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

[472 R/T SE]

Great stories on your winged wonder.  I have family from St. Joe, still do.  We went there back in the early 80's, late 70's but I don't remember any of it.  I tried to get a title search on my car but state of Oregon wouldn't do it. 

You only get out of life what you put in it, like your car, what you're having done to it will pay off immensely in the long run.    Your kids must be licking their chops.

I remember those Hurst handles being the "in" thing back then.  Heck, I even had one in my /6 powered '70 Camaro back in '79.

[69_500]

Well Gene, if it is on a weekend then let me know. I'm now off Saturday's and Sundays' with the new job. So I'd be more than happy to swing up there to check out the car and progress. Would also give me a chance to meet the restorer and ask him some questions about the video's.

[hemigeno]

Vance Cummins sent me some pictures a couple of weeks ago after my chassis came back from the media blaster, but I haven't had the time to resize and post them on the board.  I finally got that done this morning, so here are the pictures.  These first few pics of the wing uprights I've had for a while, and I think I posted some of them in another thread.

I'll have tons more to post in the near future.

[hemigeno]

More pics

[hemigeno]

Some sheet metal shots...   

[hemigeno]

More...

[hemigeno]

Still more pics...  and yes, the hood is the 1970 Charger hood (with the stiffening ribs) not the "real" Daytona hood that I brought to Vance.  The Daytona hood is racked & twisted a bit, and has a LOT more rust than this '70 Charger hood does, which is why I brought him both hoods I had.  Vance made the decision to cut out and smooth the stiffening ribs on the '70 hood rather than fix all the problems the "real" hood had.  I told him that was alright as long as there were NO other differences in the stampings between the two styles.  I think I'll put the Daytona hood back on the shelf in case someone someday finds an additional, obscure difference between the original hoods and '70 Charger hoods.  Vance knows all about how they painted the hoods at Creative, etc. so by the time he's finished it should be impossible to tell that this is not an original Daytona hood - at least that's the plan... 

[hemigeno]

More pics...  The last one is pretty scary.  That's what rust and a screwdriver will do to the edge of a decklid.  Vance told me they've already fixed this up, and they didn't even have to cut up the rust-free regular Charger decklid I had brought him in order to make the repairs.  Those guys must be really, really good...

[hemigeno]

Last batch of pics - for now...

[hemi68charger]

Awesome Geno !!!!  Looks like she needs some good ole' attention there, but there's nothing that can't be fixed it appears...... Still blows me away that MaMopar didn't put tachs as standard equipment on 4-speed cars....... 

Troy

[tan top]

good progress going on there looks  pretty solid from  pictures . had to do a similar rust repair on  my  trunk lid  also . thanks for posting the pictures (hemigeno)  good stuff   

[hemigeno]

Still blows me away that MaMopar didn't put tachs as standard equipment on 4-speed cars....... 

I agree 100%, but strangely enough, I own two examples of that.  Both my Hemicar and the Daytona are 4-speeds sans tach.  Someone else added the tach to the R/T and I don't care if it isn't called out on the Fender Tag - it's staying.  Guess I'll keep just the clock on the Daytona since it's aimed more at a concours-level restoration.

[41husk]

Progress looks great, any estimate on completion? Do you go up and visit very often?

[hemi68charger]

Also, that media blasting seems to do a great job............

[duo-stripe]

Hello Gene,
Congrats with the car; looks good. I hope I can see it in driving order on some of the TDC-meets in 2008!
Keep up the good work,

Best regards,
Marcel,
the Netherlands

[hemigeno]

Allen,

I do not have an estimate of when Vance will be done with the car.  Initially he had said 8 months, which would mean the end of July - but I'm not holding my breath.  It gets done when it gets done...  My ultimate deadline was the Talladega Reunion in September of '09, so I hope he can get it done by then    Anything before that is gravy.

Plan "A" was for me to travel north once a month, but I haven't been up since I dropped the car off in November.  I've made several attempts, but the car didn't get delivered back to him from the media blaster until Feb 8th or 9th.  Vance was gone that weekend so I couldn't visit on the 10th; the 17th I was in Joplin, MO at a Basketball Tournament for my daughter, who also had her 16th birthday party on the 24th -- couldn't miss that, of course.  MAYBE this weekend I can go up, but my wife is clammoring for me to go to a Dinner Auction fundraiser instead.       If 69_500 (Danny) can go up this weekend also, taheck with the dinner auction, Michigan here I come...

Troy, I thought the media blaster did a good job also, but I'm anxious to see it myself.  Pictures don't show everything, that's for sure.

[hemigeno]

Hello Gene,
Congrats with the car; looks good. I hope I can see it in driving order on some of the TDC-meets in 2008!
Keep up the good work,

Best regards,
Marcel,
the Netherlands

Thanks Marcel!  Hope to see you stateside sometime as well.  How did the deal for that A12 pan out?

[PocketThunder]

WOW.     Thats considered rust free where i come from.

[41husk]

Geno, It's great to see that progress, I think you will have no problem with 09, as far as a trip north, I can offer one little piece od advice I'm sure your well aware of, If momma aint happy no body is happy!  Congrats on the sweet 16.  Sounds like drivers license real soon.  what car does she have he eye on the Hemi or Daytona

[duo-stripe]

Hello Gene,
Congrats with the car; looks good. I hope I can see it in driving order on some of the TDC-meets in 2008!
Keep up the good work,

Best regards,
Marcel,
the Netherlands

Thanks Marcel!  Hope to see you stateside sometime as well.  How did the deal for that A12 pan out?

M-code-issue passed..Owner is fixing it. The better part of this thing is that the car will be in great shape again; the current owner is restoring his 69 hemicharger at this moment, together with the 'Bee.
I am busy working on Dusty ( 72 Duster I have bought last summer in Houston ) and a little on my new house 
So enough to do. I am planning to meet Troy Hawkes again this summer and visit one of the TDC-meets, I hope we meet again Gene,
keep up the good work!!

[Charger_Fan]

The doors, hood, trunk lid & fenders...were they dipped and blasted? They look really clean.

Congrats, that's looking really sweet so far.

[BigBlockSam]

If momma aint happy no body is happy!   

i have to agree with that

the car looks great after the trip to the blaster. he did a nice job on it .  the metal looks real good.    i always get nervous when i blast a car . you never know what your gonna find. Rene

[onemintcaddy]

How deep in the ground was the time capsol you found your Daytona in. The only part of your car comared to the old man's rust are the doors.His needed allot more metol work,, Man,, That's one sweet ride!

[johntpr]

Looking Good !

[hemigeno]

Thanks everyone!

I had mixed emotions when I saw the pictures.  Parts of the car look a little worse than I expected, but parts of it looked honestly a lot better - but maybe that's just the fact that all the faded paint & surface rust is gone.  I guess it could ALWAYS be worse, just like PT was alluding to.  There are still some surprises to be found though, I'm sure.  When they took the trunk floor out (yep, it was rusty enough to warrant that) they could then see inside the rear frame rails.  The left one looks a little suspect, and might need to be replaced.  The nice thing is that Frank Mitchell has left side rails available NOS...  Just the lefts, not the rights - sometimes it pays to be lucky...

Grant, I don't think they dipped anything - it was all media blasted.  Vance said that they will probably dip the nosecone, but that's about it.  I had actually wanted him to dip the whole car, but he pretty much refused to do that.  According to him, the problem is that they cannot fully neutralize the acid and/or get it out of every nook and cranny of the chassis, which will eventually cause problems with the paint.  He was pretty adamant on that point, so I didn't push it.  Vance said the doors were as good a set of doors as he's seen (from a rust standpoint anyway), and they are the original doors just like the decklid.  Apart from the rust around the lip, I had always thought the decklid was in good shape and the results are showing now.  That's probably why Vance decided to fix the rust at the lip, since the rest is in pretty good shape.  He said that the exhaust fumes curling back up from the tailpipes was probably the cause of a lot of that rust.  Any opinions on that?