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

[hemigeno]

Some shots which show the wiper linkage (not totally connected) and various other under-dash components.  You can see the red anodizing on the wiper arm nuts pretty clearly.

Oh yeah, the guy in that first picture is Davtona, the previous owner of this car for +/-21 years...  I think he was more excited to see the car in this stage than I was (and I was happy too, for sure).

[hemigeno]

For some reason, I took a shot of the trunk lock mechanism in between more shots of the emergency brake hardware and clutch/brake pedal assembly.  You can clearly see the primer showing through in areas which didn't get full paint coverage.

That E-brake pull/knob was an NOS piece which actually had a skinned-up spot on the inside edge - so I've already rounded up another one to take its place.

[hemigeno]

Three more shots of under-dash items which are all pretty hard to see once all the components, wiring harness, steering column & dash are installed.

[hemigeno]

I took some shots of the body plugs which were carefully installed.  The holes for these plugs were taped off when Vance painted the underside, and some of the holes had a ridge of paint which had to be carefully scraped out of the way.  If a guy just shoved the plug into the hole from the top, chances are pretty high that one of those ridges would end up flaking off - revealing a section of the primer on the underneath side of the floor pan that shouldn't be there.

[hemigeno]

These next three pictures show the passenger's side front wheel lip mouldings.  This is an NOS set that I had purchased a while back, and we were all scratching our heads about how to make this set fit properly.  As you can see, the bottom hole on the front leg was never pre-punched when these mouldings were installed by Creative Industries.  That hole is always randomly drilled by the worker at the time of installation, and doesn't follow an exact location/pattern.  It depends on how you push or hold these mouldings as to how they actually fit.  The front leg was pretty straight right out of the package, however the valance has a slight curve to it.  We were debating about how far back to shove that front leg, in order to get the moulding to fit tightly against the fender/valance.  There was the additional question of whether the bottom edge of the moulding should be trimmed off any, or was left to hang down however it happened to fit.

Davtona was kind enough to bring up the actual set of mouldings which were originally installed on this particular car.  He had (quite understandably) kept that set of mouldings for use on his other Daytona which was missing its original set.  The original mouldings lined up PERFECTLY with the holes on this side - including the installer-located bottom hole.  It's apparent that the Creative Industries workers did have to play around with these mouldings more than just a little to get them to fit anywhere close to snug.

[hemi68charger]

Great pictures Geno !!!!
Ahhhh, I can see where the underside of the front fenders didn't have undercoating like it would "normally" have on a regular production car. I also see where the original front fender was taken off and the empty holes left. I'll have to make sure my Daytona's like this too........ Also, is your car a manual drum car? I noticed the inlet side of the master cylinder is to the outside, not the inside like my power disc car is.....

Troy

[hemigeno]

This batch of pictures shows the new driver's side front wheel lip moulding and how it fits, even more ill-fitting than the passenger's side.

Again, the original mouldings lined up perfectly with the contours of this car - including the bottom front hole.  The interesting thing is that due to the distance this side's mouldings needed to come in at the bottom, the original moulding had a very visible "bump out" crease that was ignored by C.I.  If we would have attempted to push this new set of mouldings in as far as you see would need to be the case, a similar crease would have been made.  

Notice how far down the moulding comes/hangs - and the originals fit the exact same way.

[hemigeno]

Great pictures Geno !!!!
Ahhhh, I can see where the underside of the front fenders didn't have undercoating like it would "normally" have on a regular production car. I also see where the original front fender was taken off and the empty holes left. I'll have to make sure my Daytona's like this too........ Also, is your car a manual drum car? I noticed the inlet side of the master cylinder is to the outside, not the inside like my power disc car is.....

Troy

Thanks, Troy!  You should find evidence of all those "quirks" unless they weren't replicated by an earlier restoration effort.  And yes, this is a manual drum brake car.  Out of the three old Mopars I own, the only one with power brakes is the 2-ton truck!!   

[hemi68charger]

And yes, this is a manual drum brake car.  Out of the three old Mopars I own, the only one with power brakes is the 2-ton truck!!   

I have to tell ya though after years behind the wheel of Dana, power brakes and an automatic feel WEIRD !!! 

[hemigeno]

I have to tell ya though after years behind the wheel of Dana, power brakes and an automatic feel WEIRD !!! 

Somehow I can see you learning to cope   

[hemigeno]

I took some front suspension shots, even though many things will change in this area.  One biggie is that the entire front drum, backing plate and spindle assemblies are being swapped out for assembly-line correct units.  The drums and backing plates were fairly pitted up, and Vance did the best he could with what I had to work with at the time.  Since the backing plates were black phosphate coated (rather than painted), it wasn't possible to do anything with my original parts other than fill in the pits and paint with a matte finish in an attempt to replicate a phosphate coating look.  With the level of detail we're trying to hit with other areas of the car, I just couldn't leave that alone.  Same goes for the brake drums and spindles, which are supposed to be bare steel but needed a coat of cast-look paint to clean them up.  Again, Vance and his guys did the best they could with the parts I had given them up to that point.  We were actually supposed to get the replacement parts today, but I haven't heard if that happened or not.

The whole front suspension will come out prior to installation of the engine, it's just easier to mock everything up on the car.  It would also have (and may yet) allow them to move the car around the shop as a rolling chassis rather than on a dolly setup.

[hemi68charger]

I have to tell ya though after years behind the wheel of Dana, power brakes and an automatic feel WEIRD !!! 

Somehow I can see you learning to cope   

Yeap... I am..... Still in awe I have one......

[hemigeno]

More front suspension component shots

[hemi68charger]

Also...... Do you need my heater box part number stamp? I check it on my Daytona and it's the same thing..

Again, Geno, that thing of yours is AWESOME !!!!!  You going to make me wanna go through what I did on the '68 with this... 

[hemigeno]

Two more front suspension shots, and then the start of some rear end detail pictures...  The rear axle bumpers are the originals, which cleaned up quite nicely.  Even the white ID marks were still visible as will be seen in another picture.

Incidentally, if anyone has questions or comments about stuff they think is wrong, by all means, SPEAK UP!  Vance already pointed out several things to me were incorrect - some of which I remember and some of which I do not.  The car is VERY MUCH still a work in process, but I would gladly welcome any feedback and/or critique "just in case".  I take very good notes, and usually bug the living daylights out of Vance peppering him with all kinds of questions which usually end up being taken care of anyway.  Never hurts to ask though...

[hemigeno]

Also...... Do you need my heater box part number stamp? I check it on my Daytona and it's the same thing..

Again, Geno, that thing of yours is AWESOME !!!!!  You going to make me wanna go through what I did on the '68 with this...  

Thanks again, Troy...  I didn't mention the heater box stamp to Vance last time I was up, because I plum forgot about it.  For some reason, I had actually thought he had applied a stamp to my airbox - but didn't realize it wasn't on mine until I got home and uploaded the photos to the hard drive.  My guess is he has one, but I will definitely ask next time.  THANKS for the offer!!!

Oh, and do yourself a favor - just slam your hand in the car door anytime you get the urge to tear that awesome ride of yours down... the pain will be just as intense as a concours restoration effort, but will be over much quicker and even a trip to the emergency room won't cost nearly as much.   

[hemigeno]

A front spring perch picture, and some underneath shots of a few body plugs.  Looks like I could use a new Marsden nut for that bolt, doesn't it?  I need to compare the trunk extension plug picture to the ones I took of maxwellwedge's DocTona.  For whatever reason, the wording/lettering didn't look right - but I could be mistaken.

[hemigeno]

There are a number of items in the next several batches of pictures which will end up being changed... eventually...  Again, this goes back to making the best of the parts I have to work with at the moment.  The shackles are really, really nice Badalson reproductions, but I actually plan to take these off and install them on my Hemicar.  Some assembly-line-style shackles should arrive soon to take these parts' place.  Same goes for the exhaust hangers - these are great repro parts, but if the real-deal parts are available I have decided to make every attempt to put the correct stuff on.  The tiedown plates are supposed to be bare steel, and mine were too corroded to leave bare.  That necessitates the faux paint finish look as you see here, but with any luck a nice set from the desert southwest will materialize.

The third picture shows the white ID mark on the axle bumper too, which was still in place after 40 years of crud was removed.

[hemigeno]

One more shot of a repro exhaust hanger which will be replaced, followed by three shots of the brake hose setup.  The flexible hose is Dana60-specific, and is just a little longer than the 8-3/4" axle's hose would be.  The rigid brake line that goes up and over the differential housing will end up being replaced by another unit, as the fit of that particular line was pretty bad.  They tried to straighten out and re-bend the last several inches to make it fit, without much success.

[hemigeno]

In another post, there was a discussion about differences in reverse lights.  I immediately pulled up these next two pictures, thinking that I had great shots of the '69 female pigtails...  both of which instead were JUST out of sight...    Anyway, I did try to show the backside of the housings, which can't easily be seen with the fuel tank installed.

The last picture is of the upper shock mounting point.

[hemigeno]

I took a couple of shots of the trunk compartment.  That trunk mat is not the one we will end up using, as a NOS tan plaid piece has been located.  That one's completely wrong anyway.

Vance still has several fairly significant pieces of detail work to do in the trunk, including applying overspray in a number of areas which don't currently have any. 

[hemigeno]

I took pictures of the date codes from the original bucket seat rails.  Half were from early 1969, and half were from just a few days prior to the car's actual date of manufacture in mid-June.  These stampings aren't visible once the seats are installed, but they're there.  The unfinished one will need replaced though, as it was bent pretty badly and partially rusted through on the bottom (where the floor pan and/or carpet held some water apparently).

[hemigeno]

These last rounds of pictures are of my favorite developments from that weekend.  First is the AMAZING discovery of an NOS driveshaft...  Earlier in the day I had been describing my efforts to aid a guy who could end up reproducing spot-on Mopar driveshafts.  Afterwards, Vance was digging through his shop trying to find some rear brake backing plates he though might be lurking around.  He found the backing plates alright, but also happened across a driveshaft that he hadn't seen in quite a while.  One of his guys came 'round and asked me if I knew what part number driveshaft my car should have had, and I only remembered part of it.  Vance strolls around the corner with this shaft on his shoulder, and asks if it was 2996581... I checked, and sure enough, that's what it is...

Some of you guys know firsthand what a needle-in-a-haystack find this is.  Unpitted driveshafts are incredibly uncommon, and NOS shafts are even rarer to stumble across.  This one even has a good date code to boot! 

[hemigeno]

More driveshaft porn pictures

[hemigeno]

A few more detail shots...

While there is a slight amount of surface rust, this piece should clean up incredibly well.  Vance already has enough Evapo-Rust concentrate to make 30 gallons of mix.  I had heard that if you take a piece of 6" PVC pipe, glue a fixed cap on the bottom end and a removable cap on the top end, it's possible to submerge a driveshaft like this without wasting a whole lot of the Evapo-Rust cleaner.

My guess is that it'll look awesome when they're done cleaning it up!