Heater core box rebuild with AC 1972 GTS

As with everything on this car, I am the first to rebuild the heater box. Everything was beautifully stock inside. If appears Ford designed the heater box for a longer core, then, installed a shorter core requiring a baffle to cover the hole left by the shorter core. My metal baffle was in good shape so I simply blasted, prepped and painted with POR15. Ordered a new more expensive heater core from MAC's P/N 64-73860 thinking it would be a better product. The core quality itself seems acceptable but it does not match my factory unit. They have designed their product to fit on the FIREWALL side of the baffle not the passenger side. Thus, the core input tubes are shorter by 1/2".  When I installed the new core with shorter input tubes I had to place the baffle on the PASSENGER side of the core so the tubes would reach through the firewall. No big deal once this is done, it's just not the way the factory did it.

New MAC's core without the baffle between it and the case:

 

Close-up:

 

Passenger side half of the heater box showing the baffle installed on the passenger side of the heater core. The weather stripping is the out line of where the core meets the baffle and the black metal is the filler end of the baffle covering the hole left by the shorter core. If your baffle is rusted out or missing you will want to make a baffle to keep your heater core working at maximum efficiency: