Bull's 68 Charger restoration thread

[bull]

Great job Bull. You will have yourself a fine machine soon. I live in Oregon. So if you ever come through Salem. Give me a holler.

I'm sure I'll get as close as Woodburn with it eventually.

Been busting my hump on the grill lately, every day for quite a while. Before you check out the pics I have a tale of woe for you to listen to regarding pretty much every fastener on the grill (first pic). Last Wednesday I dropped them all off at the platers to have the nuts/screws/bolts/etc. plated in clear zinc and the HL door bars done in EN (electroless nickel). They called me Monday morning to come pick it up and when I got there and started going through everything and noticed what looked like a serious shortage, especially in the pal nut dept. Pal nuts, so called by Aveco, are the stamped steel nuts that hold the anodized trim pieces to the grill. I have two grills (http://www.dodgecharger.com/forum/index.php/topic,17816.msg195771/topicseen.html#msg195771) and once I found out what they charge for a grill trim set ($75 with shipping usually) I carefully went through and saved every piece of it I could find to restore. Anyway, I didn't know the exact number of each piece I had taken to the plater but what I did do was take pics of everything beforehand so if something got lost I could use the pics to figure it out. Boy did that come in handy. When I got back home I counted up the parts in the pics and discovered the plater had lost 32 of them! 22 of the missing 32 parts were pal nuts that some yahoo didn't attach securely before dunking. What's irritating about that is that I had put all these little parts on a wire to keep them from getting lost. So what's the first thing they do? They cut the wires and load them all individually. Yeah, livid comes close to describing how I was feeling when I got this news. So I called the shop to tell the manager there, who's a nice guy and a classic Chevy gearhead, and he said he'd start looking for them. I was advised by the secretary to call the owner (a notorious jack-hole) the next morning, which I did, and he started copping an attitude immediately but I remained calm even though I wanted to reach through the phone and choke him. Actually, to be honest, there have been so many setbacks-turned-victories with this project that I really sort of took it in stride. After the owner hemmed and hawed a while he asked me what I wanted him to do and I calmly told him I want him to find my stuff. So today they apparently dredged their tank and were able to locate all but 5-6 of the missing parts. Fortunately N. American Muscle Cars is about a mile down the road from this place and I've been there several times going through his bolt bins to find missing parts and I found about 8 pal nuts, including one that was missing for my HL door emblem. I'm still missing one of the spring steel 'washers' and a pair of the little #10 fender washers for holding the plastic HL surround pieces to the grill, but at least I now have enough stuff to do the job. For the most part I'm calling this a happy ending.

Other than that little stresser I've been working away on painting the HL doors and inner HL bezels. After fighting one of them with regular masking tape I learned the joys of 1/4" vinyl tape when it comes to doing corners  and sharp edges. As you might be able to see on the HL door below my first attempt looks little rough on the top left edge but I was able to touch it up pretty good. I'm hopeful my next attempt will go smoother. I also managed to get the frame painted (note the rust pits on the left side that were exposed by media blasting) and the vacuum pod mounting frames painted; one of them anyway. I have to admit this grill resto is daunting to say the least. I knew it was a convoluted assembly but damn! Until you do one yourself you have no idea. All that said, I am really enjoying the challenge of it.

One other thing I "restored" was one of the headlight buckets - kind of an experiment to see how it would turn out. All 8 of them were coated with years of grime that seemed to take on the quality of bedliner. After scrubbing my brains out on them and virtually getting nowhere I decided to go nuclear on them with Easy-off oven cleaner. That did the trick for the most part but I still had to scrub on them some while avoiding those nasty fumes. Finally I got this one to the point where it was clean enough to spray three coats of matte clear on it and I think it looks pretty stock now.

[JB400]

At least the results look good   This is one of those times where the pain is worth the reward

[bull]

Oh, I forgot to say I repainted the red/black pennant emblem for the HL door above. The chrome was good so I spent about $4 on a can of flat red (already had the black) instead of $36 on a new emblem.

[A383Wing]

I think I consider myself lucky to be a friend of you....after reading that story above

at least I hope so

Bryan  (hope things get going in the right direction again)

[bull]

I think I consider myself lucky to be a friend of you....after reading that story above

at least I hope so

Bryan  (hope things get going in the right direction again)

I've only wanted to choke you a couple of times.

One last pic of the mess.

[8WHEELER]

Looking good my friend, I can relate having done three of these grilles now. If you still need any of those flat spring grille trim holders, send me a PM 

Dan

[bull]

Looking good my friend, I can relate having done three of these grilles now. If you still need any of those flat spring grille trim holders, send me a PM 

Dan

Thanks. We'll see what comes out in the wash today. I should have had enough stuff to complete two grills and I think I'm pretty close but I'll be sure to PM you if I still need something.

[RIDELIKEHELL]

Great work as usual! following this one closely 

[Steve P.]

Damn Bull. Maybe this is what you should do to fund your project!!  I know you do things to the best of your ability, but your ability on this is top shelf!! Many don't have the talent or patience for this type work.  Kick it around.... 

[Mytur Binsdirti]

Very nice work. 

[bull]

Damn Bull. Maybe this is what you should do to fund your project!!  I know you do things to the best of your ability, but your ability on this is top shelf!! Many don't have the talent or patience for this type work.  Kick it around....  

Restoring parts after I'm done with the car is definitely something I would like to do.

Update: The plater didn't find any more fasteners than he found yesterday but he plated those and the extras I found at NAMC as mentioned above. He's going to keep looking but I'm betting they're gone for good.

[SkiJogg]

Looking nice its fun

[bull]

Before and after HL door vacuum canisters.

[JB400]

What did you do, polish and clear coat or have them sent off somewhere?  That one on the left looks great.

[bull]

What did you do, polish and clear coat or have them sent off somewhere?  That one on the left looks great.

I'm going to clear coat it eventually but to clean it I used dish soap and a stiff brush at first, which barely made a dent in the grime, and then I used an SOS pad which worked pretty well to get most of it. After that I used a couple different Scotch Brite pads starting with course and then fine. There's still a little grime on it but it looks a lot better.

[HeavyFuel]

What did you do, polish and clear coat or have them sent off somewhere?  That one on the left looks great.

I'm going to clear coat it eventually but to clean it I used dish soap and a stiff brush at first, which barely made a dent in the grime, and then I used an SOS pad which worked pretty well to get most of it. After that I used a couple different Scotch Brite pads starting with course and then fine. There's still a little grime on it but it looks a lot better.

Hit 'em with some gold first!

(Hmmmm.  Now I'm thinking.  Maybe I didn't clean mine up enough.  They are supposed to be goldish color, right?)

[resq302]

The gold cad color was a protective coating that prevented them from oxidizing and having the pot metal / white metal blistering and corroding.

[bull]

It's going to have to live with clear coat. I don't know a way to replicate that look.

[JB400]

It's going to have to live with clear coat. I don't know a way to replicate that look.

Not cheap, but might get the same results

http://www.eastwood.com/golden-cad-kit.html

[resq302]

gold paint and then go over it with a flat clear.

[bull]

gold paint and then go over it with a flat clear.

Hmmm. Maybe a light dusting with the gold. Now you've got me thinking...

Quick update: the grill frame is on the work bench and is going back together. Head lights are attached to the buckets and the buckets are attached to the frame. The newly painted plastic bezels are in place. I've been having a little trouble with a repaired crack showing through the paint on the center section but I think I've about got it licked. Have a great day!

[WHITE AND RED 69]

Grill looks great! The vacuum canisters look amazing all polished up. wish I would have done that with mine.   

[bull]

Grill looks great! The vacuum canisters look amazing all polished up. wish I would have done that with mine.   

Well, I just fixed that.

Per the previous post I decided to try replicating the cad "goldish" plating that they would have come with. I had already shot them with matte clear so I took them out and crop dusted them in gold, let that dry and then scuffed them with a Scotch Brite pad before crop dusting them again in matte clear. Good enough.

[resq302]

   Holy Crap!   That turned out great!

[lexxman]

Has anyone tryed to replace broken stud on one of these? Mine work ,but I have a broken stub on one. I will start doing my grille this fall.