Hi all, well it's been a year since I got her and she's gone through a bit of a transformation. My 70 Polara convertible was raped and mistreated and as mentioned in my original post I had intentions of bringing her back to some respectability.
Items removed consist of, rotten floors, Monte Carlo bucket seats, trunk lid, monster stereo system, front bumper brackets, under body lighting, ugly looking tack, fire extinguisher strapped to passenger foot well, old carpet, reservoir bottles and Joe Dirt foot pedals. All relays installed by former owner to try and make a Polara look like a Challenger from the head lights point of view have been removed and any other hacking of the electrical has been put back to its original state as best I can.
Things I did to Ellie May with a twist, as mentioned ripped eveything out, cut out all the footwells, used a barrel for the redo to many's dismay. Glad I did it this way the cancer was extensive, aftermarket pannels would not have been sufficient. My job consisted of metal fabbing the foot wells, contouring them, cinching them down with tapping screws and then mig-ging the seams. A sealer was then applied then covered with foil- butyl sound deadener. In the mean time the wife was helping with the custom carpet edging, the sleeves for the visors, bibs for the bucket seats and the covers for the head rests.
The dash looked like a slasher went at it with a box cutter so it had to be removed and rebuilt and recovered, pretty happy on how it came out, only one little scrotal section but considering I saw one for sale at Moparfest for $2300, I'm really happy.
I went out and got the appropriate bucket seats and a rear seat that came out of a 70 Monaco sedan, luckily the sedan seat skin is slightly larger than the convertible one and fit right over the original back seat frame no problem, I've had tougher situations skinning a deer or moose! The Monte Carlo seats were not even anchored to supports just bolted to 1 mm rusted out 50+ year old metal, pretty scary thought.
The instrument panels were faded worn and tattered so I recovered them with Vvivid carbon fiber wrap as well as the interior wood panel stripping on the doors.
Carbon fiber wrap was added to the tail light surroundings and the front closures which had to be extensivly repaired before covering up.
The body didn't need as much cheese as expected, I replaced the trunk lid with a better one, cheeseless! Removed old bondoed sections that were seperating and redid them, sanded everything down with 80, then 240 then 400, Scotch Britted and the used a tack cloth in preperation for the Ghost Satin Copper wrap. All you purists can rest assured that the car is preserved under giant sheets of plastic wrap.
Ellie May past her safety Oct. 6th 2022 a year to the day I went up to Sudbury to get her, the same day I quit smoking. When she was in the shop she got a tranny tune up the rear axle resealed and the intention of having the intake resaled also. Learned that the mechanic was concerned in removing the intake as the former owner used an unknown substance on the intake to seal it. I have sourced another one out that came out of a 70 Challenger, just cleaning it up, creating a EGR delete and painting it up again.
I have the top scheduled for replacement in November, I still have to source out new wheels for her and I have a normal hood to work on this winter.
FCBO has been a great source of info throughout the process, thanks to Boydsdodge, Big John, Ayilar, Cbarge and many others that created threads to follow or bookmark.
The last photo consists of all I pulled out of Ellie May except for the hood on the left.
Have a good day!
PT
Items removed consist of, rotten floors, Monte Carlo bucket seats, trunk lid, monster stereo system, front bumper brackets, under body lighting, ugly looking tack, fire extinguisher strapped to passenger foot well, old carpet, reservoir bottles and Joe Dirt foot pedals. All relays installed by former owner to try and make a Polara look like a Challenger from the head lights point of view have been removed and any other hacking of the electrical has been put back to its original state as best I can.
Things I did to Ellie May with a twist, as mentioned ripped eveything out, cut out all the footwells, used a barrel for the redo to many's dismay. Glad I did it this way the cancer was extensive, aftermarket pannels would not have been sufficient. My job consisted of metal fabbing the foot wells, contouring them, cinching them down with tapping screws and then mig-ging the seams. A sealer was then applied then covered with foil- butyl sound deadener. In the mean time the wife was helping with the custom carpet edging, the sleeves for the visors, bibs for the bucket seats and the covers for the head rests.
The dash looked like a slasher went at it with a box cutter so it had to be removed and rebuilt and recovered, pretty happy on how it came out, only one little scrotal section but considering I saw one for sale at Moparfest for $2300, I'm really happy.
I went out and got the appropriate bucket seats and a rear seat that came out of a 70 Monaco sedan, luckily the sedan seat skin is slightly larger than the convertible one and fit right over the original back seat frame no problem, I've had tougher situations skinning a deer or moose! The Monte Carlo seats were not even anchored to supports just bolted to 1 mm rusted out 50+ year old metal, pretty scary thought.
The instrument panels were faded worn and tattered so I recovered them with Vvivid carbon fiber wrap as well as the interior wood panel stripping on the doors.
Carbon fiber wrap was added to the tail light surroundings and the front closures which had to be extensivly repaired before covering up.
The body didn't need as much cheese as expected, I replaced the trunk lid with a better one, cheeseless! Removed old bondoed sections that were seperating and redid them, sanded everything down with 80, then 240 then 400, Scotch Britted and the used a tack cloth in preperation for the Ghost Satin Copper wrap. All you purists can rest assured that the car is preserved under giant sheets of plastic wrap.
Ellie May past her safety Oct. 6th 2022 a year to the day I went up to Sudbury to get her, the same day I quit smoking. When she was in the shop she got a tranny tune up the rear axle resealed and the intention of having the intake resaled also. Learned that the mechanic was concerned in removing the intake as the former owner used an unknown substance on the intake to seal it. I have sourced another one out that came out of a 70 Challenger, just cleaning it up, creating a EGR delete and painting it up again.
I have the top scheduled for replacement in November, I still have to source out new wheels for her and I have a normal hood to work on this winter.
FCBO has been a great source of info throughout the process, thanks to Boydsdodge, Big John, Ayilar, Cbarge and many others that created threads to follow or bookmark.
The last photo consists of all I pulled out of Ellie May except for the hood on the left.
Have a good day!
PT
