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

[moparstuart]

That's actually the second time I've been able to talk with the original owner.  He's a really nice guy who (understandably) really wishes he had never gotten rid of the car.  If it hadn't had a problem burning some engine oil, he probably would have kept it since he liked the car alot.  The dealership he was taking the car to for warranty service on the oil problem would fill it up with oil and send him out for an "oil consumption" test.  In Terry's mind that was just the dealership's way of having him run 500 more miles onto the odometer and make it that much closer to the warranty's expiration.  It also said "Go Away" pretty clearly too.  The dealership supposedly put new rings in it, but Terry said it didn't change the way the car used oil one bit.  Chances are they didn't get any farther than taking the valve covers off, but who knows??

Terry said the very first time he drove the car into his hometown, he was immediately pulled over by the local State Highway Patrolman who wanted to know: Who he was; where he lived; what was he doing in town with that car; and what the car had in it.  I guess they wanted to know where to find him "just in case."  They'd have known whodunnit for sure with a car that stuck out like a bright red Daytona...

his (oil burner) loss is your gain

[Magnumcharger]

Pushing this thread back to the top in hopes it'll spur an update.....hint, hint......

[69_500]

I'll see if Gene updates this post himself, if not I'll post a few of the photo's that I took of his car yesterday. Hmmmmm, come to think of it, I think I only took about 10 pictures of his car yesterday, and probably as many of the chin spoiler that will go on the car.

LONG DAY yesterday though. Very intersting.

[hemigeno]

Yeah, I'll hopefully have some time to post a few pictures taken on Saturday morning.  Nothing major to report (unfortunately?).  They have actually taken the Daytona fenders back off the car, and are smoothing out a few things, and are getting ready to slap a set of regular '69 fenders on in preparation for the color coat and undercoating in the wheelwells.

More later...

LONG DAY yesterday though. Very intersting.

I'll second that.  I didn't get home until 10am Sunday morning, and slept 14 hours last night.

[69_500]

So you drove straight through as well then Gene? I got home around 4:45 or so, got to sleep for about 2 hours, then got up to go to church. Then stayed up until around 10 pm last night, and man am I feeling it today. Thinking about going to bed here in a few minutes for the night.

[Magnumcharger]

Another of Vance Cumming's restorations:
http://www.mecumauction.com/auctions/lot_detail.cfm?LOT_ID=SC0508-66161
If your Daytona turns out as nice as this car....it'll really be something!!

[xs29j8Bullitt]

Any updates Gene... 

[69_500]

From what I've seen of the restoration shop that Vance runs, everything that he puts out is of very nice quality. I know that he is probably like most shops though and will only go as far as the owner of the car wants to go, but of the cars I've looked over at the shop they are all VERY Nicely done. I think that Gene's Daytona will definitely be one sharp looking car once completed. I don't think he will have anything to complain about once its done. The small details that Vance notices, and then duplicates are just incredible. And he is definitely one to copy every little detail on a car, down to the most minuscule detail.

[hemigeno]

Guys, I am sorry for the lack of recent updates.  It has been absolutely crazy around the office, but in a good way.  I will try to find time next week to resize the pictures from the last trip up, as well as a few pictures Vance sent me recently from the original nosecone's disassembly.  To be honest, the hardest part is trying to come up with some sort of an interesting description for the final smoothing/detail work that has been going on lately.  Some of that stuff you have to see & feel to get the gist of what's happening.  With things being as busy as they have been for me and with the lack of major change in the car's look, I just haven't devoted the time to updating this thread like I should have.  It's been a lot more fun watching the threads showing Kori's progress on Carl's car and the major transformation Allen's car is going through anyway.

The latest update of my Daytona's condition -- from early last week -- is that it is just days away from being rolled into the paint booth.  The inner fenders has been shot with primer/color/undercoating to replicate the look those parts had from Hamtramck when Creative got their hands on the car. 

Dave H. (the previous owner of my car) and I are planning to stop by Vance's shop on Saturday morning to check the progress out.  I will try to be a little more timely with that update - especially if there's very much R4 red to show.



Geno

P.S.  Danny & Steve L. - you guys are welcome to stop in too on Saturday if ya got the time...

[69_500]

Can't make it this weekend Gene. And this would have been the first time I could drive up to Michigan without driving in snow or ice right? Ah well, the summer is still long, and it won't be snowing up there for quite some time. Maybe I'll squeeze in a few trips this summer. I definately wanna head back over to Detriot sometime this summer. Heck maybe even to Lansing too.

[hemigeno]

Oh, and Robin, that car you posted the link to looks awesome.  Vance has done several cars for Harold Sullivan over the years, and I've only seen a few of them.  Vance does indeed do the little things right, and that's a big reason I wanted him to do the resto on my car.  There are a lot of good resto shops out there though, but having a guy like Vance (who has forgotten more about Mopars in general and Aero cars in particular than I'll probably ever learn) is just pretty neat in my book.  I always come away from his shop picking up at least one little detail I hadn't even thought about before.

The final assembly and detail work will be the best part of the resto for me to watch.

[nascarxx29]

Vance is the best .He did Billy Cards B5 blue just to name a few well known cars.And now that Hemi Geno mentioned Harold Sullivan it reminded me of this daytona and its story.Some cars from our local N.J town resident MR Hemi A.KA. Anatol V have found found their way to Vances shop Ive heard.The White Cuda originally FC7 Purple.Was known to have gone there.The Harold Sullivan Hemi 4 speed daytona.Thats in this article Was the.rescued daytona from Brooklyn NY in 1978.I had seen his cars and the wingcars that he used to own. Before I had my 440 daytona .He hinted about maybe taking $30K for it .I didnt have in the 80s:.Now hemi daytona 4 speeds 1 of 22 $$$.$$$

[hemigeno]

OK, here are the pictures I took back on February 23rd.  Yeah, that was a while ago.  I guess since I'm supposed to go look at the car again on Saturday, it's finally time to post these pictures...   

This first batch was a few detail pictures I took in response to a question from Carl about his Hemi500's decklid.  I was trying to show the way that the larger holes were punched out, so that he could compare the oversized holes at the corner of his decklid to see if they have similar witness marks from the machining/punching process.

[hemigeno]

These two pictures were also in response to Carl's question about the size/location of the decklid rubber bumper holes.

The last pic is one that shows the side of the decklid and hinge attachment details.

[hemigeno]

I also took pictures of the trunk corners, where the window plug dies into the trunk channel.  Creative was pretty crude with their welding job, and we didn't make any attempt to clean this up or make it look nice.

The last two pictures show the trunk compartment light switch bracket that was re-attached.  You could clearly see marks on the sheet metal where this bracket was attached at one time on my car, and the vast majority of Daytona's I've looked at also have this bracket - regardless of whether the car has the A01 Light Group or not.  It's our firm opinion that this bracket should be present on my car, so we put it back (without going to any great lengths to make the welds look very nice).  You can see the remnants of the original bracket location in the last picture.  There are sawzall marks still on the metal from where Creative Industries' workers hacked the bracket off.  They just spot-welded the off-fall piece in the relocated spot as you see here.

[hemigeno]

I took some pictures showing the engine compartment area.  If you've followed this thread (and some other threads which talked about the same thing), there is a hole behind the battery which I have only noticed on Daytonas.  This hole has NOT been drilled on my car yet, as you can see in the second picture.  The reason for this is that when Hamtramck built the car, it did not have that hole.  It was added at Creative Industries, after the paint had been applied.  So, Vance will re-drill the hole after paint so that the edges of the hole will have bare metal showing instead of being painted.

Details, details details...

[hemigeno]

I took a bunch of pictures of the fenders.  Vance's guys pulled the fenders back off the shelves and spent some serious time slicking up the inside of the fenders.  These things are now as smooth and straight on the inside as they are on the outside.  The braces took some time to clean up, as they had some pitting and slight nicks/bends from roadrash over the years.

[PocketThunder]

why is the bottom masked off from the engine bay?  is it already in that primer that will be the finished look?

[hemigeno]

why is the bottom masked off from the engine bay?  is it already in that primer that will be the finished look?

I don't know if it's in the "official" primer, but I do know that they did not want to have a continual buildup of the DP40 they've been spraying.

[hemigeno]

Here are some more inner fender pictures.  Not much to point out, in all honesty...

[hemigeno]

The last of the fender pictures, including a shot of the fender scoop grille screen.  This screen is the original, as-installed at Creative (somewhat crudely, eh?)

[hemigeno]

I only took one picture of the interior/passenger compartment.  Vance's guys have since gone over the floorpans front-to-back, removing the evidences of the patches and the remaining rust pitting.  They didn't spend nearly the same amount of time as they did on the underneath side, since this will be covered with carpeting.  Personally, I'm glad they spent the time to smooth this out also.

The last three pictures are of the nosecone, which has since been assembled, mounted, removed, primed, and might be back on the car as it gets ready to be rolled into the paint booth.

[hemigeno]

I took pictures of the inner fender area, which has since been prepped differently than you see it now.  After correctly priming the inner fenders, Joey (Vance's son who works at the shop) took regular '69 Charger fenders, and mounted them to the inner fenders.  They then put the R4 color coating and undercoating on the inner fenders, then removed the '69 fenders.  The mounting flange of the inner fender now bears the markings that it would have had at Hamtramck, with exposed primer where the '69 fenders used to sit.  This might get a very light misting of R4 as the rest of the front clip is being painted, but for the most part the inner fender areas that faces the front wheel are finished.

[hemigeno]

Pictures of the right side inner fender area (same treatment done to this side)

[hemigeno]

As a follow-up to the earlier discussion about the front chin spoiler, I took many pictures of my car's piece.  This was to verify that it was indeed an original part.  I haven't had the chance to discuss these pictures with David Patik, but I know one of the tell-tale signs he looks for to determine if a spoiler is original or a reproduction is the saw-toothed edge.  This is next to impossible to reproduce correctly, so either a piece has this characteristic or it doesn't.

You can also see the paint strata.  David Patik swears that the spoiler would never have been primed with a green primer such as you see on my spoiler, but Vance says that he has indeed seen primer such as that used in other places.  I honestly don't know what to think about this issue, since the original owner recalls the spoiler being bodycolor.  The tiebreaker will be owner #2, who is about the only other person who would have painted the spoiler (apart from the used car dealership that had the car for less than 2 months).  Vance still thinks that black was used on some cars, and he's seen original spoilers with the exact same primer/finish.