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

[b5blue]

Be sure to check the inside edges at rear 1/4 windows. The factory seemed to never get any paint up inside there, mine had really crappy rust issues growing hidden!

[birdsandbees]

Not much happening on my end, but the resto shop has the majority of the metal work done and it's starting to look like a new car. A few small items to put in place after I left at noon, like the Ebrake cable guide, speedo clip, tunnel seat belt plates and the dual exhaust hangar. Once they are in and a few welds cleaned up and finished off she will be totally media blasted again and everything into zinc epoxy primer tomorrow or Wednesday.

Also got my K frame back epoxy primed and painted, so I can start building the front suspension back up.

[birdsandbees]

Well pulling my hair out trying to get the final pieces I need for the assembly puzzle when I get my shell back. Dash pad sent back, 5 piece bezel kit that has three pieces in gloss and the two end plates in flat  . Figured I'd bite the bullet and order a "proper" double the price dash pad from Legendary and then while on their site figured I may as well order headliner, some new arm rest bezels, etc figuring it would be shipped right out. When I asked for a tracking number on Monday it was "sorry 6 to 8 weeks to build the order" ! WHAT...

Oh well, like the Resto shop owner keeps saying to me "it's the norm of the industry unfortunately, they tell you a week and 3 months later you get the stuff"... "it's supposed to be fun restoring your car, don't lose any sleep over these things and go with the flow". Great advise, but it sure makes it hard to accomplish anything on a schedule.

All my major metal work is now done and all the new AMD was media blasted clean on Friday and everything epoxy primed over the weekend ready for body work. Door shells media blasted and epoxy primed inside and new door skins going on. Going over tomorrow to see the progress and go over the car again with the lads so nothing gets missed on body work.

[tan top]

     looks good 

[birdsandbees]

Thanks Tan Top!

Visited the shop today to go over the past 2 weeks progress and get all the pictures of the metal work to date. Put my bill back into the credit stage and came home to work on my heat / defroster control refurbishment.

Here's a teaser shot from the resto shop showing my "new car" !

[birdsandbees]

Milling for the replacement lower shock mount studs picture one.

Replacement studs ready for Loctite and tightening picture two.

No matter how many times I washed these plastic defroster vents, they still looked brown in the grain.

Old can of the Tannery (as you can tell from the price tag). Amazing how well it works.

[birdsandbees]

Cleaned up vent picture one.

Going into dash two and three.

Broke off a "stud". Pen cartridge is the perfect size for the internal hole. Loctite super glue, pen cartridge left in place and then cut off. Worked like a charm

[birdsandbees]

Defroster controls. Bought an extra from B5blue to use the best parts of two.

Coming apart for full cleaning, switch clean / test etc and so I can repaint the lettering.

MAAS is great stuff for polishing up the shiny stuff.

[CDN72SE]

The Tannery, lol. I think my parents have a can of that stuff in their basement which still has the wood panelling on the wall. Made me smile when I saw the can.

Nice work, I'm kind of at that stage as well as far as the dash and vent controls. Enjoy watching your project. 

[birdsandbees]

Thanks, did a test run over the weekend on my spare heat / defrost control. Out of the 8 different blacks that I have, the SEM trim paint seemed to be the closest in color and gloss to OEM. Cleaned, prepped and painted with the SEM and let dry for an hour or so while I did something else. Then made a make shift dabber with a plastic cork screw and a shop towel. Dip in paint (sprayed from can onto paper), blot and then dab on lettering. Worked pretty good, other than on the real run I need to find a better dabber material, as the shop towel gig had me picking fibers out with tweezers. I had the last F in OFF fill in between the top to lines and I used a jewellers screw driver to clean out the white and dab in some black successfully. At least I know I have a process that will work and looks pretty clean.

[b5blue]

Very nice! 

[Dino]

That looks great!

I did my bezels with a white paint pen. Got it at Walmart and I think it was Elmers. It works real nice!

[birdsandbees]

Thanks Dino and B5.. like I said this was the trial run. Maybe I'll see if our Canuck Walmart has a paint pen. I had no idea how I was going to make the TEMP and FAN look nice, so I ordered a new reproduction set of levers, only to have them come back today and say "no longer available". Nice.. maybe update your friggin on line catalogue! Don't want to use decals...

[tsmithae]

I dabbed a toothpick in white paint and carefully applied it to the raised areas.  Worked well, just took a long time to finish.

[CDN72SE]

From Resto Rick's site:

I use an old fashioned pencil... eraser end used like a stamp...
smear out white One shot brand enamel in a thin layer on a palette of some sort... I use a plastic mud mixing board...
then you can pick up the paint with the eraser dabbing it. Then use it like a rubber stamp on the letters.

Rick

[birdsandbees]

Thanks, I get to try it again as I messed up the spare anyhow trying to clean up some lint spots. Going to have to media blast it bare, paint black and start all over.

Spent almost 1/2 an hour in Walmart this morning, looking for the paint pen and final found it with no help from any of the employees. Tried using it to do the FAN and TEMP letters and finally said $%*($%)@ it and ordered a couple of decal sets from David. Unfortunate that I couldn't get those replacement levers that I tried to order for the cleanest look.

[marshallfry01]

birdsandbees,

If you don't mind me asking, how much is the body shop charging you to pretty much replace the back half of your car?  I need the same metal replacement on my 70 charger and I'm trying to get a ball park figure on how much it's going to cost me. I know how much the metal is but I don't know what the going rate is for all of that metal replacement.

Thanks,
Marshall

[tan top]

 

[birdsandbees]

birdsandbees,

If you don't mind me asking, how much is the body shop charging you to pretty much replace the back half of your car?  I need the same metal replacement on my 70 charger and I'm trying to get a ball park figure on how much it's going to cost me. I know how much the metal is but I don't know what the going rate is for all of that metal replacement.

Thanks,
Marshall

Pretty hard to break it down Marshall. As of my visit last week I've forked over about $32K Cdn (plus tax) to the resto shop @ $65/hr. If you look thru my pics you'll see they pulled the body down, removed all the glass, media blasted the entire car inside and out. 3 frame rails replaced, upper windshield cowling, inner wheel wells, full floor pan from front to back, new torsion bar cross member, wheel well tubs, leaf spring attach, rear bumper mount etc. Pulled my door skins off to blast the shells and ready to reskin (have new AMD door skins) That $32k includes the $9800 in AMD metal that they got in on my behalf. It does not include the two rear frame rails that I bought myself from Classics and had them shipped from California. Was the last set available in NAmerica at that time, looks like AMD is still back ordered on those.

Still have to do the doors, hood, repair the front fenders (as you can't buy Coronet fenders) and then all the body work. Long shot is figuring July before paint, so another 2 months or 20 to 25k before it has paint on it.

It's crazy money and not a hope in hell I'd spend it if it was just a "car". I already know that I could never sell the car now and make a dime. My father bought it new, I raised hell in it as a teen in 79/80/81, got laid in it, got married in it in '82 and took my 3 kids for rides in it... so it's priceless.

[birdsandbees]

Put my original cleaned up AM radio back in the dash, along with the wiring harness. Note the Chryco radio.. showing it was a Canadian sold car.

Round two on the heat / defrost plate. Media blasted with glass and repaint in SEM. Will give a day and then stamp the white on, hopefully cleaner this time.

And the amazing thing of the day... My "6 to 8 weeks to build your order" from Legendary is shipping in the morning, just 9 days after they told me 6 to 8 weeks. Hmmmm.... Sure hope the dash pad is correct in every detail... 

[Dino]

Looking mighty fine.   

And worth every penny.   

[hemi-hampton]

Looks nice. Congrats.  LEON.

[birdsandbees]

Thanks guys, it's an emotional rollercoaster for me.. between why I went back to my cars to stay sane and then the sticker shock on where it's gotten to after media blast. Thankful, at least, that I'm spending a life insurance policies payout without guilt, as Jen loved the car from an early age....   I'm sure there are better things I could have done with her policy payout, but at least this one offers no gain for me and that I can at least live with.

My resto shop guys said more than once, "once you start it will never end". Here's proof again... proper correct exhaust hangars. Loops for the '69 Bee and while I was at it straight flaps are for the '70 Bird.

David at ECS has my original head pipes and is making me a correct OEM exhaust system from after manifold to bumper!

[birdsandbees]

Some days you just want to give up and     

Sent the other dash pad back to PG Classics, don't even know if I have been credited my $300 US or so yet and today I get my $500 US pad from Ledgendary. Visually and dimensionally 10x more correct than the Chinese POS from PG, but at least theirs had close to correct grain on the covering material. Legendarys is smooth... Enquiry into them right now as to whether they used the wrong bolt of material.

SURELY, someone has gone this route before and can tell me where to get a 100% correct dash pad.

OEM from my car top, repro bottom.

Repro... no grain will stand out like a sore thumb.

OEM.. grain to match the side panels and the other dash pads.

[birdsandbees]

Got two coats of white on, using the pencil eraser trick. Worked VERY well, but I still have a few pin holes. Going to let it set up for a couple of days and then give it one more shot.

Also cut out my control plate for the wires on the light bar that I got off B5Blue. To show how involved you can get with something I asked him if he had any pictures of the install that I could go by, when my 'Bird that's sitting right (like 6") behind my ass at the work bench has one in it!