Now Complete Restoration / Pulling my 1969 'Bee down for strip and paint

[birdsandbees]

Gray day so thought perfect to align my headlights. Tape height a bit optomistic, not thinking how far the car was going to sink in the mud.

Still gave me the correct verticals to get them close enough to put the grill in, as once I put the interior in and the spare tire in the trunk the ass end will come down a bit.,, I hope.

Thought I should get rid of the masking tape in the safety catch hole. Replaced it by bonding in some rubber edging. No point in chipping the paint..

Center grill section all ready to go into place.

Both ends the same, the two small clips with the screw thread side in / aft, two large clips threads out / forward.

Two small clips on each headlight bucket stand off.

How not to peel the paint on the screws and washers. Plastic between bolt head and a SIX point socket.

Center section in..

[birdsandbees]

A bit of adjustments and a bit of grill twisting to get perfectly even gaps top and bottom.

Contrast between grill and bolts to give it that factory look.

Time to revisit the headlight eyebrows that I set to one side a few weeks ago. First I used some 320 around a ruler end to sand out the ridgy hand painted black that I just couldn't get to lay down smooth.

Going with my first idea, build a mask. Two flower pot tops and a few rounds of tape, slid in from the back with a tight fit.

Carefully taped off the argent edges by basically standing masking tape on it's edge. For the end "horseshoe" I formed a piece of cardboard so it sat right on the edge of the black / argent transition and propped it into place.

Everything taped off, without really sticking tape to any paint, and resprayed with CDA1603 Semi-Gloss Black.

Quickly removed the tape and also the tape I had covering the lone "chrome" detail rib, along with the tape that had been protecting the outer "chrome" ring.

Not perfect, but I'm finally happy with them. Still have to take an exacto knife and clean off a bit of black on the detail ribs but I'll be able to install them tomorrow. Excuse the workbench... it's a bad habit with flat surfaces!

[birdsandbees]

A little bit of dental work to clean up a bit of bleed out

A little polish and touch up on the "Argent".

Headlight eyebrows installed to the car.

Looks pretty spiffy..

Front end of the car all done, other than alignment, adjuster hole shield install and undercoating in the wheel wells. Oh and wiper arms and blades, I have some nice NOS ones for that!

Yep.. DADS BEE ! Couldn't believe that plate was available when I ordered it 2 years back.

[tan top]

  looks awesome ! 

[birdsandbees]

THANKS T T ! 

[hemi-hampton]

Looks nice, Take it to the next Woodward Dream Cruise       LEON.

[kent]

Beautiful Wayne! Well done!

[birdsandbees]

Thanks guys, still lots to do! Roof rail seals, Door glass, flip outs, interior, tail stripe, replace my turn signal switch, seats.....

[birdsandbees]

Thought I should tackle the rear flip out windows first. I didn't pull any of the glass, other than the windshield, so been a tad apprehensive as to how this is going to go. Why I wanted to remove all the glass and trim, but the paint shop moved the car pickup forward by a month and wanted the glass left in. Wish I'd said "no I'm taking it out so I know where everything goes and can take pictures".. but I didn't want to miss my chance since I'd jumped their wait line by over a year.

Something I've always hated, the passenger side latch has never gone over center to lock. So I bought a spare set for parts and guess what ! I wonder how many thousand were done wrong before anyone noticed.. or if they ever did.

Knocked the pivot pin out on both spare latches to see how far off they have the pivot pin hole.

Yah.. that might do it. NFG location on the left.. good on the right.

Cut a piece of 1/8" drill bit shank to fill the hole.

Put the filler pin in place and drilled a new 1/8" hole beside it to move the pivot point.

Worked good on the spare, time to do it on something expensive in fresh chrome.

Success, other than some dumb ass with a grinder just had to lick the filler pin.

[birdsandbees]

Didn't want to pound on the good one, pin pressed into place with channel locks.

Now both Preying Mantis' sit the same height and will actually lock the window.

Drivers window assembly apart by removing the tubular rivet at each end of the hinge channel.

Removed rivet.

The "hinge" is just the same mylar type seal and slider pins that are used on the door glass on the front edge. I had hoped a single strip would be just cut in half, so I'd have a spare, but nope gotta use a set as they're a few inches too short to get two from one.

Carefully seperating the two sides of the OE guide sliders ( glass retainer in this case) so I can use them in the front door glass vs reproductions. Repros are good enough for these windows as they don't slide, but are too thick for the door glass to work correctly.

All the parts laid out.

OE hinge / seal with one side torn off, showing the punched hole top and slot bottom that the slider pins go through and then the holes in the glass.

[birdsandbees]

OE left, properly shaped and curved Chrysler OEM middle and reproduction right. Both expensive as hell and getting worse. As much or more than $300US a pair now I hear for the OEM, if you can find a set. The Repro is no where near correct and over $100 for two pieces of mylar, but will be used in the flip out windows. The OEM on the door glass.

Testing the repro seal in the hinge channel.

Doesn't fit too bad, but needs that incorrect edge trimmed off the curl to sit correctly.

[darbgnik]

It's looking sweet! Home stretch!

[birdsandbees]

Thanks! 

[birdsandbees]

Old turn signal assembly, ready to pop the wires out of the connector so that I can get the ribbon cable up through the collars.

NOS turn signal switch assembly slid into place. Don't ever want to have to buy another of these.. $430CDN and the border police missed me for tax!!

New wires snapped into the OE connector. Note the orientation as they only go one way so they mate with the dash harness plug that also has male pins that angle up against each other.. man that doesn't sound right...

Bit of white grease in the turn lever shaft hole.

New switch plate screwed down. Pic shows metal plate + 3 screws to do so.

Turn actuator lever going into place and showing the correct bolt it mates to.

Lever tightened in.

Joining the switch plug to the dash harness plug and then testing the signal lights before reinstalling the steering wheel.

[birdsandbees]

Video showing turn signal auto cancel test before fully seating the wheel into place.

https://youtu.be/UXIl5YoAWEM

Figure I may as well show how it all buttons up for those that have a box of parts. Ribbon cable is hidden with the metal plate shown.

Then the column support plate is put into place with plastic sliders, funky washers, nuts and don't forget your ground strap wire. 4 bolts from the plate to the column, tighten those first.

Wheel goes on lightly first and test your turn signal auto cancel to make sure they work before going any further. Then put the washer and nut on and tighten the wheel down into place. Horn actuator switch is next with 3 x 6-32 screws and then hook up the output wire to the tab. This sends a ground signal to the horn relay when you hit the horn pad.

Next the horn pad frame goes into place with it's three 8-32 screws.

Then the horn pad goes on with it's single washer and bolt.

Pad installed.

Center cover has a tab on the right side, that goes into a pocket and then it pops into place. Remember where this tab is for when you are removing it. Pry it out from the left side!

Wheel all back together and I can get back to glass...

[green69rt]

That a reconditioned wheel? Sure looks good.  And thanks on the tip on the center medallion.  I'd forgotten about that.

[birdsandbees]

No it's a repop wheel Mitch from PG Classics here in Canada.. well china really ! I rebuilt the horn pad from a mess as you can see way back in this thread. I had to re and re the wheel to replace my turn switch that fell apart...

[birdsandbees]

Can't believe the chrome and polish shop actually polished these and never removed the weatherstripping gooo.

Goo all off and I repolished the hinge channel with green and then rouge on the softer wheel.

Repro "slider" material cut to length of the glass.

I trimmed off the incorrect "turn up" on the edge of the curls.

Right side trimmed, left to do yet.

Used a hole punch to make the holes.

One end pegged and the other marked for a slot to duplicate the OE.

I can't caution enough how EASY these things will rip on the sharp edge of the channel going in. Go SLOW and work them in carefully.

[birdsandbees]

Glass, hinge channel together and ready for mating to the frame.

OE had a single long semi-tubular rivet, but I'm using some Avex I have on each side to put them back together.

Assembly all together, time for a new rubber seal.

Precision QWP 3411 68 seal kit. This is the part number for both left and right gaskets.

QWL 4111 68 is the left seal and QWR3411 68 is the right side.

At about this point I was glad I used some of my Avex rivets to put the hinge channel back on. No way I was fighting the seal into place assembled and I drilled the hinge channel rivets back out.

Seal pressed down tight into the latch end first.

Seal then worked into the channel from the latch out to the ends.

[birdsandbees]

Seal perfectly in place. You will see the relief in the rubber where the joiner rivet would pass though, so you can make sure you have it in the correct place.

Glass in place and hinge channel cleco'd into place.

Lets rivet this bugger again.

All riveted together and seal sits perfect still.

Latch hardware. Outside chrome "nut", long wall rubber washer, thin rubber and screw.

Outer "nut" and rubber washer in place.

Rubber, latch and screw from the inside.

Top of the hinge channel sealed with some Butyl.

[birdsandbees]

Couldn't find a spec but I grabbed this foam a while back as it looked similar in size to pictures of the OE I had when I was taking my interior out. Unfortunately the paint shop toasted all that foam and I never got to see it to be 100% sure.

Foam is 7/16 thick x 3/4 wide. It goes from the bottom of the hinge channel, over the top and around to just past the latch plate. Ready to install to car.
NOTE: DO NOT USE THIS FOAM! YOU NEED AN OPEN CELL approximately 5/8 to 3/4" wide x 1/2" thick.

Passenger side coming apart ready to rebuild.

This side the hinge material wasn't as busted up and I noted that on the inside it is trimmed back to about the same width as the rubber seal for a better mating I presume. This shot is the top.

This is the bottom end showing how it is trimmed back.

[birdsandbees]

Passenger side rear window assembly with new rubber seal, hinge material, etc and ready to rivet the hinge channel in place.

All together and foam on. DO NOT use this weatherstripping foam as I found it won't compact enough to install the window. Needs to be cheap open cell foam from the days of old...

Rear window "roof rail" trim with show side all polished up and the foam seals cut to length. Make sure you cut a piece from each roll or you won't have a continuous piece left for one of the front doors.

Weatherstrip adhesive applied to both parts, "flashed off" and then the foam seals stuck in place.

Correct #10 screws to install. I believe the three longer ones are for the "B post" where there is a deco trim and the weatherstrip holder overtop of each other.

Installing the roof rail trim. Make sure you install the rear most screw first as it's a fixed hole for postioning. The other three are slots.

Both rear roof rail trim pieces in place.

Fighting to try and get the window to go high enough to clear the quarter panel. Appears I can't compress the foam enough to do so, so need to remove and replace the foam with some cheap open cell style foam. The stuff I used is beyond "1969" standards apparently.

[birdsandbees]

I wasted the entire morning trying to find some open cell foam. Nobody sells it anymore.. not even in White. I went to EVERY hardware and lumber yard in town as well as CTC. Thankfully I had a package buried in my stash, but a size smaller than I really wanted. I would have prefered 1/2" thick x 5/8" wide but the 3/8 x 1/2 I had seemed to do the trick. "New age" weatherstrip removed and open cell installed, ready to hopefully put the windows in.

I've had the windows in and out more times than my favourite hobby by this point. Still can't get the rear end to come in against the quarter panel so I'll do the other side and see what happens there.

Upper seal lip sits inside on it's own most of the way and the rear is sitting out. I presume, as the FSM detail pictures suck, that it's supposed to be tucked up inside.

All tucked in pretty...

Drivers side window went in fairly nice. The lower seal is not quite touching the quarter panel, but I'm thinking they probably never did and just leaked into the quarter panel like window whiskers would have with roll downs. That said I am going to take some 1/8" or so cord material and jam it up under the the seal into the V between the frame and flap, which should force the seal out tight to the quarter panel.

Finally some glass in the sides...

Mind boggling why the trim polishing place took it upon themselves to remove the joggle in the roof rail trim (pass side only), cracked it and welded it straight. Part of the reason my passenger window won't sit out against the quarter panel. So I put the joggle back!

Now the roof rail trim can come out to where I think it belongs and hopefully the window assembly agrees. Saving that swearing for tomorrow..

[birdsandbees]

Roof rail inspection before installing sealing foam.

B post section slips onto the roof rail.

Roof rail foam glued in place and it also seemed fitting to add the same open cell foam, that I used on the rear window assembly, to the B post piece . Roof rail foam NOT glued at end of channel so B post piece can move to final location in door frame. FSM is totally useless when it comes to how Post cars go together.

Stainless trim piece for the B post. Some post cars didn't get this piece and just stayed painted on the B post.

Trim piece loosely in place.

Roof rail and B post seal channels screwed into place.

Passenger side. You can see where I left the rail seal loose at the end so the B post channel can find it's place.

Passenger side roof rail screwed into place.

[birdsandbees]

Roof rail seal that I bought and I'm using. Metro SuperSoft # RR 4001

A quick straighten before install.

Working the seal into place. To avoid stretching I started at the B post corner as it was the most positive location. Then tucked the A post corner in place and the lower end on the A post where there is a location tab . Then worked the seal in between all locations.

Roof rail seal pegged in place.

Again with the plastic brush handle soaked in window cleaner. Without the "lube" it's VERY easy to mar the surface of this seal material.

Drivers side roof rail seal in place.

Passenger side in place.

Door seals that I used # LM 23. They have been on since paint, but thought prudent to show part number and install.