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

[maxwellwedge]

The hood top (only) is stripped to metal but I should have some pics somewhere. Funny - I checked that out months ago and I forgot what the deal was.....old age strikes again. If I don't have pics my body man took some for sure.

If the bezels haven't been stripped yet, you might be able to get some telling details from them also 

Hey Geno - Looks like the bezels were in and the guts were not during the painting...I am sure some (guts) were removed and some were masked off.

[maxwellwedge]

Thanks Troy, but I don't know if Samantha's much of a gearhead at the moment.  Jonathan (my oldest son), now that's a different story.  I will have to watch him - after all, I remember what I got away with when I was young.  He's only 10 right now so I still have time to design the security system.   

On the rear valance corners, your comment got me thinking.  I dug out one of the '69 engineering graphics, and it shows seam sealer around the top seam (between the corner and the taillight panel) and all down the side seam between the valance corner and the quarterpanel.  It does not appear to show or require seam sealer at the vertical seam between the corner and the rear valance panel itself.  It could be that I just haven't taken a picture from the correct angle to show this differentiation, but it'll be something I check out.

Of course, that's another area I did not snap a picture of from maxwellwedge's DocTona.   I did spend a while looking at some of the other archived reference photos I have, and couldn't find any that show a clear shot of the valance-to-corner seam.  Something else to look for...

Here's a picture from one of the Malcom's survivors showing the quarter-to-corner seam:

I'll look at mine for you.

[hemigeno]

Hey Geno - Looks like the bezels were in and the guts were not during the painting...I am sure some (guts) were removed and some were masked off.

Thanks for checking those questions out for me. 

Your observation jives with what Vance remembers the case to be, although I woudn't have been too surprised if DocTona was done just a tad differently than most.  He did not plan to install the block-off plates (mine isn't isn't coded for the L31 turn signals) or the screws to hold the plates before painting the underside.

[69_500]

Car looks great Gene.

Did Vance go through with the original plan of painting the car with 69 front fenders on it, then repainting it once the right fenders, and nose cone were installed as well?

[xs29j8Bullitt]

The 1000 reply barrier has been breached!  Congrats on the best restoration thread there ever was on any forum!  Blew by my C500 like she wuz standing still... now I have to worry about being lapped!!!   

As always, great pictures... my harddrive is spooling up for the additions.

Allen

[maxwellwedge]

Thanks Troy, but I don't know if Samantha's much of a gearhead at the moment.  Jonathan (my oldest son), now that's a different story.  I will have to watch him - after all, I remember what I got away with when I was young.  He's only 10 right now so I still have time to design the security system.   

On the rear valance corners, your comment got me thinking.  I dug out one of the '69 engineering graphics, and it shows seam sealer around the top seam (between the corner and the taillight panel) and all down the side seam between the valance corner and the quarterpanel.  It does not appear to show or require seam sealer at the vertical seam between the corner and the rear valance panel itself.  It could be that I just haven't taken a picture from the correct angle to show this differentiation, but it'll be something I check out.

Of course, that's another area I did not snap a picture of from maxwellwedge's DocTona.   I did spend a while looking at some of the other archived reference photos I have, and couldn't find any that show a clear shot of the valance-to-corner seam.  Something else to look for...

Here's a picture from one of the Malcom's survivors showing the quarter-to-corner seam:

I'll look at mine for you.

Ok - Checked. As stated above, all seams except the vertical at the valance have sealer. There is a tiny bit in one of those valance seams but it was slop from the top sealer. Forgot to check the pins but yours are an error in packaging/shipping. Those are definitely the 69-1/2 pins....FB has both styles.

[hemigeno]

Car looks great Gene.

Did Vance go through with the original plan of painting the car with 69 front fenders on it, then repainting it once the right fenders, and nose cone were installed as well?

Thanks, Danny!

Vance's guys installed the fenders and painted the outline of the original '69 fender mounting tabs a while back.  I can't find the page number right now where those pictures are posted, but I'll try to look it up sometime.  They only had to do that once, and it was when they painted the inner fenders and front wheelwell.

The 1000 reply barrier has been breached!  Congrats on the best restoration thread there ever was on any forum!  Blew by my C500 like she wuz standing still... now I have to worry about being lapped!!!   

As always, great pictures... my harddrive is spooling up for the additions.

Allen

Allen, I think the "best resto thread ever" title will remain on someone else's mantle - hard to claim that title when I've learned as much from this thread as I've posted...  Thanks for the kind words, although the only reason there's not twice as many posts in your B5's resto thread is because you've been forced to deal with a whole lot of other very important issues.  Hope the latest problem (your back) get cleared up quickly!   

Ok - Checked. As stated above, all seams except the vertical at the valance have sealer. There is a tiny bit in one of those valance seams but it was slop from the top sealer. Forgot to check the pins but yours are an error in packaging/shipping. Those are definitely the 69-1/2 pins....FB has both styles.

Thanks for checking that out, Jim.  I need to get a better picture of that area on my car and/or ask Vance if he can confirm what they did.



BTW, I need to give a shout out to both johntpr and especially Frank Badalson.  John brought the discrepancy I mentioned about the hood pins to Frank Badalson's attention (if maxwellwedge/Jim hadn't already done so).  Without hesitation, Frank shot me an email telling me he's sending out a set of the correct pins first thing next week.  He didn't have to do that, but he's as much a stand-up guy as he is a perfectionist.  Even though he didn't ask for such, I'll be sending back the other hood pins -- which shouldn't be any the worse for wear all things considered. 

There really are some good guys still left in this hobby 

[69_500]

Gene, that last post just goes to back up what I keep telling my wife. She watches some of the auctions on TV, and then goes to various shows with me (mostly local ones) and she was convinced that over 90% of the people involved are just in this hobby for selfish reasons. It will be nice to let her read some more of this thread and see that not everyone is just out for themselves and that there are still a lot of people out there willing to help people out, and to do the right things.
Having not ever met Frank personally I can say that I have not heard anything but positive about him personally, his parts, and his work. People that are like that in all 3 aspects are getting harder and harder to find. The ones who have nice parts and do good work sometimes are pretty shall we say "unique" or "quarky". Other times the person is one of the nicest people you will ever find, but there work is very subpar.

Gene I'm looking forward to making a trip up to see the car now that its a nice looking shade of R4 red, and getting some video and some more photo's of the car. Keep me updated on the next trip.

[XS29J8]

Looking great Geno! Is this one of those Archaeologically correct restos? I look at the engine compartment and wonder why it hasn't been painted yet?

I'm all for total originality, but I also remember buying a new 68 Charger and taking it home with no money left to drive it, so me and my buddy spent the rest of the week cleaning all them grease pencil marks and over spray areas up..............ruined for posterity ......heh heh

Cheers
Steve

[paul jacobs]

Gene,
Your buddy John A is wearing me out with links to your restoration! I must say I'm impressed-I have read every page and have enjoyed it tremendously.
Vance is an awesome artist and has always been very respected by me! I would hate to guess the hours in this resto-a true labor of love.
Hey those hood pins Frank (a stand up guy for sure) sent you are for 69 1/2 lift off cars-unique to those cars only.  I'm sure you could pawn them off on someone easily.

[hemigeno]

Gene I'm looking forward to making a trip up to see the car now that its a nice looking shade of R4 red, and getting some video and some more photo's of the car. Keep me updated on the next trip.

Danny, I'm not sure when the next trip up will be.  Probably in late April or early May depending on how some personal things go, but you're more than welcome to head up there then or any other time you'd care to go.  Davtona (Dave H.) will probably be tagging along on one of those visits sometime soon too.  The degree of fine detail to look at is increasing every day, and I learn a TON just walking around it and asking questions - not to mention the things that you guys pick up on from the pictures that I failed to ask about.

Looking great Geno! Is this one of those Archaeologically correct restos? I look at the engine compartment and wonder why it hasn't been painted yet?

Thanks, Steve!  I dunno about archaeologically correct, but we are attempting to do the best job possible with the parts and materials that are available to work with in this day & age.  I'll be satisfied if we don't compromise in any area we don't have to or intentionally choose to do for longevity's sake.

As far as the engine compartment goes, Vance is fairly methodical in how he paints a car.  Outside first, passenger compartment, trunk, engine compartment, and then underbody.  He masks off everything that isn't being painted with that particular application to prevent paint build-up, although he comes back and does all the proper overspray later - but that's all overspray he can control.  I won't pretend to understand his rationale completely, but it probably is a little less tension-filled to paint the car in smaller segments/chunks.  Vance remarked that the hard part is over when the body panels are painted, although I can't believe he'd consider painting the trunk compartment through that ridiculously-small decklid opening doesn't fall into the "hard" category too.

I'm all for total originality, but I also remember buying a new 68 Charger and taking it home with no money left to drive it, so me and my buddy spent the rest of the week cleaning all them grease pencil marks and over spray areas up..............ruined for posterity ......heh heh

  I seriously doubt the attitude you had about the cars back then was unusual... they were just cars, and the paint daubs & grease pencil markings were nothing more than blemishes.  Most of the cars that have been preserved were saved because someone loved the car itself - not because they were protecting an investment for 40 years later.  I think that's why they're as interesting and sought after today, since most cars which "survived" did not often do so without having some/most/all of their original characteristics modified or removed.

Gene,
Your buddy John A is wearing me out with links to your restoration! I must say I'm impressed-I have read every page and have enjoyed it tremendously.
Vance is an awesome artist and has always been very respected by me! I would hate to guess the hours in this resto-a true labor of love.
Hey those hood pins Frank (a stand up guy for sure) sent you are for 69 1/2 lift off cars-unique to those cars only.  I'm sure you could pawn them off on someone easily.

Hi Paul!  Glad you've enjoyed the thread to this point, although I'm certain you could generate a number of similar threads with an equal level of detail and information.  For that matter, I'd LOVE to see pictures and some of the finer details from your other Aero-car projects, like Steve Fox's HemiDaytona we've all      at Carlisle the last couple of years.

Incidentally, if I never add up the hours or tally up the cost of all these parts, I'll have plausible deniability if my wife ever asks...   

[nascarxx29]

Gene,
Your buddy John A is wearing me out with links to your restoration! I must say I'm impressed-I have read every page and have enjoyed it tremendously.
Vance is an awesome artist and has always been very respected by me! I would hate to guess the hours in this resto-a true labor of love.
Hey those hood pins Frank (a stand up guy for sure) sent you are for 69 1/2 lift off cars-unique to those cars only.  I'm sure you could pawn them off on someone easily.

I might have a used pair of hood pins.Here is what the NOS ones look like for the wingcars . Had these from my old daytona part number #3549611 for the daytona and superbird parts book description lock package.With similar instructions shown above
d the part number

[moparstuart]

Gene,
Your buddy John A is wearing me out with links to your restoration! I must say I'm impressed-I have read every page and have enjoyed it tremendously.
Vance is an awesome artist and has always been very respected by me! I would hate to guess the hours in this resto-a true labor of love.
Hey those hood pins Frank (a stand up guy for sure) sent you are for 69 1/2 lift off cars-unique to those cars only.  I'm sure you could pawn them off on someone easily.

I might have a used pair of hood pins.Here is what the NOS ones look like for the wingcars . Had these from my old daytona part number #3549611 for the daytona and superbird parts book description lock package.With similar instructions shown above
d the part number

nice   

[hemigeno]

I might have a used pair of hood pins.Here is what the NOS ones look like for the wingcars . Had these from my old daytona part number #3549611 for the daytona and superbird parts book description lock package.With similar instructions shown above  d the part number

Vance already gave me an original/used set of correct hood pins to have rechromed, but it might take too long to get back from the rechrome shop.  I'll send Vance the new set of pins from Frank (thanks again, Frank!!  ) and let him decide.  They're probably dead nuts correct, so that's what he may decide to use.

Also, I've looked at several NOS hood pin sets over the years, and they all had cables that were too long.  Daytonas used 18" cables, and I'm not sure if there was another common Mopar application which used a "short" cable like that.  Vance said earlier he thought he had an original set of 18" cables somewhere, so I'll be    if that's the case.

[hemigeno]

Well, here's the latest update...

Vance has completed the paint work in the passenger's compartment, and spent three days nearly folded up inside the trunk trying to sand out the underneath side of the window plug.  Upon further review, Vance wishes he had pulled the rear plug completely out of the car similar to what Allen's shop did with his B5 C500.  The visible/reachable parts have been hand sanded and refinished, but doing it while the plug is installed does increase the degree of difficulty.  I know I wouldn't have the patience to do that kind of sanding work even for 15 minutes, much less 3 days of that torture. 

The trunk compartment has been all painted and mostly detailed, including the reinstallation of sound deadener, priming the trunk hinges, etc.  He has a little more detail work to do with things like the trunk hinge pins, but it's mostly complete.

They now have the car up on big jackstands, to allow them easy access to the underneath side for priming and finishing of that area.  In the next couple of days, Vance is going to start applying the primer to the underneath side.  He's experimenting with a way to replicate the shriveled-up drips that are normally found on the underbody strengthening ribs of unrestored cars.  That's somewhat of a crapshoot though, as not every car had the same amount of drips or other variations in primer which I've seen.  A lot depended on the consistency of the primer vat the day that car was made... was it freshly filled?  was it thinned out or thicker than normal?  Did the line stop while the car was part-way out of the dip tank?  Also, there were occasionally some trace contaminants found in the primer vats that would leave discolorations or streaks in the primer, but it was not a consistent thing.  Some cars have weird looks to their underside primer, some look pretty plain.  Vance is going to make mine pretty plain, since we could not find or document anything "weird" during the initial cleanup process.

After everything is detailed on the underside, they'll install the rear axle, and front suspension to get the car rolling around on it's own wheels again.  The front K-frame and suspension will come out again though, for the installation of the engine (from the underneath side, factory-style).

There's a good deal of progress happening now, which is a good thing.  My fear is that there'll be some other part or material I need and can't find which brings all this progress to a screeching halt - like the nosecone air seals did.   

I hope to be back up to Vance's shop in late April or early May to snap another round of pictures.

[hemi68charger]

   Good news Geno............... Glad things are moving along.............

[69_500]

Could possibly count me in for a trip if its around the first of may. I mean that would be right in time for a B-day trip to see some cars, surely the wife wouldn't complain about that right?

[mikepmcs]

 

Can't wait for the pics.

[maxwellwedge]

Well, here's the latest update...

  He's experimenting with a way to replicate the shriveled-up drips that are normally found on the underbody strengthening ribs of unrestored cars.  That's somewhat of a crapshoot though, as not every car had the same amount of drips or other variations in primer which I've seen.  A lot depended on the consistency of the primer vat the day that car was made... was it freshly filled?  was it thinned out or thicker than normal?  Did the line stop while the car was part-way out of the dip tank?  Also, there were occasionally some trace contaminants found in the primer vats that would leave discolorations or streaks in the primer, but it was not a consistent thing.  Some cars have weird looks to their underside primer, some look pretty plain.  Vance is going to make mine pretty plain, since we could not find or document anything "weird" during the initial cleanup process.

You are now at the good part - the car is looking like a car again!

We figured out the drip thing and the "slag" in the ribs pretty darn authentic. We are now trying to get the streak look usually in the tunnel...about 75% happy with the progress at the moment. Splitting atoms? Maybe. Do we love the challenge of the attention to details? Definitely!

Exciting time - I am happy for you! 

[moparchris]

Geno, Your Daytona is looking great   It brings back memories of when I had my Daytona painted way back in the day ('82).  We just had no idea back then about all of the intricacies of these cars.  I can't wait to see it all done!!

[hemigeno]

Welp, it's time for another update...  I went to Vance's shop last Saturday and saw the progress reported above and what had taken place after that last update.  Even since then, they've made further progress by installing the springs, axle, and most of the front suspension.  It should be a rolling chassis again in just a few days.  The unenviable task of detailing various areas of the car will continue, probably through the rest of the whole process.  There are several areas that for one reason or another will be tweaked, and the whole exterior paint job will need to be "nursed" (that's Vance's descriptive word not mine) into just the right look.

Anyway, enjoy...

The second picture shows a hood bumper support of a different color underneath the rubber bumper itself.  These studs and bumpers were removed during the new fender installation, and the workers didn't worry too much about matching the colors up since they blasted the whole thing with paint anyway.  If you pull off the rubber bumper of an average Daytona (if the rubber isn't so hard to prevent such) it's just as likely to be an odd color as it is to being a matching color.  Vance had some B5 Blue and Y2 Yellow paint left over from other jobs, so he spritzed a bumper stud in each color and installed prior to paint.  You'd never know what color is there unless you pull off the bumper, like the picture shows.

[hemigeno]

The fender tag shots I took were intended to show how Vance krinkled up the corner which remained fastened during the paint process.  The tags were never bent straight up right where they were eventually positioned, they were always at some weird angle.  As a result, there is a pattern left on the inner fender - and if you removed the tag you'd see no body color paint in a spot right under that corner of the tag.  He still has to detail up the Hamtramck-typical metal inspector's strip and install under that left screw.

The middle picture shows the back side of pop rivets used to install the rubber radiator air shields.  These were in place when the paint was applied at Creative, but obviously not when the back side of the radiator yoke was painted by Hamtramck.  As such, the pop rivets would have only a bit of overspray (if anything) on them.

The last picture shows a paint smudge line made when the hood was closed with wet paint still on the cowl.  Quite frequently but not always, Creative had the rear hood seal on the hood when paint was applied.  Since my hood and cowl were burned in the fire we couldn't use it as a pattern.  Vance decided to install the seal prior to paint, and the line in the last picture is the result when the hood is closed prior to the paint being fully cured.

[maxwellwedge]

Looks like it's coming together nicely Geno.......You didn't want to see your girlfriend Olga this time around? 

[hemigeno]

The first shot is of that rear hood seal, in place with paint on it.

The second shot shows the back side of the front/main hood reinforcing rib with lots of primer showing through.  Creative's painter stood pretty much at the front of the car, pointing the paint gun up at the underneath side of the hood.  They didn't bother to get 100% coverage on the backsides of the ribs, as I have observed on every original Daytona hood I've ever looked at.  Vance replicated that same look, and there are several pictures from various vantage points to show this effect.

While the paint guy didn't worry about getting paint everywhere, they also didn't worry about drips or runs in non-critical areas either.  Paint drips like what you see in the third picture have been observed on some (but not all) original hoods.  If it happened, they didn't worry too much about cleaning them up.

The last picture is slightly out of focus, guess my camera thought I wanted to take a picture of the paint booth ceiling    What I was trying to capture was the leading edge of the hood, which often shows evidence of where the hood was closed against the hood-to-nosecone seal.  The seal usually doesn't have any marks from this contact, since that was taped off during the paint process.  The hood, however, would usually make at least some contact while still wet enough to leave marks in the paint.  As many pictures as I took this round, one of the shots I forgot to take was of the hood bumper's marks left on the underside of the hood.  Pretty standard-fare detail on Daytona hoods though.

[hemigeno]

Looks like it's coming together nicely Geno.......You didn't want to see your girlfriend Olga this time around? 

Thanks, Jim.  Is Olga the one who keeps calling the house and hanging up when my wife answers?  I'll pay you back sometime for giving her my number...