Time is money

A few years back, just when I was starting on planing this project, I met a guy on the street driving a Cobra. I jump up and down and waived at him to pull over. He did and we chatted. I remember he was suggesting to go "all new parts" route instead of "donor" build. I remember a the time I thought, it's just way too much money to buy all new parts at retail prices. I still maintain that opinion but I have more to say. I am sure, I read it on FFCars too. Essentially, it comes down to what you have at your disposal: time or money. Here's my example to illustrate the concept.

I started my assembly from the part that was the most "in my way" in my garage. Well, the engine is really the  biggest obstruction but it's not going in just yet. However, the rear axle was lying with it's arms sticking out and constantly being the tripping hazard leaving painful scratches. The time has come for that thing to move into its new home. Of course, I could just grab it and bolt it in as is but it just would not look right. The dirt and dust covered part attached to a shiny glossy black frame. In addition, the Mustang was over 10 years old and needed some help in preventing future rusting. So some prep work was in order. I somehow ended up using Rust Check products. They are readily available at the local Canadian Tire and have an extensive variety of rust prevention products. They are a Canadian company with a convincing claim. I just hope that their claims are true.

The rear axle is only one of many bits that make up the rear end. In fact, the axle is probably an incorrect reference. To prepare the parts I need to clean, wire brush, degrease and paint them. So if I want to achieve a good result I would need to prep individual parts as much as possible. That means that I had to disassemble first. I took off all the obvious parts: linking arms, sway bar, anti squeal brackets, vibration dumper and brake shields. I could continue on with brake mounting brackets, hubs, etc ... but I had to stop somewhere. As I was taking the parts off, I was getting them done too. Here, for example, is the lower arms before and after wire brushing.

And here the same arm but now painted.

In the end that's what the rear axle looked like before I started to brash it. As you can see, there're some surface rust there. The axle looked pristine before I cleaned it. 

Here the same axle after I took a grinder with brush wheel to it.

Here I have to reveal my secret. Since there was some considerable surface rust, I elected to apply some Rust Converter. Well, I really did not see any colour change as shown on the label but I assumed it did its trick. The next step, before any painting is degreasing. I found Dupli-Color surface prep at Canadian Tire. I applied that liberally with a clean cloth. Once that's all dried up, the last step is to spray paint it. My choice was Rust Paint in glossy black. It looks good and protects the metal too.

Once it's all dried up it's ready to go. You probably guessed it takes an hour or two to get to this point. Alternatively, I could get a new axle and skip straight to this point. That's probably what everyone is talking about. The time invested into the prep could be saved and the build could be sped up by the use of new parts. In addition, Factory Five and some other shops offer some attractive alternatives to Mustang donor parts. But I am not complaining. It's fun in its own way to spray paint the parts.

Here the axle is in its new home. The advantage of using donor parts here is that sway bar. Other options use tubular lower arms and loose the sway bar. Life will show if that sway bar does more good than bad.