[73LeMans]

In a galaxy far far away, a long long time ago, I took all of the bracing the inner fenders and core support provided, and removed it. Its laughable that it was probably all about 60 lbs of weight savings, fenderwells making up the bulk @ 18lbs each, but hey, when you're coming down from 3900lbs+, every bit matters. Seems funny today with power being readily available, but back in the day, my thinking was I had to absolutely lighten it up.

While its cool to watch the front fenders shimmy in harmony with the choppy idle, and as intimidating as it can be to the random Fox body that pulls up next to ya, it does very little to keep the metal from fatiguing over time.

IIRC my core support had 5 cracks in it, and don't have a single picture of any of them. The small brackets I made to tie the bottom of the fenders to the core, were also starting to split. No pics of those either.

This pic is a fix of one of those cracks. You can see where I drilled a hole to stop it from going any further. I ground it out slightly then welded it up. Then I cleaned up the weld with a grinder. I only took this pic because it normally doesn't come out so good.



The two self tappers above are holding a bracket I made to hold my overflow can.


The shot below shows the mounts for the trans cooler I made. I was tired of those crappy plastic fasteners that force you to mount the cooler to the radiator and there was no way I was going to cover up that new aluminum radiator I waited so long to buy. Screw you plastic fasteners.

The mounts are square tube with threaded rod welded through them. Then I welded it all to the core.



Next on the task list is to weld up all the holes I'm not using in the firewall, per NHRA rules. This picture is me now with confidence as a "fixer of metal with metal" taking out a spot on the firewall, for what exact reason I can't seem to recall. Just trust me. It needed to come out. (warped, rusty, too thin I cant recall)



The grounding strap and bolt, would serve as you guessed it, my ground. (The other holes already filled in were where an old fuel line was held in place going up to the isolater)

I made the hole more of a shape of something I could put back in...kinda like you would a drywall patch. Spent much time shaping the perfect piece, grinding in 45s so I could get good penetration. Nice fit too!



Anyone see anything wrong with this picture? I certainly didn't, until my welds started burning holes in the fire wall with each touch. .023 wire, fast wire speed, low heat, gas was on. Still blew through almost every stitch. I know most blow-through is due to heat, but with this setup, I'm guessing my grounding was also a factor. I was still using the bolt in the last picture, but the POS magnets here were the only things keeping the new metal grounded, and for the life of me couldn't get a good spot to stick. (maybe a backing bar would have helped?) If I went any further, I knew end up screwing up the whole wall, so I left it in frustration. I knew the car was going to a real fabricator for headers soon, so I would just ask him to take care of it, which I dislike doing very much. @$&$ty Piece of #$&& F&*(&%(( D*(&&%^#