Don's 69 Charger Rust Belt restoration

[hemi-hampton]

OK, Took some pics troday. it's a Tecna Spot Welder, specifically for auto body Panels. #3664. Nice but Heavy. LEON.

[mopar4don]

Leon that is one of those high end models! WOW that would be nice

[mopar4don]

I can mention this - the Horrible Freight model would likely hit the frame rail, doing the welds in that one pic.  I bought one lightly used.  Haven't used it much - it is not tolerant of anything other than bare clean metal though.

What is the red spray - weld through primer?

Sorry I missed this Bronzedodge.
Yes it is Medallion weld thru primer RS-512
https://medallionrefinish.com/products/refinish-products/primers/aerosol-primers/etch-weld-primer

[Bronzedodge]

Thank you Don.  I like the contrast of that weld-through, it would be easy for me to see where I missed.    

Morgan

[mopar4don]

Thank you Don.  I like the contrast of that weld-through, it would be easy for me to see where I missed.    

Morgan

Morgan, I can tell you it works, VERY well! and it can be used as an etch primer.
This is what Craig Hopkins at the AMD installation center uses

[mopar4don]

So I was looking at the trunk floor and noticed that I had spots of rust bleeding through the self etch primer at the plug welds. AHHHHHH It was all over. 

So I decided to strip it all off, (using lacquer thinner) and then mix up some epoxy primer and brush it on.

[mopar4don]

I didn't want to take any chances so I stripped the 3M self etch primer off everywhere where I plug welded and brushed on the epoxy.

Not sure why this happened ?

[mopar4don]

With all of the floor pans in, I decided to start in on the dash cluster and bezels.
Here are some before pics

[mopar4don]

bezels after the wood overlays were remove

[mopar4don]

cluster pic after bezel removal

[mopar4don]

Here is how I went about restoring my cluster and gauges with the bezels.

This will not be very detailed (as I don't have enough pics)

If you want REALLY GOOD detailed info on how to restore your gauges
I would refer you to birdsandbees thread as well as others......
starting at post #852 on page 35
http://www.dodgecharger.com/forum/index.php/topic,121731.850.html


And lilwendal's Excellent thread
http://www.dodgecharger.com/forum/index.php/topic,37999.0.html
These were some of the threads I used to rebuild the cluster.
THANKS GUYS

I started out by removing the wood inlays from the bezels

[mopar4don]

Now my bezels have the wood overlays and the only thing you will see is the chrome strips, but they are really nasty and I want them fresh,

[mopar4don]

so to remove all the paint and chrome from the bezels, I sprayed them down in
oven cleaner and wrapped them in plastic wrap, then let them soak.
Sometimes I let them soak a few hours, sometimes overnight, either way the oven cleaner did not harm the plastic.
Now after each soak I would clean them with a stiff bristle brush
rinse and repeat till all of the paint was removed. This took a bit.

[mopar4don]

While the bezels were being stripped I started disassembling the cluster housing by removing the acrylic face, and removing all of the gauges, switches, and the circuit board. On the housing I removed the gasket around the brake system lens, the two green turn signal lenses with gaskets, and the red "brights" lens and its gasket that would be under the speedometer gauge.

pics of the different lenses
notice how the factory painted the black on the lug just to the left of the brake lens

[mopar4don]

here is a pic of all the hardware and lenses and gaskets removed

[mopar4don]

Next I removed the blue diffuser bulbs from the cluster housing then scuffed
and cleaned the housing to get it ready for paint.
Then I painted the 5 lugs flat black. These need to be black as these
lugs can be seen after assembling the front bezel.
Then I masked off the freshly painted black face of the lugs and painted
the housing with the Krylon flat white.

This is the only pic of the housing I have showing the black lugs masked, and ready for the white paint. Also notice that I masked off the brake system lens, as I had already polished the lens without removing it from the housing.

[CDN72SE]

Nice progress.

[mopar4don]

Nice progress.

Thank you sir.
But I have to say this was done back in Jan-Feb..... I am terrible at keeping this thread up to date

[mopar4don]

Ok more updates....

After painting the housing white (sorry no pics) I tested all of the the small gauges to be sure they worked.
Better to find a dead gauge now than after restoring it!
Calibrating each gauge will be done later.

So I taped 2 AA batteries together (3 volts) and ran a lead to each side of the gauge.
I watched the needle as it slowly moved and removed power when it got close to "pegging out"

[mopar4don]

After verifying the gauges worked I removed the needles from each gauge.
**Warning** these needles are extremely fragile and you need to be very careful not to bend them!

The needles are held by 2 opposing hooks so you'll need both hands. I used a soldering vise to hold the gauge and had tweezers in one hand and a small jewelers screwdriver in the other.

Now you have to move the needle around until you get it to unhook.
Let me tell you that is easier said than done.
Just take your time!

[orange383]

I'm loving this thread Don. Great idea using the AA batteries to test the gauges.

[mopar4don]

Next I removed the gauge faces by drilling out the rivets and scuffed them up getting them ready for paint. (These pics are before I scuffed them)

[mopar4don]

Then I masked the black area of the needles and painted the white with Krylon Colormaxx paint + primer flat white (used on the cluster housing)

[mopar4don]

Which brings me to paint matching the decal overlays.
I ended up testing 5 different brands/colors before I found what looked best to me even though the decal instructions said to use Krylon flat black, which I found 2 different flat blacks, neither of which I thought were close. They were both to shiny.
I needed something flatter....
did a little internet research and found that Rust-oleum had something called Camouflage 2x ultra cover and I figured what would be flatter than camo paint? So I bought a can and did a spray out and it matched perfectly!

[oldgold69]

 don would that camo black work on the dash   what are you going to use for rivets copper ones or steel   I am in awe of the things you restore on that car it will look better than  a new one from the factory