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

[hemigeno]

Vance sent me some pictures on Monday which shows some serious progress on the re-assembly and detailing.  There is still a LONG way to go, but it is starting to take shape.  I've also received word that the big parts order from "The Jewelry Store" should be arriving the first part of next week, which will allow lots more progress on the suspension/interior/trunk.

I will post these pics in smaller batches, as it takes more time for me to absorb/explain some of the finer detailing points.  These are also larger resolution than I normally try to post in this particular thread, mostly so some of you eagle-eyed guys can take a good look at what's done so far.  I'll try and point out some things that I know have yet to be swapped out (still missing some correct components), but there's always a chance something has slipped through.  Comments and questions are welcome, although I won't promise immediate answers to every question (may have to get the how/why explained to me before I can post an answer).

The first picture shows the front suspension and K-member.  The Daytona K-member rubber seal hasn't been installed just yet, as there's just no reason to put that thing in place until much later.  If anyone wonders, the sway bars and brackets are supposed to be painted black.  Quite regularly, the paint flakes off of the sway bars leading more than one resto shop to incorrectly finish this to look bare (yep, I made that mistake years ago on my R/T).

The second picture is a look at the engine oil filter.  This is the assembly-line version that has a rough texture, olive-green color and the embossed "M" at the end, and these were normally installed when the engine was painted.  You can also get a little better look at the sway bar bracket too.

[hemigeno]

In the first picture, you can see that the fuel line plumbing to the fuel pump and vapor separator is taking shape.  You can also see the motor mount and at least some of the attachment hardware for the mounts.  Those rubber insulators/mounts are date coded, as (unfortunately) way too many of Chrysler's parts were.  You can't see it in this picture, but the big bolt attaching the motor mount to the engine bracket has a "38" cast into its end.  Frank Badalson sells a spot-on repro of this bolt (bought a pair), but Vance had a really nice set of unpitted originals that he replated and used.

In the second picture, you can get a good look at the lower control arms.  That's genuine Cosmoline dip which Vance has applied.  As long as it's given adequate time, this particular material dries real well and does not remain tacky.  You can also see the discoloration (that's intentional) around the sway bar bracket where it was welded to the LCA.  Oh, and Jim/maxwellwedge, don't have a coronary when you see the brake backing plates.  Those are going to be replaced with an unpitted set with the correct black phosphate coating.  You can also see the shock absorber with its blue ID paint daub signifying heavy-duty shocks.  Off slightly in the background you can see the zerk fittings.  Those are the genuine assembly-line article there, and the tip will be broken off later to duplicate how the factory did it.  You can't just take a regular zerk and break its tip off (well, I guess you could but it wouldn't be the same), as these are different because the ball is actually located within the base part that remains after the tip is broken off.

Some suspension parts will have to be removed and reinstalled, as there are several components still going to be replaced... e.g. the steering box (for a fresh-cast aluminum finish which is hard to duplicate), one lower ball joint (for an assembly-line version), and the aforementioned unpitted backing plates.  They went ahead and got things about as far along as they could without having to re-do a whole lot when the new parts arrive.

[maxwellwedge]

Looking really good Gene. I will call Desoto and Gage and cancel the Crash Cart!    Yup black sway bar is correct - I actually saw a couple that looked like the black was brushed on! Just a couple though - most looked either dipped or sprayed.  Not 100% sure if the oil filters were on when the engine got painted but it looks cool on the correct filter regardless. I know original spark plugs were in and painted with some kind of tape or tube to keep the ends free of the spraying. My Hemi-X has the original grease nipple "plugs" still installed. The FSM actually discusses these. The Vette guys have devised a technique to get aluminum castings looking "just cast". I'll try and pry the procedure out of them - It was on my "To-Do" list anyways. Zinc Phosphate is the right finish for those backing plates - so many get painted.

I am in the middle of a "Jewellery Store" order myself.....oranges and/or a lump of coal in the Christmas stockings!!

Looking Good!!!

[hemigeno]

The first picture shows a closeup (maybe a little too close! ) of the tie rod end and aforementioned zerk fitting.  Again, these don't have the ball/spring in the tip - that's all in the base which remains after the tip is broken off.  I've heard guys discuss why the factory did this, about how they really didn't want to make it easy to service these items -- which would create more work for the service department.  At least Chrysler didn't follow the lead of some manufacturers and create these parts without ANY way for grease/servicing.

The second pic shows a shot from underneath looking up at the firewall and underneath side of the master cylinder.  Note the small red and blue daubs on the underside of the master cylinder, the gold anodizing on the clutch Z-bracket, brass finish on the brake distribution block, new brake system switch on the dist. block, etc.  Lots of little things to chew on in that picture - for me, anyway.

[hemigeno]

Looking really good Gene. I will call Desoto and Gage and cancel the Crash Cart!    Yup black sway bar is correct - I actually saw a couple that looked like the black was brushed on! Just a couple though - most looked either dipped or sprayed.  Not 100% sure if the oil filters were on when the engine got painted but it looks cool on the correct filter regardless. I know original spark plugs were in and painted with some kind of tape or tube to keep the ends free of the spraying. My Hemi-X has the original grease nipple "plugs" still installed. The FSM actually discusses these. The Vette guys have devised a technique to get aluminum castings looking "just cast". I'll try and pry the procedure out of them - It was on my "To-Do" list anyways. Zinc Phosphate is the right finish for those backing plates - so many get painted.

I am in the middle of a "Jewellery Store" order myself.....oranges and/or a lump of coal in the Christmas stockings!!

Looking Good!!!

OOhhh - love the gratuitous "Emergency!" reference... one of my fav's...

I think you and I even discussed the oil filter paint topic a while back, and I know that others have gone both ways on the topic.  I have a couple extras of that same filter, so it's easy enough to change out depending on my audience...  



I'll have to finish up posting the pics another time, but there are more good ones yet to post.

[Davtona]

Very nice Gene. Looking good.    Vance has made alot of progress on it since Thanksgiving.   

[hemi68charger]

Geno...... I'm simply in awe.......... That's all I can say,,,, other than

[jonw29]

If it were me I would either leave the fluid out of it and display it upside down or travel with a lift to display the underside of it.It is in competion with the orange car at Tim Welborns.Nice work Gene and Co.

[hemigeno]

If it were me I would either leave the fluid out of it and display it upside down

Now there's an idea I hadn't thought of before...   




Thanks again, guys!  I need to get busy here later today and post some more of the pics.  There are a lot more good ones yet to go, I just ran out of steam last night.

[Charger-Bodie]

Geno,

That stud plate for the clutch pedal , Thats supposed to be body color? I always thought those were bare.

[maxwellwedge]

Here I go again! 

I though that a few years ago as well because all of my E-bodies were bare/zinc phos. I didn't have any 4-speed 69 B-bodies at the time until I found my 13000 mile X. Thats when I noticed it. They were on when the car was painted - I guess to make it easier (on the line) to install the clutch pedal stuff later.

[hemigeno]

Thanks for the reply Jim, and you have the stable of cars to get a definitive answer.

I didn't mention it above (thought about editing the reply, but that'd get missed by most), but a neat detail on the firewall shot to me is that all of the stamped flanges and other protrusions have a gray primer shadow showing on the underneath side, where the painter didn't get complete coverage from underneath.  You can also see incomplete coverage on the radiator yoke bottom flange in some earlier pictures.

In contrast, the front framerails have been mostly painted R4 on the underneath side.  I had inquired of Vance on this subject, and he said that he's seen cars with lots of paint on the framerail bottoms, and cars with nothing but primer and just a little overspray.  The point being, is that there is no exact pattern that these cars ALWAYS followed.  Their only consistent trait was inconsistency.   

[hemigeno]

In the first pic, you can see the passenger's side exhaust manifold with the heat riser flapper removed.  All of the external hardware is still in place and the whole thing rotates, but there are no unnecessary obstructions in the exhaust flow.  Vance has blocked off the exhaust crossover anyway, so the choke wouldn't really be functional even if the flapper was still there.  You can also see a little primer peeking through on the framerail as was mentioned before.  There are also the little droplets of paint on the torsion bars, although the droplets aren't always located towards the bottomside of the installed torsion bar... that's just a function of which way the line worker happened to install that particular bar.  The brake hose for that side is also visible, as are some of the other suspension/steering linkage components.

The second pic shows that needle-in-a-haystack driveshaft.  It's been coated with Cosmoline, as many bare metal items were.  The floorpans also show the amount of overspray applied, and if you look close you can see some of the primer drips that were intentionally created.  Note the discoloration near the end(s) of the driveshaft tube, where the heat from the welding is still evident.  The exhaust hangers in place will be replaced with a set from Terry McCann that Jim/maxwellwedge helped find at Carlisle this year.  We also need to replace the U-joint retaining straps with a different set.  The ones I had or had found were dated about 10 months before the car was built... not an impossible stretch, but normally the dates would have been closer to the SPD.

[hemigeno]

The first picture is a closeup of the assembly-line style of U-joint.  This has the retaining strap that holds the end caps in place until the retaining straps can be installed.  I had already scavenged one of this style U-joint from a NOS 3/4 ton pickup truck driveshaft, but the driveshaft Vance provided already had this style just as it should.  You can also see the 8/30/68 and "H" stampings on the retaining strap as well.  Guess that makes it about 9-1/2 months prior to the build date which should still work, but I'm still hoping to find a set with a date a little closer.  You can also see the bare metal pinion snubber plate which has been given a cosmoline wipedown.

In the second pic, you can see more of the clutch linkage and surrounding area.  The Z-bracket you see is in pretty decent shape for being an original piece, but those things are date coded too... Since they're plated and not painted, it's hard to do anything to them - which makes the task of finding a correct dated AND unpitted piece quite daunting.  That is one of the parts I'm hoping to have delivered next week.

[hemigeno]

That first picture shows another perspective of the passenger's side front suspension assembly.  The upper control arm was left in bare steel, and this too has been wiped with cosmoline to keep it from immediately starting to show surface rusting.  From the camera flash, you can also see that the sway bar is not pitted up.  Finding a new one of these is about the only way to solve a pitted sway bar problem, as any filler a person tried to use to smooth out the sway bar would pop right off the first time the suspension caused that bar to flex.  My original was pretty pitted up, and had a broken insulator bracket - which probably happened while chaining the car down for towing at some point.  A detail to note about the splotch of white paint on the K-frame is that this was done so sloppily with a brush that little flecks of white paint are all around the area.

In the second pic, you can see the freshly-detailed transmission.  Vance had initially painted the transmission case (to keep it looking fresh & clean indefinitely) and had it looking great, but being the originality freak and pest that I am, I sortof insisted that we clean the case up and leave it bare.  They had already sandblasted the case to clean up the crud and rust pitting from the case prior to painting, and Vance was skeptical that the finish would look "fresh cast" after they removed the paint.  Normally, a cast piece that is sandblasted ends up looking too light colored when compared to a clean unpainted/untouched original casting.  He solved the problem with a mixture of gun bluing and "something else" to darken the casing to just the right look.  It was more work for Vance and his guys to humor me, but I am quite pleased with the result.  You can see the stenciled "605" number, which corresponds to the broadcast sheet code for a 1969 18-spline A-833 transmission used on 440/426's.  The green paint splotch wasn't too neatly applied either, was it?  The ID pad shows the VIN from my car, and this is the original transmission.  Note:  from the number stamped in the lower righthand corner of the pad, this was the first transmission assembled that day, which was actually Sunday, May 18, 1969 (2851 on the 10,000 day calendar).

[hemigeno]

These next three pictures show some of the detailing work done to the rear leaf springs and shackle area.  Actually, some of this may need to get redone, as I am actively looking for an unpitted (or much less pitted anyway) pair of original leaf springs to use.  Vance did the best he could with what parts were on the car, but this is another situation like the sway bar... you just can't fix these things once they get pitted - even though these are painted parts.  The color splotches on the spring ends are ID marks, observed on original cars and confirmed with one of the Engineering documents someone was kind enough to provide us.

In the first picture, you can also see the gas tank seam with it's sealer-smeared side (not done by us - already on this vintage tank) as well as the rear framerail tiedown and exhaust tip hanger.

[hemigeno]

These next three pictures are more/different vantage shots taken of the gas tank, support straps and fuel lines.  You can see how the part number was written on the tank in several locations (I suppose this has been observed on other cars' original tanks, as the majic marker wasn't on the tank before).  The sticker on the side in the first picture, however, was on the tank when I bought it.

The second picture shows the gas tank J-studs, nuts, and the fuel sending unit.  On the sending unit, note the recessed insulator for the dash gauge wire... later-made and reproduction style sending units have this piece flush with the rest of the sending unit cover plate.  Again, all that seam sealer gunk was already on the tank.  That second picture also shows just the edge of the felt pad inserted between the trunk floor and the top of the gas tank.  Finding an original of these pads that is still in decent shape is nearly impossible, however Dixie Restorations sells what Vance (and me too, in my less-learned opinion) thinks is a spot-on reproduction.  It beats using tar paper, that's for sure... 

The last picture shows the unique galvanizing look to original-style gas tank strap - which partially hides another handwritten part number. 

[hemigeno]

These next two pictures (last ones I have time for tonight) show more details of the transmission - including the shift linkage and shifter.  The shifter mechanism was an assembly-line piece, as evidenced by the red sticker still showing underneath the upper attachment bolt.  All of the shifter rods on a '69 4-speed are bare steel - which makes finding an unpitted set of these nearly impossible.  1970 and later rods were at least phosphate coated, which helped preserve more of those (not sure what they did with '68 and previous years, to be honest).  You can also see the tab in place, ready to receive the reverse light wire.  The speedo gear & housing has not yet been installed, but is around somewhere.

One unintended benefit from my semi-obsessive insistence on keeping the tranny case bare metal was that when Vance reassembled the transmission, he discovered that the 2nd gear shifter fork was not aligned properly and actually made very slight contact with the adjacent reverse gear.  They welded material on one side of the fork and removed material from the opposite side to change it's alignment position - and that cured the problem.  I think I've explained that the way it was described to me... 

The last picture (and last one for tonight too) shows the rear tranny crossmember and bottomside of the transmission.  Note the red-colored nut on the rear transmission mount/isolator.  You can also get a better look at the steering gearbox, which is a little too bright for a "fresh cast" aluminum look.  Until Jim/maxwellwedge can torture the secret aluminum refinish process out of some unsuspecting Corvette guy, that is the normal result/look when an original casting is cleaned up.  In the meantime, a new casting is on its way to replace this part (which is one reason the steering column is not installed).  Also in this picture, you can see a slight color variation between the transmission tailshaft (slightly lighter) and main transmission body (slightly darker) castings.  That was pretty normal, and you would expect to see that on bare castings.  The side cover plate was usually different as well.

[69_500]

Gene, are you planning any trips up to Michigan to go check on the car in January? If so let me know I want to get some more pictures of the car before its completed. Might even drag a video camera up there this time.

[hemigeno]

Gene, are you planning any trips up to Michigan to go check on the car in January? If so let me know I want to get some more pictures of the car before its completed. Might even drag a video camera up there this time.

Danny, I had tentative plans to go up between Christmas and New Year's, but that isn't as critical with Vance having sent me this latest batch of pictures.  If you can't make it until January, which part of the month were you thinking?  Everything is subject to halfway-decent travelling weather, of course...

[gtx6970]

Gene,
the red nut on the trans crossmember what does it look like ?
It's hard to tell from the picture , But it looks a lot like the red flange nut for the E-body prop valve mounting

[hemigeno]

Bill, I haven't taken a close look at that one myself yet - but I'll try to get a closeup of it next time I'm there.  From what I could see, I first thought it was the same as the nut used on the wiper pivot studs.  I tried cropping the large-size picture file down to just the nut you asked about, and then did the same for the picture I have for the wiper pivot studs.  To me they look similar (size might be different), but the crossmember nut's washer looks to be silver rather than red.  Again, I can't say for sure what it is, I'm just guessing right now.

[gtx6970]

Thanks Gene,
I was thinking it was a free spinning captive washer nut, and the red threw me off .

I know about the wiper pivot nuts in red .
sometimes the master cylinder to firewall mounting Kepps lock nuts were red zinc as well in addition to some in yellow zinc di-chromate

Thanks again

[hemi68charger]

Geno...      Love the drip marks of primer on the floorpans..........

[tan top]

   wow Geno  , that's looking awesome !    the attention how the cars were originally built &  duplicating Creatives handywork   !!!
thanks for sharing the pictures ! keep them coming  
dang that thing is too nice good to drive with all that detail  

looking forward to seeing the next batch of pictures & progress