New Member, New Polara

[Stev]

Gotta drop in on the shop once a week and bug em.
Let em know your waiting for them.

Don't let it get ya too down, perfection takes time and you have done a phenomenal job on the car so far! I can't wait to see the car's future.

Been there minimum of once a week since september trying to get a solid plan out of him.

you need to buy a beater Mopar to drive around in order to keep your spirits high.

Well I have the airflow but that motor's been trapped in a machine shop for 5 years and they're not returning my emails or calls and are super evasive when i go there in person.



Why does nothing work anymore?

 

[cuda hunter]

Why does nothing work anymore?

That is a great question. Perhaps not the best debate question for this thread.

We gotta get things working again in multiple countries apparently. And here I thought it was just here in America that things are not "WORKING" correctly any longer.

Sounds like you are gonna just have to go and take your motor back. 5 years? That is unheard of. Mechanics jail. Wow!!

 

[Stev]

That is a great question. Perhaps not the best debate question for this thread.

We gotta get things working again in multiple countries apparently. And here I thought it was just here in America that things are not "WORKING" correctly any longer.

Sounds like you are gonna just have to go and take your motor back. 5 years? That is unheard of. Mechanics jail. Wow!!

Well the machine work is done, but it's such a unicorn I want them to assemble it and break it in so it has a warrenty on it. I'm going to leave it a little longer. If i take it elsewhere there's no way it's getting done this summer.

Gonna build the big block myself for sure. If the flathead isn't done by that point i'll just take it back and do it myself.


And you may think it's bad in the US right now, and it is. But I assure you, it's still the best place left. Yuri Bezmenov was right.

 

[Stev]

Good news:

Got a date from the bodyshop, October the 20th it's allegedly going in.

Bad news:

 

[cuda hunter]

I am enjoying this thread immensely.

You are almost done restoring the entire car.

 

[Ross Wooldridge]

Me too!

 

[MoPar~Man]

I can't view the video, it requires a google account login, google thinks it's adult content.

 

[Stev]

I can't view the video, it requires a google account login, google thinks it's adult content.

Yeah i don't know why, filed an appeal.

TLDR: Some of the worst work i've ever seen was hiding under all that bondo

Oh yeah, borrowed my buddy's sheet metal rollers and made up some patch panels using templates taken from the factory Fury metal from the right side. You can see it matches that profile very well. Is that correct for the left side? I Have no idea, there was zero reference available. But it'll match left to right and it matches the profile of the rear facia/structure. Certainly orders of magnitude better than the garbage that's about to be cut off.

Seems to match what few photos are out there, at least. The quarter panel is still going to be a giant patchwork quilt of weld, but it'll be better than it was before. It's not just good. It's good enough!

Gotta get this all buttoned up before the 20th, and I very much look forward to not looking at this thing for another 8 months.

Also also, I settled on a wheel a while back. Big bad smoothies that i'll have painted body colour. The car has a Players blue and chrome two tone theme already, should look pretty slick. I measured and even with the leaf springs, I can fit a 12" wide tire in the back without trouble. So i'll go 20x10" in the rear and 20x8" in the front. And then when i go drag racing, I'll have a set of 15x10" wheels with slicks on the back. I want to find a 4.11 gearset to weld and swap in for race day but that's a tomorrow me problem.

Unfortunately they don't make drop spindles anymore, I want the thing to sit pretty low in the front without sitting on the bump stops but I guess we can't have everything.

 

[cuda hunter]

Yeah i don't know why, filed an appeal.

Has to be the number of F words. No other reason in my mind.

 

[Stev]

Has to be the number of F words. No other reason in my mind.

No they changed the policy recently where that's fine again. It's all automated, who knows.

 

[Stev]

Starting the process of gluing the new quarter on.

Cut the old garbage off. Unfortunately my new inner quarter i made to match the incorrect panel our mystery bodyshop made doesn't match the right side now. It extends about 1" below the rear fascia structure, wheras the factory metal terminates with that shape. Very difficult to reshape that panel in place, not sure what to do. At present i think i'll just cut it off to suit the new metal and butt weld the two together. I had intended to mate the two flanges with factory style spot welds but that now seems unfeasable.

Also it turns out they fabbed the replacement panel out of 3/16" plate steel. And apparently felt that this was anemic, as they re-enforced the trim holes with 1/4" plate on top of that!

They then sculpted the entire body line almost entirely out of bondo, which across the entire quarter panel was no thinner than 1/2" thick in any place I measured, in 4 distinct layers/passes of different bondo.

I've never seen anything like this. The quarter panel skin alone must've weighed over 100 pounds between the battleship plate they used to make it, and the 55 gallon drum of filler they needed to make their work look presentable. ******* wild.

 

[Stev]

So today we learned, to turn a plymouth fury quarter into a dodge polara quarter, you just gotta flip it upside down

Turns out the real dodge polara was the friends we cannibalized along the way

 

[MoPar~Man]

I saw a short video recently, don't know where, it came up in a feed or something and I can't find it now. A guy was making a door skin for an old truck. It had a contour line or edge. He cut some cardboard to fit the contour, maybe 4 or 5 inches from top to bottom, made 2, taped them to the door. This is basically a cardboard box, an inch wide. Taped up the bottom, poured in some sort of epoxy, could have been body filler, added something like resin to make it flow. Filled the box, then took it off the door when it cured. This gives you a negative image of the contour. Transfered this to a metal plate, maybe an inch thick, mounted to a press that just goes up and down like a hammer, he ran a piece of sheet metal through it, sheet now has the contour stamped into it, looked great.

 

[Stev]

Shrinker stretcher was a worthy buy.

Also the bodyshop cut up the inner part of the tub that should weld to the quarter skin to form a box section, and just hammered it to match the shape of the door jam panel and "welded" it with seam sealer.

I have no idea how it should go back together. Kind of tempted to just actually weld it back up the way they had it or create some horrible flange thing and replicate what i think should be there, as best I can.

Gonna sleep on it.

 

[3175375]

View attachment 733331

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Shrinker stretcher was a worthy buy.

Also the bodyshop cut up the inner part of the tub that should weld to the quarter skin to form a box section, and just hammered it to match the shape of the door jam panel and "welded" it with seam sealer.

I have no idea how it should go back together. Kind of tempted to just actually weld it back up the way they had it or create some horrible flange thing and replicate what i think should be there, as best I can.

Gonna sleep on it.

Good work! You will figure it out. Walking away to think about the solution is a good thing. I think this is where my ADHD is beneficial. lol

What sheet metal tools (English wheel, shrinker/stretcher, break, etc) are you using and what gauge sheet metal?

I have a couple of cars where I am going to repair some pieces/sections.

 

[Stev]

The adventure continues.

Quarter fabbing is going well. I thought the shrinker would allow me to get away without doing pie cuts but i guess not.




Also went to remove all the trim to align stuff better and oh boy what a ride that was.

Good work! You will figure it out. Walking away to think about the solution is a good thing. I think this is where my ADHD is beneficial. lol

What sheet metal tools (English wheel, shrinker/stretcher, break, etc) are you using and what gauge sheet metal?

I have a couple of cars where I am going to repair some pieces/sections.

Vice, crappy metal brake, crappy bead roller, crappy shrinker stretcher, power shear and angle grinder. All either craigslist or chinese tool store

 

[cuda hunter]

Holy crap! That bundle of joy just won't stop giving.
So, every trim piece pretty much has a different and wrong method of holding it on?

 

[Stev]

Holy crap! That bundle of joy just won't stop giving.
So, every trim piece pretty much has a different and wrong method of holding it on?

Yup.

I realized afterwards that the reason they did that is because the bondo they slathered onto the doors is so thick a traditional trim clip would no longer work, thus the bolts holding it on. However this means they most likely welded that additional plate into the inside of the door after the bondo was applied, which most likely boiled and detatched it from the heat. And it wasnt' even required in the first place.

And just typing that now, I realized that the plates were at the rear of the door, and there was more bondo on the rear than the front. I think they put on the bondo to adjust the panel gap, instead of adjusting the door striker instead

 

[3175375]

Yup.

I realized afterwards that the reason they did that is because the bondo they slathered onto the doors is so thick a traditional trim clip would no longer work, thus the bolts holding it on. However this means they most likely welded that additional plate into the inside of the door after the bondo was applied, which most likely boiled and detatched it from the heat. And it wasnt' even required in the first place.

And just typing that now, I realized that the plates were at the rear of the door, and there was more bondo on the rear than the front. I think they put on the bondo to adjust the panel gap, instead of adjusting the door striker instead

Gaa! They walk among us!

 

[Stev]

Yeah.

On a lighter note though, after this thing I can do anything. No project can be bigger or worse than this ordeal. Chopping a curved glass meteor is going to be a cakewalk compared to righting this mess.

As a friend remarked, I've crossed the Bluebicon. Pax Polara!