Ctrp 1204 City Boy The Hangover 011

I ordered pizza 45 minutes ago and over my rumbling stomach, the only sound I can hear is Petey's hammer smashing--over and over again--on our poor Mustang's door panel. He's figured out a way to remove the inner doorskin metal without having to just leave it in and smash it flat, but that somehow still requires an amazing amount of hammering. He insists that it's the "right way" to do it, which means that's the only way we're going to do it, even at the cost of my sanity. In the grand scheme of things, this means we are still literally hammering away at the City Boy's bodywork, which you may have seen in a previous issue of your favorite magazine of all time (ahem, that's Circle Track). With our bumpers installed, we turned our attention to stripping our stock door panels and modifying the hatch to work out on the racetrack.

Of course, we've never actually been to the racetrack, so we're basically making this up on the fly, but light and loose wins races, so we're going with it. Thanks to our overbuilt but completely necessary NASCAR-inspired door bars, we knew that the stock door panels would never work, which meant some trimming was going to be in order. As you'll see, "some trimming" meant basically removing the entire door, leaving only the outer most doorskin. If you're cutting up your first race car along with us, it sounds like more work than it really is. Otherwise, if you're an old-school racer who has built more cars than I am years old, you know that it's always a bunch of fun to destroy stuff in the name of racing.

Along with the doorskin, we were also tasked with modifying the rear hatch of our Fox-body to eliminate the heavy factory glass and to creatively trim sections of the sheetmetal to drop some pounds and skirt some of the rules at our local tracks. Remember, when you're dealing with glass, please take it seriously. Precariously perching the hatch above an office dumpster and throwing old spark plugs and hammers at the glass until it breaks is not only irresponsible, but it is dangerous. If you can, it's best to get a local glass guy to come pull it out safely and doing so will save you the trouble of cleaning up shards of glass for days...ask us how we know.

Anyway, our pizza just got here and Pete finally stopped hammering, so I guess it is time to eat some food before I jump back behind the camera and watch Crew Chief Epple put the finishing touches on our door and hatch modifications. Follow along to see how it all goes together and make sure you send pictures of your first project to us dropping a quick email to rob.fisher@sorc.com.

  • Ctrp 1204 City Boy The Hangover 005
    This month’s victim: City Boy’s doorskins. Really, we just needed the outer shells, which meant that everything else was just in our way.
    This month’s victim: City Boy’s doorskins. Really, we just needed the outer shells, which
  • Ctrp 1204 City Boy The Hangover 006
    Track rules dictate that all flammable material must be removed from our car but that doesn’t mean we can’t repurpose the door panels for another project or sell them to help finance some of our racing.
    Track rules dictate that all flammable material must be removed from our car but that does
  • Ctrp 1204 City Boy The Hangover 007
    That said, it’s not a bad idea to keep them in good shape, even if you don’t plan on reusing them.
    That said, it’s not a bad idea to keep them in good shape, even if you don’t plan on reusi
  • Ctrp 1204 City Boy The Hangover 010
    Why any OEM would rivet a window to the regulator is beyond us, but that’s how it’s done and removing the window requires drilling out these two rivets, along with another that is not shown here. However, we had another plan in mind.
    Why any OEM would rivet a window to the regulator is beyond us, but that’s how it’s done a
  • Ctrp 1204 City Boy The Hangover 011
    Along with the inner door structure, Pete also chopped the upper window structure off of the door panel, which will give us more room to get in and our of the car (in a hurry, in the case of an emergency) and it will save us a little weight.
    Along with the inner door structure, Pete also chopped the upper window structure off of t
  • Ctrp 1204 City Boy The Hangover 012
    Understanding that the entire door was coming apart, Pete decided to leave the window and regulator in place and just cut the entire doorskin off as one piece. We (he) started here, along the rear most section of the door panel.
    Understanding that the entire door was coming apart, Pete decided to leave the window and
  • Ctrp 1204 City Boy The Hangover 013
    Here you can really see how nice of a job the plasma cutter does with cutting the thin sheetmetal of our Mustang door. If you don’t have access to a plasma cutter, don’t worry; you could easily do this job with a body saw, Sawzall, or your air-powered cutting wheel of choice.
    Here you can really see how nice of a job the plasma cutter does with cutting the thin she
  • Ctrp 1204 City Boy The Hangover 014
    Time to break out the plasma cutter and get to work. If you’ve never used one of these, they are a ton of fun and make quick work of cutting almost anything. That said, you can easily cut too much (like, the out doorskin) so make sure you take your time and check everything out before you cut.
    Time to break out the plasma cutter and get to work. If you’ve never used one of these, th
  • Ctrp 1204 City Boy The Hangover 015
    Yeah baby, now we’re talking! Separated from the rest of the door structure, City Boy’s outer doorskins looked great and weighed significantly less than the stock pieces. You can see how careful cutting kept the outer panel in great shape, which means it will look almost stock once reinstalled on our Mustang body.
    Yeah baby, now we’re talking! Separated from the rest of the door structure, City Boy’s ou
  • Ctrp 1204 City Boy The Hangover 016
    Any way you slice it (literally), you will still have to do some finish work to the skin before installing it back onto the car. Here, you can see the tools of the trade: a hammer, a couple of pry bars and some big muscley arms.
    Any way you slice it (literally), you will still have to do some finish work to the skin b
  • Ctrp 1204 City Boy The Hangover 018
    Pete began the our door panel clean up by hammering the remaining metal flat, only to discover halfway through that it was possible to remove the offending metal from the door completely by hammering it up and away from the factory rolled lip.
    Pete began the our door panel clean up by hammering the remaining metal flat, only to disc
  • Ctrp 1204 City Boy The Hangover 019
    This technique takes some time to master, but the clean results were well worth the effort.
    This technique takes some time to master, but the clean results were well worth the effort
  • Ctrp 1204 City Boy The Hangover 020
    Otherwise, you end up with dangerous shards of glass everywhere and a hatch that could literally end up sending someone to the hospital. Please, do this the right way and save yourself a trip to the emergency room.
    Otherwise, you end up with dangerous shards of glass everywhere and a hatch that could lit
  • Ctrp 1204 City Boy The Hangover 021
    A couple of quick tack welds and we were in business. From here, it is hard to tell anything was even done to the stock door, which is exactly what we were looking for. With our three vertical door bars hidden behind the stock sheetmetal, the City Boy is both safe and stylin’.
    A couple of quick tack welds and we were in business. From here, it is hard to tell anythi
  • Ctrp 1204 City Boy The Hangover 022
    OK, now that we can’t get sued (please don’t sue us, we don’t have any money anyway!), let’s show you the next step in the process. Breaking out the plasma cutter yet again, Pete began to cut across the back of our hatch, directly under the stock glass opening, to remove the complete rear glass frame as one piece.
    OK, now that we can’t get sued (please don’t sue us, we don’t have any money anyway!), let
  • Ctrp 1204 City Boy The Hangover 023
    With both doors complete (OK, fine, we only had time to do one for this story…) Pete turned his attention to modifying the stock hatch from our Mustang body. Obviously the glass must be removed to go racing but Pete had even more cutting and modifying planned…
    With both doors complete (OK, fine, we only had time to do one for this story…) Pete turne
  • Ctrp 1204 City Boy The Hangover 024
    Removing the glass safely is a good idea. We’re not at liberty to share how we did it but we will go on record and say you should probably pay a professional glass guy to come out and remove it in one piece.
    Removing the glass safely is a good idea. We’re not at liberty to share how we did it but
  • Ctrp 1204 City Boy The Hangover 025
    Which left us with this. If you squint, it almost looks like a regular trunk from a Mustang coupe, but ours is much lighter and leaves a large opening in the rear of the City Boy, which reduces weight and looks, well, ridiculous.
    Which left us with this. If you squint, it almost looks like a regular trunk from a Mustan
  • Ctrp 1204 City Boy The Hangover 027
    The factory Mustang spoiler is fiberglass, which means we had to remove it for safety (fire hazard) and for aerodynamics. Not to say that the factory wing wouldn’t help us out on a big track but we’ve got other plans in mind…
    The factory Mustang spoiler is fiberglass, which means we had to remove it for safety (fir
  • Ctrp 1204 City Boy The Hangover 028
    Oh yeah, she’s a real beauty with the modified hatch in place. Truth be told, it’s actually quite hideous this way but it is lightweight, safe and fits within the track rules. Not to mention it will make for a fantastic start to our rear firewall, which you’ll have to see come together in the next chapter of the City Boy saga.
    Oh yeah, she’s a real beauty with the modified hatch in place. Truth be told, it’s actuall
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