bigmoparjeff
Senior Member
Things have been a little quiet in the "Member's Projects and Restorations" department lately, so I decided to create a new post. Hopefully I can keep a decent flow of interesting content coming on a somewhat regular basis. Unfortunately, there won't be much C body specific stuff in here. Most of it will be general auto refurbishing, so at least many of the procedures and techniques will apply to just about any vehicle.
I'll start off with a couple of past, but recent projects, and get caught up to what's happening right now.
First up is a friend's 1966 Charger. This will just be a quickie, since I wasn't planning to document it while I was doing the work, and I don't have many photos of the work in progress. It will be back in the shop for more work in the future.
Originally, I was tasked with getting it up and running in order for the car to be put up for sale, but once he saw the car all cleaned up, he decided that he had to keep it. The engine had been pulled out over a decade ago and lots of parts along with all the hardware got lost. A different friend had much of what was needed and I scoured my parts boxes for the rest, along with some reproduction items that neither of us had. The engine was rebuilt at a backwoods machine shop in central PA. The first photo shows what I had to start with, and we had to scrounge up the rest.
Ready for some paint.
Mostly reassembled engine. A while back we had a big go-round on FCBO about Bill Hirsch's turquoise engine paint. People had me convinced that Hirsch had changed the formula to make it more accurate. Well guess what. He didn't. It's still the same sad gray-green that it was before. I'll never buy it again. The paint itself sprays beautifully, but the color is just too depressing, though I will say that it does look a bit better in direct sunlight.
Somehow I never took a decent photo of the engine back in the car. This one will have to do for now.
One regret was not running video during the maiden voyage. It was the first time the car had been on the road since 1979 and it would have been nice to have that trip on video. Other than the obvious rust, the car cleaned up quite nicely. It's all original paint and amazingly straight. It managed to survive 13 years of driving on Long Island without as much as a minor fender bender.
I was disappointed to find that the car had the optional fake mag wheel covers instead of the cool deep dish spinners. They were in the trunk, but I didn't have a key at first.
I don't have a good shot of the interior, but it came a long way from what it was like when it came in and how it is now. There were so many mouse nests in the car, and it, really, really stunk. The mouse urine had been so strong for so many years that it corroded a lot of the metal trim and the pot metal parts. The mouse nests completely filled my shop vac to the top and there was still more to go. One amazing thing is that the electroluminescent lighting on the instrument cluster still works, though I can hear some electrical zapping sounds coming from the cluster when it's on.
Phase two will be getting it 100% road worthy. At this time there are no plans to do any work on the body. They don't make much in replacement sheet metal for these cars, just a patch for the lower quarters that isn't big enough to fix the rust over the wheel openings.
Jeff
I'll start off with a couple of past, but recent projects, and get caught up to what's happening right now.
First up is a friend's 1966 Charger. This will just be a quickie, since I wasn't planning to document it while I was doing the work, and I don't have many photos of the work in progress. It will be back in the shop for more work in the future.
Originally, I was tasked with getting it up and running in order for the car to be put up for sale, but once he saw the car all cleaned up, he decided that he had to keep it. The engine had been pulled out over a decade ago and lots of parts along with all the hardware got lost. A different friend had much of what was needed and I scoured my parts boxes for the rest, along with some reproduction items that neither of us had. The engine was rebuilt at a backwoods machine shop in central PA. The first photo shows what I had to start with, and we had to scrounge up the rest.
Ready for some paint.
Mostly reassembled engine. A while back we had a big go-round on FCBO about Bill Hirsch's turquoise engine paint. People had me convinced that Hirsch had changed the formula to make it more accurate. Well guess what. He didn't. It's still the same sad gray-green that it was before. I'll never buy it again. The paint itself sprays beautifully, but the color is just too depressing, though I will say that it does look a bit better in direct sunlight.
Somehow I never took a decent photo of the engine back in the car. This one will have to do for now.
One regret was not running video during the maiden voyage. It was the first time the car had been on the road since 1979 and it would have been nice to have that trip on video. Other than the obvious rust, the car cleaned up quite nicely. It's all original paint and amazingly straight. It managed to survive 13 years of driving on Long Island without as much as a minor fender bender.
I was disappointed to find that the car had the optional fake mag wheel covers instead of the cool deep dish spinners. They were in the trunk, but I didn't have a key at first.
I don't have a good shot of the interior, but it came a long way from what it was like when it came in and how it is now. There were so many mouse nests in the car, and it, really, really stunk. The mouse urine had been so strong for so many years that it corroded a lot of the metal trim and the pot metal parts. The mouse nests completely filled my shop vac to the top and there was still more to go. One amazing thing is that the electroluminescent lighting on the instrument cluster still works, though I can hear some electrical zapping sounds coming from the cluster when it's on.
Phase two will be getting it 100% road worthy. At this time there are no plans to do any work on the body. They don't make much in replacement sheet metal for these cars, just a patch for the lower quarters that isn't big enough to fix the rust over the wheel openings.
Jeff
