hemigeno's Daytona restoration - a few more tweaks... again!

[Charger_Fan]

Frugal is the word that my wife prefers to be called, and she is definately a tightwad.

I wish my wife had that problem. 

[69_500]

I think it has something to do with her job, being an accountant. She always wants to know exactly where every single penny goes. If I go to a car show with $150 in cash, and come back 2 days later I had better have a receipt for everything I spent money on. Even if that means asking the people at the concession stand to give me a receipt for the $4 coke. Which is annoying sometimes, but then again we never have any problems with knowing exactly how much money we have.

[PocketThunder]

Thanks guys, it is slowly making progress. 

These are all very nice and everything but when are we gonna see some paint!!!!!!!! 

Not soon enough for either of us, believe me...  It might be a while before I can make it back up, so maybe they'll have it all in primer and ready for the paint booth with the next batch of pictures.  Strange how I can let the car sit for years without worrying too much about it, but once the resto gets going I get anxious for it to be done.

Speaking of wanting to see paint on some fresh sheet metal there, PT...         

Funny you should mention that... Actually I've been busy adding a second floor onto my house this past year and once i close my permits in June i plan on starting to get the C500 ready for the media blaster.  I got the car from Hans in Dec of 2003 and ofcourse when i got the car i was planning on driving it within a year or two, but one move, 2 children, and one house addition later, here we are..    Everything has its priority, and the Chargers are at the back of the line.

[69_500]

Speaking of children, how are the little ones doing now PT? I think your first child is around the age of my son, who is 3. Kids are the greatest.

Gene I'll get back with you after this weekend about the PM you sent me.

[bordin34]

Looks good and like the body work i almost done. Where in NJ was it? There was a license plate from the 70's on it on the first page.

[hemigeno]

bordin, I could see where you'd get that from the picture that was posted. 

Actually, the Daytona on page 1 with the NJ plate is Dave B.'s old car (DC.com member "nascarxx29").  I think he was trying to show the pock marks that were in his wing, although they were a little hard to see from that vantage point.  My car was in/around the St. Joseph MO / Kansas City area until 1982, when it went north to Iowa.  To my knowledge, the farthest east it's been is where it is at in Michgan.

Here's two pictures of mine from 1980 when it was briefly for sale in KC (pictures courtesy of Doug Schellinger & DSAC):

[hemi68charger]

Geno...

I love the holes he made for the plugs........... Can you take some more close up of the trunk pan?

Cheers,
Troy

[2fast4u]

  I just love a great restoration. . . . .


                       . . . . can hardly wait to see it finished as well as you and everybody I'm sure Gene!   


2fast

[Charger-Bodie]

that is some very nice metal work going on right there that thing is going to be very very nice when they get it done one thing that really caught my eye was that the butt welded the trunk floor very few of us take the time to do that and its the only way to make it indetectable!! way cool!!!

[hemigeno]

Geno...

I love the holes he made for the plugs........... Can you take some more close up of the trunk pan?

Cheers,
Troy

Troy,
They did do a decent job on the trunk extension plug holes - that's an odd shaped hole to cut and I'm kinda curious how they did that.  Also, I checked the rest of my pictures from that trip and found no more of the trunk seam, if that was what you were looking for.  I did find a few more of the trunk floor itself, which are below.

2fast, I'm getting a little antsy and the car has only been gone 5 months...  I can only imagine how anxious I'll be here in another 4-5 months, especially when there's a nice glossy coat of R4 red to drool on.  There's no reason to expect that it'll be done before any of the major shows this year, but that's alright.  My goal all along has been just to get the car done before Talladega in September of 2009.  I certainly hope we can clear that hurdle!  Another lesson in patience for me - someone must be trying to teach me that I guess.

1hot68, the metalworking skills these guys have are WAY better than anything I could do - which is why they're working on the car in the first place.  I know there are lots of places that can do this type of work to that same level, but I agree they're doing a great job so far.  Again, I just don't have the patience it takes to do all that welding and finishing work needed to eliminate the evidence of the patches.  I'd be ready for a straight jacket by now, and they're nowhere close to being done.

Here are a few more trunk pan pics from the upper side, and I have two more shots of the bottom side I'll post in a sec:

[hemigeno]

Two more trunk pan shots from the underneath side, showing the shackle mounting frame/stubs:

[Fitz73Chrgr]

That car is going to be gorgeous.

[PocketThunder]

Speaking of children, how are the little ones doing now PT? I think your first child is around the age of my son, who is 3. Kids are the greatest.

Nick is 2-1/2 and finally started potty training , and he's starting to talk back to his Mom   Mary is 6 months now and she is going to pick up everything her older brother does i'm afraid..   They are a blast.  I dont get enough time with them but isnt that the case for everybody.  My C500 has taken a back seat to spending time with them, but thats ok, the car will always be there, the kids wont.   I thought we were done with 2 but i'm getting the full court press for #3 so it looks like i'll be changing diapers for a couple more years...

thread hijack over and out.

[69_500]

Looks like the car is coming along great there Gene. A lot of progress since I saw it last.

Off topic again, my wife is pressing me for child #2, then again we have had 2 miscarriages since Dakotat was born 3 1/2 years ago too.

[69chargerboy]

That car is going to be gorgeous.

I agree, I would be afraid to drive it......

[WINGR]

Hey Gene, its really coming along great. She's going to be a Beut when done, I'm sure you are getting more and more excited each time you get pictures.

Do you by chance have any pics of the outer shell of the deck-lid, I wanted to see if the indentations from the spot-welds were as evident on the forward side as on other cars like mine. I saw a C500 awhile back that the paint had pretty much baked off the deck-lid from Western outdoor storage and they were very evident as well.

Thanks and keep up the good work.

WINGR

[duo-stripe]

Gene,
looks good! You are gonna get a really nice car!

Best regards,
Marcel
the Netherlands

[Magnumcharger]

No updates for awhile...we need our picture "fix" !!!!!!
Help us out Geno!

[hemigeno]

Sorry for the lag in updates - and (a belated) thanks for the compliments!

I just got back from Michigan this weekend, and I do have some pictures I took to upload - plus a CD that Vance gave me of progress pictures they have taken since last time.  Unfortunately, there's not a whole lot of difference visible even though they've slaved away on that undercarriage a LOT.  It's getting to be as smooth as a baby's bottom side, but they haven't really touched the bodypanels just yet.

Give me a day or two to resize & post the pics...

[PocketThunder]

Sorry for the lag in updates - and (a belated) thanks for the compliments!

I just got back from Michigan this weekend, and I do have some pictures I took to upload - plus a CD that Vance gave me of progress pictures they have taken since last time.  Unfortunately, there's not a whole lot of difference visible even though they've slaved away on that undercarriage a LOT.  It's getting to be as smooth as a baby's bottom side, but they haven't really touched the bodypanels just yet.

Give me a day or two to resize & post the pics...

Ok its been two days

[hemigeno]

Give me a day or two to resize & post the pics...

Ok its been two days

Nag, nag, nag...   

I finally uploaded them to my PC last night, but I haven't resized them just yet.  MAYBE this afternoon, but I promise I won't send the pictures to London Drug.

[hemigeno]

OK, here are the next round of pictures, taken on 5/25 at Vance's.  To be honest, there's not a whole lot of visible difference between this set and the last set - until you touch the finished product.  Smoooooth is all I can say.  They have already sealed and primered the underside twice, and filled/sanded everything smooth again.  They have one more round of primer/fill/sanding to go before the final coat of primer goes on and they move onto the body panels.  That work will go a bunch faster than this has gone, simply because there aren't nearly as many obstacles.  There are very few flat places larger than a saucer plate on the undercarriage, so the body panels will be (comparatively) a cakewalk...  At least I'm hoping so, otherwise there'll be snow on the ground again before it gets painted 

The first two pictures are just overall shots.  Lots more filler showing this time around.

The last two are pictures of the trunk extension panels, where you can see the way they have been trying to replicate the shape/contours of the NOS extension (bottom picture) on the reproduction piece (top picture).  They are still working on this, but it looks a whole lot better than it did earlier.  They're even trying to make the width/length/height of the ribbing the same on the reproduction panel, which is quite a chore.

[hemigeno]

Some pictures of the trunk, showing the seam from the 2-piece replacement trunk floor.

[hemigeno]

Notice something missing in these shots?  (Hint:  see the reply above this one)

[hemigeno]

The first shot shows a change that was made since the last batch of photos.  One of our eagle-eyed DC.com members (Ray / 69_charger_man) pointed out to me that the crossmember we salvaged along with the frame rails from that rear clip had a round filler tube hole.  Even though Chargers did not utilize that filler tube hole, they used the same crossmember as the Bee/Runner did (which DID use the filler tube hole).  Sometime around February of 1969 the stamping plant changed the shape of the filler tube hole from a round shape to an oval shape.  The Daytona's original crossmember had the oval shaped hole, whereas the piece we scavenged off of that rear clip was (you guessed it) the round shape.  This little detail isn't super noticeable, but it is definitely visible if you know what to look for.  I had even read a thread on the Moparts A12 forum about this very subject the very same month that I had taken that rear clip up to Vance.  In other words, I should have noticed that detail, but I didn't - and it escaped Vance's notice too.  Ray pointed it out to me, and I appreciate his doing so, since catching that "mistake" while it's in the sheet metal stage is much better than noticing it after the paint is on.

Anyway, the second picture shows the cuts that they had to make in the (formerly NOS) rear lower valance in order to get at that crossmember to elongate the hole - effectively converting it to the oval style from the round style.  There just wasn't an easy way to get to it without making those cuts.  Sad but true.

BTW, thanks again, Ray!