Full NOS rear quarters in Chicago

I found a listing on the gran torino forum for a pair of NOS full rear quarters for sale, the owner of them had also had them listed up on craigslist for $1000.00 for the pair. They were located just outside of Chicago Il. Considering we were looking at spending close to $1000.00 to get a pair of the tabco rust repair panels shipped to us, these NOS panels were definitely an option to look at.

The Tabco panels are a close to factory reproduction, they are door jam to bumper but they only extend half way up the panel.


The NOS panels are full panels, door to bumper, and they extend all the way up to the roof seam. They also have the channel for the trunk weather seal. and the hole for the rear side marker light.

ultimately we decided that the NOS panels would be the best bet, 37 year old original ford quality parts. Less work would be required finishing them and making them look good. Contacting the owner of the parts we were able to strike a deal for $850.00 for the panels.

We found out that he has had these panels in his possession for a few years and just moved around with him. He said that a neighbor across the road from his house had found them in the attic of the house they were moving in to well cleaning. The guy was putting them at the curb for the trash man!! Glen the guy we bought them from saw the ford label and knew they would be worth something so he took them and hung out to them. He wasn't really a torino guy but was a ford buff. he was just tired of moving these around his shop so it was time to try to sell them.

The panels were very clean, only a couple of minor surface rust spots that will clean right up no problem. There is also one small dent in one of the panels that will be no problem to work out.

I think we ended up with a pretty good deal here and its going to hopefully cut the sheet metal work in half.

The work so far.

After we picked the 72 up we immediately began working on it. We are still not sure if we are going for a total frame off restoration or not. it seams like we are leaning more to the frame off side.

the first thing we knew we were going to tackle was removing the aftermarket bucket seats and the rear bench seat, and the remainder of the carpet that was in the car so we could get a good look at the floors to what kinda work we had ahead of us. The Floors were fairly solid, mostly minor surface rust under the back seat and around were the front seat mounts. The worst of the rust was up in the front on the toe board, near the fire wall.


next to come out was the dash pad and the lower dash, both cracked and in need of being replaced. We took the dash out the hard way leaving all the components still attached to the firewall.


well pulling the dash wire harness we discovered that at one point in time the heater switch had shorted out and melted. We also discovered we would need a new bulkhead connector at the firewall. It was all dry rotted and broke in to several pieces.
We also sorted out the mess of wires spliced in to everything for the aftermarket radio that was in the car.
Well we were removing the door panels we found an original build sheet for the car. That will help us in restoring the car in part to its original glory.

With the inside of the car pretty much striped down we moved on to the exterior. all the trim was striped off the car and we began exploring the badly rusted areas. We could tell that patch work had been attempted on both rear quarter panels. This apears to be the worst of the areas to need rust repair.

















we have also began to remove the vinyl top to inspect some area's that appear to have vinyl rot under it. The area below the rear window has some holes that have rotted threw but only minor holes. We have also removed the rear window.

A little backround

It all started with a 1973 Ford Gran Torino my grandfather bought my dad for his first car, when he was in high school. It was gold with sport ginger interior, had a 351 Windsor with an FMX transmission. The owner had ran in to a telephone pole and it broke off and creased the roof of the car. My dad did a lot of work on the car in shop class well in school, he fixed the roof, one of his friends put new door skins on the car for a project.

Eventually me and my brother came along and the had no place to stay so it had to go :(. He sold the engine and trans to one person and the rest of the car to another. Ever since then I have heard the some day I will have another one story.

Well last year around the middle of november I found a 1968 torino shell, we looked at,
but made the decision that well the body was solid, something a little more complete would be a better route to go.

I continued my internet search trying to find a car for dad. Around the end of November I found a 1972 Gran torino outside of Pittsburgh PA. After talking with the owner threw email and seeing pics of the car we decided that it was the car for us. It was a complete car, Originally it was bench seats non-sport interior, 351 Cleveland and a C6 transmision. Scooped hood, brown exterior and brown interior. When we got it, it still had the orriginal 351 Cleveland, C6 combo, the bench front seat had been replaced with aftermarket bucket seats, The brown interior had been painted / dyed black, a center console was added as well as a set of Hurst Lightning Rods. The car ran and drove when we picked it up.

We could tell that the car was going to need rear quarter work, the typical ford rust spots showed signs of cancer underneath. Some time along the life of the car someone had attempted to do rust repair well they weren't don't the best they did keep the car presentable but that wouldn't be good enough for these spots would be fully cut out and repaired one way or another.

We brought the car home in an enclosed car trailer threw a couple lake snow storms along I-90. We finaly had the car in our garage December 5, 2009.