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

[hemigeno]

Looking great Gene!... Got me ooh-aahing! 

It is starting to look like a car again with a "crisp" look to it, while my C500 just went the other way...    It will get better though!

I wish a wing car pro like Vance had a resto business down here, but I am trying to get my resto guy Joe up to "wing car" speed!    He passed the plug removal test with "flying" colors... 

Allen

Thanks Allen!

I understand exactly what you're saying about having to educate a resto guy in Aero car "restoration etiquette".  That's the biggest reason I didn't go with Steve Been, one of the more talented & picky restorers nationwide whose shop is only about 35-45 minutes from my house.  Steve is a GREAT guy and would have made a valiant attempt to replicate every possible detail as closely as possible.  However, my car had a little too much pitting/rust/repaints to rely on it as a reference standard.  Vance just has too much experience with Aero cars (and specifically, Daytonas).  I have learned so much just from talking to Vance about the various details and how the other Daytonas he's worked on looked.  It really helped seal the deal for me that two of the Daytonas he's restored were low-mileage untouched cars which were a goldmine of resto details.

Your 500 looks like it is in capable hands, and should still go pretty smoothly with you being right there to give them some Aero-specific direction.  I'm jealous that they'll actually be able to do your media blasting in the middle of winter.  That shut my car's progress down for about 2-1/2 months last year...    

[hemigeno]

Hey from the way he was answering questions the time I went up there, I don't think he minds being asked questions. And if he can't think of it right off the top of his head (which was the case in probably 8 out of 10 questions we had), he has the resources to get you the right answer.

Vance is a walking Mopar-detail encyclopedia, and what he doesn't recall he probably has a document or picture stashed away somewhere to refresh his memory.

None of the products you've mention are poly surfacer, not that thats bad ,I was just curios.

The products listed are very good products infact!

If you wouldn't mind asking Vance what his thoughts are on poly surfacer Id be interested in hearing his views on the stuff?

Sure, I'll try and remember to ask him.  Is there a particular Brand Name or Trade Name that would identify exactly what product your curious about, or is Poly Surfacer enough for him to zero in?

Are you a carpenter by chance??

Now whatever gave you that idea?? 

[hemigeno]

Thinking of painting the chin spoiler black are you Gene?

Long story, which I'll get into a little later on when the pictures are posted.  But, the short answer to the question is "Yes".

Car looks like its coming along great. You were right when we talked on the phone, not a whole lot different as far as cosmetic appearance since the last trip. I will make it up there in the next month or so, or the next time you go. I wanna go see it again in person, and 

Thanks Danny, I'm thinking that the next trip up I'll be seeing red.  R4 Red, that is.

Maybe even swing over to Detroit again.

Pack a lunch.  Maybe supper & breakfast too...  I was there until after 3am, but it was worth every second of sleep I lost.

[FJMG]

 Carpenter??? OOOOOHHHHHH! I thought you said car painter!

[hemigeno]

shaping up now     looks good                       

Thanks, tan top!

looking good c man you got to be excited! .

Thanks, Rene - looking forward to seeing progress pics on the DreamTona too!

Nice progress Geno

Just like the engineers motto. fast, cheap and easy, pick two of three.

Isn't that the truth.   

Nice progress Geno

Thanks a bunch, and I hope there's some more drastic progress pictures to come in the near future too.  Some of these don't really reflect the amount of work that has truly been performed, and if nothing else it goes to show that even the professionals have to put a lot of time in to get things just right.


 

[hemigeno]

Carpenter??? OOOOOHHHHHH! I thought you said car painter!

You'd quickly figure out what I meant if you saw anything I tried to paint...

[hemigeno]

Alrighty, here's a few more of the pictures from the 5th...

I took several shots of the nosecone, which is now in primer and getting close to being ready to fit on the car.  The whole thing has been sandblasted and thoroughly cleaned up, and a good deal of time was taken to straighten out the metal to make it look right.

[hemigeno]

More nosecone shots.  You can see that they took the time to straighten out and smooth-finish all of the metal tabs & edges, which goes along with the level of finish they've done everywhere else on the car.

[hemigeno]

More interior detail & edge shots.  I was trying to show that the edge of the nosecone is anything but straight, although that may not have been conveyed the best in the shot.

[hemigeno]

Some shots of the headlight buckets.  Mine weren't just horribly rusted/pitted, which is somewhat of a rarity.

[hemigeno]

I tried to take some closeups of the holes for the rivinuts which mount the spoiler to the nosecone.  The interesting thing here is the amount of filler that some areas of the nosecone required to make it smooth.  They were not trying to take any shortcuts by using filler to make it smooth, but the metal wants to oilcan making it next-to-impossible to make it smooth just with the hammer & dolly.

[hemigeno]

Some more spoiler rivinut hole closeups

[hemigeno]

A few pictures of the headlight brackets/frames...

[hemigeno]

Z-brackets... No fiberglass here! 

[hemigeno]

Headlight pods, and the nosecone mounting brackets/braces (aren't these sometimes called crash bars??).  You'll notice a little bit of pitting still remains on the brackets.  That is almost out of character with the rest of the car's finish, but this pitting won't show since the pitted side actually faces the framerails. 

[hemigeno]

Grille screen and frame.  The original manufacturer of this grille screen material is still in business, and they can still provide the exact pattern from back in '69.  In the past, Vance has had to make a template to radius-bend the metal screen in the correct profile, since it is not a 90 degree angle.  Right now, he plans to re-use my original grille but there is a lot of work yet to do to it in order to make it look good.  If that proves to be too much, we'll get a replacement grille.  If you look close, you can see some of the perforations are bent/cut around the perimeter.  This was done to clear the mounting studs or screws when the grille was originally installed.  Sorry for the blurriness of the last picture - I left it in here because it helps show that 1/2 of the grille frame was mounted with studs, the other 1/2 with screws.

[hemigeno]

The first pic shows the bracket which secures the lower valance to the nosecone.  The next two show the headlight bucket end pieces, and the last shows the top of the nosecone / grille opening.

[hemigeno]

One of the more interesting things Vance and I discussed when I was there was what to do with the front chin spoiler.  Conventional wisdom is that the spoilers are "supposed" to be painted body color.  Mine had some evidence of red paint on the spoiler, but mostly black paint showing.  Jim McCauley's F5 survivor Daytona (which was sold at the same dealership as mine) also had a black-painted chin spoiler, and both of our cars had the somewhat unusual touch of black-painted fender scoops.  It was clear that the fender scoops were painted black over the top of the body color, and I had always assumed the chin spoiler was the same way - probably painted black at the dealership.

Another discovery we made last year when they first started working on the car was that it had been partially repainted at least twice, and that neither of those repaints included taking any previous layers of paint off.  While Vance and I were examining the spoiler a little over a week ago, we noticed that the R4 paint that I had always assumed was the "correct" color for the spoiler was in fact only overspray from one of the repaints.  We carefully sanded down through the layers of paint on my spoiler in several places to see what the paint strata looked like.  Here is what we found:  The very first layer on top of the aluminum was a greenish primer, followed by a layer of black, another layer of red oxide primer, and a second layer of black - which bore a rough texture which resembles Organosol.  That might not be too important of a detail, but combined with Vance's experience with Daytonas, mine makes the third Daytona which he has seen whose original spoiler bore NO traces of body-color paint (only black). 

My car makes the third Daytona he has seen whose latch tray was coated on the topside with a textured black paint exactly resembling Organosol (meaning it probably was).  Mine happens to be the only one he's seen which had all of these traits PLUS the unusual characteristic of having no blackout paint sprayed inside the nosecone or on the latch tray mounting brace which was spotwelded to the radiator yoke.  There are bound to be others that bore these characteristics also, but "conventional" wisdom in the world of Daytona restorations says to finish a car with a particular painting pattern. 

[hemigeno]

Here is another strong argument for painting the spoiler black on at least some cars...  Below are pictures of the original spoiler taken from Chris Sauer's Daytona.  That was a 16,000 mile untouched original car.  They replaced the spoiler with a new/different one Chris had purchased, and Vance had kept the original just because he figured someday he'd need to prove what was on Chris' car originally.  One noticeable difference is that there are only two layers of paint - one greenish primer layer and one of the same Organosol-like black.  At the time (back in 1995), Vance did not feel like he had enough evidence to support painting Chris' spoiler back in black so he followed standard practices and painted the replacement spoiler red.

So, what does the DC.com Court of Public Opinion have to say - should we say "Taheck with the experts - paint it black", or do you think it should go back in body color?

I'm leaning towards black, but I am interested in what other folks have to say.  It could be that there is some connection to having a black stripe to having a black chin spoiler, since 100% of the cars that Vance and I have seen with this treatment were also equipped with a black tailstripe/wing... 

[PocketThunder]

I vote black chin spoiler. 

Paul
in St. Paul

[UFO]

Gene , This may help you or just may add another potention twist.
The front spoiler was in the trunk for dealer install.At least in the photo`s taken at creative there`s no spoiler attached.
Seams like a easy problem spot if the spoilers were body color.Green spoiler in a black car`s trunk etc.
If they were all black it would be a no brainer just put the pce in the trunk.
Since there is no evidence to prove yours was red I would be inclined to go black.
If it were replaced at some point due to curb crunching or whatever,I think there would be some bending at the mounting points.

[Daytona R/T SE]

Looking good, Geno! 

I've been following along the last few days 

Taking notes 

Saving pictures   



Oh, And I'd go black on the spoiler 

[tan top]

more good progress going on there (Hemigeno)             awesome stuff

[learical1]

Gene,
to quote the Rolling Stones

"I want to see it painted, painted,
Black as night, Black as coal."

[hemi68charger]

Lookin' Good Geno !!!!! Man, she's going to be SO SO SO SO SO SO SO Sweet............