Mitch's 69 Charger restoration -sheet metal

[fy469rtse]

Keep posting Mitch, the best part of your thread has been in the indepth detail,
By the way great work as always 
No second threads pal unless we are starting your engine combo build ,

[green69rt]

Keep posting Mitch, the best part of your thread has been in the indepth detail,
By the way great work as always 
No second threads pal unless we are starting your engine combo build ,

These threads can get a little long so probably will start a new one on finish work and painting.  Lot's of fun to come....  I'll will make a master thread so no one gets lost.

[fy469rtse]

Oh don't take me too seriously Mitch, one of the best build threads ever
Wished I had piped in earlier, I had mine on a frame similar to what AMD use just cruder,
When I watched you , I thought you had it down pat, I was wrong and should have offered something way back then ,keep going , love your work and perseverance 

[green69rt]

Ok, I'm going to quit posting to this thread (after all, it is 17 pages long! ) and start another on the next stage.  If you want to see what's going on look in this index thread.

http://www.dodgecharger.com/forum/index.php/topic,112412.msg1382800.html#msg1382800

[green69rt]

Just wanted to post up a couple of pictures of the result of the door gap repair and the cowl gap repair.

Pic #1 is the front edge of the quarter, if I didn't know I did something to that piece of metal I wouldn't be able to tell anything happened.
Pic #2 the cowl came out really good.
Pic #3 another shot of the cowl.  The very top edge needs just a tiny bit of shaping to finish it off.  Anxious to see how the door and fender gaps look.

[500Jon]

Supersonic work Fella!

Is that a metallic green you are using?
This is my green, give or take?

[keepat]

Great work and awesome dedication to your project! I have enjoyed checking your progress through the years!
Thanks
Pat

[green69rt]

Supersonic work Fella!

Is that a metallic green you are using?
This is my green, give or take?

Looks close to mine (F5), is that your color code?  Sometimes, it's hard to get a true color picture.

[500Jon]

Err its supposed to be F8 mine lol...
Much darker if you look at the Cowl.
Base and clearcoat always looks funky under fluorescent lights.

[MxRacer855]

I love these resto threads!

Great depth, and nice work!  



Jeff

[dodgepaul1969]

I came into this discussion very late. Wish I'd come across it years ago. I'll start digging into the whole thing in the coming days. My '68 is home from the paint shop after too long and is finally going back together. This and a couple other resto threads will be VERY helpful. Thanks to all who take the time to post in so much detail!

[green69rt]

I was getting down to preping the fenders for primer and noticed a couple of things.   The top front of the fender did not look right to me (mentioned in a previous post, page 12.)  So I took a little time trying to correct AMD's goof.  Next post shows how poor their QC is.

First pic is the driver side
Second pic is the passenger side
Third pic is work on a little dent I found (maybe during shipping or something I did 

[green69rt]

So I was working the fenders and thought that I would use a profile tool to make sure I was getting the two sides equal.  Wow, that was a mistake!  so I got out a piece of old fender to check it against the AMD piece.  Big diff.   Now that I see it I'll be looking at it the rest of my life and know that it's different. 

First pic show a original piece compared to the AMD fender nose.   I hope you can see how much diff there is.

Second pic shows the profile set up on the driver fender.

Third shows how much diff there is side to side!  It's actually worse than it shows because of the camera angle.

Nobody else would ever think to look at these and exclaim " OMG, what a diff"  but I'll know it's there.

[tan top]

So I was working the fenders and thought that I would use a profile tool to make sure I was getting the two sides equal.  Wow, that was a mistake!  so I got out a piece of old fender to check it against the AMD piece.  Big diff.   Now that I see it I'll be looking at it the rest of my life and know that it's different.  

First pic show a original piece compared to the AMD fender nose.   I hope you can see how much diff there is.

Second pic shows the profile set up on the driver fender.

Third shows how much diff there is side to side!  It's actually worse than it shows because of the camera angle.

Nobody else would ever think to look at these and exclaim " OMG, what a diff"  but I'll know it's there.

 interesting  ,    this is a nother why repop a part & make it nearly right      crazy  still its something you can get away with , although like you , it would bother me too  

 just out of interest , whats the top of fender to cowl  shape like compared to originals ?

[green69rt]

So I was working the fenders and thought that I would use a profile tool to make sure I was getting the two sides equal.  Wow, that was a mistake!  so I got out a piece of old fender to check it against the AMD piece.  Big diff.   Now that I see it I'll be looking at it the rest of my life and know that it's different.  

First pic show a original piece compared to the AMD fender nose.   I hope you can see how much diff there is.

Second pic shows the profile set up on the driver fender.

Third shows how much diff there is side to side!  It's actually worse than it shows because of the camera angle.

Nobody else would ever think to look at these and exclaim " OMG, what a diff"  but I'll know it's there.

 interesting  ,    this is a nother why repop a part & make it nearly right      crazy  still its something you can get away with , although like you , it would bother me too  

 just out of interest , whats the top of fender to cowl  shape like compared to originals ?

The cowl to fender fit and profile seems to be pretty good, the fender to door...not so much.  In the following pictures you can see (or maybe you can't, hard to get a pic) where I had to notch the metal where it turns down underneath the fender and then "adjust"  the bend a little.  The fender, at that point, actually curved down, just a tad.  I had to turn the bend up, just a little, to make it match the door.  Changing the bend has produced a little distortion in the top of the fender that I now need fix.  Two steps forward, one step back......

Edit - now that I got the post up I see that I didn't do a good job taking the pictures.  I'll try again later.

[XS29L9B2]

nice work 

[six-tee-nine]

Well about the fender tips : I had both my fenders kinda dented in the front. So I had to remove the inner structure to hammer them back. But you never really know how they exactly looked 40 years ago, so I might have looked at almost every '68 / '69 google would provide me and I can tell you there are alot of cars out there that look different if you start to compare them. I guess no one will really ever see the difference in your case with the naked eye.

[green69rt]

Well about the fender tips : I had both my fenders kinda dented in the front. So I had to remove the inner structure to hammer them back. But you never really know how they exactly looked 40 years ago, so I might have looked at almost every '68 / '69 google would provide me and I can tell you there are alot of cars out there that look different if you start to compare them. I guess no one will really ever see the difference in your case with the naked eye.

I agree, It's not very noticeable at all.  But I would expect the left and right to be mirror images of each other.   Overall, it's not a big deal but I'm being more careful about how things go together.  I don't want to start putting the grill in and find that the curve and gaps around the grill are screwy looking because of the way the fenders are made.  That would be noticeable!!

[fy469rtse]

Shit sorry mitch,
I did warn you earlier in this thread ,
another area not finished if you look at my build thread is area around grill opening , I took photo's to show how unfinished they are , also highly recommend fitting grill and support frame now ,
grill shape different to fender shape , found out, realised after paint
never occurred to me to check it
but its good because you don't have paint on it yet 

[green69rt]

Shit sorry mitch,
I did warn you earlier in this thread ,
another area not finished if you look at my build thread is area around grill opening , I took photo's to show how unfinished they are , also highly recommend fitting grill and support frame now ,
grill shape different to fender shape , found out, realised after paint
never occurred to me to check it
but its good because you don't have paint on it yet  

Yeah, I remember.  I was going to put up a post about the grill-to-fender fit, just got caught up in Christmas stuff.  I have some photos of the area and will post later.  Merry Christmas to all!!

[green69rt]

I got out today and took some more pics Geoff (hope I'm spelling that right.)   When you first showed me the problem, I thought you were talking about the gap between the fender and the grill.   I checked mine and it looks really good and the profile of the fender and grill match (pic #1).  Then I looked at you note harder and could see where that bottom corner looks unfinished.   So I looked at mine and sure enough the pass side is different form the driver and both will take a little work.  On side (pic #2), where my finger is, has the metal just folded around the corner and just hangs out in the air!  Nothing to support it, the other side the fold goes back a lot further but still a messy job.  Pic #3 shows another angle.   Pic #4 shows my old OE fender that has that "tab" connected to the inner bracing (hard to see in the picture.)  Not a lot of work but a person could see that the fender had a gap between it and the grill if I don't fix it now.

[fy469rtse]

yep that's the area, ,
I have one finished off, and one looks like that ?
I wished I had paid more attention , rather then later once painted ,

[cdr]

that area is filled with seam sealer from the factory.

[green69rt]

I'm thinking of adding a weld tack to the one side (to tie it all together) and just a little filler to both to dress them up.   Not a big chore but I'd hate to get everything together and then not be happy....
Edit...I think I'm starting to get too anal about this stuff...

[Patronus]

No way mang. Do it right the first time!