What's happening in Bigmoparjeff's garage?

[3175375]

Up on the lift to disconnect the shift cable and unbolt the body mounts.
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Up, up, and away!
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More rusty goodness.
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Even worse on this side.
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Think we're going to need some new mounts.
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Out of the shop it goes.View attachment 482085

And onto the trailer.
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Paper sticker on back of engine outlasted the frame.
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All the hardware removed so far.
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Next episode will involve lots of drilling and cutting.
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Jeff

Wow.
You are diligent and have dove into quite the project.

 

[DirkRhodie]

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.

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Ready for some paint.
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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.
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Somehow I never took a decent photo of the engine back in the car. This one will have to do for now.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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

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.

View attachment 480621

Ready for some paint.
View attachment 480624

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.
View attachment 480622

View attachment 480623

Somehow I never took a decent photo of the engine back in the car. This one will have to do for now.
View attachment 480625

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.
View attachment 480626

View attachment 480627

View attachment 480628

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.
View attachment 480629

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.
View attachment 480630

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

HI Jeff, so based on your experience what is the best procedure to spray a n engine, ie does one spray primer etc and then colour.

 

[bigmoparjeff]

Wow.
You are diligent and have dove into quite the project.

Thanks.

I've known the owner for more than twenty years and he wants to keep this truck till the day they put him in the ground, so it's got to be done right. If he only wanted another 5 or even 10 years out of it, we would probably just repair the frame. He originally planned to do this himself and bought all the sheetmetal for the rockers a few years ago. If he hadn't done that, I'd be very tempted to run down south and get another cab.

The same company that came out with the "frame caps" for most of the Mopar muscle cars also makes all the frame side body mounts for these trucks, and some other company makes the crossmembers, but the cost adds up real fast if you need to replace more than a few of them. The mounts are $100 each and I think that rearmost crossmember is $600. We're getting a complete frame for under $500. I just hope it's good under the mounts, since it was still in the truck when I looked at it.


While I have your attention, were you looking for info on removing quarter panels some time ago? I think I told you that I had some detail photos. I finally found them by accident last week while looking for something else. Can't remember if you had a thread running yet for that project.

Jeff

 

[bigmoparjeff]

HI Jeff, so based on your experience what is the best procedure to spray a n engine, ie does one spray primer etc and then colour.

Even though the makers of the engine paints say it's ok to spray them over bare metal, I think it's best to prime bare metal first. The only exception would be the exhaust manifolds, where you're using a super-high temp paint.

Any type of self etching primer will work fine. Sometimes I use the green SEM self etch, and on the Charger I just used Rustoleum Professional red oxide, which is also bites in well on bare metal. Neither of these primers need to be sanded if you put your finish coat on within the specified time frame.

Jeff

 

[Charlie's 66 Fury]

Thanks!

The manifolds are a used set that I got off of ebay. They've been media blasted and painted with VHT flameproof paint. I wanted the darker silver, but no stores around me had it in stock, though the bright silver is a nice contrast to the blah Bill Hirsch turquoise paint. I followed the instructions on the can to the letter and baked them in the oven to cure the paint. So far, so good. It didn't even discolor a little bit while breaking in the engine.

Jeff

Did you spray on the VHT primer first or did you go straight up VHT paint only?

 

[bigmoparjeff]

Did you spray on the VHT primer first or did you go straight up VHT paint only?

Just the high temp paint directly on the metal.

Jeff

 

[Justin Plant]

Edlebrock PN 9300. 13.00 through Summit. I was a store manager for Advance Auto for 12 years. Sold a ton of it.
Smells good too!! : )