Don's 69 Charger Rust Belt restoration

[mopar4don]

Dip it in some Rit black dye.

Good to know, thanks bronze! Maybe a black sharpie would work?

[ht4spd307]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Mopar-68-69-70-B-Body-Charger-Roadrunner-GTX-Clock-Reset-Knob-1968-1969-1970-NEW/402222368714?hash=item5da65247ca:g:S~IAAOSwkZld3D0F

[mopar4don]

thanks

[mopar4don]

So here is the cluster completely assembled and the bezel and the woodgrain overlay

[mopar4don]

And the cluster assembly with the woodgrain overlays assembled into there respective bezels

[mopar4don]

And the completed cluster assembly

[mopar4don]

Here are a couple of pics with the cluster and bezels installed into the dash frame

[mopar4don]

And here the dash frame is back into its storage frame and wrapped up for safe keeping

[keepat]

Looks great!
Pat

[darbgnik]

Wow, looks great.

I still have to freshen my dash....... 

[mopar4don]

Thank you sirs

[mopar4don]

I welded in the 4 speed hump and bucket seat brackets

[mopar4don]

Then I moved on to the the roof skin.
If you remember I have been trying to get the back half of the car put together.
It was when I was fitting the quarters that I realized that I needed the roof skin on the car so that I can fit the window opening, (glass and trim) which includes the sail panel area of the quarter panels. So by moving or adjusting one panel, it may affect the adjacent panel, which could turn into a domino affect. So to be on the safe side I want every panel fitted before anything gets welded.

So I started stripping the old paint off

[mopar4don]

Half way through stripping I realized that I needed to repair the rear window channel. So I started planning and creating the patches to fix the rear channel. I marked out where the window clip holes were, as some of the holes would fall into the patches, and I would need to drill them back in.

[mopar4don]

So here you can see some of the heavy pitting that will need patched

[mopar4don]

so I cut it out and patched in the new piece

[mopar4don]

here you can see the 2 areas that I patched

[mopar4don]

Here is a couple of pics showing the corner that needed fixed

[mopar4don]

Once I had all of the metal patched I made a wooden form to support the roof when working on the back side

[mopar4don]

Then I finished stripping the top side

last 2 pics show the stripping disc I used

[mopar4don]

Next I separated the skin from the roof structure. There are a lot of spotwelds in the drip rails and along the front

[mopar4don]

Then I flipped the skin over and started stripping.

[mopar4don]

Just to review the stripping process.
I did not want to blast because I was afraid of warping.
So I decided to strip it with one of those stripping discs. I was a bit concerned about heat build up which could lead to warping. But I kept it cool by putting my 2 foot shop fan on it and also would air blast it as needed. It turned out good. I used up 3 stripping discs.

[mopar4don]

Next I got the roof skin in the booth and rust preped it then sprayed some epoxy

[mopar4don]

Flipped it over then repeated. Here you can see the Auto Tech rust prep I used