking out if things don't line up exactly right, even though reproduction parts are stamped to fit OE dimensions: "I've seen original, unmolested, from-the-factory cars as much as 1/4 inch off in certain dimensions. Plus, mixing 44-year-old Ford parts with new stampings creates a whole new set of variables." Compounding this problem was the fact that this door came off of a different car on Recon's lot. To solve this, Aguayo added some extra length to the door by stitch-welding a length of welding rod to the edge of the door. After the welds were ground down, you couldn't tell a repair had been done looking at it from the outside.
Stay Tuned
This whole build was originally planned as a single, eight-page article, but there was so much cool stuff to cover, we decided to break it up into a series. This way, we can really dive in deep to some of the techniques and tricks we learned from the guys at Recon. Coming next month:
All that-and we build a convertible, too. Don't miss it.
PARTS LIST DESCRIPTION PN PRICE Conversion fastback body Ask for it $9,500.00
