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

[hemigeno]

There are so many nooks and crannies that it's hard to really show the level of effort that has gone into each little area without a seemingly endless parade of pictures like this.

The last two pictures are showing some areas inside the passenger compartment that they haven't spent much time on yet.

[hemigeno]

The first three pictures are showing the floorboard seam near where the door's front pillar is.  You can still see the patch panel from the top side, but there's no evidence of it on the underneath.  The top side will be finished to match the underneath side once it's off the rotisserie.

The last picture shows the hollow vertical wing stabilizer from underneath.  I looked around a while back for a picture of the inside, and realized I hadn't taken one from that perspective, so here it is.

[nitrometal]

You know that once this is done and it looks so nice you're gonna freak out after you hit that first mud puddle!   

[hemigeno]

You know that once this is done and it looks so nice you're gonna freak out after you hit that first mud puddle!   

Probably so, probably so...

That's the downside of this type of resto, for sure.  However, I think that after a couple of years I'll be willing to drive it around.  Maybe I should just put a dent in it somewhere right after I bring it home and get it over with, y'think?

[hemigeno]

This batch shows the trunk compartment where they still haven't spent a whole lot of time finishing things out.

One thing you can see if you look for it is some dents in the trunk floor ribs.  They dented the ribs out at the ends to make the contours match the original panels.  While the reproduction panels have a fairly close profile, the rib contours are not quite as pronounced and the ends were too rounded compared to the original panels.  They massaged all these areas to match the shape of the originals so that the goal of having a finished product that so closely resembles the factory-fresh sheet metal that it is hard to see any differences for even the most discerning people.  This is even in an area that is hidden (on the bottom) by the fuel tank...

In the last picture, I was trying to take a picture of the seam where the quarterpanel patch and the original sheet metal were joined.  It is approximately over the left rear wheel, but my camera wanted to focus on the jack support bracket instead   

[hemigeno]

Last batch of pictures for now...

These are some shots of the engine block that was recently returned by the machine shop.  IIRC they only had to bore it out 0.020 as the block I bought from Tony D'Agostino looked to be a low-mileage standard bore block in really good shape.

Vance took the block over to his uncle's house who has an X-Ray machine.  They X-Ray'd the VIN pad to confirm that it had never been stamped, and the results confirmed that to be the case.  If it had been stamped, the metal's crystallization structure would be deformed much deeper into the block than could be eliminated by grinding the pad off.  There was no evidence of any machine work on the pad since the factory's swiping of the area, so it remains a mystery why this block was not stamped.  I am extremely happy to have found this block, since the ID pad up by the distributor shows it to have an Assembly Date of June 6, 1969 when my car's Scheduled Production Date was 6/9/69.  Dave B's (nascarxx29) former Daytona had an SPD really close to mine, and his numbers matching engine was dated 6/11/69, so I am really confident that mine would have been dated very close to the date of this engine. 

Vance made double-sure that the machine shop did not machine off the stampings on the ID pad, as that would have been disastrous to lose the E440, 6 6  and HP2 stampings.

He'll start assembling the engine sometime soon, I suppose. 

[Fitz73Chrgr]

That is going to be one beautiful car.  You're in Washington, MO, right?  Can't wait to see it around (hopefully).

[BigBlockSam]

wow! it's looking good 

[daytonalo]

Yes , great job ! Give us a hint on paint and body work ! 40k ?

[70charger_boy]

 

[69_500]

I think that is at least the 2nd time in this thread that daytonalo has asked about the price. Does it really matter? Its a great looking restoration, and its going to be an incredible ride once it is done. Its Gene's car, and he is the one paying for it, so why does it matter what the cost is? Unless of course your considering having Vance do one of your cars as well. However somehow I don't see this as the case.

[hemigeno]

That is going to be one beautiful car.  You're in Washington, MO, right?  Can't wait to see it around (hopefully).

Thanks, Fitz, Rene & 70CB!  Yep, I'm from WashMO and I do hope to have the car out and about some once it's back.  The days of this car terrorizing the streets like it did in St.Joseph, MO 35 years ago are probably over but I will have a blast driving it nonetheless.

Sorry for the delay in getting back with you, as I was on a little Daytona-related road trip this weekend.  I left home Thursday afternoon and drove to Michigan, checked on the car at Vance's on Friday (I do have some more pictures but there has been no stunning progress since last month), drove to Columbus OH Friday night, and did the Swap Meet at the 'Nats all day Saturday looking for parts and drove home Saturday night.  1,500 miles & 24 hours of windshield time in the space of 54 hours, but that was better than making two separate trips.

Yes , great job !

Thanks, Larry - I think...   


More pics & details next week when I've had a chance to upload and resize them...

[69_500]

So Gene, how was the Nats? worth going over for? Or did I not miss anything spectacular?

[2fast4u]

You know that once this is done and it looks so nice you're gonna freak out after you hit that first mud puddle!   

Probably so, probably so...

That's the downside of this type of resto, for sure.  However, I think that after a couple of years I'll be willing to drive it around.  Maybe I should just put a dent in it somewhere right after I bring it home and get it over with, y'think?

  OH HELL NO!!   Treat it like you bought off the showroom floor and baby it! 

2fast

[hemigeno]

Danny,

I couldn't tell you much about the 'Nats in general, as I made almost a direct bee-line for the Swap Meet when I got there and hardly took the time to look over the cars there.  Never even made it to the judged car side, in fact.  Mike C. from West Virginia had a Y2 Hemi500 for sale in the swap meets that I did take some pictures of for you - although I'll wager you can probably spout off the VIN # from memory anyway...   

Right before I left on Thursday I sprained something in my foot so I was limping around pretty good all weekend and didn't feel like taking much of a stroll through the cars after I had gone through the swaps.  It did appear that they had straightened out the Fun Field since we were there 2 years ago.  There wasn't a single minivan or daily-driver type ride in the areas that I saw, which was a vast improvement.  Besides, by leaving for home about 4pm allowed me to get a decent night's sleep in my own bed and I was able to take the family to Church Sunday morning as usual 

From what I could tell, it did look like things were a little more organized and under control - but that might not actually be the case if you talk to folks who participated.

[69_500]

Hmmm, I'm guessing that it was the same Y2 HEMI 500 that was for sale at Carlisle then.

No minivans in the fun field area? WHAT? Your kidding. This made the first time in the history of the nationals that I did not attend the show. I can't think of any Nats in the past 10 years that I would call organized, but that is just my opinion.

[gtx6970]

Gene, good talking to you . I'm glad you stopped by.
Sounds like the resto is meeting your expectations in regards to accuracy.

Regardless of costs, if your happy with it then the amount spent is irrelevant

[hemigeno]

Thanks, Bill!  Hope the rest of the weekend went as well as you had hoped.  You guys seemed to be pretty busy, and that's a good thing!

Did you find any taillight bezels for your 300?  That's going to be an awesome cruiser when it's finished. 

[moparstuart]

 send you some more pictures of mine gene it's all green now
  stuart

[hemigeno]

Stuart, I did get the pictures you sent - thanks for sending those!  Like I told you in the email, a 'Vert Superbird (especially as nice as yours looks like it'll be) will definitely draw a crowd...   

Well, I finally got around to resizing the pictures from my latest trip to Vance's this past Friday.  Like usual, I'd rather post them all than to pick-n-choose which ones are "worthy" of posting.  Anyway, the car is finally off the rotisserie and back on it's topside again.  I was certainly glad to see that, since it has been on the spit since early in April.  That's what I get for having a car with a severly pitted undercarriage... 

The last three pictures show some of the work that they are doing to finish the quarterpanel patch that they had to do.

[hemigeno]

Three more pictures showing the Quarterpanel patch, with the last of the three being taken from inside the trunk compartment looking at the inside of the vertical seam over the wheelwell.  I think they are going to sand this area off just a bit more yet before it goes into paint.

[hemigeno]

Here are some pictures taken of the mostly-finished trunk compartment.  They masked it off to keep the overspray buildup from getting too bad.

[hemigeno]

Two more shots of the trunk compartment corners.  Hey Troy (hemi68charger) - was this the area that you were going to try and infill on your '68?

The last two shots are of the door jamb area, which will still need some work as you can see.

[hemigeno]

Some shots of the passenger compartment, which they've started to finish out.  Lots of sanding and filling work yet to be done in here too though...   

[hemigeno]

One more passenger compartment shot, and three shots of the shock towers.  Some Hamtramck worker got really happy with the spot welder on the driver's side - there are some REALLY big spot weld dimples on that side for whatever reason...