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

[hemigeno]

Among several very neat things, Jerry brought two vintage photos of the car I hadn't seen before and he hadn't seen in quite a long time.  From the condition of the car and the foliage, Jerry figures the photos were taken in the spring or early summer of 1973.  The photos are a little on the grainy side (made worse I'm sure by taking a picture of them with my digital camera), but it's readily apparent the car still looked pretty awesome then.  The polished slot wheels were installed by Terry, but the great stance and look of the car with this combo is one of the reasons Jerry jumped on his chance to buy the car in '72.  This is pretty much how the car looked when Terry traded it in.

Incidentally, Terry said that he received $1,000 as a trade-in allowance on the 1972 340 auto 'Cuda he bought at the time he got rid of the Daytona.  Jerry relayed again that he told the salesman at the dealership he had $1,750 in the bank and that's what he could pay for the car (they had a $2,600 asking price on the car at the time).  Knowing they held onto the car for roughly a month, the dealership did pretty good on the deal for back then, I'd say.

Terry said he got rid of the car primarily because of the problem it had breaking the alternator bolt.  Here's the photo I posted back in 2008 of the likely culprit:



According to what he said back then and now, the bolt broke multiple times - he had said at least 4 times when we first spoke.  Jerry had relayed that when he first got the car, it's alternator was functional but was charging only intermittently since the wiring clip to the alternator had been damaged by the repeated bolt breakage.

Anyway, here are the "back in the day" photos I got to see for the first time on Saturday:

[hemigeno]

Awesome gathering there Geno!
There were probably some intersting stories swapped! Had any of these guys met previously or known one another?

Thanks - and no, the guys from KC had not met before.  Dave H. bought the car from an intermediary (long story), so he never met Jerry even though it's his name on the title as the previous owner.  Terry and Jerry spent more than a few minutes quizzing one another about where they lived at various times, thinking that perhaps they had crossed paths without knowing it.  To my knowledge, Saturday was a first for them both.

Oh, and there were most definitely some story-swapping going on.  I already knew that Terry was pretty fond of the loud pedal, and Jerry was apparently quite the rounder back then.  Both of them were pretty familiar with what the car would do on the top end - although that was with aftermarket tires/wheels rather than the stock F70x14 bias-ply banana peels which have been reinstalled.  In one story, Jerry was describing seeing a large gap between the door glass and quarter glass from the air pushing and/or sucking out the glass.  

[hemigeno]

Geno, that is an outstanding story my friend !!!  

It was indeed a great day.  I had planned something along these lines now for several years, it just didn't work out before now.  

[Aero426]

Gene, great you were able to get this done.   Most people are not as fortunate or persistent to be able to tie it all together.

[70Sbird]

Gene, great you were able to get this done.   Most people are not as fortunate or persistent to be able to tie it all together.

And how many of our cars still have all of the previous (living) owners identified, all in approximately the same location, and able to participate AT THE SAME TIME!
congrats again Geno!

[nascarxx29]

Prior owners and back in the day pictures.

[tan top]

  wow !! amazing !!   

[BigBlockSam]

very cool Gene 

[Ghoste]

This been a storybook year for that car Gene!  Congratulations and then some!

[ECS]

This been a storybook year for that car Gene!  Congratulations and then some!

DITTO!  I personally love the fact that you displayed and presented the vehicle with ALL of the truthful characteristics and documentation to support your Daytona's History.  Some individuals try to hide things like rotted body panels, fake fender tags and even re-stamped engine blocks.  Others deny abated judging standards or using reproduction parts in order to conceal their contemptible score.  Great job Gene and thanks for (once again) proving that the Best Restorations are the ones that are surrounded with integrity and honesty.

[TiMopar]

Amazing story and pictures, thanks!

[hemigeno]

Thanks, everyone   

I still need to get the car up on the rack and start going through it front to back with the camera.  There are still some details which haven't been covered in this thread which might be of interest.  I still find things which fascinate me when looking at the car - but I'm easily entertained too...

[resq302]

Thanks, everyone   

I still need to get the car up on the rack and start going through it front to back with the camera.  There are still some details which haven't been covered in this thread which might be of interest.  I still find things which fascinate me when looking at the car - but I'm easily entertained too...

  Can't wait to see the pics!  Im a sucker for detail!

[Davtona]

This been a storybook year for that car Gene!  Congratulations and then some!

A little late to the party but here goes anyway. It was a real nice get together and my wife and I had a great time. As I told Gene it was nice to connect faces to those names on the previous title and documentation that I got with the car. I think both previous to me owners really enjoyed seeing the car again after so long. I know I did and its only been a year since I saw it last. I really enjoyed catching their reactions to the car. Terry remarked a couple of times that it looked just like he remembered it when he bought it new. She really looks good in those back in the day pictures Jerry brought. I know its been a long road Gene and I'm sure you thought twice about doing it a time or two but the car turned out better than I could have ever expected. When I decided to part with her I wanted the car to go to someone who would do the car justice and restore it back to what it once was. You have far exceeded my expectations. Good job and well done and thank you for allowing me to follow the car along. I really enjoyed seeing the car be restored and learned so much about Daytona's in the process. Thank You.

Dave

[Charger-Bodie]

Now, go get some chrome slots and start dressing it for its day 2 pics.


Really awesome stuff Gene. Determination is King!

[hemigeno]

Now, go get some chrome slots and start dressing it for its day 2 pics.


Really awesome stuff Gene. Determination is King!

In the back of my mind I'm already thinking about that as an alternative - plus, whether I should paint the scoops black, throw on a Hurst "T" shift knob, and install a Sun tach on the column.  Then, it'd be in true Day2 condition.





Dave, I'm still rather grateful you gave me the courtesy of a reply to my initial letter.  After getting off the phone that time with Carter B. I'm quite sure he was having second thoughts about ever mentioning it to me, but it all worked out. 

Now, I get to cheer you on as the cars in your shed have their turn!

[Davtona]

Now, I get to cheer you on as the cars in your shed have their turn!

Yup you can. And I'm starting with the Brown one.  Just get prepared for alot of emails asking how did you do that??? 

[moparstuart]

Now, I get to cheer you on as the cars in your shed have their turn!

Yup you can. And I'm starting with the Brown one.  Just get prepared for alot of emails asking how did you do that??? 

not green   

[hemigeno]

Yup you can. And I'm starting with the Brown one.  Just get prepared for alot of emails asking how did you do that??? 

  Better ask those questions soon though, while I still remember who I am -- much less how we did stuff on the car 

not green   

That's more of an inside joke between us... I've been Dave for years that he's not been giving the roughest of his project cars any love when it comes to collecting parts, so of course that's the first one he'd end up restoring.


On a different note, I'm probably going to be taking the car back to Michigan in a week or two.  No, we're not going to strip the car back down for a third major resto in succession (*whew*) - but I am wanting to get a couple of very minor issues straightened out.  One of these issues is to re-anodize the car's sill plates.  Both of the ones on the car were NOS straight out of the wrappers; and while that may be the case, it does not mean they are perfect parts.  There aren't any scratches, pits or anything major, but there was some very slight discoloration in a couple of areas - probably from moisture on the packaging.  Vance said that he thinks the discoloration is underneath or through the anodizing, because he could not remove it without using more aggressive media.  By the time this was noticed, it was too late to fix prior to the 'Nats.  The best fix is to strip 'em down and have them re-anodized.  That process will take a bit of time to turn around, so the sooner I get the car back up there the sooner it'll be ready for Rosemont/MCACN.

Another example of what needs to be done is to touch up the clips and access covers from where I had the front end aligned.  Vance had ballparked the toe-in alignment prior to the 'Nats fairly well, but the caster/camber is pretty tough to set accurately by dead reckoning.  The front end was properly adjusted before last weekend's event "just in case" we decided to take some drives in it.  No big deal to touch everything back up.

[ECS]

but I am wanting to get a couple of very minor issues straightened out.......

Hey Gene.....if you really want to do something "impressive" to display with your car in Chicago, why not get one of those oversized Build-sheets to hang from the hood?!?  Keep in mind that is usually done as a diversion to distract from something incorrect or to provide a "wow" factor for spectators who do not know what they were really used for.  Also remember that there was NEVER a vehicle that rolled off of the assembly line with one of those attached (completely in tact) ANYWHERE on the car.  They were simply a large build-sheet for the assembly line workers to use as a quick reference while the car was in a disassembled state.  At best, you might find a remnant of tape/paper where they were torn away after they had served their purpose.  (See photo below)

If you don't want to go that route, I know a similar way that you can impress the Judges and/or the show spectators.  Instead of displaying the car with one of those oversized build-sheets you can take individual, regular sized build-sheets and attach one to every (option) component on your car!  You can tape one to the steering wheel, the dash pad, the seats, the gas tank, the radiator, the rear end assembly, the suspension parts, the rear end, the shocks, the brakes, the wheels and tires, etc......  Now you may think that this sounds ridiculous but it is essentially the same thing as hanging one of those big "bingo" sheets on the front of the car!  Let me know if I can help with this.  I have the regular build-sheets along with the oversized styles if you need them. Imagine how knowledgable that you and Vance will appear with these build-sheets hanging all over your Daytona.  WOW!!!  

   

[69hemidaytona]

Moving on from the K-frame, the transmission crossmember is set to be replaced as well, for the same reasons.  Vance hadn't found one yet, but he wasn't thinking it would be too much trouble.  Thankfully, those are neither date coded nor as differentiated as K-members.

We're swapping out the headlamp seats currently in the car for the weird-finished (galvanized) ones in the second pic.  I bought a set of 4 headlamp assemblies a while back, mostly because you can't have too many of the original wide-rib GE lamps on hand.  As it turns out, the seats were probably a nicer score than the sealed beam units.

Another change is that the H-pipe has been stripped of the clear paint previously applied.  Thankfully, the stripping process left all the distinguishing marks on the tubing itself, as well as the discolorations you'd see on bare steel.  This has been treated with RPM, which allows it to look absolutely bare while being protected from rust.  Dave Walden gave me the idea, as he treated the exhaust systems of his personal collection and reported that it has held up well despite what you might initially think.

Gene: I think I bought some of the same headlight assemblies that you did. I had the same idea to use the galvinized buckets. The trim rings are not compatible because of the extra tabs. The assemblies I got had a part number for a 71 B body. I'm guessing yours did too. I'm wondering if there was any difference in the original headlight buckets versus these NOS ones. The reason I ask is because the parts book shows a different part number for just the bucket between a 69/70 bucket and a 71 bucket.

[69hemidaytona]

Vance and I spent some time talking about, of all things, valve stems & caps.  Years ago I remember reading some spirited exchanges on Moparts.com between some of the A12 guys about what was correct.  The first pic shows the underside of two different lengths of valve stems themselves.  The shorter (413) Dill is correct for my car's Road Wheel application.  There are no distinguishing marks on any of the valve stems once they're installed and a tire is mounted, so I took the picture of what we're using just to show what they are.

One of the reference books we are (loosely) using states that the correct cap is a Dill "627" - which you can see in the second picture on the right.  For the record, the last picture is a bin from Vance's incredible stash of original stuff.  He noted that the correct cap found on '69s (and up) is the rounded cap with no lettering - and he has tons of them in that bin.  Just in case we take too much flack and need to do so, he's throwing a complete set of the 1968 & earlier Dill numbered caps in a box to swap out rather than take a points hit.

What would be the correct stems, length of stems, and caps be on a 69 Hemi car with the 15 inch H wheels and dog dish caps?..Thanks

[hemigeno]

What would be the correct stems, length of stems, and caps be on a 69 Hemi car with the 15 inch H wheels and dog dish caps?..Thanks

To be honest, I don't know what the stem p/n is, but I'm fairly certain the caps would be the smooth kind as mentioned in the thread.  I'll ask Vance next chance I get, but maybe maxwellwedge already knows the answer to this from his cool collection of original/survivor cars   

[hemigeno]

Gene: I think I bought some of the same headlight assemblies that you did. I had the same idea to use the galvinized buckets. The trim rings are not compatible because of the extra tabs. The assemblies I got had a part number for a 71 B body. I'm guessing yours did too. I'm wondering if there was any difference in the original headlight buckets versus these NOS ones. The reason I ask is because the parts book shows a different part number for just the bucket between a 69/70 bucket and a 71 bucket.

A while back I quizzed Vance on this subject, and his feeling was that even if they were a plug-and-play replacement, they wouldn't be exactly correct because of the difference in finish on the buckets themselves.  That brown tint to the galvanizing wasn't on the assembly line buckets.  When we looked at them initially, Vance thought it was some sort of cosmoline or other protectant put on top of a regular galvanized finish (there's some great "spangle" still visible, to borrow MoparJohn's terminology).  Unfortunately, the brown is not something on the surface but is instead part of the finish itself.  Nothing I tried would cut through it.  While I haven't personally tried to bolt these up to a headlight pod, Vance also said there was a difference in the tab layout (not the tabs which are spot-welded to the trim rings either - we could have re-used my original trim rings if that were the only issue).

While I have four parts boxes to go with these four headlight assemblies, I cannot say with any degree of certainty that the part numbers printed on the box labels represent the part numbers of these assemblies.  It's entirely possible that these are '71+ buckets which are different.  The reason these were purchased was not for the buckets & trim rings, but for the vintage headlamps they held.  That's also why they'll stay on the shelf until one of my others burns out.

[hemigeno]

In preparation for the MCACN show, MoparJohn and I decided to have a sign made up to point out our consecutive-VIN cars.  Here's the finished product (just picked them up yesterday).