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

[birdsandbees]

Thanks Dirk !! 

[birdsandbees]

Not much today, but important stuff.

Car now loaded on it's wheels and pretty close to acceptable ride height, so I torqued the front strut nuts to 50ft/lbs.  Also snugged up the upper control arm alignment adjuster cam bolts.

and while I should have tightened the LCA pivot nuts to 130ft/lbs... thankfully I slowly worked the torque limit up as I went and PST's replacement shafts machined threads started to give in at 100 ft/lbs so that's where they've been left.

Also installed the upper bump stops, lifting the car back up to hold the rubber tight as I installed the nuts.

[birdsandbees]

Time to tackle the instrument cluster and it's 49 years of abuse.

I have a new bezel for it, the set cost about 1/4 the price of the car when it was new!

Making sure my gauges work. 2nd pin from the left is 12V in and ground to housing. The silver box to the left of the red aligator clip is an electro-mechanical voltage regulator that takes the 12V down to (a pulsing/cycling) 5 volts for the fuel, engine temp and oil pressure gauges. I've ordered an RTE-IVR4 electronic regulator to replace it for complete protection.

Grounding each gauges sender terminal briefly to make sure each gauge is working before I start. Fuel good!

Engine Temp good !

Oil Pressure good !

[birdsandbees]

49 years of dirt !

Wishing I'd just sent this down to David Patik at PG Graphics, but I've come this far I can restore this.. sure I can, what can go wrong?! LOL

Original tach in dash is orange above 5000, hoping that's just faded Red. More to investigate.

New "OEM" tach has Red above 5000.

[Charger-Bodie]

Really? Air shocks?  Seems odd with all the other attention.

[birdsandbees]

Really? Air shocks?  Seems odd with all the other attention.

Why I kinda made the joke about the Drive-In. Ordered them 2 years back when I was tearing down the car and matching part for part at the time. Couldn't remember if they went on for the " '80's look" or the springs were weak and the air shocks made up for it. Considering how it's sitting now, after taking the springs apart and putting them back together, I'll wait for it to settle in with fuel in the tank / etc and see how it sits. Easy removal and replacement with some regular shocks.

[BDF]

This is moving right along, keep up the good work 

[Charger_Fan]

This is moving right along, keep up the good work 

^^^ What he said.   

[birdsandbees]

Thanks Guys !!  

Well those 7 "Blacks" don't match the face decals... off to find some more variations of paint.

Also need to match colour to the slight shine of the 'OEM" replacement tic tock clock / tach so it all looks the same.

Great to have an old broken panel to practice on.. melting the plastic tabs for disassembly. Very little heat and you can push the metal off and keep the posts.

Enough playing.. time for the real deal.

When you take your speedometer needle off, make sure you hold the metal wheel back or you'll destroy the needle shaft bearing and be looking for a new speedo or lots more work.

While holding the metal wheel, pull the needle's CENTER and twist below Zero and it comes off. Again practicing on my spare.

Car's original metal "hoods" to plastic faceplate apart and not looking too bad.

Thought I was going to get away without painting these, but then noticed the mold / corrosion on the tach hood.

[birdsandbees]

Don't want to fart around with trying to paint and decal around a delicate needle, so I'm drilling the rivets out so the faces come off the fuel / oil pressure / temp and amp gauges.

Practiced on a spare and all is fine. This also lets you see the adjustment arms for calibrating the needle.

I have no shortage of rivets to put things back together. Anyone want to buy an 1953 NOS fix penetration tail ski for an Otter, or a metal mesh cargo net for a C-47/DC-3??

One of my dash light hoods melted after 49 years. Removed it and pulled the matching good one from my spare.

Good and melted.

Heated the tabs and removed the brake failure lens.

Popping the signal lenses off.

Haven't busted anything yet..

[birdsandbees]

Finding a White that works for the housing interior, almost as fun as the Black.

Thrown in the sink for a soak to get 49 years of crude off of it.

Factory markings... Red X.

I think it's a fancy 3 in Black.

Factory part numbers and date code, for my Feb 25th, 1969 car.

Paper tape on the tach housing area

Don't forget to paint the mounting screw areas black or the white ring will show through on final install.

[birdsandbees]

White cleaned up good in the tub, so I'm not going to strip and paint. Just a spot to spray that's under the tach housings location and good to go.

What I use on aircraft windshields, so giving it a whirl on 39 years of scratches.

I find the paste works best with your rough fingers vs just moping it up with a cloth. Won't work for office types.. lol

1 hours and 45 minutes, we'll call it good !

My FAVOURITE plastic cleaner. BBQ lighter fluid. Harms nothing, removes most everything.

800 paper.

BBQ fluid and sanding the old Brake Failure off the lense.

Clean, washed with soapy water and ready for decal.

[darbgnik]

Even attempting the gauges.... good man!

Still unsure if I will, or send them out.....

[birdsandbees]

Melted in some old panel to put tabs on the bulb hood I swapped out.

Cleaning the circuit board with cleaner and a BRASS brush.

Good for another 5 decades.

Squeezing the voltage regulator tabs together slightly so the regulator will have good connections.

Cleaned the lights / 4 way / wiper switches with BBQ fluid and then buffed up with rouge polishing compound and a buff wheel. Go light, it's only plastic. Before doing so I of course did a continuity check on them all after spraying contact cleaner into them anyway I could get it in. Some through gaps, some down the actuator shaft that the rocker pushes. This cleaned up any "scratchiness" or dead spots in all of them.

My dimmer roller has a chrome chip, so disassembled everything so I can reorient that spot to behind the housing over it's travel.

CAREFULLY twist the swagged in housing track so it's open.

Slide the terminal block out and clean everything up.

[birdsandbees]

Detail brush soaked in BBQ lighter worked perfect to get 49 years of finger grub out of the ribs.

All clean and going back together with a bit of dielectric grease.

Verifying a linear ohm sweep on the dimmer and that when full on it switches the blade to ground for the dome light to work.

Decal back sprayed with Windex original and put in place

That worked great.. wiped out with a clean cloth to remove extra fluid and bubbles.

Melting the lense back into place.

Gasket for brake system lense.

We're getting there! Stuff going back in and note that I remembered to paint the screw tab areas Black.

[birdsandbees]

Signal light lenses and gaskets.

The left signal lense gasket needs to be pulled to the right a bit or you'll see it through the bezel.

Shine a light up through the signal light tube and make sure you can't see the black gasket. EDIT: I FOUND THE NEXT DAY.. that they fell off. Had to use Contact cement to put them back on. Not enough tack to the peel and stick gaskets.

Starting to look spiffy.

[birdsandbees]

Even attempting the gauges.... good man!

Still unsure if I will, or send them out.....

Cheaper than a Psychiatrist and I'll have something to show for the outlay when all done!  

Can't imagine having a panel done is cheap, LOTS of hours by the looks of things.

[Troy]

So much cool stuff in here! I literally read it every day (which means you kind of need to post every day). I made this a sticky.

I am reminded all the time when I try DIY projects that the people who have success usually have a lot of similar experience in other areas of their lives. Which means they also have tools, parts, and "tricks of the trade" that normal schlubs lack. Last weekend I made 4 trips to the store for broken hardware (bolts snap if you look at them wrong here in the Midwest) and commented to my dad that people who do this all the time must just buy fasteners in bulk!

Troy

[birdsandbees]

THANKS Troy, Honoured to have this stickied on a Charger site..   

[Lennard]

THANKS Troy, Honoured to have this stickied on a Charger site..   

Well deserved! 

[birdsandbees]

THANKS Lennard !!

Picked up the instrument circuit board lamp sockets today (and new #194 bulbs) that I ordered on Monday. They are the correct size and fit, but NOT OEM correct in some details... but they fit nice! Cost $5Cdn each because the box they come in would hold 50 of them!

My "Hen's Tooth" arrived today from New York State. Thanks Steven S. for selling it to me!!

Not in bad shape really, but going to see if they'll modify the tanks and do 3 cores instead of 2 when I drop it off tomorrow at the old school radiator shop.

2949053 seems to be one of Chryslers rarest (or maybe only because that's the one I was looking for!)

[birdsandbees]

4 more Black's... I think I'm up to 13 total now looking for just the right shade. We'll see how these dry overnight, but one of the bunch is getting used tomorrow!

LIGHTLY sanding the gauge hoods with 800. Just enough for adhesion and making sure they're smooth. If they were rusty I would have glass media blasted them.

Gauges drilled apart and odometer (56694.1 miles) out of speedo, ready to lightly sand and then paint faces.

To show the difference in the gauge movements, in case you mix them up.

Also note the stud lengths.

[CDN72SE]

Woooo that's some nice work there!

[birdsandbees]

Thanks Fella ! How's yours coming along?

Today so far:

Winner Winner, chicken dinner! Last can I bought !

Tape rolls hold the speedo perfectly. Tape under odometer and high beam indicator holes. Be VERY careful putting the straw over the needle peg.. as the spring and bearing is under there.

Glued some 800 to a couple of pill bottle lids.

Makes sanding idiot proof ! Make sure you also use a little piece of sand paper around the face rivets as that needs perfect paint as it'll be seen as decal is cut out there.

Just the right size for the gauge plates.

[birdsandbees]

Pencil wrapped in 800 for the sides.

Note how Chrylser did this. Painted white first and then stencil painted with black.

Faces cleaned with reducer and then everything painted with 3 very light coats of paint.

All painted and on "bake" for a day or so.

I'll save you from $150 worth of cans! Nice that it's the best one, as it's a paint and primer + a rust paint all in one! Sold at HomeDepot... don't run out just yet 'till I see how the decals look !